#//you will be my guinea pig for him it is law i test muses on you- cough | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tangleweave · 3 years

Note

{ ⊿ } —- talk about your favourite character!

{ ⋁ } —- describe a muse you want to play, but haven’t yet.

{ ⋂ } —- describe a ship dynamic you really want.

{ ⊿ } —- Beta Ray Bill.

Oh, my good lord, how I could bore you with tales of this guy. He’s from another corner of the universe entirely, the planet Korbin in the aptly-named Burning Galaxy. His world suffered calamity thanks to the unfettered rampaging of Surtur and his horde of fire demons, and the Korbinites realized they had to flee their world or face extinction. As they prepared for extended cryo-sleep in deep space, they instituted a program designed to create the ultimate guardian of their race. Bill was selected as a guinea pig for that program and underwent cybernetic enhancement (half his body is mechanical) and extreme genetic modification (hence his horse-shaped face and Mr. Universe-level muscle mass). He was exposed to rigorous testing of the body, mind, and spirit, and was commissioned to be the sole conscious pilot of the battleship Skuttlebutt, tasked with traveling the cosmos to deliver the sleeping Korbinites to a new homeworld.

While on his travels, he encountered Mjölnir, which had been abandoned and was disguised as a cane. He thought nothing of it and lifted it, inadvertently becoming the first to prove Thor was not the only being worthy of its power. Upon discovering its true nature, Bill wanted to keep it as a weapon to defend against Surtur’s forces and others who would threaten his people. Odin arranged for Bill and Thor to fight for the rights to Mjölnir, but when Thor’s life was endangered, Bill threw the match in favor of saving him, which proved his worthiness to Odin beyond all doubt. Odin commissioned the forging of Stormbreaker, which he then gifted to Bill, along with a suit of Asgardian royal armor. Bill and Thor swore an oath of brotherhood to one another that day and have had each other’s backs for years since.

{ ⋁ } —- Daredevil.

Exploring Matt Murdock through narrative interaction would be super-interesting to me for many reasons, not the least of which being I would love to describe how he perceives the world around him. Most of my other muses avoid getting their asses kicked when they can, but Matt seems to be a masochist, and in some ways, so am I (maybe it’s just a Matt thing). Also, I love a good law drama on occasion and I imagine him being one of the few who would gladly defend superheroes in court. I also imagine fun interactions with She-Hulk.

However, this blog is committed to a dedicated maximum of seven muses, and at the moment, all of them have active threads.

{ ⋂ } —- Rare pairs that kick ass.

First and foremost, if it’s unusual and has chemistry, I’m into it (I’m looking at you, @akasupergirl and @hammerindustries). I like dynamics where business gets mixed with pleasure and chemistry turns to rivalry turns back to chemistry. I like matches that amplify each others’ skills, talents, and other output (as in the case of Strange and Sigyn, Peter and Gwen, Wanda and Vision). I like the Protector x Guarded dynamic. I also enjoy Big/Stoic x Small/Loud.

And I like the inherent awkwardness of child-rearing.

#answered asks #sigynthevictorious

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ktheist · 4 years

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prologue.| a feast for beasts

inspired by hana and the beast man.

muses. hybrid!jungkook x reader

synopsis. it’s no secret that your brother needs someone to ground him down. pull him back when his researches start to take on a dangerous route. but you didn’t think it’d come to this: finding a half-man and half-fox in the cell in his house.

in a world where man-made law refuses to acknowledge those who aren’t that: men, you seek to change the archaic rules.

note. i posted a different (distcontinued) fic under the same title. the story lines are different though.

“kim namjoon.” your voice is leveled. perhaps too leveled for someone who’s about to eat a man alive. and namjoon knows it too from the spark of sheer unadulterated fear in his eyes and the bob of his adam’s apple.

he shouldn’t have anything to fear if he wasn’t doing anything wrong but the fact that he’s one twirl away from bolting right out of his own house, is telling enough.

“when were you gonna tell me you started experimenting on humans?”

his shoulders jolt visibly at the word. perhaps he didn’t expect you to call the furred beast anything less than that: a beast. perhaps he didn’t expect you react the way you are right now.

but when the surprise settles in and he realizes the question is left hanging for too long, he clears his throat - it reminded you of how your father used to do the same thing when your mother caught him bringing home another exotic articles. your home is still littered with stoned raccoons, multiple sizes of smiling, golden cat statues and so much more.

but one thing’s for sure - the throat clearing is just an act. a show of power - if namjoon even have any in your presence. well, he has his age . he was born five years earlier than you, making him your older brother but it feels like you’re the one who has to take care of him and make sure he doesn’t blur the lines between morality and scientific findings.

“i didn’t know you were visiting.” his voice shakes at the end but you give him props for schooling a less-than-fazed expression.

“so? if i wasn’t, it’s okay for you to keep a person hostage in your home?!”

“he wasn’t a hostage! he had everything he needed in the cell.” he retorts - that’s what always gets him.

consent.

he’d never do anything his test subjects didn’t want him to do. but doesn’t mean what he does, sits well with you.

“exactly! it’s a cell.” you’re almost screaming now.

namjoon flinches. a look of hurt and troubled spreading across his face. you think he’s about to say one of his ridiculous arguments. but instead, he throws his eyes over some behind your shoulders, “jungkook! say something! i’m not holding you here against your will, right?”

jungkook’s light amber ear twitches atop his head, doe eyes going round and wide when he notices the pairs of eyes burning holes in his face. “oh? uh- i like it here. namjoon gives me ramen.”

you barely notice namjoon calling you as your feet pad towards the man. before you know it, you’re holding both his hands with every will and hope you have for him. “you have your whole life ahead of you - there’s healthier food than ramen. don’t waste it on being my brother’s guinea pig!”

namjoon grumbles out a protest from behind you but your focus are on the man’s startled wide eyes and his half-agape pink lips. the hands you’re holding tightens their hold on you just slightly, as though your words effect him. but his hands slip out of you and for a split second, it feels as though there’s an invisible line separating you and him.

he throws his gaze to something on his left, all of a sudden mumbling instead of speaking clearly, “i’m part fox.”

this time, it’s your turn to stare at him with eyes as wide as saucers. part fox? you don’t remember asking what his other half is. he’s part human and he shouldn’t be locked up in the glass cell in namjoon’s lair like a showcase. all of a sudden, a thought strikes you... could it be, he’s so far detached from the world that he doesn’t understand-

“the guinea pig is just an expression - it’s when someone uses another being as an experiment.” you explain, half-wondering if you’re really explaining what a guinea pig is.

“o-oh.” is all he says, as though he doesn’t see anything wrong with experimenting on other living creature.

does he even know he’s the one being experimented on?

before you can even say a word, namjoon tugs on your arm, pulling you somewhere down the hallway where his office is. “come here, we need to talk.”

“so you found him in the forest and took him back here?” you summarize namjoon’s long recount of how he met the man sitting on his couch in the living room.

“he was injured.” he adds, as though it’ll change anything.

“you could’ve bandaged him up and check up on him every other day - in the forest.” the tone you use drops threateningly at the last part. as though to emphasize, that’s the normal thing to do when you found a wounded animal-

you stop yourself from finishing the thought. the idea of you, yourself making an example of an animal as jungkook, makes your stomach churn painfully.

no - you’ll never be that kind of person. the person whose morale is too far skewed, you wouldn’t know what’s right or wrong anymore.

“it was a bullet wound, ___. he was being hunted, do you expect me to leave him there? you know how dangerous it is for hybrids now! they’re searching high and low for his kinds since the first sighting of hybrids a year ago.”

it takes one whole solid moment for you to register what namjoon is saying - for once, he sounds completely sane. as though his intentions were well and pure. you can’t rebut that even if you know there’s always that little gleam in his eyes that thirsts to study the unknown.

“then why the glass cell?” the muscles in your shoulder sag and you find yourself slumping into the chair.

“he has these dreams, ___.” he starts, eyes unfocused as though seeing the dreams himself, “they get so intense, i had to punch him to wake up once. and i can’t always be there for him but the cell is the only place where there’s cameras everywhere and the feed is connected to my phone so i can at least know if he’s sleeping or not. and i can try to wake him up through the intercoms if i’m away.”

you can’t help but ponder on his words. so namjoon had a reason this time - but jungkook isn’t the first person to occupy that cell. and the last few times, there was no other reason than to observation and experiments.

“still, he doesn’t really know he’s being observed, does he?” the glasses were double sided after all, “that’s where it becomes wrong, namjoon.”

“jungkook stays but he’s moving to one of the guest rooms.” you say when it looks like he’s not going to deny or affirm your question, you push yourself up and strut out of the office with a, “i’ll help clean the guest room he’ll be staying in.”

#bts #bts smut #jungkook smut #jungkook #bts jungkook #bts imagines #jungkook imagines #bts scenarios #bts fic #bts fanfiction #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook fic #bts x reader #bts x you #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you

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orbvii · 6 years

Text

A Curious Morning

Sasha awakes and goes on the hunt for her girlfriend, who seems to have disappeared somewhere.

yeah so I’m tired AF and haven’t started my homework yet so this is unedited. sorry it kinda sucks and the ending is bad lmao.

for anon!!

Word Count: 1946

Sasha and mornings did not mix very well, to be honest. The harsh glare of the sun annoyed her and the mattress below her seemed extraordinarily soft, especially right when she woke up after a night out. She and her band, the Shadow Knights, had a gig at ten the night before, and they had jammed for hours. Sasha sang vocals, so every morning she had a hoarse voice and it hurt to speak. The quiet girl usually didn’t mind as she preferred observing to socializing, but she still felt the pain when she did utter the few words she would speak.

As Sasha slowly came to the realization that she couldn’t lay in bed forever, she realized that something felt… off. She reached around her without opening her eyes, hoping to ignore the world for a few moments more while still figuring out the problem. Her hand collided with nothing as she found the empty space her girlfriend should have been in. Of course. While Sasha loved the night and the soft glow of the moon, her girlfriend preferred early mornings. Still, her girlfriend usually didn’t awake this early.

Actually, the white-haired girl had absolutely no idea how early it was. She never really had an internal clock, and never understood why people seemed to care about time. Time was just a construct built by people, after all, it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of the universe. Yet it’s flimsy, human-constructed laws still bound her, unfortunately.

With an angry sigh, she cracked open an eye and snatched her phone from its spot on her nightstand. Ew. The bright white numbers shining up at her from her too-bright phone read 11:39, so maybe she did oversleep just a bit. Sasha usually slept in, but never this late. Normally Lucinda would accidentally awake her in the mornings, but maybe she had let Sasha sleep in a bit longer than usual due to her late night last night.

Now that she acknowledged the time, she had no choice but to awaken. At least Lucinda had taken care to leave the curtains closed so she didn’t have to suffer under the sun. Sasha’s had so much hatred for the sun that Lucinda sometimes joked that she was a vampire. That wouldn’t bode over very well with her werewolf friends.

Sasha chuckled faintly at her own very unfunny joke before rubbing the sleep from her eyes. As much as she would rather stay under her warm comforter for the next three weeks, she told herself that she simply had to wake, mainly because she wanted to find Lucinda. She kicked off her blankets and yawned as she managed to pull herself out of bed.

Her foot touched the cold wood of the floor and she let out a hiss of annoyance. She had been telling Lucinda for weeks that they needed a new carpet after Sasha may or may not have accidentally spilled chili all over their old one. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now.

She yanked the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. As she did so, a loud yowl of anger came from where the comforter once rested. It seemed that their black cat Doctor Bartholomew, Ph.D. had been asleep next to Sasha and she hadn’t noticed him. And yes, the cat’s full name included the Ph.D. part. It was in psychology.

“Sorry cutie,” Sasha muttered in her hoarse voice to the annoyed cat, running her hand down his back as she began her walk to the door. That seemed to calm him, as the touch caused him to let out a purr and lay back down on the now comforter-less bed.

Sasha pulled open the door and listened for any noise from deeper in her apartment. Nothing. Lucinda wouldn’t have left without leaving a note, so Sasha ventured into the hallway before coming to any conclusions.

She cleared her throat in an attempt to cure her voice before calling out Lucinda’s name. “Luci? Ya home babe?” She waited a few moments. No response. Sasha let out a huff before putting her ear up to the door of Lucinda’s study and knocking lightly on the door. She heard no sound in reply.

Huh. how strange. Sasha pulled away from the door and entered into the main sitting area attached to the kitchen. No sign of her girlfriend anywhere, and no food on the counter either. Lucinda sometime’s liked to cook up strange food combinations for the pair to try, but not today it seemed.

Sasha paused as she mused over her girlfriend’s possible location. Did she have any prior engagements, maybe going out to hang with friends? Out shopping, perhaps? No, in both cases Lucinda would have written a note so Sasha wouldn’t worry.

Then it struck her. She knew exactly where Lucinda would be.

She pulled her shoulder cape/blanket tighter around her shoulders as she exited the door of their apartment, descending down the steps and trying not to trip. After walking down the single flight of stairs, she emerged in the back room of her and Lucinda’s potion shop. Well, Lucinda made and sold the potions while Sasha just provided semi-accurate palm readings. To be honest, Lucinda could read auras so she probably should have done the reads since she was an actual witch but Sasha wanted to help so she did them anyway.

Sasha, instead of entering the main shop, she entered into another side room with its door slightly ajar. The room contained hundreds of plants hanging on the ceiling and scattered on all available surfaces. Everywhere that didn’t have a plant instead held different flasks of liquids of all colors or jars of strange materials like bat ear and pickled cow tongue.

Her witch girlfriend sat hunched over a bubbling cauldron filled with some sort of deep purple liquid. Her spellbook hung floated in front of her to the side and her beautiful orange hair rested atop her head in a very sloppy bun. From what Sasha could tell, Lucinda had been up all night working on the potion in front of her. Poor girl.

It seemed as though Lucinda hadn’t heard Sasha enter the room as her focus remained on the cauldron. Sasha crept forward towards her girlfriend until she posed directly behind her. With a playful smile, she threw her arms around Lucinda, pulling her into a backward hug but also making sure not to jostle the potion,

Lucinda let out a startled shout before looking down and noticing the familiar chipped nail polish and bracelets that lined her girlfriend’s wrists. “Babe! You scared me!” She said with a laugh as she leaned her head back onto Sasha’s shoulder, grateful for the wonderous distraction that was her perfect girlfriend.

Sasha tilted her head until it rested against Lucinda’s. “You weren’t with me this morning. Did you even sleep at all last night?” She asked, her voice still hoarse and uncomfortable. At Lucinda’s long silence, Sasha withdrew her arms from around her girlfriend and spun Lucinda’s chair to face her.

Yep, there were dark circles under Lucinda’s eyes and her usually razor sharp makeup held so many smudges Sasha could barely even count them. She raised her eyebrows in an accusatory way as Lucinda let out a sigh. Sasha opened her mouth to respond before catching herself, remembering her painful voice. She instead gestured to the injured area before glaring down at Lucinda, trying to convey her message of being angry at her for not sleeping.

At Sasha’s pantomiming, a sly smile curled onto Lucinda’s lips as a playful edge crept into her tone. “Oh? Has my darling lost her voice?” At Sasha’s frustrated nodding, she laughed playfully, her smile shifting from playful to flirty. She gripped her girlfriend’s hips and pulled her towards where Lucinda sat on her chair. She stared up at her girlfriend with her sweet bedroom eyes. “You know I love your raspy, sexy voice…”

Sasha felt a small blush rise to her cheeks, but after months of dating her girlfriend, she finally had grown accustomed to Lucinda’s constant flirting. She smiled back at her with an equal amount of flirtation. “Is that right…” She replied before stooping low over her girlfriend. Lucinda turned her head upwards and the two kissed a deep, passionate kiss. As passionate as the kiss was, it ended far too quick for Sasha’s liking.

“Well, as much as I would love to keep being all sexy like you like, my throat really hurts and I could use some tea with a lot of honey…” Sasha said, wincing painfully as she spoke.

Lucinda noticed the pain in her girlfriend’s voice and a look of concern crossed her face. “I wouldn’t want you to be in pain at my expense, darling so I prepared something for you.” She pulled away from Sasha and turned back to the bubbling cauldron in front of her. “That’s why I didn't sleep last night. I was preparing this.”

The redhead snatched an empty vial next to her and began to pour some of the deep purple liquid into it. She filled it until it reached one of the hatch marks on the side and thrust the vial to Sasha. “It’s a new concoction I’ve been working on. I haven’t really tried it yet, but it should work, darling. I hope.”

Sasha gingerly picked up the vial from her girlfriend's hand and studied it cautiously. She glanced back down at Lucinda, noticing her curious yet excited gaze. “I’m going to be your first test subject?” Lucinda nodded enthusiastically, smiling all the while. Her own smile appeared on Sasha’s face. “Well, this won’t be the first time I’m your guinea pig.” She shrugged and quickly gulped down the liquid.

Instantly, she felt the soothing liquid pour over her injured vocal cords and relief filled her body. She felt better almost immediately and a happy look crossed her face.

Lucinda snatched a notebook and a pen from its spot on the table next to her, looking back to Sasha expectantly. “So? How do you feel? Does it work?”

“I think-” Sasha cut herself off as her voice came out high pitched and squeaky. Lucinda began to laugh at Sasha as she began to clear her voice quite a few times. “It works, but it appears that there are some side effects.” Sasha joined in with Lucinda’s laughter as the redhead wrote down a couple notes, shaking her head at Sasha playfully.

“I’ll have to add that to the warning label. The effects should wear off in an hour or so. I think.” The pair giggled again before Lucinda placed a lid on the cauldron and stood, placing another kiss on her girlfriend’s lips. “Let’s get back upstairs. My body is starting to crash and I could honestly use some of that tea you mentioned earlier.”

Sasha looped her arm through Lucinda’s, and the redhead snatched the blanket off of Sasha’s shoulders, wrapping it around her’s instead with a sneaky smile. Sasha shot a fake-angry glare at her as Lucinda looked the other girl up and down. “Is that my shirt? Are you using the shirt you gave me as a pajama shirt?”

The white-haired girl let out a snort of laughter in response and kissed Lucinda’s cheek playfully. They excited the workroom and began the walk back up the stairs as Lucinda shook her head in mock surprise. “I’m pretty sure that’s against the law in like thirty countries.”

The pair laughed there way back into their apartment, both giddy and cheerful. Their relationship was built on laughter; both of them loved it.

#aphmau #aphmau fandom #aphmau fics #aphmau ships #aphmau writing #aphmau lucinda #aphmau sasha #lucinda x sasha #lucinda and sasha #lucinda and sasha aphmau #sashinda #sasinda #luasha #lusha #idk their ship name #lmaooo

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bleedbeachy · 7 years

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Zelink FF: “Fit For a Princess”

I was feelin’ Zelink tonight so I typed up a quick PG fic about Link preparing his Hateno house for Zelda’s arrival. Enjoy the fluff! ****************************************************************** "Linky was supposed to be here quite some time ago", Purah mused, finally noticing that her guinea pig had been missing for a number of days. She had new tests to run on both him and his Sheikah slate, including more rune tinkering and a modification to the slate's teleportation carrying capacity. Soon, two people or one horse and a rider would easily be able to teleport around Hyrule. Purah hoped that eventually she could design a modification that would enable the slate's carrier to teleport OTHER things here and there, such as guardian remains or perhaps precious stones. The lab was always in need of funding anyway, and charging Link for her services now that Ganon was defeated seemed reasonable enough. Goddess knew he had plenty of money to invest, anyway. Purah decided to propose the idea to him the next time he came around, whenever that would be. She grunted with annoyance, stamping one of her small, freshly shined shoes.

Like any other child, she loathed to wait. "Where would he have run of to?" Purah huffed impatiently. In her head, she imagined Link intentionally wasting time- scaling the sky-tall mushrooms of northwest Hyrule, using the stasis rune to send giant boulders clear to the heavens, chasing after viscous tundra bears as though they were speckled pink ponies...

"I'm sure whatever he's doing is of utmost importance", replied Symin. He plucked a long, white hair off of the tall bookshelf in front of him. "It's extremely out of character for Link to not show, and especially to do so without any word."

Purah sighed and plopped down heavily on her wooden stool, painted to resemble a thunderwing butterfly. "I suppose you're right. Maybe I should go find him, make sure he's alright. But, ohhhhhh!" She grabbed the corners of her stool and leaned back dramatically. "I can't leave, looking this way! Symin, would you go fetch him for me?"

"Ill see what I can do", Symin replied woefully, not looking forward to yet another trip away from the Lab. The direct sun always shone too brightly on his fair skin, and he had allergic reactions to most things he touched. Nonetheless, there was a task at hand which only he could accomplish.

After lacing his shoes up and applying a generous layer of sun salve to all visible parts of his body, he trudged towards the door, fidgeting with the handle for a moment. "I'll check the village first, for the general direction he headed", he muttered in Purah's direction. "And I'll send notice if he's left for... goddess, who knows where?"

Stepping through the threshold and out into the yellow-green grass of Hateno, Symin shut the Lab's rickety door behind him. He walked slowly down the hill, taking note of the deep, spotless blue stretched above him. Though it was already late as midday, he knew better than to trust the sky to remain clear. Hateno was notorious for two things: fresh milk, and flip-of-a-switch weather patterns.

Upon reaching the base of the town, Symin stretched his neck around a bend in an attempt to find a friendly face with whom to speak. There was a stable hand- and given her general composure, she seemed a bit rude, but not unapproachable. Nobody else seemed particularly interested in what she was doing, which was by the look of things, not very much. She leaned against a small stable in front of the Inn with her arms crossed, chewing a blade of grass. Symin slicked back his hair and approached her with a kind confidence.

"Good evening, ma'am. A word?" He asked gently, as though one wrong move would cause her to blow.

"Sure, I got a word for ya. I'm a sir", the stablehand corrected.

Symin stuttered in surprise. After running through a number of apologies, he finally stumbled into his original question.

"Have you seen Link around?" Symin pulled at a stray strand of hair ticking the corner of his mouth. "Sort of short, blonde mop, stoic expression?"

"Oh, Link! Sure. He's been locked in his house last two, three days." The stablehand huffed a little. "When you see him, can you ask him to, uh... help me catch a couple more of those restless crickets? Damn things are too fast for me." He smiled sheepishly, the added, “I’m needing a lot of’em.”

A strange expression flickered across Symin's face before he regained his composure. "Crickets. Got it. Thanks."

Symin wondered what Link may be doing in his house, especially for TWO DAYS. The boy couldn't even sit still long enough to sleep at night, let alone spend two days locked in his ramshackle home. No, Symin concluded, something had to be going on. He walked past the strange cubic model houses on the hill to a frighteningly rickety bridge. Goddess, how long had THAT been weathering there? He crossed it carefully, hoping the warped wood wouldn't break under his weight. The bridge was suspended 50 feet above a pond, and Symin was as capable of swimming as a stone.

He reached the end of the bridge with a sigh of relief, facing Link's cottage. He had made several home improvements, that much was obvious. Last Symin had seen of the place, it had been falling apart. He noticed saplings planted around the yard, along with white flowers cropping out from the grass. The place had a door now, and the roof had been patched. It seemed less run down, and more quaint.

Symin's eye was caught by a small, blue bloom cropping up near the old stable. He walked towards it curiously and bent down to meet the little bud.

"Silent Princess?" He whispered in amazement. "They aren't native to this area." In fact, they were native to very FEW areas at all. The flowers had grown in number the last hundred years, but were still not incredibly common. They grew mostly in the fields of Hyrule, or around Great Fairy fountains. They were both places almost no one had access to. Except for maybe, a certain Hero...

"I wonder, could Link have dropped seeds here?"

That was when he saw several plooms of dust come out of Link's window, followed by deep coughing from inside the house.

Symin rushed towards the door, politely knocking once before shoving his way in without invitation.

He found Link clinging to a rafter, reaching above himself to dust the CEILING.

"Sir Link", Symin started. Link jumped, caught off guard for once, to Symin's surprise. "If I may ask, what in Hylia's name are you doing?"

Link looked down at him, rubbing his neck embarrassedly. "Cleaning, actually." His clothes were completely filthy. Where they appeared to be dampened with something, dust, dirt, and other strange brownish substances clung to him. His hands were none the better, and his hair was pulled back into a messy, sweat-streaked ponytail.

Symin sighed, meeting Purah's impatience. Of all the things he could have found Link doing, cleaning was considered quite low on the priority list. "While I agree with a tidy keep, you've left Miss Purah waiting for you to make an appearance at the lab for quite some time, and her patience wears thin very quickly these days."

"Sorry", Link muttered half-heartedly. "I've been distracted. I'm trying to prepare everything for the Princess' arrival." He blushed deeply.

Symin grinned excitedly in response. "Oh! Our Princess Zelda is coming for a visit? How long will she be staying? I'm sure she would love to meet with Purah and discuss improvements on the Sheikah technology!"

"Well, she's been spending time getting reacquainted with the country." Link paused for a long while, calculating his next words. "She doesn't want to return to the castle just yet, as it is in repair, and she has little interest in living anywhere but Hateno..."

"Ah." Symin nodded in understanding. He had anticipated that Link and Zelda would fall back into their roles of princess and knight eventually. It was their original dynamic, after all. Perhaps returning to it would provide them both with some sense of familiarity in this new, strange world. "Her highness would be living here with you”, he said conclusively.

"Yeah", Link confessed. He flustered in the way that only came about from mention of the princess, or shamelessly forward Great Fairies. "One hundred years ago, it would have been considered completely improper- never would have happened. To be honest, I'm surprised she suggested it at all. She can be quite traditional." He leapt down from the rafter in one graceful movement.

"Sir Link, do forgive me, but I fear you have an error in memory. You lived beside the princess in the castle, before Calamity Ganon, and it was approved by the royal court", Symin corrected. His voice softened to a more friendly tone. "It wasn't so taboo- she was safe near you. Your services are less necessary now than they were back then, since our biggest threat has been snuffed out. But even so, I'm sure the Princess is very capable of handling herself."

Link laughed, really laughed- the sound was full bellied and rich as monster cake. "She can hold her own wherever she goes- there is no question about that." He rubbed his neck shyly. "But she isn't moving here to be protected."

"Then why would she be..." Symin started, before noticing Link's deep, red blush.

Oh, Symin, you damnable fool! He chastised himself silently. “Oh, goddess… I beg your forgiveness, Sir Link.” He hung his head in embarrassment. “I was unaware of the status of your relationship with the Princess. Pardon my assumption.”

“Don’t worry about it”, Link brushed off. “I hardly believe the reality of it myself. Which is probably part of the reason I’m doing all of this, in preparation.” He motioned around his little cottage. “Helps me get a better grip on things.”

Symin smiled, relieved to find Link hadn’t taken offense to his obliviousness. “The world has changed, my friend. People see each other as equals, and the old laws that established one’s rank and class have been long forgotten.”

“It isn’t only her title, or her lineage. I couldn’t have allowed myself to hope for something like this… before.” Link mindlessly readjusted his ponytail as he spoke. “Not with her.” He pulled the leather chord around his hair, then rested his hands on his hips in a defiant sort of way. “But, enough with the squishy talk. Purah needs me for something?”

Symin nodded ruefully. “Yes, and immediately. If I return to her empty handed, she’ll have my head as kindle for the blue flame outside the lab. And I’m only partially kidding.”

“Purah is a force to be reckoned with, no doubt about it. I promise to come back with you. But listen, before we leave…” Link’s face grew gravely serious. “…I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Of course.” Symin braced himself, wondering what sort of treacherous task Link would propose. His stomach knotted as he ran through a million different scenarios, each ending in disaster. How would he even manage to keep up? Link had traversed through the electric jungles of Faron, the frozen wastelands of Hebra, the scorching sands of the Gerudo desert. What services could he possibly offer to the young hero? Was returning to Purah without Link somehow safer than agreeing to whatever may be asked of him? And if so, how could he possibly say no? Symin pushed his fears to the side, realizing that even if it were to be a death sentence, he owed his loyalty to the hero of Hyrule. This was something he would simply have to overcome- despite the statistical probability of his death. He closed his eyes, before quietly asking, “What is this favor, young Hero?”

Link breathed in and back out slowly. “Would you help me bake these fruit cakes?”

#zelink #legend of zelda #breath of the wild #zelda #link #fanfic #sfw #i love these two #but i love everybody with Link sooooo whatever #fluff #so much fluff #hateno #the hateno house #can that just be a hashtag in the fandom because I want all of my Link ships to live with him there #like its just too damn cute #also #purah #symin

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96thdayofrage · 5 years

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Olson and others were given LSD, he said, as part of an experiment to see “what would happen if a scientist were taken prisoner and drugged – would he divulge secret research and information?” Then he began musing about Olson. “Your father and I were very much alike,” he told Eric. “We both got into this because of patriotic feeling. But we both went a little too far, and we did things that we probably should not have done.”

That was as close to confession as Gottlieb ever came. He would not say what aspects of MK-Ultra went “a little too far”, or what he and Olson did that they “probably should not have done”. Nor would he entertain questions about inconsistencies in the story of Olson’s death. When Eric pressed him, he reacted sharply.

As the family were rising to leave, Gottlieb pulled Eric aside. “You are obviously very troubled by your father’s suicide,” he said. “Have you ever considered getting into a therapy group for people whose parents have committed suicide?” Eric did not follow that suggestion, but it left a deep impression on him. For years, he had been confused and depressed by the story of his father’s death. Only after meeting Gottlieb, however, did he resolve to bring his search for truth to the centre of his life.

“I didn’t have the confidence then in my scepticism to ignore his ploys, but when he made that therapy group suggestion – that was the moment when he overplayed his hand,” he said. “At that moment, I understood how much Gottlieb had a stake in defusing me. And it was also at that moment that the determination to show that he had played a role in murdering my father was born.”

Eric Olson waited another decade – until after his mother died – before taking his next step: arranging to exhume his father’s body. Several reporters stood near him as a backhoe clawed through the earth at Linden Hills cemetery in Frederick, Maryland, on 2 June 1994.

A forensic pathologist, James Starrs of George Washington University Law School, spent a month studying Olson’s body. When he was finished, he called a news conference. His tests for toxins in the body, he reported, had turned up nothing. The wound pattern, however, was curious. Starrs had found no glass shards on the victim’s head or neck, as might be expected if he had dived through a window. Most intriguingly, although Olson had reportedly landed on his back, the skull above his left eye was disfigured.

“I would venture to say that this hematoma is singular evidence of the possibility that Dr Olson was struck a stunning blow to the head by some person or instrument prior to his exiting through the window of room 1018A,” Starrs concluded. Later he was more emphatic: “I think Frank Olson was intentionally, deliberately, with malice aforethought, thrown out of that window.”

Besides conducting the autopsy, Starrs interviewed people connected to the case. One was Gottlieb. The two men met on a Sunday morning at Gottlieb’s home in Virginia. Starrs later wrote that it was “the most perplexing of all the interviews I conducted”.

Starr wrote: “I was emboldened to ask how he could so recklessly and cavalierly have jeopardised the lives of so many of his own men by the Deep Creek Lodge experiment with LSD. ‘Professor,’ he said without mincing a word, ‘you just do not understand. I had the security of this country in my hands.’ He did not say more, nor need he have done so. Nor did I, dumbfounded, offer a rejoinder. The means-end message was pellucidly clear. Risking the lives of the unwitting victims of the Deep Creek experiment was simply the necessary means to a greater good, the protection of the national security.”

Because Olson’s survivors had signed away their right to legal relief when they accepted their $750,000 compensation payment in 1975, they could not sue the CIA. Although Starr’s report and other discoveries sharpened Eric’s already powerful suspicion that foul play lay behind his father’s death, he could not prove it. Recognising that painful fact, he and his brother decided that it was finally time to reinter their father’s body. On 8 August 2002, the day before the reburial, he called reporters to his home and announced that he had reached a new conclusion about what had happened to his father.

“The death of Frank Olson on 28 November 1953 was a murder, not a suicide,” he declared. “This is not an LSD drug-experiment story, as it was represented in 1975. This is a biological warfare story. Frank Olson did not die because he was an experimental guinea pig who experienced a ‘bad trip’. He died because of concern that he would divulge information concerning a highly classified CIA interrogation program in the early 1950s, and concerning the use of biological weapons by the United States in the Korean War.”

In 2017, Stephen Saracco, a retired New York assistant district attorney who had investigated the Olson case and remained interested in it, made his first visit to the hotel room where Olson spent his final night. Looking around the room, Saracco said, raised the question of how Olson could have done it.

“If this would have been a suicide, it would have been very difficult to accomplish,” Saracco concluded. “There was motive to kill him. He knew the deepest, darkest secrets of the cold war. Would the American government kill an American citizen who was a scientist, who was working for the CIA and the army, if they thought he was a security risk? There are people who say: ‘Definitely.’”

This is an edited extract from Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, published by Henry Holt & Co on 10 September and available at guardianbookshop.co.uk

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