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flanaganfilm · 2 years

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Good day Mr Flanagan. please what does "the rest is confetti" mean to you and in the context it was used in hill house??

Okay, here we go. Buckle up for a long read.

To answer this, I've got to explain a little bit about what was happening and where I was when I sat down to write episode 10 of The Haunting of Hill House.

Hill House was not a fun shoot. The picture above is from very early in production, when I was still chubby and happy.

It was my first foray into television. I was absolutely terrified that I'd mess it up. So I'd opted to direct all of the episodes myself, figuring that - if nothing else - I'd have no one else to blame if it went south.

It was the most grueling professional experience of my career. The shoot was by no means a smooth one, every day was an uphill battle from a budgetary perspective, and between the three giant production entities involved with the production, I spent a lot of time fighting over the creative and logistical elements of the series.

I began losing weight. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

By the end of the shoot, I had dropped almost 40 lbs.

I was very depressed. Every day was a battle, and for the first time in my career, I wasn't excited to go to work in the morning. We were fighting for basic resources, fighting for the show we wanted, and even fighting amongst ourselves by the end. It was grueling.

We hadn't written all of the scripts when we started production. I believe we had finished through episode 7, but the rest of the scripts had to be finished while we were already shooting.

We'd mapped everything out in the writers room, and I had great support on the other episodes, but I was writing the finale solo. I'd thought I'd be able to juggle it with everything else. I quickly fell behind.

I finally got to the script about halfway through production. I'd work on it between takes at the monitor, and then get home to our tiny rental house in Atlanta, where Kate was waiting with our baby son. (One of the rare bright spots of this shoot came when Kate found out she was pregnant about halfway through production. We even named our daughter Theodora, in honor of her origins.)

I'd typically fall down from exhaustion when I got home, but I had to push through it and work on the script. My weekends were spent shotlisting and prepping for upcoming episodes. We didn't have enough time to stay ahead of prep, so every available day was used for that... I went three months without a single day off at one point.

I'd sit up late staring at the script. I was in a dark, dark place. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling like I lived in an eternal present. Each day bled into the next and it didn't feel like there was an end in sight. That feeling of unreality was heightened because we kept returning to the same sets, same locations, and even the same scenes throughout the 100 shooting-day production. Stepping back into the exact room we had shot in days or weeks or even months ago made the whole thing feel absolutely surreal. Making movies is always an non-linear experience, but this one felt particularly so... it was like the days of our lives were happening to us all out of order.

I remember feeling something like despair creeping into my daily experience on the show. And I remember dwelling on that when I got into the scene work of episode 10.

As I worked through the draft, I recall that despair coloring a lot of what was on the page. My filter was breaking down. There's a monologue at the beginning of the episode where Steven's wife Leigh (played by my dear friend Samantha Sloyan) spews out a torrent of eviscerating insults about Steve's value as a writer. That is just me vomiting onto myself. She was voicing all of my deepest insecurities about myself at the time, and of what I was doing with this series.

She says "Is anything real before you write it, Steve? The things you write about, they're real. Those people are real, their feelings are real, their pain is real - but not to you, is it. Not until you chew it up, digest it, and shit it out onto a piece of paper and even then, it's a pale imitation at best."

This was the mindset I was in for a lot of the shoot. The writing became a reflection of a lot of that turmoil, and I knew who I was referring to in that monologue - I was talking about my family. I was talking about how much of their lives I'd used as building material for this show. I was talking about the fact that I'd lost two loved ones to suicide, and seen what it had done to my mother in particular. And I knew I was using - possibly even exploiting - those people for this series.

There's a lot of despair in this episode. The Red Room, as we conceived it, was a place that would feed upon those emotions. Grief, sadness, loss... those were the real ghosts of our series, and where our characters find themselves at the start of the finale. They're being slowly digested - eaten alive - by those feelings.

So finally, it came time to write Nell's final scene with her siblings. I knew from the outline we'd constructed in the writers room what this was supposed to accomplish - she was supposed to be their salvation. She was supposed to take all of these feelings that we'd been wrestling with and finally provide catharsis... finally say something that would free everyone.

I remember sitting with a blinking cursor for a long time. The Crain siblings had just turned and seen Nellie standing by the door, and suddenly were able to hear her speak. But what should she say? What would I say? What would I want someone to say to me?

What she ultimately says lays bare a lot of what I was thinking about when it comes to grief. It exists outside of linear time, much as I felt I existed at the time. That sense of eternal present, that sense of a nonlinear eternity of moments and memories - it all came out in her speech to her brothers and sisters.

I remember feeling, looking at my insane present and looking back at my past, how strangely overwhelmed I was by memories. That I wasn't experiencing time in a straight line, and hadn't been for a while - for the better part of a year, I'd felt more like I was standing in a whirlwind of moments. "Our moments fall around us like..." Nell said, and I recall sitting back and trying to find the words.

"Rain," for certain, but there was something too uniform about that. The moments of life as I experienced them weren't that orderly, they weren't that small. They didn't fall the same way. Some sailed by, fast and unremarkable, while others lingered in front of me, twisting and stretching. So it was a good word, but not the right word. I left it on the page though.

"Snow" was my next attempt. Better, in that I imagined the snow blowing in the wind, swirling and dancing and feeling more organic. More chaotic. More like life. But for some reason, the word that stuck with me, the word I felt Nell Crain would connect with was...

"Confetti."

And that was because I was thinking not of Victoria Pedretti at this point, but of Violet McGraw.

Violet played Young Nell, and I wondered what she might have said if she experienced time this way. As an adult, Nell was despairing. Nell was overwhelmed. But as a child... there was an innocence to the word. There was a joy to the word.

I imagined moments falling around her, this little girl with the big smile and the wide eyes. Her moments would be colorful. They would be of different shapes and sizes, some falling fast and some falling slow, flipping and turning and dancing in the air, independent of the others. Sparkling, whirling, doing lazy summersaults as they sauntered down to Earth.

I thought of myself, and of the members of my family. I thought of those we'd lost. I realized what I hoped for them, and for us all, in the end... was to look upon that mosaic of experience, that avalanche of days and minutes and moments... and to smile with some of the joy we had as children.

And this, I thought, was something that gave me hope. This gave me a glimpse of some kind of salvation for them. This was also how I hoped my life might seem if I was a ghost - a cascade of color and light and shape and movement, something I could dance in.

So Nell smiled and said... "or confetti."

It stuck with me. The rest of her monologue gets heavy again, and gets to the real point of the show - the point of the whole series, if I'm honest - and that's forgiveness.

I figured the only thing that would let the Crain children out of the Red Room was to be forgiven. I thought of the losses in my own family, and I thought of what I wished for my mother and for my aunts and uncles and cousins and I tried to pour that into her final words.

"I loved you completely, and you loved me the same," she said, "that's all." And this was the point I wanted the most to make. That at the end of our life, if we can say this about each other, the rest doesn't matter. The rest is that rainstorm, or that blizzard, that fell around this one central truth, and maybe built itself in piles around it, to the point we lost sight of it along the way.

And I thought again of that little girl, and almost as an afterthought, wrote "The rest is confetti."

I liked the way it sounded, but I was insecure about the line. I almost took it out, in fact. I remember asking Kate to read the scene and talking about that last line with her. "Is it too cute?" I wondered. She was on the fence. "Depends on how it's acted," she said, and I figured she was right. We could always take it out if it didn't work. The scene could end with "I loved you completely, and you loved me the same. That's all."

Why not shoot it and see what happened.

I turned in the script, we published it quickly so that we could start breaking it down and prepping it. And the next morning I was back on set. I'd deal with episode 10 when it came down the pipe again, sometime in the coming months. We had a lot of shooting to get through before I had to worry about it.

I recall Netflix asking me to cut a lot of that monologue, and I remember them also having questions about the "confetti" line. I pointed out that it didn't cost us any extra to shoot it all, it was only words, and fought to keep the script intact.

Ultimately, they insisted I make a series of cuts on the page. I begrudgingly agreed, but left Nell's speech alone. I made superficial cuts around it, throughout the draft, and even considered changing the font size to fool them into thinking it had gotten shorter (I ultimately was told I wouldn't fool anyone and not to risk starting a war). But Nellie's final goodbye stayed intact.

It must be said - Victoria Pedretti SLAUGHTERED this scene.

By the time we got around to filming it, things had never been worse for the production. There was almost nothing left for a lot of us. Tensions were sky-high, resources had been exhausted completely, and we were all ready to give up.

Filming in the mold-ridden Red Room was depressing, morose, and led to a lot of arguments and unpleasantness. The room itself just felt gross, always, and we were in there for days at a time. The last thing we had to shoot in there was Nellie's goodbye.

Victoria came to set having to push through pages of monologue, and she did so with captivating bravado. I recall being teary-eyed at the monitor watching her work. And when we finally made it to the last line, I watched her deliver it with... a smile. A sincere, innocent, longing, joyful smile. A smile informed by the sadness, grief, and loss of her own situation, of her own life... but a smile that finds forgiveness and grace after all. Pedretti knew how to say the line, and how that word would work.

And as she said it, I knew it would stay in the show.

Over the years, that sentence has become something of a tagline for The Haunting of Hill House. I'm always a bit mystified and touched when I see people approach me with the line on T-shirts, or even tattooed on their bodies.

I started signing it with autographs back in 2020 after enough fans asked me to. Now it's my go-to when I sign anything related to Hill House.

The line, for me, represents a lot of things.

It's about the insane, chaotic, non-linear experience of making that show. It's about trying to find and hold onto joy, even in the grips of despair.

It's about the way the moments of our lives aren't linear, not really, and how we may be unable to understand them as we exist in their flurry. It's about finding hope, innocence and forgiveness in the final reckoning.

And it's about how, outside of our love for each other, the rest is just... well, it's fleeting. It's colorful. It's overwhelming. It's blinding. It's dancing. And, if we look at it right, it's beautiful. But it's also light. It's tinsel. It flits and dances and falls and fades, it's as light as air.

The rest is the stuff that falls around us, and flits away into nothing.

It's the love that stays.

#haunting of hill house #the rest is confetti #that was a very long story #man I was not okay while we were shooting that #forgiveness #heal

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agendabymooner · 7 months

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SOMETHING SPOILED !!! FERNANDO A. X FEM!READER (18+)

summary: she could easily get away with things and when she couldn’t, he always made sure to put her back in her place

content warning: smut (minors dni!), pwp(ish?), what is context, explicit language, themes of jealousy and sugar daddy/baby relationship, degradation, dumbification, spitting, dacryphilia, impact play, brief mention of oral sex (m receiving), brat taming (dom!fernando), brief lance stroll x reader interaction, shitty smut, what’s beta reading we just rawdog our writing in here

note: i will be making a separate masterlist for this i think… lmk what you think and enjoy xx

a - n masterlist

o - z masterlist

send your 💌re:moony’s planner requests here!

she can get away from a lot of things. she knew that. fernando knew that.

in fact, fernando would even reward her for it. after all, she never demanded too much and all he wanted was to give her the world.

she wanted a new pair of shoes? he’d buy her the sneakers AND a pair of red bottoms. she wanted something from macy’s? fuck that; he’d have his assistant book the whole floor of harrods just so she can pick out new clothes for her closet.

he would give her everything. even if she tends to be very playful and hilarious, he’d give her everything just to see it.

her cheekiness was a welcome distraction from his busy life as a professional racer. she’d often tease him in different ways but not once did she ever cross the lines and tested his patience and limits. she wasn’t really a brat, to say the least— she’d often give up by the time fernando would wrap his arms around her and press kisses all over her face.

and if she didn’t give up her act, he’d put her back to her place. it rarely happened, and when it did— they were rough. she would continue to act up just so he could punish her. she welcomed the pain with no hesitation and allowed him to control her like she was nothing but a body to be tossed around.

she could get away from a lot. whenever she couldn’t, her excitement would soak through her knickers while thinking about his next move.

but right now, she wasn’t really at fault for being so bratty. her petulant attitude toward him wasn’t something that she expected from herself, but when her partner continued to ignore her throughout the party after arriving separately— the least she could do was throw his attitude right back at him. more petulantly, if you were to compare her actions to his.

she sat by the bar counter and quietly sipped on her drink, her ears ringing at the sound of his laughter from the distance alongside other men while they spoke about the happenings during the race earlier today.

she looked so pathetic like this; dressed up in the prettiest slip dress that turned to be a fabric of despair. she was the prettiest woman to have ever existed, and even the rest of the grid thought so, yet she looked so alone. she blamed fernando for this.

all she wanted was him. she only wanted him right now. nothing more, nothing less.

yet, in a world where he’d give her everything, he wouldn’t hand himself over to her. instead, he was laughing with lewis and carlos as they chatted about whatever the fuck it was.

“you’d make a good renaissance painting,” her head shot up at the sound as she found lance stroll sitting next to her. the canadian beamed at her teasingly before sipping on his whiskey on the rocks.

she scoffed, “if you want to see me naked, just say that.”

lance laughed over the club music that continued to bust everyone’s eardrums. he then continued, “i would say that but do i really want to get my engines busted by a certain teammate before the next race?”

her thoughts drifted back to fernando, who, from afar, had gone quiet (not that she knew that), before she rolled her eyes. “don’t be stupid,” she said, “i don’t think he’d care enough to ruin your car.”

“you’re underestimating the man,” lance chuckled, “way too much, if anything. he could kill with just a look if anyone’s made a passing comment about you.”

“i really should stop showing up at these stupid races,” she muttered quietly, “it’ll get worse as soon as people find out i hang out in the garages or paddock.”

“why?” lance asked, his frown an evident of concern as he said, “are you two not a…”

“no, we’re not,” she interrupted with a huff, downing the rest of her drink as she continued, “it’s still the same arrangement. i could just stay at home and still get an allowance— i dunno why i said i’d come with him. look where i am now. he’s doing the same shit he does whenever he’s arriving at the paddock— i have to go after him so nobody knows who i am.”

it was so obvious that she and fernando should be more than a mutually beneficial arrangement. he showed her something more than financial support and casual intimacy— yet he kept it on the down low as if she’s just a pastime.

“damn,” lance muttered, offering her a sympathetic smile as he said, “is the money that good?”

“i don’t even care about the money anymore,” she laughed quietly, her eyes pausing from their track as she saw the obvious glare from her partner. he certainly wasn’t happy with what he was seeing.

yet she ignored his heavy scowl as she beamed, “i’m sure you’d be able to provide more if it was about it.”

lance smirked lazily, now realizing what she was implying as he replied, “i’m sure i would’ve given it to you already if you weren’t as attached to fernando as you are now.”

looking away from fernando, she covered her excitement and petulance with a giggle before she shoved lance lightly. “shut up.”

sure, she could get away from a lot of things. but the way fernando stared at her coldly while she was acting all playful towards lance told her enough about the kind of treatment a spoiled brat like her would get from him.

all she could do was squirm at the thought.

her mouth let out a shrill cry as fernando pulled her mouth away from his cock, saliva dribbling down her chin to her chest as she felt a sharp pain on the roots of her head. he continued to grab a handful of her hair as he looked down at her.

his eyes showed nothing of affection. his face offered nothing but mockery and anger. not towards her— but her bratty attitude that she showed tonight.

he never felt so jealous until he saw lance talking to her up close. and he’s never been angrier than what he felt when she let his teammate get close like that. like she could just move on after talking to the man with a flirtatious smile and get away from her crimes that easily.

her petulance and constant refusal on the way back to the hotel led to where she was now. her thighs rubbed against each other while tears trickled down her reddening cheeks.

she was desperate for his cock and his touch. both of which she didn’t even deserve despite being his spoiled girlfriend.

she tried to be prideful and strong as she refused to listen to his orders.

it was too bad for her because while she thought that her pride was big, fernando alonso’s pride was bigger. his ego and his desire to control were what she enjoyed most about this— and these were his tools to tame her.

“did you think that you can get away from that, hermosa?” he spewed out, watching her as she shut her eyes tightly and shook her head. “not listening to me and letting those men get near you— you’re not very smart, are you?”

“m- fer—“ she babbled, only to be interrupted by the clicking of his tongue as his other hand gripped her chin tightly. finally letting go of her hair, he tilted her chin up to his direction without a word.

he growled quietly, “you’re such a disobedient girl. a very ungrateful and disobedient girl. you don’t deserve my cock after all of this, hermosa.”

“n- no! please-“ she exclaimed, squirming against the hold on her chin as she pleaded with him, “‘ll be good! i’ll be a good girl, i pr- promise. jus’ wan’ your cock- please nando!”

his breath fanned on her face as he chuckled quietly, “you don’t listen to me unless you want it, hm?”

his hand let go of the grip for a moment, only for his palm to strike her cheek as he gripped her face once more. “open.”

her brain, feeling hazy from the impact of his slapping and being deprived of his touch and his cock, short circuited. fernando tsked, tapping her reddening cheek once more as he crooned, “look at you, amor. you’re so dumb for my cock, eh? such a stupid bratty girl— wanting my cock when she doesn’t deserve it— open your mouth, hermosa.”

she obliged, not wanting to disobey him anymore as he grinned. his grin eventually turned into a frown before spitting in her mouth as he demanded, “you know what to do.”

closing her mouth, she swallowed without a hesitation while her glistening eyes looked up at him.

“so you listen then,” he laughed mockingly, “i thought i’ve already fucked your mouth until you turned stupid.”

she rubbed her thighs against each other, hoping for some sort of relief as a whine escaped her throat. “what’s wrong, hermosa?” tears escaped her eyes as she continued to plead with him wordlessly. “that’s not going to get you anywhere right now— not after you pulled that shit earlier just so you can piss me off.”

she couldn’t find a way to speak, humiliation and pleasure mixed with her adrenaline as she babbled, “i- i wan’- ‘m…”

“speak up,” he laughed once more. “you’re way too mouthy earlier— what is stopping you now?”

she whimpered, feeling too frustrated and already feeling too fucked out. she really wasn’t going to get away with all of those things that she did just to catch his attention earlier.

she just wanted him, but she couldn’t seem to get it all out because of the immense pleasure that she received from being disciplined.

he chuckled quietly, “you want my cock?”

she nodded frantically, a series of murmurs escaped her mouth as she meekly cried out, “want you to fuck me, please, please, please nando~ ‘m a good girl.”

“no, you’re really not, hermosa,” he grinned wickedly, “if you were you would’ve known not to flirt with those people. but i guess it was my fault that i’ve left you hanging and horny before we went, no? otherwise you wouldn’t have been that stupid to tease them like you would with me.”

she squirmed again, whimpering at his words as fernando continued, “but i’ve given you so much that you always find a way to get some more. i think that my little slut should be thankful for what she’s getting instead of acting like a spoiled brat.”

she couldn’t even find herself to protest. she was so drunk in lust and his dominance that she couldn’t find herself to fight back against his words.

her love for him would have to wait. she was in too deep right now and if it meant that she’ll get an orgasm and maybe more then she’d do whatever it takes to please him.

after all, she was spoiled already. working hard didn’t sound too bad.

#fernando alonso x reader #fernando alonso au #fernando alonso imagine #fernando alonso smut #formula 1 imagine #formula one smut #formula one imagine #f1 smut #f1 imagine #formula one fanfiction #♔ something sinful ⎯ f1 smut

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modmad · 2 months

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Hey Mod, I don't know what's going on that hurt you, I feel like I missed something that's happened, but I can tell from what I did see that it didn't just hurt you, but scared you and made you feel a Lot of doubt. I've also seen a lot of messages pouring in with support, and I want to share mine.

I have hypermobile type EDS, fibromyalgia, and a whole bucket's worth of faulty wiring in my brain. And I've always had stories to tell but I never felt I was good enough to share them. If it's because I can't focus enough to get through nanowrimo, or because I can't manage the focus and time towards drawing as a hobby, or the fact that an excessive amount of either for me leads to my hands wanting to shut down. But you? You *inspire* me. Your stories, all the ones I've seen, read, experienced in some way or another, they're so good. And you're open and honest with your fans about your own health, and of course, we support you and always would rather you rest and feel as best you can, instead of pushing out something and working yourself too hard. But all of this is to say that. I think I would have given up on my own stories if I hadn't found you and yours.

I hope whatever is going on sorts itself out, I hope you're able to keep telling your stories. At your own pace, in your own way. I think you deserve to be happy. If there's anything we (your fans, especially those of us too awkward to come off anon, whoops,) can do, to help in some way? Even if it's silly videos or cute cat pictures or whatever it is that could just help you smile. We're here. We love you.

woof. I woke up to so many messages I can't even read them all in one go I'm getting too emotional- I do feel I owe an explanation so I'll explain what happened under the cut but all you guys need to know is I'm okay, I got through it, I love you, and you're so important to me and I'm so grateful for all the messages that have asked me to stay.

tw for suicidal thoughts and all that

yeah so I have the bad morning of all mornings: was introduced to the fact there's this one character (Mr Puzzles) on a very popular youtube that. resembles RGB. incredibly strongly. like. I don't want to link to it just look if you want to. Anyway at the time I thought it had just dropped (seems to have been around for 6 months actually), and having commented on it I immediately got an inbox full of hate mail.

My website, meanwhile, had locked both me and my web designer out of it, and- already in a bad state of mind- I went into full on panic/paranoid spiral of 'they have hacked it, and they are going to delete any proof that I was here before them.' This of course wasn't true, and we have since recalimed control of the site (don't know what happened there but hey. it's fine???? haha. ha.)

On top of this my father has terminal cancer of the pancreas, which is horrible for everyone already but it means that- at some point this year- I am going to be the only person with an active income in my house. I am disabled, do not make a lot of money, and the cost of living is skyrocketing. Combine that with months of Despair at the world right now, with the multiple wars, genocide, corruption and AI and the loss of control any of us have over our IP or lives and I just decided it was time to end it all.

I somehow remembered this was a bad idea to act on immediately (hard during a period of entirely irrational thought) and instead went for a very long walk, crossed the bridge I could have jumped off and during that I came out of the worst of it. I then came back home to so much love online I felt deeply ashamed for ever contemplating it, and I cried a lot. My nose is still puffy and now my feet hurt! lmao

Anyway. Yeah. There's your context. I am not going to stop hoping, making, or living. I am prone to moments of weakness and this was one of the worst of them and I am still here, thanks in a large part to all of you. I might need you in the future to defend me against this, or people who take our ideas, but I hope you know that I will do the same for you. We need each other, and to be there for you I need to be here at all.

also fuck Mr Puzzles

#context for mod's little (massive) mental breakdown yesterday #you don't need to read it but I felt folks are due an explanation #tw suicide #ask to tag #mental health is wow!!!! a thing

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zoolitsky · 16 days

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MORE HEADCANONS BECAUSE I’M ALL POWERFUL

Please don’t get upset if you disagree with any of these!! This is just how I see the characters ^^ More context about the headcanons under the cut!

Nami

Transfem lesbian!!

Basically married to Vivi (who isn’t pictured but she gives me demigirl bisexual energy with a preference to girls)

CHUBBY BECAUSE I SAY SO!!!!! 🧡🧡🧡

And she’s still beautiful and wonderful and Sanji still simps for her. Chubby people are gorgeous

She’s technically pale but tanned a bit from being outside so much

Aaand bandaid because she’s literally just a normal girl and is susceptible to minor injuries unlike the other weird built different ppl on the crew (aside from Usopp)

sPEAKING OF USOPP!!! She’s absolute besties with him like they talk about everything and anything and gossip and all that jazz. They’re so special to me.

I’m not sure if bipolar fits entirely, but there’s definitely something with her mood swings and the intensity of her emotions. If this is insensitive at all please inform me

Chopper

Agender aroace reindeer fella??? SiGN ME UP

Both male and female reindeers have antlers so I used that to my advantage because gender silly

I think Chopper uses they/he/it, but slightly prefers to be referred to by their name rather than pronouns

Chopper has attachment issues, but I couldn’t find anything other than avoidant attachment disorder (which doesn’t seem entirely fitting). But it definitely gets very attached to others when it trusts them and has a hard time moving on.

Also I just like to draw Chopper more reindeer-like than Chopper’s canon design but aside from that I don’t really make too many design changes? Just… floofy Chopper… 🩷🩷🩷

Usopp

Panromantic asexual!!

Down bad for Sanji (he has terrible taste /j)

I had a revelation after drawing this so Usopp isn’t actually cis lol- they’re a demiboy but in a genderfluid kind of way, some days he feels more masculine and other days they feel more androgynous

I have very mixed feelings about the hair highlights,, I lowkey might not keep them but it was an experiment

FRECKLES!!! USOPP HAS FRECKLES PASS IT ON PASS IT ON!!!! 💛💛💛 Bandaid like Nami because!! They’re literally just a normal teenager!!!

Usopp has anxiety and borderline personality disorder because the feelings of superiority and inferiority? The constant fear? Being immune to Perona’s ghosts from dealing with mental illness their entire life???

Luffy

Asexual grayromantic

If he had a partner it would be gay regardless of his own gender expression (I’m projecting because I feel gay when I’m attracted to anyone)

Genderfluid, some days they prefer different pronouns but most of the time they use all at once (also is this ironic bc Luffy can’t swim but is swimming in fluid pronouns)

King of the pronouns!!! King of the genders!!! Will steal your pronouns and gender!!! Watch out!!!

I gave her vitiligo on a whim to be 100% honest, but I feel like it’s very fitting and also very fun to draw ❤️❤️❤️

I only did a headshot here because I have another post with a bunch of other drawings of this Luffy

I feel like I don’t need to explain but Luffy is very very AuDHD to me

He has so much energy and is easily distracted and gets really focused on things and likes to talk about anything and everything

Sanji

Bisexual-est guy on the planet (loves all boobs /hj)

Down bad for Usopp (they have great taste)

Demiboy but in an interchangeable kinda bigender way, he’s just both enby and male at the same time

Darker roots!! Sanji’s body hair is always notably darker than his blonde hair so I decided on darker roots

CURLY/WAVY FLUFFY HAIR SANJI SUPREMACY 💙💙💙

Depression—WHICH THEY ALL OBVIOUSLY HAVE BUT

Depression in the sense it’s the reason he smokes. It’s a kind of coping mechanism.

It makes them dazed enough that they don’t have to fully feel their own despair

GIVE HIM HEALTH PROBLEMS ODA YOU COWARD. I KNOW HE’S UNREASONABLY BUILT DIFFERENT BUT LIKE

Imagine Sanji wheezing and struggling to breathe after a fight!! Emotional scene with Chopper trying to convince them to stop smoking!!

Robin

Pansexual

Married to Franky 💜💜💜

Intersex demigirl! Like- the whole being called a monster/demon her whole life and trying to find someone who accepts her is such a good (unintentional) metaphor for the gender discovery experience,,

GIVE ROBIN THEIR MELANIN BACK!!! I don’t care if it wasn’t their original colors… neither were the blue eyes but I’m giving both to them because they deserve it!!

I wanted to give Robin more of a curly hair texture but I was concerned it would start to not really resemble her. I might play around with it another time though and see if I can achieve something still recognizable

PTSD

Do I even have to explain that-

They are traumatized and get flashbacks and night terrors

Franky

Bisexual

Married to Robin 🩵🩵🩵

TRANSMASC. I AM THE BIGGEST BELIEVER OF TRANS FRANKY.

He was abandoned by his birth parents, he has a name he doesn’t use anymore, calls everyone bro regardless of gender, HE LITERALLY REBUILT HIS ENTIRE BODY-

Even though Franky’s a cyborg I gave him visible top surgery scars. I think he would show them off with pride and doesn’t necessarily need/want to be seen as a cis man. He’s just a man who once had boobs yk?

The underside of his hair is an even brighter blue because silly!!

ADHD—he hyperfixates like a madman and is also very loud and passionate. Also idk if this is an actual ADHD thing but like he’s super empathetic and cries easily? I’m like that too so idk lol

Zoro

Demihomoromantic asexual

Hopelessly, dare I say pathetically, in love with Luffy. I want to clarify that this doesn’t make Zoro less gay and this doesn’t make Luffy less genderfluid.

Also as much as I adore trans Zoro, I think the fact that he’s a cisgender feminist is important. So I headcanon him as cis.

FLUFFY HAIR ZORO FLUFFY HAIR ZORO FLUFFY HAIR ZORO 💚💚💚

I can’t decide whether or not I like the striped hair,, I’m still on the fence about it lol

Covered in scars because he’s done so much training and fighting, I know they kind of look like something else but they aren’t, don’t worry

Idk why but I always give him a dark green undershirt

Autistic!! He has a narrow range of emotions, makes nonverbal grunts, super into swords, he’s blunt, follows routine, etc.

Aaaand that’s all of them! Phew! Thank you so much for reading 💖

Reblogs, asks, and comments are super appreciated!!

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spanishskulduggery · 4 months

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Just in case anyone needs to hear this - there was a time when I was REALLY bad at Spanish... I wanted to be good at it, but I wasn't

I have a core memory of me of sitting on my bed surrounded by flashcards and just crying out of frustration because I really did want to learn Spanish and be able to understand it, but I was not there

Whenever I got something wrong or messed something up or couldn't remember a word or just plain didn't know the answer to something I felt like such a failure and that all the work I was doing wasn't getting me anywhere

I think a part of me wanted to be really good at Spanish and if I wasn't perfect then I wasn't good, if that makes sense... and there were times when I wanted to give up but I also knew I couldn't or wouldn't give up

I don't know if this is determination on my part or stubbornness but as much as I despaired thinking I was never going to know Spanish, I also felt in me that I could not walk away from it, at least not for good

I don't know when the despair started to fade away... I think it was when I was starting to tutor people at school, or when I was understanding the grammar more - at least things I had already learned

Some of it was just the memorization of tenses and conjugations where it wasn't a struggle in every way at every moment

And then I started to get to the point where I was good enough to read things, and I could look up answers on my own with a dictionary and I could find other people discussing the grammar I had struggled with, or trying to find context I didn't have for some phrases I was seeing

I got to a point where I was more comfortable, but still didn't know as much as I wanted... all I knew was that people were struggling with things I already knew, which meant that I had learned it, and that I knew what I didn't know so that helped immensely because it made me feel like I had something to gauge my progress

So again if you see me and think "wow they know so much I'll never get there", don't compare yourself to me - I've been studying for close to two decades now and I still don't know everything about everything

Grammar I know because I took lots of classes and read A LOT, and not just books I mean I was reading grammar sites and dictionaries to try and figure out things like "what's that se mean?" or "why is this word feminine if it has the masculine article?" or "why are these two conjugations different but okay to use?"

It feels like it takes forever to get there, but learning Spanish to the degree that I have feels like a real achievement for me - it's not something I lucked into or got right on the first try, it's something I earned myself for myself

It's going to take time but if you put in the effort and if you really want it, you can get there too

#personal stuff #long post #just in case anyone finds this helpful #langblr #spanish

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favvn · 9 days

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You know what else drives me crazy about The Naked Time? This exchange:

It isn't just because of Spock saying, "Jim, when I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed" or "Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings." Although, that absolutely is part of it, the fact that Spock is locked into his regret over not telling his mother he loved her and his shame at realizing that, despite all his work to adhere to Vulcan principles, he still feels love. It's that gap between duty versus desire, between expectations versus wants, and what remains in spite of the pressure. (I realize his words parallel a love confession in any other context, between any heterosexual couple, and that fandom looks to his shame as a confirmation of internalized homophobia, but the biggest issue for Spock is that love, sorrow, shame--all powerful emotions--still exist for him. He is not a Vulcan if he feels these emotions and gives into them. He is only a half-Vulcan and half-Human, caught between worlds and the judgments and expectations of two very different societies.)

It's because Kirk changes his phrasing of "We've got to risk a full-power start!" to, "We've got to risk implosion!" Implosion, like many words, holds multiple meanings. The intended meaning is "a violent collapsing inwards," the opposite of explosion. But implosion can mean integration, a coming together towards a single center point. We've got to risk coming together. We've got to risk integration. And Spock responds, "It's never been done." They repeat these lines twice. Repetition is a device to call attention in writing. Why have Kirk say they have to risk a full-power start twice before only to change it to implosion and repeat it twice? The two phrases mean something different, but it's important enough to bear repeating. (One could argue it is sloppy writing, or perhaps a case of actors failing to remember their lines, but what are the odds it was either of those, especially with someone as thoughtful as Leonard Nimoy. Either a writer is a professional who understands the power of words, or everything is somehow coincidental, holds no actual meaning, and writers don't think carefully about word choice and meaning, especially in an era where nuance can make or break a story on the screen.)

In the 1960s, during the time of the Hayes Code, of course, two men couldn't be together as a couple on TV or in film, not even in space, in a time set centuries beyond our present. But damn if the dialogue can not hint at it, dance around it in plain sight. Again, Kirk and Spock's relationship must exist in the margins, between the lines, encased in nuance and multiple meanings, because to use explicitly clear phrasing would mean it all gets cut.

Hence, this bit of dialogue. The slaps become Spock catching Kirk's hand and holding it steady--direct sustained contact, a coming together, implosion. Spock is torn between regret and shame and love, while Kirk shouts about the ship being destroyed and ending the lives of the crew, their shared duty to the ship. The dialogue is Spock's turmoil writ large--do what must be done, accept two separate halves becoming a whole (is it Spock's two halves or Kirk and Spock? I'll leave that up to you), or remain apart and give into despair. But Kirk tells him their only chance is to risk implosion, to come together, and they have to take that chance.

#star trek tos #the naked time #spirk #k/s #the premise #jim kirk #spock #this episode still gets to me. it is still very much a “if spirk was unintended what is all this”#more like to admit to it would've killed careers #the naked time brainworms are perhaps the most lethal

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yourejinx · 1 year

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Undeniable Bonds.

Azriel x F. Reader

Warnings: angst, sad, ugly thoughts.

word count: 3583.

Author’s note: I’m so sorry I’m so late with this. I still don’t know if I like it, but hopefully it isn’t that bad. I know it still is a lot of context, but I promise I’m getting somewhere.

CHAPTER TWO.

“CASSIAN!” — Nesta’s warning roar reached my ears and everything seemed to stop. I turned around dragging my sword with me and gutting the Hybern soldier in one go.

I scanned the area where Cassian’s party was fighting in the skies, then towards the older Archeron sister on the ground next to Amren. Something throbbed inside my veins in warning, as if something hideous had come to life. It took me a heartbeat to understand. The Cauldron. It was going to blast, and Nesta had known where it was aimed at.

The Ilyrians had their shields up, Rhys had blasted his magic across the field and Cassian —gods above— Cassian was already racing towards Nesta, and out of the Cauldrons range. Still, something kept pushing, urging me to move. Danger, Danger, Danger it chanted. It hit me a moment later, and all my alarms went off. Where was Azriel?

Amidst the blinding light and unbearably heat of the blast that followed, I almost missed the faint blue glow trying and failing to contain the blow. There, just behind the ranks, Azriel’s focus was solely in holding that shield up, trying to spare someone, anyone. I could only watch in horror as one of those abhorred gray-skinned creatures approached him fast, claws ready to cut through skin and bone. It was going to behead him.

I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream like Nesta had to let him know. But my voice failed me, my throat so sore that only a pathetic strangled whisper managed to escape my trembling lips; “No.”

I cursed the mother, the gods and fate itself for not making me a winged creature.

It was impossible for him to have heard it through this distance, and yet —somehow— as if it had slapped him across the face, he turned towards me. His eyes found mine through ash and gore and despair, and I couldn’t let myself think twice before winnowing right at his back, atop the damned beast aiming for his head. I couldn’t bother with strategy at this point, I just angled my blade against that misshaped chest and pushed to get it through its heart. The creature thrashed and fought fangs and claws to get me off, turning us around in the sky as we plummeted down towards certain death. It was enough, I told myself as the ground inched closer to us. It was enough to get it away from Azriel.

I braced myself for the impact, my eyes closed shut and my arms gave up as the creature finally stopped moving. But my body never touched the ground.

Rough, desperate hands were gripping my legs and under my arms, snatching me from the Attor’s grip and up to the skies again. I dared a look at his face, he was forcing his still healing wings far too much but he didn’t seem to care. Hazel orbs were already staring at me. Gaping at me. And I felt it too, the golden string stretching between our souls. Mates, Azriel was my mate.

“You…” Azriel choked on his words. Eyes wide.

“Later.” I promised, still shaken by the feeling of him. Of his very essence entwining with mine.

But the war was still raging under our feet. Later never came.

—----------------------------------------------------------

It had been terrible timing for the bond to snap then. With all that was going on, Amren turning into a living raging flame then vanishing, the Cauldron and the world falling apart…Rhys dying —fucking dying on us — only to come back later.

We didn't speak about it, Azriel and I. Didn't bother to acknowledge it as time passed and we fell back into routine. The adrenaline of the war worn out.

It didn't matter anyways, I realized coming back to present time, for he had hated it even then. So I shut it down, and never dared to talk it into existence.

My mate, the person destined for me, despised me in every way he could. It had to be the saddest joke of them all.

But he had a right, after all, who would love an unworthy monstrous thing like myself?

I pushed the little bakery's door open, walking straight to Rhysand's favorite sweets and buying an entire box of them.

"You're not his fucking sister!", Azriel's words still rang loudly in my head. I had to think carefully how to bring the subject up to Rhys, my decision to leave this court. Because even if I wanted to deny it, some part of what the Shadowsinger had said resonated with me. I didn't deserve Rhys, didn't deserve any of them.

It was getting late already, the sun starting its descent behind the mountains casting Velaris in a warm orange glow. Feyre spotted me first through the open window of their shared home and waved at me to come in. Rhys was just a few feet behind her, holding baby Nyx close to his chest. They looked so happy, if not albeit a bit tired due to the still new parenting dynamic. A smile cut its way through my lips at the scene.

"Y/N, back already?" The High Lady smiled warmly at me. I returned the gesture.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to Rhys about something." I said approaching them and placing a kiss atop Nyx's raven hair. I waved the box of sweets in front of Rhysand's nose. "Has Azriel showed up?"

"No, why?" He asked, snatching the box from my hands with a childish grin and handling the babe to his mate.

I waved a hand in dismissal. He motioned for me to follow him into his office and out to the open balcony overviewing the river.

"What 's going on?"

"Well, we— I didn't found anything that could track back to the missing fae,"

"I sense there's a but somewhere in there.." He said, cocking an eyebrow.

"But…it felt wrong. There was something strange going on. I'm sorry I don't have any proof to offer you, it was a waste of time."

He frowned. "It could happen, we weren't certain about it. We'll keep looking, you’re going to catch them." Rhys opened the box, throwing some sweets into his mouth and then offered me some. “You’re not here just for the mission, are you? I’m guessing either this is some kind of bribe or you’re trying to soften the blow.”

I gave him a half smile, bracing my hands on the railing. His own smile faltered for a moment and concern latched onto his features. “I should brace myself for the blow then,” he commented, resting his back on the railing next to me and searching for my face.

“It’s not that…” I murmured, still not looking directly at him. “You know I love you, right?”

“If you’re going to confess now, please remember my mate is next door” he joked.

“Ass.” I nudged in the ribs with an elbow. Rhys chuckled to himself.

“I love you too, idiot. What 's going on?”

I let out a small sigh. How was I supposed to approach the subject? I have never been good with words and there was so much to tell.

“I mean it, Rhys. You’re my family, you and Feyre, Mor, Cass, Amren…all of you. I’ve never had that, you know? a true family” I glanced at him at last. “I’m sorry if in my excitement I crossed a boundary that I shouldn’t have crossed. I know I’m not your sister, and I will never be her, nor do I intend to occupy her place in your heart. I just… never knew how much I wanted to belong somewhere until I met you guys.”

He frowned deeply. His whole demeanor was serious now.

“Where is this coming from Y/N? Of course you’re not my sister, she’s been gone for a long time. But you still are my family, you’re my sister in every way that counts except for blood. I don’t understand what my dead sister has to do with anything.”

I shook my head, already regretting my choice of words.

“You give me way more than what I deserve… I think it’s time for me to really earn my living.”

“Let me see if I understand correctly. You think you don’t deserve your life here, your home, your job, your friends. Because that should’ve belonged to my sister? Who told you that?”

My eyes shut and I breathed deeply through my nose. I didn’t mean to offend him. "I'm grateful for everything you've done for me, but I can't help feeling like I'm living off of you, of your money.”

“You’re not using my money, you’re using your money. The one you’ve earned by putting your life on the line every single time for us, whenever I asked. You’re not my charity project, you’re my family, and I owe you just as much. So let me ask you again, who put such ideas in your head?”

“No one Rhys. I had that thought in the back of my mind for a while now and when an opportunity had presented itself I just…I don’t want to be a burden.”

Rhys relaxed his shoulders a bit, and put a hand atop my shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“A couple of months ago Hellion offered me a position in his court and told me to think about it, it is mine if I want it. I could finally have my own place, and I would still visit you here”

“I can’t tell you not to take it if that’s what you really want, what would make you happy. But don’t do it for the wrong reasons. Everything you have here, you’ve earned it. The only thing I’m offering you for free is my friendship, I don’t think you’re a replacement for my sister, you are your own person and we all love you for you. So please, get that ridiculous idea that you’re a burden out of your thick skull.” He pinched my cheek affectionately, my throat felt tight. “ And as for Hellion… think about it thoroughly, at least stay until Solstice, would you do that for me?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. His eyes were always so gentle on me, so understanding.

“Alright.” I mused.

Soft knocks sounded from behind us and Feyre poked her head through the half-open door. “Sorry to interrupt you guys but Azriel is here, says it's urgent.”

Rhys cut a glance at me as if to make sure I was fine before he let the Shadowsinger in. I knew that Rhys suspected about us, about the mating bond, but I never told him and he never asked. My relationship with Azriel has always been strained and Rhysand could absolutely tell it was hurting me, but as long as I wouldn’t bring it up he’d stay out of it. And I appreciated that.

Feyre nodded behind her and fully opened the door to let the Shadowsinger inside. His posture was rigid, wings tucked tight as his eyes fell upon me. “You were right.” He uttered. “I found something back in Spring.”

I willed my face into neutrality, there was no way in Hell I would let him see how much his words had affected me. “What is it?”

"I found a caravan of females of different ages set to be transported through the river. I broke them free but there was no sign of their captors, however I think there’s something you should see.” Azriel’s face was stoic as ever, revealing nothing about the mission nor our previous conflict.

I turned to Rhysand once more, “We should go check on them, but Rhys we can’t leave them there. They will strike again, I’m sure of it, and we can’t count on Tamlin either. No one has heard a word of him in months.”

“We can’t exactly bring an entire court to The Shelter Y/N, those females, they have families. Despite Tamlin being missing, there are still rules and accords with the other courts. It won’t look good. The other High Lords won’t look the other way if we just trespass the borders and start to bring people into our court or if we leave sentinels in there, they will take it as an act of defiance, of me trying to expand these lands and my rule on them.” He had an apologetic look on his face, ever the wise High Lord considering every possible outcome.

I knew he was right and I would not get mad at him. Still, it frustrated me to no end.

I chewed on my bottom lip trying to come up with a solution, at least until we found the slavers.

“What if I talked to Eris?” I offered. “Maybe we could station a small patrol near the border with Autumn under his discretion, maybe he could put some of his own sentinels on guard duty.”

Azriel snorted. “You trust Eris?”

“It is better than nothing Azriel, what do you propose?” I asked, eyebrows high and tone bitter.

The Shadowsinger opened his mouth to reply but Rhys's voice cut him off before we got engaged in another fight yet again. "Let me deal with Eris. You go talk to them, learn whatever you can about what happened to them and report back. You two are stuck there until I sort it out with Eris. Lay low, no one can know of your presence other than the survivors. Be extremely careful."

We both nodded our agreement, not daring another word. I moved past Azriel to the door and he followed closely behind. I could feel his body heat almost enveloping me, he was way too close to be casual.

"If you're worried about what I told Rhysand, I left your name out of it. I took full responsibility for it.”

“Why?” He side-glanced at me. I shrugged.

“Because I’m tired of explaining myself. If you want to get into an argument with me then go ahead, I won’t bother with it. You can go tell him whatever you please.”

I couldn’t be bothered to try and hide the tiredness of my body and mind out of my face. Two whole centuries of this, insulting each other, hurting each other, it was enough. I’ll handle anything he decides to throw at me but I’m done fighting back.

Azriel, to my surprise, didn’t say anything as we walked into the open night.

The night sky had already settled around the city, covering it with its black and dark blue mantle of flickering stars. In my two hundred years of life I had never encountered a more beautiful sight than the one Velaris offered. The Day Court surely will be a huge change, away from everything, from my family and friends, from my favorite cafés and galleries, from the whisper of the quiet darkness that had accompanied me my whole life.

I tore my eyes away from it, ready to winnow; I could feel Azriel’s stare fixed on my face.

“I’ll fly us there.” He offered so low it could have been dragged away with the wind.

“There’s no need for that.”

“You’re tired. Better save some energy, just in case.”

I turned to face him, eyebrows furrowed, and could have mistaken the look on his eyes for concern if I didn’t know him any better. “What did you find there, Azriel?”

Hazel orbs moved to my left wrist, swift, smooth; I wrapped my hand around it almost unconsciously, and brought my arm to my chest, hiding it from his view.

“The females in the caravan, they have the same mark you have on your skin.”

The small crow that had been burned and scarred onto my wrist, branded. My back went rigid. It couldn’t be who I was thinking, that monster died that horrible night two centuries ago. It had to be an imitator, some kind of joke.

The shadowsinger placed a tentative hand on my elbow and brought me out of my own head. I yanked it back from his touch. “Let's go, I want to see it.” Was my only reply.

—----------------------------------------------------------

Azriel.

Your whole demeanor had changed the moment he brought up that hideous mark, a reminder of the haunting past. He didn’t have the full story but given your reaction, and the looks on those fae he had freed, it hadn’t been a personal choice.

Azriel felt bad for being an asshole to you earlier, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter an apology. He hadn’t always been like this, but it was already too late to take it back. You irritated him to no end, the way your scent would flow up his nose and never leave him, day and night it would invade his senses, clouding his mind with that unique water lilies and lemon zest smell of yours. And that big full mouth? always ready to retort to him. Nobody had ever possessed such an innate ability to get under his skin as easily as you did. It made him so mad he could tear at his own hair in frustration.

Still, deep down, Azriel knew that most of his anger wasn't of your doing, not on purpose at least. He would find the tiniest of excuses to keep you out and away from him, not being ready to face the full truth as to why you affected him so much. You always did. It was easier to just dislike you.

But in those extremely rare moments when you would let a sliver of a true emotion show around him, his resolve trembled. And the tightness he felt in his chest was much harder to ignore.

You were silent the whole flight to the Spring Court, something akin to pain haunted your eyes. He didn’t dare speak about it, but something in his stomach twisted at that look.

For the past hour or so he watched you silently as you talked to the females, inspecting them for injuries aside from the branding, asking them about their captors and being extremely patient with them. A little girl even came up to you, eyelashes wet with tears and begged you to find her mother. Azriel caught the way your face twisted into a grim, even if to the little girl you looked confident enough that you were gonna reunite her with her mother. She had clung to you for the rest of the night until she felt asleep.

You had a heart, and a kind soul beyond his comprehension, even if he wanted to convince himself that you didn't. It was a lie. He used to tell himself that you were nothing but Hewn City filth, that no one good could ever come out of that place and you would betray them all eventually. Yet there was Mor. And yet, you were here.

Mor, he hadn't thought about her in a while, not like he used to. He'd like to think the lovely doe-eyed female back home was somehow responsible for it...but he wouldn't dare dig into it much deeper. Somehow his mind always found a way to trick him, bringing thoughts about that other person he couldn't stand. It was not alright to compare.

Azriel snapped back to reality as you moved to approach him, leaving the little girl under the care of an elderly villager. Even in her slumber, she made grabby hands at your receding figure.

"She seemed kinda reluctant in letting you go." He observed. The barely there ghost of a smile tugged at your lips but it was short lived and maybe, just maybe, he could have imagined it. "I didn't know you had a soft spot for children."

You sighed softly, tiredly, as you walked beside him to your guarding spot for the night. He did notice the dark circles under your eyes, the way you tried and failed to keep your shoulders from sagging, and was about to offer to just take the guard himself when you spoke.

"Children are very rare, and precious. It is a blessing to be able to connect with them." Your voice, albeit quiet, was charged with emotion. He thought that was as far as the conversation would go, but you swallowed and after a couple of heartbeats in silence, you spoke again. "I had a little sister once. She reminded me of her."

Maybe it was the rawness and vulnerability of the current situation at hand that had you sharing a little bit with him. Maybe you were so exhausted that you couldn't stop the thoughts from spilling from your lips. Whatever it was, it also compelled him to listen.

"What happened?" He asked, barely above a whisper.

You gave him the saddest, tight lip smile he ever saw you wear and something tugged at his very core. "We were born at the wrong place."

He had judged you wrong, took you up for a cruel, dark creature, never once stopping to think about what you may have endured while you still lived at the Court of Nightmares. Azriel knew it was only a reflection of what he thought of himself.

He didn’t dare ask about the mark on your wrist, not yet. It felt too personal, and he doubted you would have shared it with him anyways.

"Listen about earlier..." He started an apology. Voice a little gruff.

But you cut him out, pinning him with an icy stare, took up the spot on the nearby tree, and didn't talk to him again.

Tag list:

@valeridarkness @hannzoaks @fall-myriad @goradgirl @cmay25

@feiwelinchen @katherine-2007 @anniebannanie0315 @cosmic-whispers @acotarxx

Hope I didn’t forget anyone. Thank you for reading :)

#azriel fanfic #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x reader #azriel acotar #Azriel #azriel x you #acotar fanfic #acotar fanfiction #acotar fandom #acotar series #acotar #rhys acotar #feysand #acowar

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jinkieswouldyoulookatthis · 8 months

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Anti-destiel Wank (sorry but I have to)

If you hardcore ship Destiel, please just scroll on by. Please.

Ok, I'm gonna get myself in trouble, I'm sure, but I gotta get this off my chest...

Destiel may be a perfectly fine ship,

but,

IT'S JUST A SHIP.

In the actual context of the show there IS NO ROMANTIC OR SEXUAL TENSION/RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEAN AND CAS.*

Full fucking stop.

Subtext can be interpreted in ANY WAY YOU WANT. It is subjective. You will find whatever you look for in it. Please stop waving subtext interpretations around as if they were objective facts, they aren't. Subtext, by its very definition, relies on implied meaning and understanding, this means it is a subjective interpretation of the media that varies from viewer to viewer. The inherent variations are what make it fanon/headcanon instead of canon.

If you see tension of that sort there and it makes you happy to postulate the what if, then go ahead, that is what fanon and head canon and fan fiction is all about. But if the fact that the tension you think you see isn't being addressed in actual canon makes you grumpy, maybe you need to take some of the fanatic out of your fanning. If you are beginning to think the show creators are actively trying to repress Dean's "true sexuality and feelings" because they are evil, you might need to consider that you've dug in too deep.

Because, like I ship wincest. Yeah, I said it. But I am aware that canon doesn't actually include any level of sexual or romantic (in the modern sense) relationship between Sam and Dean. Wincest is not canon.

Now, are Sam and Dean the real "love" story of the show? Yes, yes they are. That has always been 100% the entire point of Supernatural, the great love story of two brothers struggling to save the world together. It's about family and everything that means, but at its heart, it is about Sam and Dean WInchester. Not all kisses and cuddles and sex kind of love, but love nonetheless. Full stop.

Now, the fact that Destiel is such a popular ship is not surprising to me in the least. Jensen and Misha are two gorgeous guys who share a lot of chemistry on screen and off. And, it is canon that Cas loves Dean. That has been evident since Lazarus Rising (4x01) when Cas was introduced. Castiel's love of Dean Winchester has been his character's main motivation all along and culminated with Cas sacrificing himself to save Dean, after telling him that he loved him in Despair (15x18)

But Dean's main motivation has always been to watch out for his brother. And though Castiel became Dean's best friend, he still comes second to Sam. Nothing against Cas, he just isn't Sam.

So why are so many people so absolutely convinced that Destiel is so real within the context of the story?

Well, I'm pretty sure that it is the same reason that they are so opposed to the idea of wincest.

As we all know, incest is bad, mmmkay? Incest is probably one of the biggest, strongest, cultural taboos we have. So it makes perfect sense that the idea of two blood-related brothers having sexual or romantic feelings for each other is considered icky. It's so off putting that it is a complete no go for even fantasizing about for most people. And that's probably a good thing, tbh, incest should be taboo. But where does that taboo spring from? Why is it so deeply off limits? There are several reasons, but the two main ones are:

That incest can lead to inbreeding.

That incest too often involves molestation or rape of children.

Both of these are seriously bad enough that we all pretty much collectively agree to avoid incestuous relationships. But, do either of these two reasons really apply in the case of Sam and Dean?

The short answer is no. Primarily this is because they are fictional characters that are being played by unrelated actors. But to humor the objectors we'll look at it closer.

We can take the first one right off the table. As two cis men, neither of them is capable of becoming pregnant, so outside of the mpreg (male pregnancy) or gender bending subsets of fanfic tropes, this is not applicable.

The second reason only becomes an issue when talking about the characters earlier in their lives, pre-show or flashbacks. Weecest or teencest, or whatever, are things, but these typically have separate ship names for a reason, because even when dealing with fictional characters this squicks a lot of folks who are otherwise down with the wincest ship. So most content is tagged or labeled as its specific flavor, so anyone can find it or avoid it. But wincest that involves adult Sam and Dean (the specific pairing I'm referring to in this post) doesn't apply to the second reason listed above.

So there really is nothing morally wrong with Sam and Dean having sex with each other. I know that statement is going to bother a whole lot of people, but it is true. Just because something is taboo does not automatically make it morally wrong. Being gay used to be taboo in our culture, and is still taboo for way too many people, even though there is nothing morally wrong with homosexuality.

Now, I wasn't in the fandom back at the beginning of the show, but I've heard tell that the very first Sam/Dean fic was posted just a few hours after the pilot episode aired. A few hours, that's all it took for some highly motivated fan to type out a story where they were more than just brothers. The story is called Reunion. If you watch the pilot, even with your anti-incest goggles on, the chemistry between Jared and Jensen is palpable throughout. There is a reason the show lasted for 15 years, and that reason is that Sam and Dean just work on screen so well together. So if it only took one episode for that ship to be born, what did all the future destiel shippers do? Well I imagine they felt somewhat uncomfortable for the first 60 episodes.

Flash forward to season four and the introduction of Castiel. Finally there was another male character for fans squicked by the notion of sweet, sweet brother loving to focus on! Cas was clearly fixated on Dean more than Sam, which followed the plot since Cas had been instructed to rescue Dean from Hell. As it would turn out, the brothers were destined to be the meatsuits that Michael and Lucifer wore to the big prize fight to determine the fate of the world. Prepping Sam for Lucifer involved him consuming demon blood, which made most of the angelic host view him as an abomination, a factor that Cas had to learn to get past in his relationship with the younger brother. But Dean was ready to go right out of the box, no assembly required for Michael. Castiel, and many of his angelic brethren, as well as a lot of Demons, seem to be drawn to Dean in a way that they just aren't drawn to Sam. Is this fair? Hell no. But I mean, look at him! Jensen has sexual tension with literally everything he comes in contact with, people, food, his car, the man oozes sexual attraction. Don't get me wrong, Jared is a sexy fucking ball of sunshine, and our Sammy is a damned attractive man, but he tends to be more repressed and less openly sexual than his brother, so it is what it is.

Where was I going with this? That's a good question. I got a bit distracted, sorry. Oh right...

At its root, destiel is a reactive projection. There is undeniable tension between characters in the show. Since all of the main cast are male, that tension is highly homoerotic. The two main characters, who are undeniably emotionally enmeshed and co-dependent with each other (a very well established canon fact btw), happen to be blood-related brothers. Oh no! Where is all that tension coming from since we cannot admit or accept that it's coming from them? Ah ha! Here is a new male character that we like, yes, it is obviously coming from his interactions with one of the brothers, even though he wasn't in the first 60 episodes. Yes, it all makes perfect sense now, all that tension was merely foreshadowing.

I've read through all the destiel subtext posts. I've gone back and watched all the scenes they reference multiple times with the express purpose of finding destiel. I'm telling you it is just a fanon ship. Which is 100% fine and good, ship that ship, just stop declaring it more canon than canon, because it's not.

And if you don't like fictional incest, cool, cool, you don't have to. But the underlying sexual tension existed in the first 60 episodes prior to Misha being cast on the show, so it was coming from somewhere. And it'd be cooler if you learned how to scroll past people shipping wincest, like I'm sure you do for all the other weirdass, squicky shit that people post all over the internet. But if it makes your heart beat a little faster to imagine that Dean and Cas have eyesex but that Dean and Sam don't, that's fine. I think it's delusional because neither ship is actually canon and both are 100% A-Ok in fanon, and honestly Jensen doesn't seem to be able to control his eyes, which is not something anyone should feel bad about (it's fucking marvelous) but you do you.

*Castiel does love Dean. He confessed as much, but Dean did not reciprocate. What I am referencing is a mutual romance or attraction, which does not exist.

#anti destiel #anti destihellers #anti hellers #wincest #canon vs fanon #fandom wank #destiel wank #I've been sitting on & adding to/refining this post since Feb 2018 time for it to see the light of day

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let-roman-bite-someone · 8 months

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it's been a while since i made an analysis here but as anyone else in this fandom, i've been speculating on orange. i know that by now, most people are convinced that orange is anger or something related to that.

however, we need to look at the previous patterns in order to figure out who orange might be. “the dark sides” were all facets of c!thomas that he was unwilling to accept or acknowledge. his anxiety, his ability and capacity for deception and probably the most jarring for him, the violent and/or disgusting thoughts that pop into his head without warning.

despite virgil's arc, anxiety was probably the easiest for thomas to accept. virgil didn't even have to introduce himself; thomas already knew he existed and while he was not happy about that, thomas had already accepted by that point that anxiety was a part of him. janus's existence was a harder pill to swallow and remus's was even harder.

so with all this, orange turning out to be anger (or wrath, rage, whatever you want to call it) would be a little underwhelming. while anger is not an emotion that is always encouraged, it's certainly not that hard to accept. especially compared to having repetitive intrusive thoughts about murdering people.

besides, thomas has already acknowledged his own capacity for anger before.

here, he refers to logan and roman having short tempers. they've shown this multiple times in the series too. if logan and roman are prone to anger, then it follows that thomas is also prone to anger and that he is aware of it. and regarding the nonchalant way he addressed it, i doubt he's troubled about his temper at all.

since there were only two short episodes before the introduction of virgil, we don't have enough context as to whether thomas was aware of his anxiety or how accepting he was of it. for janus and remus however, we have several instances of thomas either being in denial or being completely unaware of their existence.

regarding the concept of lying, thomas chose not to lie to people to the best of his ability. regarding intrusive thoughts, while there's no instances of thomas straight-up refusing to feed into them, he was a lot more "clean" before remus came along. he didn't swear as much and when he did, usually censored the swears (probably a conscious decision from thomas & co. but i think it had a canon reason too) and using more technical terms for sexual activities.

anyway, all of this is just a complicated way to get to the point, so i won't bore you any longer. my point is that orange would have to be something bigger, something more terrifying and that thomas would likely be in denial about.

one thing thomas has constantly been shown to fear is losing his friends and loved ones. this has surprisingly been a consistent theme from the early stages of the series.

a lot of the episodes like Making Some Changes, Can Lying Be Good and the SvS duology were centered around thomas's fear of losing his friends. friendship is very important to thomas and different situations in his life often feeds into the fear of being left behind.

now what is a common theme in all the scenes that orange has been hinted at?

the feeling of being ignored or belittled. logan gets mad at roman because roman mocks his attempts at trying to communicate honestly. SvS Redux has thomas feeling irritated and upset that lee and mary lee barely paid attention to him during the wedding. the intrusive thoughts asides video, of course, has both thomas and logan getting angry over being ignored.

so, with all this, i conclude that orange is desperation (n; a state of despair, typically one which results in rash or extreme behaviour). a need for validation, a need for attention and affection. thomas, at this point, is especially disturbed by a lot of things going on in his life. but a recurring theme throughout the show, especially after the introduction of janus and remus, is thomas's fear of driving away his friends. he is overly judgmental of each of his actions, worried that they may lead to him being lonely and left behind.

and again, in WTIT, thomas is also desperate to be noticed by nico. he fears dying alone but at the same time, he struggles to reach out to people. still, he makes the first move by texting nico but the fact that nico doesn't reply makes thomas more and more fearful of ending up alone. he is desperate for love and support, he is desperate for validation; but he needs to focus on himself and fix his own issues, if he wants to maintain a healthy relationship with other people.

like all the other sides, i think that orange is also only trying to help thomas. he's trying to get thomas to come to terms with the fact that nothing is stagnant. most things in life are temporary and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to let go of any worries weighing you down. thomas just needs to face that fact and focus on living in the moment, instead of worrying about what could be. he also needs to have a little trust in himself and know that he's trying his best to be a good person.

and logan is the right person to target for this. because first off, logan himself is suffering from the desperate need for validation, he is visibly struggling to get to thomas. secondly, a sign of deteriorating mental health is when logic becomes clouded due to emotions and this affects a person's basic functioning, such as decision making, problem solving and if gone too far, even everyday activities. the one time logan temporarily left the group, we saw how much of a chaos the others were. i believe orange thinks that this is the only way to make thomas understand how dire the situation is.

so yeah, that's just my take on this whole orange deal. i could be completely wrong but it's still fun analyzing these things.

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fictionadventurer · 1 year

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Eucatastrophe isn't just a nice little plot device in The Lord of the Rings. It isn't just a nod to his worldview. It's absolutely vital to the specific story Tolkien's telling.

The Ring's main temptation is that it offers control. It offers you enough power to defeat all your enemies, to make sure the story ends the way you want. The heroes have to avoid that temptation at every turn, because taking up that power would make them no better than the villain. They have to move forward against impossible odds, knowing that they don't have the power to win, yet hoping that somehow, there's some greater power that will turn the story in their favor.

That's why the enemy's main weapon is despair. He tries to keep their eyes on the logical possibilities of this world, try to make them believe there's no hope of outside help, to think the only things they can rely on are their own power or his own dominance. If the heroes lose hope, they'll either submit to his power, or be tempted to take up power that will still make them slaves to the Dark Lord. Only with that hope can they withstand him.

It's not just hope that Tolkien's heroes need--it's hope unlooked-for. When, based on the knowledge they have and the resources they hold, they can't see any hope of success, they have to move forward in anticipation of a hope that they can't see. A hope that goes beyond the bounds of what they can logically expect. A hope in something greater than the petty powers of this world, in a power that can't be wielded but can only be trusted to turn all things toward a greater good.

And that hope is not in vain. The Dark Lord, for all his pride, all his grasping for power, is still bounded by the limitations of this world. He can't hope to overcome powers from outside the world. His plans can be foiled by a change in the wind, by the arrival of unexpected allies, by a withered, grasping creature taking one wrong step at the edge of a volcano, by air support that shows up at the last minute to save the heroes from death. These turns of fortune aren't just convenient escapes for the heroes--they directly tie to the theme at the heart of the work. In the context of the main conflict of the story, a eucatastrophe is the only way it could end.

#lord of the rings #tolkien #the return of the king #this has probably been said a thousand times but it just struck me yesterday #i knew it was central to the worldview but i hadn't quite grasped how central it was to the plot and themes

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writing-for-life · 10 days

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A Collection of My Metas, Fics and Art that Feature the Women of The Sandman

I love the women of the Sandman. I write about them quite frequently, post art about them, write my fics from a female viewpoint (I’m mainly an OC writer though, but I have one-shots and poetry about canon characters).

So since we’ve been talking about them a lot over the past few days, here are all their tags (they contain every meta that features them enough for me to tag them, and both official and fanart), and all my metas, fics and poetry in which they are the main protagonist/character or at least strong focus.

I have posted art for literally all of the women in the Sandman and also written about most of them in one way or another, and you can find the few that are missing via my tags, but it just didn’t feel right to include all of them here. I think it’s normal and fair that we gravitate more towards some characters than others for personal reasons. It’s just the complete erasure of women that often gets to me.

I want to do more, but like every writer and curator, the disinterest in the women of the Sandman is often a bit discouraging. I haven’t given up hope we can change that…

Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Alianora

Alianora’s tag 1 and Alianora’s tag 2

Calliope

Calliope and Dream

Calliope’s tag 1 and Calliope’s tag 2

Death

Death’s Wedjat Eye: Deeper Symbolism or Random?

Oblivion is not an option—A musical meta about “A kind word and a friendly face”

All the Endless are buckling under the weight of their functions (David Hitchcock art meta)

Comfort (haiku)

Ode to Death (poem)

Requiem (poem)

Sigil (haiku)

Wings (haiku)

Death’s tag

Delirium/Delight

A sacred garden: Death and Delight (Michael Zulli art meta)

Delirium’s tag

Despair

Despair’s tag

Hope

Only Hope calls you out like that

Hope’s tag

Johanna

Thessaly, Johanna and a weird meta about musical motifs

As it was before the otherness came (short fic, Johanna x Rachel)

Johanna’s tag

Killalla

Killalla’s tag

Lucienne

If it is implied Lucien is Adam, what does that make Lucienne?

Lucienne’s tag

Lyta

Lyta’s tag

Nada

Tales in the Sand—Did we find the women’s story?

Nada’s tag 1 and Nada’s tag 2

Nuala

Nuala’s tag

Rose

Rose’s tag

Thessaly

Thessaly in the context of second and third wave feminism

Thessaly’s tag

#the sandman #sandman #sandman meta #death of the endless #despair of the endless #delirium of the endless #johanna constantine #lucienne the librarian #thessaly sandman #calliope sandman #lyta hall #nada sandman #rose walker #and all the other women of the sandman #sandman fic #sandman poetry #sandman art #thessaly

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compassionatereminders · 1 month

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The idea that just not deliberately hurting people is enough feels so alien to me. IS that enough? When I've tried desperately not to hurt or upset people my whole life? And then it still happens? I know in theory I'm not the problem, it's the world failing to accomodate me that is the problem but how does one deal with the despair of feeling hunted and a possible danger to others' emotions at all times just because of how one is born? (I'm autistic, for context. Also I do not expect you to answer this or have some grand solution, I just need to be witnessed in some way. Thanks for this blog.)

Listen, hurting people is an unavoidable part of life, and you aren't a failure as a person for failing to prevent it from happening. As long as you try not to hurt people and to make amends when you do hurt someone, you're doing just fine.

#chat with kat

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onelocket · 11 months

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you'll never get rid of me, oh i'm like a fucking disease

fyodor d. x reader

prompting guide -- It's like seeing your lover, but at the same time, it wasn't him. With the way he is, with the way he rocks you back and forth to despair, with the way he separates Fyodor to himself as he spoke, ultimately from the way he treated you. The real Fyodor would never do this to you.

requested by -- a kind anon<3 (click here for more context)

involves -- self-harm, reader seeing and hearing things, fear of abandonment, heavy obsession, light mind breaking?, headcanons of ability crime & punishment - where shibusawa's fog in dead apple is not needed for ability manifestations.

Before you knew it, time became your own enemy instead.

Time? To be somebody's opponent? Such person can only be so foolish.

Had you just been discarding all your other emotions that you’re now dying to at least feel something even when you once tried to throw it all away?

Discomfort, confusion, denial and anger, they all wanted to wash on you repeatedly. Like you were some form of washing machine to these emotions you were so fed up experiencing so often.

But like a normal washing machine… too much of a heavy load can eventually cause it to break.

And finally, it’s as if the grand scheme of terror slowly strikes through you.

Your knees heedlessly press themselves deeper to the soft creamy mattress below your body. Your nails could attack if it wanted to — holding onto the white window sill while you watch the heavy rain suddenly wash down like the world has sinned again.

The rain seemed to be a frequent occurrence nowadays, always greeting you by the window while leaving droplets for you to distract yourself with. Push comes to shove, you could quite say the rain was your only acquaintance left in this small room.

Fyodor had become busier for weeks unnumbered, and the rain didn’t help you understand grasps of how he’d be doing right now.

You couldn’t keep count with how long you’ve been stuck in this home. If it could even be called a home at this point.

Sure did you walk outside from day to day, but somehow each occurrence makes your body shiver — like somebody... no, rather something was watching you every step and turn you took. Regardless of its motives, you ended up isolating yourself with no lover to see.

Yet eventually did you grow tired of it. You just wanted to bash the windows into shattered glass and escape, to find your beloved who you knew didn’t find fond of the wet weather.

But you couldn’t.

If you even dared to think about it, words come to spiral your mind and soul, displeasing words that come from him and only him.

The him who doesn’t like it when you ask or force to escape. The him who hated it when you disobeyed unspoken edicts. While you knew that, could you really just let him continue this nonsense?

"But on the contrary, shouldn't you content at home - away from troubling Fyodor?"

You could still hear his damned voice as if he was right behind you.

“Jeez, just shut up—!” You yelled in a trance, hands slapping the bed sheets as you hastily turn around, hoping to God he wasn’t within centimeters away from you right now.

But he wasn’t even there. Just the closed doors and pretty decorations you’ve memorized it’s locations at this point.

“…For the love of-” You cursed out quietly, pausing as your eyes narrow down at your wrist helplessly pressing themselves on the mattress, your fingers curling your hands into a fist that could quite literally rip the silk if you tried hard enough.

All you needed to know was given… Fyodor's voice was but a sound in your head. And that question had been asked earlier, not right now.

Why were you suddenly hearing his voice in your head today? And he had said so much too. It was annoying at first, but gradually did it make you panic more.

Such a situation has never happened before, in fact you were more focused to being all excited and prepping yourself to look your best both mentally and physically when he comes back. And its not that Fyodor never comes back from time to time just to check up on you, because he really does, ensuring you were safe and well.

Maybe the voice in your head was right - shouldn't you at least feel grateful that he still finds a cut through his day to return and see you? Yet why, why can't I get a grip of myself?

You couldn’t deny you kept thinking and thinking about your beloved — after all, it’s only natural. But recently, his voice really got grasp of your mind. Your attention. Your whole being, in a way you would even dare wish for him to leave you if it meant to stop this madness ringing in your head constantly, night by night.

What's worse was that this voice of his had its own manifestation who'd come out to taunt you — earlier, in these struggling minutes would you see your lover in a darker, almost sinister shade of purple, like an crystalline illusion who looked just like the man you kiss and devote your heart to. A part of you was glad him himself had faded away from both your sight and head, though you also theorized that perhaps is so because of how exhausted you've gotten listening to it.

It's like seeing your lover, but at the same time, it wasn't him. With the way he is, with the way he rocks you back and forth to despair, with the way he separates Fyodor to himself as he spoke, ultimately from the way he treated you.

The real Fyodor would never do this to you.

It hurt that he looked like Fyodor. You couldn't even get angry at it. You couldn't even tell the real Fyodor about it — for he wasn't visiting yet. And you bet he wouldn't be anyway.

"He wouldn’t be so happy to know that his impatient lover started act like this."

"That’s not you missing him anymore, that’s obsession."

"Who would ever want to see such an obsessive, fragile person like you? It's amazing how he still keeps you in his arms and returns to you even if he has zero reason to, milaya."

"Be grateful for him. You wouldn’t want him to come home with an angry face, do you?"

You blench at your minds taunt. If it wasn't him, then it'd be your head next. How amusing.

Those words played through as if it has ever said them to you, as if a flashback. But you knew well it never said such thing earlier. Sure had he said similar things, but these ones felt unheard of. At least to your memory. So why…

"Why… why can’t I get myself together?"

I’m so scared.

What… what happens to me now? Will this voice continue to haunt me?

Fyodor, just please come back.

Your mind couldn’t function — such contradict to what you always least expected when rain said hello. Always, you felt blank and free from worry - but now you felt as if the rain was also hitting your chest, filling you up till you drown even in such a suffocating room. Or could it just be…

Knock knock.

Your breath hitched right the second - eyes widening to the faint noise.

For a moment, you just sat there, eyes glued to the blank walls that you swore was turning darker in your eyes.

"N-No, no! He can’t…" You stuttered out in fear, your knees acting on its own as it recklessly gets off the bed for you to follow without a choice, feeling your heart beat in an abnormal pace.

He can’t be back now, no.

Rather than be so excited and running to see him, you felt as if you don’t even want to see a second of his face plastered with an expression when he sees you so pathetic and 'suddenly' afraid.

You didn’t want even a fleeting moment of seeing anything his appearance possessed — not even if it meant you’d be saved by God. God must be more merciful than that, right? Why can't He let you just get through this problem yourself? You didn't want to look so pitiful to your lover. You didn't want to see the look on his face, what words he could spew out, what-

"Ouch.." Without even waiting for you to do anything about it, you find yourself already on the floor with your knees painfully pressed against that harsh wood. Had you fallen on your knees? But it should've hurt way earlier on, shouldn’t it?

Still, all you found yourself replying to a sudden fall was your fingers lightly clawing on the wooden texture before you feel the whole room go redder and redder.

Feel… as if you could even feel color.

You had to quite literally deny any other thought that was conscious in your mind before you finally, slowly stood up from the floor. Not only were you struggling to speak, your hands were shaking so badly it could quite possibly tear off your own wrists.

God, imagining that was making it worse.

As quick as you try to restrain — the sounds of grains void your mind, making your chest heave at an end corrupted while you just stood there, desperate to scratch any logic in your distressed head.

You can’t fail yourself right now, no, that just wasn’t a choice… you had to do something. Say something, maybe? The rain was even louder than you were right now, and you didn’t like that.

You didn’t like that something you couldn’t control could overpower you.

So back and forth, your eyes went. You looked all around the dull bedroom whilst shakily standing on the singular spot of the wooden floor, a hand needed to press itself on your chest as you couldn’t control even a thought in your mind at its rate.

You couldn't see, hear nor even feel the illusion that crept your head to scream, so what was scaring you? Was it because of that knocking noise just now? Be as that sound may, the only door to this bedroom hadn't clicked an inch, nor was somebody stepping in. Maybe that was also in my head? Ahaha- fuck, I'm making fools out myself.

"Okay— ouch, okay.. c-calm down, it’s fine." You tried reassuring yourself, your body sitting right back on the cushion behind you with your hands clamp desperately on your knees, trying to at least keep your breathing at note.

You lied to yourself. It wasn’t fine at all — none of this was fine, yet if you wanted to get through this some way or another… the last thing you’d want is your heart jumping right out of your throat from all of your fear.

Breathing heavily, your eyes stopped its chase for nothing in hopes to keep you focused and hopefully, somehow find comfort in knowing you were still breathing and in a ‘safe room’, despite a voice in you still leaving a traumatic print to fail the assurance feel genuine.

If anything — perhaps the outside to your window was the safest, but could you really escape when the darkness of tonight threatened you to stay? Not to mention, what could Fyodor do if he finds you suddenly gone? Or worse- he could find me running around like some sick manic.

So you just let your eyes glance back and forth helplessly to keep your head frozen. In this situation, maybe to keep being distracted was for the better of yourself. So back and forth it went until eventually — they reach down to your knees.

"…Blood?" You barely voiced out, "..W-When did…"

Small freckles of blood was staining your exposed knees, which was probably formed from your earlier fall. While your knees weren’t completely bruised, they definitely left some damage. And you didn’t like it. The sight of blood.

Letting a heavy exhale, your hands shift up to touch more of your new little problem, a small whimper escaping you when you feel how bad it stung even if you just pressed a finger on it. It hurt a lot..

But maybe, this could help out. Right?

Too in a trance to even think otherwise, thunder flashes white in your view before your nails began to paw and claw your mild bruises into something nastier and nastier.

Itch by itch, scratch by scratch, you went and kept going — ignoring your hisses of pain as the blood just kept leaking out, dirtying your nails while you just begged for a distraction to keep your head in place.

A part of you tried to snap, saying this wasn’t right.

But was anything right at this point? You didn't want to see your only source of comfort because of a mirror of hallucination taunting you with him, where there was right?

You just needed to forget everything, every noise, every pair of eye that you felt that was watching you, everything. Even if the cost was this.

You fail to listen to yourself, only letting the fear in you fool you into thinking this was fine as you choked up a cry, "G-God… God, fuck, God.." cursing his name like something will come out of it. Despite every cut and scent of something sickeningly rusty metallic that you registered, your head was the only thing that kept hurting you.

What if the voice was right?

What if I'm really not deserving to have Fyodor?

But I've given my everything! From my love, to my patience, my devotion... m-my own soul-

"T-this is all your fault!" You end up yelling out loud, one of your hands punching your knee as the other grabbed onto anything it could — in this case being the bed frame. With how sudden it was however, both hands ultimately end up hurting you; that same hands fingernails grazing onto the wood way too harshly it results in you shrieking in discomfort, like your nail had been sliced off.

"God- damn... it," You gasp out, your hands shakily moving up to your hands as they tremble, one knee bruised starker than the other. But really, both hurt too much. "If only you d-didn't decide to do this to me, maybe t-then I- maybe then I wouldn't be so...!" You kept sobbing out, voice all a strain and struggling as you stand up from the bed, only to fall on the floor — knees first.

Oh, but you had to realize that at some point in this relationship, didn't you?

To know you never were worth Fyodor. Even one bit. Be as you may love him, do you think that'll be enough to exchange his? You love him, so what? You're nothing but a normal person in this world — no abilities, no worth, no purpose. While you knew he was out there changing the world, something you could never do even if you wanted to.

Perhaps Fyodor truly likes to play mock to return the romance you felt to him. Or maybe he found it pitiful — you pitiful, that you decide to hook on love rather than realize your lack of merit.

You couldn't stop your mind regardless of what you seemed to do, head down as you find yourself slowly bending over, resting your head against your arms as you laid there, sobbing your heart out.

Maybe I do need you right now, Fyodor. Please.

A silent night came with a quiet click that confirms your lovers return, him taking a short glance at the door whilst his hand kept hold of the doorknob. In his mind had he expected to already see you even by the window, however you were not present. Regardless, it didn't bother him much. Maybe you were in another room, resting.

He turns away from the shut door, continuous with his actions after that brief pause as his hands move to his long black cloak, in plans to take them off. Yet before he would even slide his fingers to pull the soft fabric away, his ears would catch a faint sound in the distance.

Was it you? Fyodor couldn't grasp the noise properly but who else could it be? It was only you two who lived here, after all.

He sighed, dragging the cloak off of his shoulders before deftly hooking it on the standing coat rack, his ushanka hat soon being placed there as well. Right after followed his boots, placing them below the rack; movements graceful, yet somehow in a hurry.

It wasn't exactly ideal — Fyodor preferring to have his belongings inside your shared bedroom, or at least in a closet, but he can do that later.

He wants to see you first. Yet at the same time, what was with this deadly, suffocating silence? If Fyodor was any less, he'd be shaken by the cold and dreary atmosphere. Had you gotten yourself in trouble?

Such questions were almost humbly answered however when another sound catches Fyodor's ears, this time one of a shaky whimper like it overpowered a heavy exhale. Even it dressed as a negative emotion did he easily code down the voice — knowing who it was. Assuredly confirming you were somewhere in this house, his eyes narrowed a little, head now focused on another thing.

So he began to walk, his footsteps hushed yet progressive as he, almost as if without guessing, stopped by the bedroom door. It's quite late at night, so he figured you'd be inside here among the other rooms.

Each step felt like he was creating dents on the floor, Fyodor having to pause as he hears your muffled, discomforted noises against the thick door. He kept his silence, however for the first time did he feel like yours and this homes could overpower his.

Eventually did his hand meet the doorknob, the other giving a firm knock on the door. "(Name)?" He whispered, fingers making the smallest twist to the doorknob. "May I come in?"

Not a single reply takes the honor.

He felt his chest rise, a familiar curl threatening to curve his heart as time felt a little slower now. Barely did you leave your lover unanswered, especially when there's no secret to where you were now.

Fyodor took a deep breath before opening the door, keeping his expression blank. Yours however, was not.

"F-Fyodor..?" You gasp out, eyes widening as you just sit there, shaking fingers pressed on your wet and puffy face. "Fyo-Fyodor... oh.. oh my God.."

He pressed his lips together, simply standing there as he looks at you. Knees bleeding and bruised, hair messy and fingernails dirty. A sight opposite to the warmth he feels with you. Your legs were plopped into a froggy position, back leaning against the bedframe as your chest kept heaving out the pain that wasn't at all released even from the sight of your red and tired eyes — as if you've failed to sleep for days.

And as twisted as it was, it managed to make Fyodor smile. It wasn't sadistic... rather, pleased.

He knew you wouldn't be able to see it amidst your blurry vision after all.

"My milaya, what's wrong?" He cooed, dropping the smile immediately as he walked closer to you. You failed to give him even a grim smile as you stifle, the tears warning to return with an even meaner extent. You try to stutter something, but he denies, "Shh. Come here." crouching down to see your crying face.

You gave no chance to say no to the offer, a hurt whimper escaping your quivering lips as you pretty much pounce on your lover, wrapping your hands around his neck with your fingers too shaky to even try to touch his hair.

Normally would he reply in the second by wrapping his arms around you too, but found himself swiftly catching his palms to coop on your kneecaps, refusing such bruised skin to get even more hurt against the floor which would've definitely grazed on if he didn't do so. He'll admit it hurt, knuckles probably stained with scratches, but that'll bother later.

"Fyodor... Fy-Fyodor, n-nmm.. please," You beg in between hiccups and sobs, head resting against his shoulders as he carefully brings his hands off your knees, watching your legs adjust to bring the wounds to a safer level before he places his hands on your back.

"Let it out." Fyodor simply whispered out to you, one hand lightly caressing your hair. "I-I'm so sorry...!" You squeak out, your cries uncomfortably rising themselves louder as you were a hundred percent sure it had already stained his white clothing, but oh did nothing feel important when his hands kept hold of you.

You were able to feel his position shift as he sat down on the floor, bringing you to lean on him. You took his silence as a reply to keep going, but either way would've you done so even if he spoke again. So you rant out, "P-please, Fyodor I- I beg of you, p-please keep loving me... I-I'll do anything, oh- oh my God I'd do anything.. just please," and albeit you didn't see — your words had successfully made Fyodor's eyes widen.

Such broken voice... it paired up with your damaged state like a small dish served on a small plate, it's consumer being your own lover.

Oh how he loved to see it so much, your body and soul aching to be with him even to the point it derives to cuts like these. But perhaps it is what made him love you more.

"I'm here now." He voices out, rubbing your back comfortably as he presses soft, continuous kisses on the top of your head. "It's okay, milaya. Don't apologize." He hushes, words short but able to aid you solace.

Had he not foreseen your situation then maybe would he say more, but alas... such so are all what he says as only your cries respond to his actions, and he returns it with a loving, quiet embrace.

Once he had felt your body weight depend on him, Fyodor tilts his head a little — seeing your pretty eyes away from his view with your eyelids fluttered shut. Your stifling had downed and so did your heavy breathing, your heartbeat catchable pressed against Fyodor's own chest. Perhaps now would be right to patch you up and tend you to bed, but he couldn't bring his body to do so right now.

Keeping you close, his attention eventually turned away as his eyes met the open window right in front of you two, only bordered by the shared bed. Who sat there? Well.. a sight in purple, dressed exactly like who held you in his arms.

Who, unknown to you, is none other than his ability; a manifestation of what the world feared of Fyodor.

He was as if crystal — transparent... yet somehow physical as he tilts his head to Fyodor, ushanka hat slightly shifting.

"Enlighten me." He whispered, voice as if an echo with the way it delivers. "Why am I helping you when they're clearly missing you?"

Your lover started with a small smile, one of which was a more expressive version of his previous one as he places a hand behind your head, gently pulling you closer to him. "Have you forgotten? Crime and punishment are close acquaintances. Once crime is chosen, punishment is acted upon regardless if one deserved it."

The other party kept quiet, eyes narrowing as he took stare of you and your lover; or rather, crime. It wasn't like he didn't know what to say, rather he expected more words out of Fyodor's mouth. And Fyodor saw that in his expression.

So your lover continued after a second of glancing at your hair, "My love might hint them more value in my eyes, but they still lie on my side of the chess board. They may be the queen or the king — the strongest or the most important one as they wish to see themselves, however it is I who still has them to own.. and I will make sure they don't forget. It's as simple as so."

"My, you cannot fool all with your lacy, twisted words." His ability replied, a comparative smile apparent in his face as one hand moves down to the window sill, a finger tapping on the smooth wood.

"You are incapable of true happiness no matter who you are with, no matter what assurance or promise they tell you. Once important to you, your possession and obsession will seek, covering your desires as something for the better. Better for whom? Themselves, or for your own affirmation?"

Fyodor's ability both sounded serious and amused. It was impossible to read the truth that seeped in his voice. Well, if you heard it, at least. To Fyodor however would he hum to softly, sharp eyes watching the sat down manifestation as predicted as much with its words.

The manifestation was right after all. To hear and see you so pathetic wasn't Fyodor's favorite thing in the world, but if it was for him, acquainted with your voice begging him to keep loving you for you would devotedly give yours? Well, one things for sure, he had planned this out.

Possessively would Fyodor keep his hand behind the back of your head, his other hand now travelling to meet your waist as he hugged you, sharp eyes up at the copy of which categorized as his ability with a small, perhaps sarcastic smile whilst he pressed a fleeting kiss on your hair with a quiet chuckle, confirming your slumber despite the shared exchange of words about you.

"Hm, is this your way of reprimanding your own user? I don’t see anyone moved by it — especially with them sleeping in my arms, neglecting the fact that it is the main crime holding them like the object they committed for."

Besides, everyone needs a little assurance in their life. Even in ways most wouldn't do, all just to see if the other meant it.

And to see you meant it only gave him the more reason to be obsessed. Or in your words, to love you.

⚘

#krei promptfics #bsd dostoevsky #bsd imagines #fyodor dostoyevsky bsd #fyodor imagines #bsd fyodor #bsd x y/n #bsd #fyodor dostoevsky #bungou stray dogs fyodor #fyodor x reader #bungou stray dogs #fyodor x you #fyodor dostoyevsky x reader

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krakensdottir · 10 months

Text

I just want to say something, guys. Because a lot of you need to hear it.

It's going to be okay.

THEY'RE going to be okay.

I grew up a fan of Star Wars. I'm not quite old enough to have been around when The Empire Strikes Back was released, but man, talk about a downer ending. One protagonist lost a hand and another had been kidnapped by a crimelord and they weren't sure they could get him back. I can't imagine what that was like for audiences at the time. And they had to wait years to see if everyone was alright.

What I'm trying to say is, this is a very very classic trilogy arc. And also makes a lot of sense in this context. Like, the first story was based on a standalone book. It ended in a good place because that might have been the end - at the time, they weren't sure there'd be a season 2. But now, there's a Rest Of The Story. And one way or another, Neil's promised he's going to tell it. And I believe him. Not because he's infallible or anything, but because it's for Terry. I trust that.

The rest of the tale is a certainty, even if Season 3 isn't for sure yet. (And listen, if we do our part, that's gonna happen. This show is insanely popular, we just have to prove it. That's all it takes.) Regardless, this is not the end. This is not the last we'll see of them.

Remember the bandstand scene? Heartbreaking. Imagine if that had been a cliffhanger, if we'd had to wait a long time to see them back together again. But in the end, it worked out. This is that, but bigger. The end of an act, the break before the rest of the story begins.

And in the end, they will be together. I'm absolutely sure of that.

We're going to get our happy ending. But this is the angst part. We've all read enough fanfic to know how this goes.

So I take your faces in my hands and say: They're going to be okay. There's no reason for despair. The story isn't finished yet, is all.

#I understand the sad reactions completely #if this WAS the end it'd be devastating #it's not though. it's a very normal second act for a trilogy #look at everything it gave us. feel the love in that. that's why we're safe #we've just got another wait to get through #we can do this #go s2 spoilers

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deathmetalunicorn1 · 6 months

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Henloo! ^^ I was thinking about Charybdis reader stopping the third round. It was said that Adam was told by Brunhilde to keep the reader from watching the fight between Kojiro and Poseidon. But what if she somehow manages to free herself from Adam's grasp and runs up to the arena with the sole purpose of stopping the battle because: 1) Reader doesn’t want to see Kojiro getting hurt anymore and 2) Perhaps catching a glimpse of Poseidon's genuine remorse makes her own heart soften, ever so slightly.

Charybdis, even knowing the risks of getting involved, stands between the two to prevent them from fighting any further, and forces Poseidon to abandon the fight so neither of them dies, begging him to just give up before it escalates any further.

You could always make a recap for context but I would personally like for the request to be about the aftermath of the round, with father and daughter interacting. Charybdis' relationship with Poseidon would definitely be strained and damaged beyond return, but after the reader gives him a harsh (but sincere) speech that feels like a punch in the gut for him, he's granted the chance to make things right; not as a father, but as a God (since she now has Papa Adam). And with no room for any mistakes, by the way!

-Despair and guilt were the only emotions that Poseidon could feel, as well as anger at himself.

-You, his little daughter, was lost. You had found a new family, a new papa and mama in Adam and Eve, calling them such.

-You now had a massive family, between your new parents, the human fighters, the valkyries, and Hercules.

-You no longer needed him. You no longer wanted him.

-He wallowed in his own anguish, all of which was his own causing, hiding away in a private room that he trashed within moments of entering, then sat for what felt like hours.

-Poseidon was in a fog, unable to comprehend any thoughts other than you, what he did to you, and what he didn’t.

-As a king, he kept all emotions locked deep within him, hidden away from the eyes of others, from the eyes of those who look up to him and respect him, even if it is respect out of fear.

-But seeing you, his child, terrified of him and calling another man, a human man of all things, your papa.

-Poseidon longed for a second chance, to go back in time to that point where he walked away from you and your mother, to take you with him instead of abandoning you.

-He longed to be able to go back and defend you against Zeus; Poseidon clutched his chest over his heart as he could only remember your face when you told him that you were just so hungry, and for it, you were severely punished.

-When the first tear landed on his hand, his hands lifted to his face, finding himself crying. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried.

-When it came time for him to fight, none mentioned his bloodshot eyes, the skin rubbed raw around them as he had to regain his image.

-He entered first, hearing the cheers of many gods, but many who were terrified of him, of his notorious temper and ruthlessness.

-The same ruthlessness that drove you into the arms of another papa.

-Kojiro took a while to come out, as you had wrapped your arms around his knees, making him unable to walk as you sobbed, begging him not to fight Poseidon, or as you called him, The Mean God.

-You were being held back by Brunnhilde, her heart breaking as you were reaching out to Kojiro, calling out for him, sobbing loudly.

-Brunnhilde took you back to Adam, telling him to not let you watch this fight.

-Kojiro made no mention of Poseidon’s eyes, he could tell the god had been crying, but he knew of your past, he knew what Poseidon did to you and what he didn’t do.

-Kojiro respected Poseidon enough to acknowledge that he felt regret for his actions, but he also knew that he was in a fight for his life.

-Poseidon was fearsome, his anger turning on Kojiro, all of his negative emotions coming out all at once.

-It made him powerful, but it also made him very sloppy, reckless, within minutes Poseidon had lost an arm already and had a deep gash in his side, but Kojiro was worse off.

-The samurai had a deep gash in his stomach, as well as a stab wound in his shoulder, and was bleeding heavily from a deep slash in his chest.

-You had managed to get away from Adam, and you had seen Kojiro being hurt, startling you so badly that you didn’t breathe for a few long moments before you ran, rushing down the stands while Adam and Brunnhilde were chasing after you, calling out your name.

-Both Kojiro and Poseidon heard Adam scream out your name and they both turned, seeing you leaping from the stands to land hard on the arena they were fighting on, rolling a few feet.

-You weren’t hurt, just a little disoriented, but you quickly stood as the crowd was alight with cries, seeing a child rushing out so recklessly.

-You leapt in front of Kojiro, despite Poseidon being stunned stiff and not moving, your arms spread, “Don’t hurt Kojiro anymore!”

-Kojiro was gasping softly in pain, “Charybdis!” and quickly the whole arena knew who you were. Poseidon looked conflicted, you could see the sadness in his eyes which surprised you, but you remained firm, you weren’t moving- he wasn’t going to hurt Kojiro anymore, “I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else!”

-Your declaration broke Poseidon’s heart, as it was a jab at him, for him abandoning you so long ago, and Kojiro was fully prepared to grab you and run, to protect you.

-Neither of you were prepared to see Poseidon lowering his weapon, his posture relaxing, “Charybdis- daughter, why are you protecting this human?” he couldn’t understand it.

-Your eyes were like fire, feeling so angry, despite the tears flowing from your eyes, “Kojiro and the other humans are nice to me- much nicer than you ever have been or any of you gods, like Zeus! You are all mean and treat humans like they aren’t worthy of protecting! I’m going to protect Kojiro, and if you want to hurt him you’ll have to hurt me again!”

-The cries of outrage were immediate, hearing your pain, as many knew of your past, and what had happened.

-Kojiro kneeled down, dropping his sword as you broke down into sobs and you turned, rushing into his arms and he hugged you softly, stroking your hair.

-Poseidon believed that should have been him comforting you, but you were right- he had done nothing but drive you away and there was no chance at getting you back…unless…

-“I forfeit the fight!” Poseidon’s declaration had everyone stunned stiff and silent, completely shocked and you turned, your eyes wide as Poseidon spoke down at you, “You are right daughter, we haven’t been very good gods. Perhaps it’s time we learn how.” And with that he turned, demanding a meeting of the gods.

-Nobody had ever seen Poseidon looking so serious and seeing this determination had the other gods scrambling to have an immediate meeting.

-You were taking backstage with Kojiro, crying the whole way as he had been hurt and he was patting your head, laughing lightly, “You’re gonna get puffy eyes if you keep crying!” Brunnhilde couldn’t help but smile as well, seeing your bravery, albeit foolish bravery, in stopping the fight and in turn, stopping the whole tournament.

-Poseidon was the one who came to inform you that the tournament was off and that the gods were going to do better, promising that to you. You were hesitant to believe him, and you were surprised that he didn’t try to come back into your life as a father, as he knew he lost that to another, to Adam.

-The others were just as surprised, seeing him respecting your space, reporting to you like you were his boss, showing you that he was being honest with his words and his actions.

-Poseidon’s heart ached, knowing he would never get a chance to have a father-daughter relationship with you ever again, but being with you, showing you that he was trying to be a better person, earning your smiles and praise, was enough for him.

#record of ragnarok #ror x reader #ror poseidon #ror kojiro sasaki #ror adam

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