#–and don't know where to go with yourself or how to filter all the many reactions you have 😅 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yamameta-inc · 3 months

Text

The Swiss Cheese Model of Covid Prevention

An edited version of the swiss cheese model tailored towards the measures that you as an individual can take to minimize your risk of infection. Public health is ultimately what its name implies, public, but that doesn't mean you're powerless.

Covid prevention is not all-or-nothing. Think of it as risk reduction, rather than a binary.

Let's go through these step by step.

VACCINES

The current vaccines are meant primarily to reduce chances of severe illness, hospitalization, and death. They will reduce your chance of infection a bit--but not nearly as much as you might think. You should still get your boosters regularly, because avoiding severe illness is of course worth doing.

If you haven't gotten the updated monovalent vaccine yet, go get it. It is not a booster. Think of it as a new vaccine. It's targeted towards the XBB lineages, which are now the most common variants. Your last boosters were likely of the bivalent type, aimed at both the original Covid strain from 2020 and Omicron. The new vaccine is monovalent, meaning it targets one family in particular.

Some studies suggest that the Novavax vaccine, which is a more traditional protein-based vaccine, is more effective and safer than mRNA vaccines, and offers better protection against future variants. Of course, the data we have so far isn't 100% conclusive (the last paper I linked is a preprint). Make of these findings what you will, just something to keep in mind. The new Novavax vaccine's availability is still limited, especially outside of the US.

MASKS

Masking is one of the most effective ways to protect yourself. While it is true that masking and reducing Covid transmission protects those around you, the idea that masks can't protect the wearer is outdated information from the early days of the pandemic when medical authorities refused to acknowledge that Covid is airborne.

The key to protecting yourself is to wear a well-fitting respirator. You want to minimize any gaps where air might leak out. If your glasses get fogged up, that's a sign that air is leaking.

Headbands will always have a tighter fit than earloop masks (and therefore provide better protection). However, you can use earloop extenders to improve the fit of earloop masks. You can find these online. Your comfort in wearing a mask is important, but there are options for compromise.

The above graphic doesn't include elastomeric respirators. While some (like the Flo Mask) are expensive, they can be much more affordable than buying disposables--look for P100 respirators at your local hardware store, but make sure it fits your face well.

For more general information, see this FAQ. For mask recommendations (NA-centric, sorry!), see my list here or Mask Nerd's YouTube channel.

For situations where you need to hydrate but don't want to take your mask off, consider the SIP valve.

Not even N95s are foolproof (N95 means it filters at least 95% of particles--with the other 5% potentially reaching you). Most people will likely not have a perfect fit. There will be situations where you'll have to take your mask off. The key is risk reduction, and that's why the Swiss cheese model is crucial.

If you can't afford high-quality masks, look for a local mask bloc or other organization that gives out free masks. Project N95 has unfortunately shut down. In Canada, there's donatemask.ca.

AVOID CROWDED INDOOR SPACES

This is rather self-explanatory. Indoor transmission is much, much, much more likely than outdoor transmission. If it's possible to move an activity outdoors instead, consider doing so.

If possible, try going to places like stores or the post office during less busy hours.

Viral particles can stay in the air for a considerable amount of time even after the person who expelled them has left. Do not take off your mask just because no one is currently present, if you know that it was previously crowded.

A CO2 monitor is a decent proxy for how many viral particles may have accumulated in the air around you. The gold standard is the Aranet4, but it's expensive, so here are some more affordable alternatives.

VENTILATION AND AIR FILTERS

Ventilation is effective for the same reason that outdoors is safer than indoors. If it's warm enough, keep windows open whenever possible. If it's cold, even cracking them open occasionally is better than nothing. Try to open windows or doors on different sides of a room to maximize airflow.

HEPA air filters can significantly reduce viral transmission indoors. Make sure to find one suitable for the room size, and replace the filters regularly. You want to look for devices with HEPA-13 filters.

You can use websites like these to calculate how long it takes for a device to change all the air in a room. Remember what I said about viral particles being able to hang around even after people have left? If an air purifier provides 2 air changes per hour, that means that after 30 minutes, any potential viral particles should be gone.

If you can't afford a commercial air filter, here's a useful DIY filter you can make with relatively simple materials. The filtration capacity is great--but due to being built with duct tape, replacing filters will be a challenge.

If you have to hold meetings or meet with people at work, having a smaller filter on the desk between you will also reduce chances of infection.

As a bonus, HEPA filters will also filter out other things like dust and allergens!

REDUCE LENGTH OF EXPOSURE IF EXPOSURE IS UNAVOIDABLE

Viral load refers to the amount of virus in a person's blood. If you've been exposed to someone with Covid, how much you've been exposed matters.

You might escape infection if the viral load you've been exposed to is very small. Or, even if you get infected, there will be less virus in you overall, leading to milder illness--and crucially, a lower chance of the virus penetrating deep into your body, creating reservoirs in your organs and wreaking long-term havoc.

A low viral load is also less contagious.

This is the same reason that wearing your mask most of the time, but having to take it off for eating, is still much better than not wearing your mask at all.

RECHARGEABLE PORTABLE AIR FILTERS

You might attract some odd looks. But if you're at high risk or just want to be as protected as possible, small portable air filters can help. Try to find models small enough to take with you on public transportation, to school, or while traveling.

These devices will be far too small to clean the air in the whole room. The goal is to have it filter air in your immediate vicinity. Be sure to angle the device so that the air is blowing in your face.

Unfortunately, rechargeable devices are much rarer and harder to find than normal air filters, and many are also expensive.

The best option at the moment, apart from DIY (which is possible, but you need to know what you're doing), seems to be the SmartAir QT3. The size and shape are a bit clunky, but it fits in a backpack. Its battery life isn't long, but it can be supplemented with a power bank.

NASAL SPRAYS

There's some research that suggests that some nasal sprays may be effective in reducing risk of infection by interfering with viruses' ability to bind to your cells.

These sprays are generally affordable, easy to find, and safe. The key ingredient is carrageenan, which is extracted from seaweed. So there are no potential risks or side effects.

Be sure to follow the instructions on the packaging carefully. Here's a video on how to properly use nasal sprays if you've never used them before.

Covixyl is another type of nasal spray that uses a different key ingredient, ethyl lauroyl arginate HCI. It also aims to disrupt viruses' ability to bind to cell walls. Unfortunately, I think it's difficult to obtain outside of the US.

CONCLUSION

None of the methods listed here are foolproof on their own. But by layering them, you can drastically reduce your chances of infection.

The most important layers, by far, are masking and air quality. But you should also stay conscientious when engaging with those layers. Don't let yourself become complacent with rules of thumb, and allow yourself to assess risk and make thought out decisions when situations arise where you might have to take off your mask or enter a high-risk indoor area, such as a hospital.

Remember that the goal is risk reduction. It's impossible to live risk-free, because we live among countless other people. But you can use knowledge and tools to keep yourself as safe as possible.

#covid #this took a while... i feel like i forgot stuff #but i can't think of what atm

1K notes · View notes

hiraya-rawr · 1 year

Text

maybe we can be more than this (servant/master)

characters !! diluc, ayato

contains !! just dialogues of gn reader. angst/comfort?? i think

synopsis !! thinking about servant and master where it's so obvious you're both in love but you can't bring yourself to cross the line and it hurts him sm—

+ + +

D I L U C

He's frustrated, pacing around as you desperately try to explain.

"Master Diluc, you must understand why–"

"Just Diluc."

"But Master Diluc–"

"How many times must I tell you, (Name)?" He turns towards you, a scowl on his lips as his voice rises. He breathes heavily before his shoulders lower, relaxing, and his face changes to that of hurt.

A quiet heartache.

"How many times must I hear you call me that? We've been friends for so long. I've loved you for so long. Can't I be more than just that to you. . .?" He looks down on the ground, unable to meet your gaze.

You feel your lips part, heart aching. How could you dare?

". . . Diluc," You whisper and his eyes snap towards you, hopeful, as your hand makes its way to cup his cheek, "You are already more than just that to me."

"Then allow me to be with you." He begs quietly.

"You know why I can't." You sob, feeling his own warm hands cupping your cheeks.

"Please, (Name)."

"Don't."

"Please,"

". . . I have to go help Adelinde turn off the gas lamps. Please get some rest, Master Diluc."

+ + +

A Y A T O

"Look at this, (Name)," He states harshly, stomping into his office as you trail behind, helplessly explaining, "Look."

Ayato roughly gestures to the pile of papers on his desk. Each in beautiful stationery, stamped cleanly.

"Marriage proposals. Each and everyone of them, I've rejected. I did this for us." He turns to you, a look of hurt in his eyes.

"Lord Kamisato, you know why–"

"You didn't use to call me that. I was Ayato. I was-"

"-That was when the Kamisato household was falling apart! It's different now and you know that-!" You cut in.

"It is different! Now the Kamisato household has the power and influence. If you marry me, I will take down every obstacle in our way."

Silence. He stares at you from across the dark office, only moonlight filtering in to highlight his baby blue hair. You know he's desperate, having danced around the topic for ages, but how could you be the clan's weakness? You can see how everyone would talk— how history would talk about it.

'Such a fine bachelor yet he chose a mere servant. Is there something wrong with the clan?'

'He was seduced. Held down by a childhood friend. You can't even trust a servant.'

'The clan had only recently gained its influence, yet it's falling apart again, all because of some—'

"Ayato," You try to hold back tears. You know it's unfair to him if you use this card. "If you love me, then please— don't make me do this to the clan. Don't make me do this to you."

He looks defeated. Shoulders slumped, tired, as he brings up a hand to rest on his forehead. Looking away from you, he sighs, "Had I known it would be like this, I never would have taken you in as my servant."

character m.list || ko-fi

note !! nothing hits differently than men with everything except the love of their life *shrugs* anyway my links have been weird lately idk why so hopefully this story posts without issues

#genshin #favoniuslibrary #diluc x reader #ayato x reader #diluc #ayato #genshin impact #diluc ragnvindr #kamisato ayato #genshin x reader #genshin angst #genshin fic #diluc angst #ayato angst #genshin fanfic

4K notes · View notes

evilminji · 6 months

Text

Gold can be exchanged for goods and services (o.o )

Pariah's Keep probably has a shit ton of Precious Goods from various places.

Danny is become King?

If Danny becomes King... then the Zone will somewhat obey him. The Crown and Ring could EASILY tell him where the next natural portal is, where it opens up, and for how long. How many there are. Could probably make a few.

Probably WAS supposed to be making them. Consciously. But, well, Coma(tm).

Would probably count as Kingly Duty to filter and collect. Clean Ecto goes out for souls that remain, a Gateway home for those that wish to LEAVE, so forth and so on.

Effectively, being The Grim Reaper. You don't CAUSE Death. You just guide the way home. If folks so choose.

And that's neat! Horrifying, but neat! And Danny can TOTALLY see how it would eventually drive him completely breakfast cereal fruity nuggets! LUCKILY, he's got a vaguely bro's/Mentor thing going with the ghost who has ALL OF POSSIBLE TIME flowing through HIS head! So Danny should be Gucci!

The headaches suck though.

But WHAT... to do with all this Gold and valuable Space Goods? Most of these aren't even recognized currency on earth! Like the Shells. You could buy a mansion with one of those... on the right planet. On Earth? Pretty paperweight. Hmmmm >.>

Wait.

WAIT!

<o> *points to top of head!* CROWN! It can? Predict and make PORTALS!

Portals lead any WHERE and any WHEN!

Gold... can be exchanged for goods and services. He remembers, holding a gold brick, about to eat so, SO much pizza.

But WAIT! I hear you wondering! Surely, you mean? Within his past? The history and region of space he knows, right? Ha ha :) Nope! Cowards.

Danny is on the alien otter's planet, trading those sweet, sweet Shells for some snacks no human could eat and a shawl for his sister! He's hiding, badly, behind a food stall in the Martian market place. Hoping future hero J'onn Johnes doesn't notice him.

Lying to the Space Cops, bout where his untraceable Space Money came from, on an alien trading satellite. The Green Lantern's not buying it. Oh noooo >.> sudden Fright Knight. Looming Menacingly by the loading doooocks. Everyone's upset! Definitely not related to him! Better go check on that! :) *gets the heck out of dodge* (my king. Please stop using me as a distraction.) (No promises)

But! It's all fun and games? Until your human friends get sick. Like... REALLY sick.

And then you suddenly remember time and space mean nothing to you. One 15 minute flight that way, two doors, a quick flight of stairs, and a literal child's play place slide? You could be in the 32nd century.

That disease is AT BEST, an unpleasant afternoon, there.

Here, your friend could die.

You trade a student two Spanish dubloons. They have no idea what they are. Just like the look of them and know they're real metal. They walk into the pharmacy for you. Don't question your "social experiment paper" lie.

You're back in less then an hour.

The screaming argument about ethics and mortality lasts hours.

She still takes the medicine. Gets better. Won't talk to you for months. Because why does HER life matter more? Why bend the rules for HER? And you can't bring yourself to say what pulses as Truth from both Crown and Ring.

You could because she didn't Matter. Time... would not notice, nor change. She was in no way pivotal to the flow of history, must one more ant beneath its unrelenting march. Mattering only because those who love her CARE. Because one or two little things might change for the better.

But it takes the shine off of it, a little.

Being able to go to the FUTURE. Watch movies and see aliens and humans alike in the crowd. Read books and dance to songs from people who won't be born for hundreds of years. Eat snacks from the farthest reaches of the cosmos. Or the early BCs!

And that's BEFORE other time travelers clock him as That Shopping Guy. The one who keeps popping up... buying things. For what? Unknown. Probably dinner. Half the time it's food. Trinkets. Once it was a really, REALLY nice goat. (His aunt was THRILLED.)

It probably drives Bart crazy. Because NO ONE knows anything about the guy? Everyone just universally goes "oooh yeah! HIM! Yeah, he sure does Exsist(tm). Very... present and exsistant." Like that's not CRAZY! He has so many question. So Many! What is he even BUYING!? Why? Is there an order? Or is he winging it?!

*pulls out list* he needs ANSWERS!

@hypewinter @hdgnj @ailithnight

#dpxdc #dc x dp #dc x dp prompt #danny phantom #thinking with Portals AU

1K notes · View notes

iamasaddie · 6 months

Text

quit it

paring: Joel Miller x f!Reader rating: explicit (18+ minors DNI) word count: 1,3k~ warnings: ER; explicit sexual content; mentions of smoking; oral [m receiving]; light dirty talk; not beta-ed; no use of y/n a/n: something I whipped up right now as I'm struggling to quit smoking and I know Joel would find the right way to help me. dedicated to my chère @milla-frenchy i love you and i believe in you <3 MASTERLIST

"You know that shit is bad for you, baby."

"Oh, come on Joel, just this last one, I am going to die if I don't smoke right now."

You felt your lips itching for a burn of a filter, your lungs needing the smoke feeling them. You'd been smoking for the last ten years, deciding to quit cold turkey when you got to Jackson. Smoking was a nervous habit, something you picked up instead of biting your nails and chewing your lips raw. You felt good about yourself the first day, proud that you could go 24 hours without even thinking of a poorly wrapped cig that you were used to in the post-apocalyptic world, but now, as your two day streak hit, you weren't so sure you could make it.

Your mood worsened with every hour, everything seemed to piss you off, the last straw was when Joel asked you what was for dinner and you told him to go fuck himself before breaking down in tears. He knew it wasn't you talking, he went through the same bullshit himself, even though his was thirty years earlier and accompanied by as many nicotine patches as the town's drugstore could provide. You weren't so lucky, but he was focused on helping you out.

"You know, the thing that makes you want to smoke is oral fixation."

You raised your eyebrows at him incredulously. What kind of scientific bullshit was that? What made you want to smoke was some kind of shit that made you addicted to cigarettes, it wasn't a fixation.

"Trust me, baby. You know I've been through that before. That's what the doctor told me, you just need to find a thing to fixate on, and you'll forget all about smoking."

He nodded, as if to make his words sound more trustworthy. You were still doubting, though, it kinda sounded like a load of crap. If quitting was so easy, why were people in the QZ ready to all but kill for a pack of fresh cigs?

"So what do you suggest I fixate on?" You asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"Some people eat snacks, like chips, or carrots." You punched his shoulder, and he whined leaning away from you on the couch you shared.

"Joel, where the fuck am I supposed to get chips? And it's not the season for carrots, plus Jackson is pretty comfortable, I know, but there's no way people will give me extra snacks just so I don't start smoking. We still have food rations," he scratched his beard, and you sighed. You were doomed. You scrambled to stand up and go to your secret stash of smokes that you hid behind the cupboard, but Joel quickly grabbed your wrist, making you fall into his chest.

"There is another way." His voice dropped low, a cadence you weren't used to hearing in the middle of the day, and you felt your body's usual reaction to his rasp. Heat started pooling in your lower belly, for a moment you forgot why you even started to get up.

"Yeah?" You turned your face to him, your lips almost connecting. "And what's that."

"How about you get on your pretty knees and I'll give you something to occupy your greedy mouth with?"

You raised your eyebrows, chuckling when you saw him keeping the same expression on his face.

"Now you're just making up stuff to have your dick sucked, old man."

"Just entertain me, if I'm wrong I'll go bring you a pack myself."

You considered it. It was a win-win for you either way. If he was right, you'd be rid of your bad habit and satiate the already burning need for your man. If he was wrong, you'd still get to have him, and enjoy a smoke without an accusatory glare from him. You shrugged your shoulders, slowly lowering yourself between his thighs. God, when you took your place there, nothing besides having his thick cock in your mouth as soon as possible crossed your mind. Maybe he was right.

You made a quick work of his pants and boxers under his intense stare. Joel didn't say a word, just lifted his hips helping him free his stiff cock. It desperately begged for your attention and you felt saliva pooling in your mouth at the mere sight of his beautiful tan shaft surrounded by salt and pepper curls around the base, the tip of him dark red and shining with his interest already.

"Come on, honey, take a drag, I see how much you want it."

He wasn't wrong. You hated how he was never wrong. You lowered your mouth, letting a fat drop of saliva lather his dick and he hissed as soon as it touched his burning skin. You didn’t wait for long, letting his pulsing head breach your lips and you both moaned at the intrusion. No cigarette in the world tastes as good as Joel’s precum erecting your tastebuds. He was salty, and you pushed him further down into your mouth, sucking on his steel-hard shaft like you would on a cigarette filter. He was way thicker, though. The girth of him pleasantly stretching your lips, the weight heavy on your tongue as you started bobbing your head up and down slowly. Fuck, he had a point. His taste, the smooth texture of his cock gliding along your tongue and punching bruises into your throat gave you more pleasure than the toxic fumes filling up your lungs.

Joel groaned, placing his hand on your head, and making you take more of him down your throat. "Good girl, just like that. We’ll get you addicted to sucking my cock and you won’t ever think about the damn smokes."

You were already addicted to his cock, had been for some time, but the sound of his fucked out voice made you squirm, wetness pooling in your panties as you started moving faster. Your lips got tighter around him while your tongue caressed the sensitive underside of him. You hummed, delighted in the way he started throbbing, your mind focused on one thing only: his cum down your throat. Fuck, the way he opened up your throat shoving more of him down it until you felt his coarse hair tickling your nose. You stayed like that for a moment, breathing through your nose and letting him feel how your throat contracted around his cock, milking him. "Good - fuckk- good job, baby, gonna fill you all the way up. Every last bit of you, won’t leave a spot for smoke, just gonna be full of my cum."

He gritted his teeth, words coming out slurred, and you brought your hands to his balls, squeezing the tensed up flesh gently and rolling it in your palm. He didn’t have a chance to warn you, just pushed your head off a little, leaving only the pulsing head in your mouth as he filled it with the salty load of him. Fuck, it was a mouthful, like he’d been keeping it for a few days, just waiting for this moment. You felt it pooling on your tongue, cementing the crevices behind your teeth, filling your mouth up like smoke. Joel’s chest heaved and he looked down at you, the last drops of his cum dripping from the head and staining your lips in milky white. He took his hand off your head, cupping your cheek.

"Swallow." You let his load travel down your throat, finding its rightful place inside you. "Good girl."

You placed your head on his thigh, looking up at him and seeing in his eyes that he was far from done with you.

"You know I hate it when you’re right." You pouted.

Joel just laughed, collecting an escaped drop of his cum from the corner of your lips and pushing it back into your welcoming mouth.

***

Two days have passed before you felt the familiar pang of need in your lungs. You were enjoying the mild autumn weather when the itch returned. Without giving it a second thought you hurried back home, finding Joel in the process of cooking you dinner. Taking your hat on the go, you scurried to the kitchen and Joel turned to the sound of your thumping boots.

"Take off your pants, Joel."

tell me in the comments if you liked what you just read <3

#joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller fic #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x y/n #iamasaddie fic #pedro pascal fic

748 notes · View notes

tocomplainfriend · 3 months

Text

SEE!? THEY DON'T CARE!

TW: Rape, SA, Homophobia, Misogyny, Misandry

The specific censored word with "-", it's for my own reasons and comfort. It's not censored up and in tags due to filtering! Sorry if I made mistakes like forgetting of filtering or similar, I haven't used tumblr much before!

THIS IS A R-PE JOKE! THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN FUCKING SAYING! ONE OF MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS WITH EPISODE 4 IS THE FACT OF "we want to write an empowering story about men getting sexually assaulted. Men victim don't get that attentio-" BITCH, YOU MADE MANY R-PE AND SA JOKES ALL THE FUCKING WAY THROUGH HELLUVA AND KNOW HAZBIN! You are the one making fun of scenarios where your male characters get assaulted or r-ped.

HOW TF DO YOU PRETEND TO BE SOOO ABOVE PEOPLE (INCLUDING VICTIMS OF SA AND R-PE) THAT'S EXPRESSED HOW THEY FELT ON THE EXECUTIONS AND WHO WORKED IN EPISODE 4. WHEN YOU YOURSELF MAKE JOKES ABOUT IT????? For some context, Sir Pent is trying to get with Cherri, but always deflects first in case she rejects him. He offers her a drink, but immediately says it's because he'll buy a drink for everyone on the club. Then he asks Cherri if they can have sex- and deflects back (a repetition joke) "Because I'll have sex with everyone here". Then he gets dragged into a room by other people, yelling wait and no! And the door closes as you heard him scream.

Out of context in the screenshot, you might even think it might be a serious scene where something happens to Pentious. BUT NO! IT'S BRUSHED OVER REAL FAST AND PLAYED AS "HAHA SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN TO SIR PENTIOUS AGAIN LMAOO"- it's the punchline.

Then at the end of the episode he gets out asking "Where is Cherri" (who btw is having sex with a random guy).

And please don't say "Well, he asked for it"- you know how you sound. The whole point of the joke is that he is trying to get with Cherri and failing astronomically. The point here is that he really doesn't want to have sex with a bunch of random people, but he has to do it because he is getting dragged into a room. (Again, Pentious is like Moxxie Their joke it's getting trashed and bullied by the world or people around them).

You made a whole episode about dealing with a male character's sexual assault, abuse or r-pe. Saying how much you respect victims, and your episode, it's just perfect about the topic. BlaBlaBla- no, you don't. You made all this jokes since HB season 1. This new joke was episode 6 of HH. You never acknowledge power dynamics, or coercion. You never acknowledge anything bad in your show.

Remember, as much as this shows go for LGBTQ+ representation and Queer media. As a ""Female lead show"". This jokes link back (not only to making fun of SA and R-pe itself, but to) homophobia and Misogyny. A scenario of where a man gets SA'ed or r-ped by another man or woman- leads to a scenario where the character is made fun of for not being "masculine enough" for being a victim or for not being able to defend themselves. In a scenario where this happens by a man to man, "It's funny because the victim is viewed as gay. As less masculine = gay and that's bad cause gay = weak and feminine and the idea of feminine = weak".

(There are a few jokes here and there, like Blitzo touching Moxxie's dick after making fun of him for having a baby penis.)

If you didn't notice, Moxxie gets attacked by multiple succubus, and that's apparently funny. KEEP IN MIND is not basic physical violence-no he comes out with lipstick kisses marks, the sounds effects are (ugh)... and Blitz tells him "Don't let them access any of your holes". In other concepts, I want to point out that the times when Moxxie is viewed as a bottom or feminine- he is made fun of. When Millie pegs him, he is made fun of because he is the man of the relationship, being implied as the bottom. When he wears the outfit of unhappy campers, he is extra objectified or made fun of even more than in any other episodes. He is also forcefully put on a dress in his wedding.

He is made fun of for being SA'ed for being uncomfortable scenarios:

These aren't jokes made by characters that "are bad because they are from hell". These are scripted jokes written by a person searching for the audience to laugh.

AND the reason why many audiences accept this jokes or even find them funny is because of some of these views (internalized or not) above. You'll also notice how all these jokes are directed at men (if you find an R-pe or SA joke directed at a woman in this two show, say something about it! POINT IT OUT!). People accept and write these jokes more because they care less about the idea of a man being a victim of such situation. More often than not- in the present, a woman getting assaulted or anything similar in any media gets noticed and called out. THESE JOKES OR THE NORMALIZATION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT, ASSAULT, COERCION, OR SIMILAR TOWARDS WOMAN STILL HAPPENS!!!! There is an idea that men just tend to just want sex all times at any time. -And that a man getting SA'ed or r-ped by a woman it's just sex, cause "Why wouldn't you like free pussy". When it's a gay perpetrator is viewed as funny cause "that makes you gay or a woman" and that's apparently hilarious. Men can be r-ped no matter what. Men can be targets of all of these acts.

Remember that all the scenes of sexual abuse, harassment and r-pe in Poison are directed by the R2. Who, once again, is into r-pe porn- and they themselves said they are not an SA victim either. So remember, not even a victim trying to cope with their own R-pe or SA. This person draws and ships "R-pe ships", and tags it as "naughty men uwu" bullshit. Also, a person so obsessed with the character of Angel that they changed their name to Tony (Angel's real human name), make themselves look like him, and become a sex worker like Angel. They themselves looked at a comic of Val threatening r-pe and abuse on Angel as "thank good you have balls to draw something mean with these too, I was so bored" ???? (this stuff is in:) and cosplay and take photos of your Val x Angel ship

Congrats if you as a victim yourself thought that the scene with Angel was good. If it helped you be and feel seen. But remember the rest of the show, the hypocritical writers, don't care enough to view it as a serious topic to not joke about. Both HB and HH written by the same people (as in Vivziepop), take their sweet time to turn these topics into jokes.

What pisses off more, it's the trying to make yourself be viewed as a sensitive person about such topic. Make it seem like you are a savior for writing about it in such "serious, powerful and not sugar coded" way. But then you drop that on the fucking ground to make a joke about it when you are tired of pretending you are so good. If you were so informed of SA and r-pe, you wouldn't be making these jokes. If you knew how much SA male victims struggle to get viewed as serious or their stories taken into account-you wouldn't be this shitty.

God, you are so proud of the joke too.

My poor snake guy... one of the few characters that I like-

#vivziepop critique #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critical #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #anti vivziepop #tw sa #cw abuse #spindlehorse criticism #tw rape

362 notes · View notes

motherofagony · 7 months

Text

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 1

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 5.6k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: life goes on after raiders infiltrate a routine patrol. you're a shut-in, and jackson residents tiptoe around your trauma. joel found you after the accident, but you don't know what to make of it. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, mentions of trauma (no s/a, i promise), blood, bodily injuries, death, shitty men, dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension if you close one eye, the softest enemies to lovers you've ever seen vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: longtime listener, first time caller. yes, there will be smut — in due time. probably a slower burn than you're used to on tumblr dot com, but there will be porn galore, i promise. heavy on the hurt + comfort trope in this one. thank you for reading, i hope you enjoy.

“Get the fuck up!”

The boot connects with your side again, the rounded toe slamming into ribs you’re sure are already broken. You’re trying to play dead, but it doesn’t exactly work when yelps are being kicked out of you. Old Yeller, of all fucking things, comes to mind.

But you’re not sick, not infected. Just wrong time, wrong place.

Blood pools sticky under your head. Voices are filtering in like an untuned radio, gathering static and making you nauseous. Like it’s all one bad hangover or a lucid dream in a realm too far.

“Where are the others?”

Someone else asks the question that you’ve been concentrating on. The knob turns, clearing the radio fuzz just so. You strain to hear, but you don’t dare open your eyes.

“Dead. Not shit on ‘em that was worth stealin’. We gotta fuckin’ go — just leave her.”

A vague twang of Boston wraps around his words. You’d forgotten what it sounded like, how the rs get caught in the back of the tongue and dropped. How the voweled aws are spit at you, the shell of your ear growing numb against the icy concrete.

Yes, you think. Fucking leave me.

The raider that’s been torturing you for what feels like hours groans as if it’s an inconvenience, an interruption to something he was thoroughly enjoying. Whatever he would’ve done, continued doing, taunts the crevices of your mind. He digs through your bag one last time, and you don’t know what he’s looking for or if there would have been anything at all that would have satisfied him the first time.

You remember a sliver of skin where his sleeve had bunched, revealing a shitty coupling of star tattoos on his wrist. You can feel your icepick heartbeat behind your eyes, and you wonder if it was a dare over a few beers. A matching tattoo with a lover. The thought lifts you up and out of the crushing burden of pushing air into clenched lungs, only for a moment. It’s no name to grab hold of, but it’s an identifier if you can make it out alive.

He’d crept up behind you while you were clearing a warehouse that you swore you’d be fine doing by yourself, pushing the cold barrel of something painfully familiar into the back of your head. He was tall, unflinching, unworried, too practiced. He helped you slip the straps of your backpack off your shoulders but staggeringly violent and unkind. Feeling you up for weapons with a disgusting leisure. As if you’d be hiding something gun-sized in your small back pocket.

You’d heard panic and screams outside, and you already knew. Voices outnumbered your friends, and it was almost – almost – funny to think that Tommy said the three of you would be one too many for patrol.

So, when exactly two gunshots hit their targets, it only took you seconds to figure out the score.

Something significant cracked in you then. Started in your chest and splintered to your heart, head, down to the tips of your toes. There was no fighting back, and you were next.

Now — fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, bloodied face, broken wrist, and one concussion later, here you find yourself. The tall one has a thick mustache, something sinister and villainous that seems too stereotypical even for this. At some point there had been a shift, and what started as a robbery now felt like killing for sport.

“Fine. Think she’s dead anyway.”

He kicks you one more time for the cinematic pleasure of it all.

This time you don’t wince, don’t feel a jerk or twitch betray you. The muscle in your jaw is so tense, the teeth grinding so hard into one another that you expect to open your mouth to a cloud of dust.

An agony you’ve only ever seen in movies is wringing every cell dry. It’s seizing, unrelenting, almost an exorcism in the tensing and writhing of it all. But you keep it beneath the surface, barely clinging to the little control you have.

You try to count the footsteps that are finally retreating, to breathe around the blood in your nose both dried and fresh. It feels like measuring the closeness of thunder and lightning, some kind of correlation with the distance of a storm.

The group trails outside, and heavier footsteps of your stolen horses lead them away. Onto the next. Breath idles in your chest, and the clarity that you think will come when you finally unstick your eyelids doesn’t. Everything feels swollen, scorched, raw. Nerve endings clipped and lapped up by the unrelenting lick of wind. A scream climbs up your throat, but the pain isn’t worth the exhale. And you don’t want them to come back for round two.

You drag the dead weight of your limbs out to inspect what you know to be true, and it’s nothing but bloody snow angels and twisted, awkward angles of your friends. You can’t even look at them, turning your head and squeezing your swollen eyes shut when you check for pulses that aren’t there.

Snowflakes collect on your lashes and drip pink down your face.

—

Daylight wanes, languid and impatient. It’s been hours trying to retrace your steps back to Jackson, the blood loss slowing you to a stop every five dizzying minutes. Your feet trick you into standing, only for your knees to buckle and bring you down into the snow. Teetering on the cliff of willfully alive and mercifully dead. There isn’t pain anymore, not really, and you’re grateful for the numbing cold, but you can feel your body threatening to cave in on itself.

Tears don’t come as much as you beg for them, for any type of release that’ll ground you. Enough time has ticked by that someone has to notice an absence of three, but you can’t be sure that you’re even on the right path anymore to meet them in the middle.

When they find you, if they ever find you, at least they’ll know you tried.

There’s a comfort in that, a warmth that reaches out and grabs you and folds you in like a blanket. It’s safe here, it says. Just lie down for a minute. And you don’t fight it.

Someone’s calling your name now, and it’s a gentle tug back into consciousness. There are frantic hands on your face, delicate and urgent when they take inventory of your wounds. When they say death greets you, maybe it’s this.

But there’s a Texas drawl that’s murmuring you’re okay, I’ve got you and I know, I know it hurts and shouting instructions to someone else that’s lifting you up, up, up.

Your fingertips scrape a stubbled jaw when you’re pulled away. The light dims like a blown-out candle. And you’re falling, grasping at anything, everything, nothing.

You forget the rest.

—

Ten months pass, dripping into spring, then summer, and meeting autumn at its doorstep.

Everything has healed, down to the last scratch. That day feels hazy, and you’d assume it was a hallucination if not for the two friends that didn’t come back with you. The recovery was just as strange, trauma shielding you from the gory parts but not the guilt. Never the guilt.

Sometimes, you test the memory, prod at it, but nothing new comes to the surface. No recollection of who they were, where they were going, if they were anything more than nameless thieves. It’s probably better this way, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true.

Fistfuls of flowers collected on your porch, and they seemed to appear out of thin air because no one ever came with them. Anonymous condolences that didn’t want to be seen, and it was an easy guess as to why. You heard rumors, retellings of what happened without much accuracy, but there was nothing to say to correct them. Some of them were angry, and you let them be. Call it penance, undeserved or not.

Ellie would visit occasionally, sometimes Tommy. You let her play guitar without saying a word, let him bring you books to keep you occupied. Everyone else dodged you, and you didn’t know if it was discomfort or because you were the only one left alive to blame. Probably both.

Since then, they’d kept you busy elsewhere. Projects that hadn’t been projects before suddenly popped up. More hands in the stables for getting horses ready for patrol. Planting vegetables and flowers for food and morale. Playing doctor when the patrols would come back with minor injuries from staving off infected. Being underfoot at the Tipsy Bison, picking up shifts when there was a movie night or some string-lit illuminated get-together.

Slinking into the shadows and being the ambient background noise in everyone else’s conversations.

You didn’t have the heart to tell them that you had the farthest thing from a green thumb, that you couldn’t bartend for shit, that the most nurse-like thing you’d ever done was slap a band-aid on a skinned knee.

An otherness that weighed so heavy you thought it would be better to crush you. Poison that bloomed in the belly of a tight-knit community that didn’t know what shelf to put you on. Who felt like collective trauma was part of the deal, and this was just yours.

But it softened the blow of your abrupt uselessness. You let it happen. Becoming competent was better than peeking out from drawn curtains. Better than sleeping with your eyes open, watching everyone around you move on while you couldn’t.

While nightmares claw their way up your chest at night and leave you in a cold sweat, flicking on every light that’ll burn to make sure you’re really, truly alone.

The roar of laughter snaps you out of the trance, breaks the eye contact you were making with your fireplace. You wonder absently if you’d tuned out the rest or if everyone had finally huddled together in front of the projector down the road for tonight’s showing of whatever DVD was looted during this week’s patrol. You didn’t usually mind — sometimes even joined when Ellie had enough of your sulking and all but kicked your door in — but tonight feels like an organized, cruel punishment.

You pry yourself from your couch, knocking over the stack of books on your way to the coat rack. Anaïs Nin pierces you with a glare, rotting where you left her. You slip each arm into a heavy coat, tucking one of the books into your bag with a lone cigarette as a makeshift bookmark. It’s cold as fuck tonight, but maybe you’ll linger a little longer after closing down the bar. Maybe you’ll wait until the crowd outside dies down to sneak back into your house, light another fire, and count down the hours until your shift at the stables.

Bartending tonight should be quiet, hopefully only encountering a few regulars that usually kept to themselves and tipped you for doing the same.

You steal one more warm moment before opening the door and stepping into the flinching cold, taking note of the way words stutter and lose traction when your face registers with the nearby crowd. There always seems to be a vacancy of pleasantries. And you don’t exactly invite them.

Tommy gives you a sympathetic look, tipping his chin up in a half-nod. Ellie lifts a few fingers in a wave, knowing you don’t want the pity but hate the suffocation of nothing at all. You will the corners of your mouth to quirk in a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes and force your legs into a normal pace, almost locking your knees so you don’t break into a run. The debt of an overdue visit with them burrows in your chest.

The Jaws theme song hums ominously, and you think it’s only fitting.

A few people litter the bar when you meet the cozy blanket of peanut-shelled air of the Tipsy Bison. A pool cue cracks against a ball and sends it clattering into a group of others, a low crackle of some country something crooning out of the jukebox. You shed your coat and your bag in the back, washing your hands under scorching water to shake some feeling back into your bones.

“Just a few tonight. Been slow – you’ll probably be out early. What’s playin’?”

You smile at the thick, syrupy Southern mama accent by your side. Cheryl is no-nonsense, usually slips you a little extra at the end of your shifts, and feigns ignorance of anything about the ugly parts of your past. All she cares about is that you’re eating. There is an undying gratitude for Cheryl.

“Ah. Jaws, I think.”

She seems to read your mind with a laugh, patting your shoulder affectionately like only a mother can.

“Maybe I’ll go join the sharks. Joel just got here, wants a whiskey ‘fore I head out. You know him,” Cheryl tuts, almost rolling her eyes but you know she likes the caretaker role if you’re any indication.

And you do. You do know him.

Joel keeps to himself almost as much as you do, maybe a little less when it comes to Ellie and Tommy. He’s sort of your catty-cornered neighbor, but not the sugar-asking kind. More like the kind that glances in your direction, holds your stare for a beat too long, and abruptly looks away before anything discernible can appear.

The closest you ever come to saying anything of substance to each other is when you ready his horse for patrols and intercept it when he’s back safe and sound. You try not to let him catch your gaze shifting to that shiny scar on his head, and you stifle down the question that’s none of your business.

Maybe he does the same for you.

And maybe he was there and saved you that day, but neither one of you has ever mentioned it since. You don’t know how, and there’s a brick wall around the subject that won’t let you. Enough time has passed that you figure he’d have said something if he gave a shit.

Yet, there’s a deep yearning for his approval, his attention. It’s a mystery even to you, when you think about how savagely indifferent you are to anyone else’s. But you think it’s the magnetism of having him as a witness. The way he could vindicate you and give you an alibi, a heroic complex, but he doesn’t.

So, the idea that he’s one of the patrons that you can count on one hand tonight… you can’t put a name to what it’s doing to you.

Cheryl makes sure that you’re okay, but she doesn’t linger. She packs up her things with haste, jogging through the cold to join her wife in front of the bonfire.

No one really pays you any mind as you start your closing duties early, and it’s doubtful that the seats will fill any more than they are as the party picks up outside.

Joel sits at the corner of the bar that faces you, and he’s down to a knuckle’s length of whiskey. If he were anyone else, you might wonder why he’s not at the bonfire — but it’s Joel. Social anythings are like a second plague to him.

The thought of having to refill his drink vibrates in the back of your mind, and lead fills your stomach. Small talk that you never quite have with him. It dissipates just as quickly, when you see the way he’s fixed on the sweat gathering on his glass instead of anything else, and when a gust of wind comes in as the door opens.

Max. Anxiety snaps in your rib cage like a rubber band. Something acrid hits the back of your throat and you think it might be blood the way your teeth connect with the soft tissue of your cheek.

Max had been a recurring character in your bed once. Before. It was never more than convenience, and the way you fucked wasn’t love, not even close. Liberating to think that you never neared the edge of feeling anything except his hand pressing your face into a pillow, performing orgasms that never came.

There’s no carcass of affection left, so devoid of emotion for him that it feels like a severed limb.

He’s all ego and athletic strength, sauntering up to the bar with a gait that reeks of hours of pregaming. There’s a permanent sneer when he addresses you, a coldness that has nothing to do with the weather.

“Tequila. Two doubles.”

He’s the type to twist the knife of your tragedy in even deeper, making sure to hit all vital organs. The first to question what more you could have done to save his friends, blaming you for leaving them there to die as if they weren’t dead the moment raiders showed up. As if you weren’t almost dead. Anything you’ve said in defense is inconceivable, an excuse, an admission of guilt. He mourns at your expense and often.

Jackson trudges forward, but Max forces you to stay in grief and remember.

“I think you’ve had your fill this week. Drank through your ration on Tuesday, remember?” you say coolly, but a twinge of fatigue colors your tone, giving you away. You aren’t in the mood, and Max finds it easy to light flame to your resolve as-is.

Maria spends hours of careful inventory, and there’s been more than one occasion where you’ve been instructed to cut off a greedy drunk. The vice, the urge to drink in an apocalypse doesn’t really align with the limited stock, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly see Maria around, do you?” A jeer at face value, but you decide in the beat of silence that follows that rule enforcement isn’t worth it tonight. “Sounds like you’ll think of something. And you fuckin’ owe me one, don’t you? Or would you prefer I collect on that another time?”

It’s not worth it. You’re dropping your glare, squaring your jaw, lining up two glasses so that the rims clink. But the way your skin prickles, there’s an unwelcome visitor in his stare, an x-ray vision that you wished Max didn’t have.

Somewhere down the bar, glass slams against wood and something you know to be amber-colored sloshes.

You try to steady the angry tremble that overcomes your hands as you upturn the liquor bottle. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.

He holds the ration card to you, taunting you by pulling back when you reach for it, only to smirk and flick it toward you, uncaring of where it lands. You shove it into the mouth of the register with the violence you wish you were brave enough for.

“You can leave now.”

“That so? Mouthy now that you have an audience?” Max gestures cruelly to the grand total of four patrons, five if you counted Johnny Cash.

It stings, but dully. You’ve heard worse – even if not to your face – and it’s all kind of anti-climatic if you considered the low-budget production they always try to make out of you. The words eventually all sound the same, nothing punches quite the way they intend. Still, your cheeks burn as if on cue, and —

“She told you to get the fuck out.”

A low timbre erupts, easily mistaken as pure venom. There’s a sway in the way your senses glitch and then still, and reality swirls at the edge of your periphery. Pool balls stop their roll, murmured chatter ceases, and even the fucking jukebox settles on an instrumental to lean in and listen.

You dare to look over at Joel, whose demeanor looks more akin to statuesque and threatening than his curved slouch when you first clocked in. He’s standing, flexing his fists so hard that you think they might shatter.

Max backs off but subtly – you can see the way his puffed chest deflates even though his glare doesn’t. He finishes off one tequila before backing up with the other dangling in his fingers, both hands turned palm-out in mock surrender.

A deep annoyance plucks at his brow, but he knows he’s flirting with a black eye.

Max flashes a middle finger, lets his grip relax after downing the glass in his hand, and it crashes to the floor with a wincing shatter. He’s gone before you can string together any curses, and would it have mattered anyway?

Then, there’s scattering, the bar flies wordlessly agreeing that anywhere is better than the awkwardness of being here. Cards thrown down, beers drained, and there’s an uneasiness with the way they shuffle outside towards the rest of the group. A dance around the broken glass that isn’t their problem. You pretend not to notice, though you try to hide the redness that stains your cheeks as you bring a dust pan over to the mess.

You feel eyes on you and, all too suddenly, you realize that Joel didn’t follow them.

“Careful. Here, lemme do that.”

He’s kneeling, taking the pan from you. Knuckles brush yours a little too long and electrify, zapping you. You mutter something like thanks and it’s too ungrateful, too tired. A woodsy scent fills your nose, and you’re hard-pressed not to lean into his collar and bookmark it.

Glass slips into the trash with a tinkling, shimmering sound. You’re already back behind the bar, hands busying with something else, tidying up the already-tidy. Letting him slip outside with the crowd, heavy with satisfaction that he came to your rescue yet again.

But he’s sat back down, watching you with an odd intensity. He’s never assessed you like this, at least not that you’ve seen. A different sort of undressing than what Max gives you. You meet his eyeline warily. Vulnerable, waiting for your predator’s jaw to unhinge and devour you whole.

“He always talk to you that way?”

A quiet, lethal question hangs in the air, so quiet that you could’ve chalked it up to your imagination. But evidenced by the white-knuckled grip Joel has on his glass, the measured way he brings it to his lips, it was real. Controlled, scary even. But real.

Your mouth opens to answer, then closes. You consider in a beat’s time how it would sound to laugh it off, then stop yourself. It would be too forced, too desperate of a sound to be convincing. You’ve never been the unfeeling, unaffected type.

It’s clear that he knows the answer, has probably seen it with his own eyes, but it’s like he wants a green light to set his sights on some other more sinister and deserving prey.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s been through a lot,” you say, half to yourself. It’s easier this way.

“Does matter. So’ve you,” Joel says, even quieter, like he’s trying to contain an angry edge that threatens to bleed out. The calm is almost worse. In a way, you wish he would loosen the leash on his rage. Or break something to satisfy the urge in you that wants to do the same – you’d give him permission to do that. This is too unreadable and ambiguous, too much room left for agonizing interpretation in how he grits his teeth and pulses that muscle in his taut jaw. You want to yell, let out what’s long pent-up. Yes! Yes, it does fucking matter!

But you don’t. You keep the rag tight on the lip of the pint glass in your hand, rotating it past the point of needing to be cleaned. The rub of the microfiber cloth makes you itch, and your teeth scrape again at the inside of your cheek.

It leaves your mouth before you can catch it and shove it back down.

“Why do you care?”

Joel looks up at you now and you think that you’ve already overstepped during your first, real fucking conversation. He finishes off the whiskey and puts it back down carefully. He stands up, each slow step over to you spiking your blood pressure, your breath shifting into neutral.

It’s the way he’s fixated on you, a litmus test for any sarcasm. The way a chill creeps into the base of your spine and slithers up each vertebrae despite the warmth you feel below your waist. And when he comes behind the bar, reaches for the glass in your hand and puts it down gently, you wonder if that tug has always been there.

Fuck.

“You think I don’t care?”

Tiny hairs at your nape stand at attention in a near-salute. The web of intrusive thoughts tangles between you, and you’re acutely aware that this is the closest you’ve ever been to Joel Miller – that you’ve been conscious for. That feeling rushes back and bursts in your chest, the comforting honey in his voice that’s been haunting you since he found you crumpled in the snow.

The omnipresent, sharp tang of whiskey sticks to the slightly graying stubble that you want to reach out and touch. That you want to feel the scrape of in places that makes heat pool deep in your belly. His flannel is unbuttoned at the top, the column of his throat ridged and tense.

Focus.

“Why are you saying this now?” you say, and you want to hold your ground but his admission is akin to mesmerizing.

He thinks for a minute, his eyes smoothing over every angle in your face. They look past you, just over your shoulder, like he’s asking himself the same thing.

“Knew you could handle it. ‘Til you couldn’t anymore.”

There it is. You let it sink in, clicking that last piece into place. Always observing you from a safe distance, the buzz of something unsaid ringing in your ears when he’s around. How he listens to your interactions, but never too closely. Watching for weak spots. And tonight was the weakest of them all, letting yourself be humiliated by the only person that knew where to bite just right.

You feel laid bare, too seen. Pissed that he can witness your struggling, thrashing, drowning with outstretched arms and kicking feet and decide when and if he’ll pity you.

And this time, a laugh does slip out – humorless and breathy.

“The same way you can handle whatever’s making you drink alone on a Friday night? Don’t act so holier than thou, Joel. I’m the wrong one.”

“Watch it.”

You don’t mean it. Not really. But you’re so angry, a wasps’ nest that’s been taunted and poked at after being left to its own devices for too long. Sometimes violence feels more intimate. Safer.

And he’s using that gravelly, terse tone with you of all people, and you want to fucking lose your mind.

When he doesn’t say anything else, just looks at you and waits, they leave their home in a wave. Burying stingers where you know they’ll hurt. Once more, with feeling.

“Are you looking for a ‘thank you’?”

Joel’s mouth quirks, but it isn’t a smile. It only stokes the fire, and you know what he’s doing. Letting you win, begrudgingly because you’re being an ass. But you haven’t had a win in the last ten months, only loss after devastating loss. He’s throwing you a raft.

“No. Just tryin’ to help, ‘s all.”

Your nostrils are flaring in sharp inhales that you can’t control, and you physically jab at him, your own tightly wound chest dragging in the hive for a final, practiced nosedive. “I don’t fucking need your help, Joel.”

He’s snatching your wrist, holding it in a vise, but there’s a flinch in his expression. Joel hardens, sliding that cool armor back into place. Sizing you up one more time, committing you to memory. A curt nod, plucking that chord of roughness in his tone that makes you ache.

There’s a glare you’ve never seen from him, like disappointment and disdain wrapped up neatly in one package. Delivered with a dagger straight to your heart.

“We’ll see. Not s’good at that, are you?”

And it’s a KO you allow, one you’ll lay with. But he’s leaning in, invading your space. You move to retreat and cower, the way you’re accustomed to, but Joel’s grabbing a fistful of your shirt and fastening you in place. His mouth’s at your ear as if he’s telling you a secret.

“Good luck bein’ a fuckin’ martyr.”

The pressure loosens, as does his grip, dissipating like some ghostly presence. He leaves without another word, and something inside you snags and unspools.

—

You don’t see Joel for days.

Three days to be exact, torturous and fluid days that feel like trickling sand, but blend together in an indistinguishable slideshow when you zoom out. You time your breaks perfectly at the stables so you don’t run into him, and you ask Cheryl to cover for you on Tuesday, ignoring the strange look she gives you – the resident workaholic.

It’s a sort of avoidance that you don’t want to acknowledge or look directly in the eye. If you did, it would mean that Joel affected you more than you want to admit. Or that he’d sized you up in an expert way that a categorical stranger shouldn’t be able to.

You should be livid, and you are… in a way. But mainly you want to shrug your skin off, your unease for being so dissected by him. Just unzip it all and let it pool at your feet, stepping out of the pile one leg at a time. The pinch, the untethering of you and the man that could read you without translation.

And when it’s 9 o’clock and you’re making tea as you trudge through a book without really reading anything, you glance outside at the house across the street and it’s so dark that you think it may have swallowed him whole.

Or he’s hiding from you, too.

—

It’s finally Thursday, and you can’t put it off any longer. You’re running out of food, you promised Tommy you’d lend a hand with feeding the horses – and there’s a dull itch to see Joel again. You don’t even know what you’d say, if he even wants to bother with you after the other night. Part of you hopes that you fall backwards into the acquaintance of saying nothing, that you have permission to rewind past whatever this nagging feeling is.

It’s quiet outside – a lazy day. The snow on the ground is melting, patchy in spots where sunlight or kid-feet caught it at just the right angle. The greenhouses are so fogged and frosted over that you’re grateful you can’t see the death-rot inside. It’s not quite growing season yet, but close, and you long for the added distraction in your day if this is the alternative.

Anything to pass the time and not think about Joel and his hands touching yours. The fabric of your shirt oozing between his knuckles when he forced you chest-to-chest.

When you make it over to the barn, his horse is gone and there’s almost – almost – a twinge of relief. You’ll be done before he gets back from patrol. You won’t have a chance to swallow the apology that will rise in your throat like bile, but maybe it’s for the best.

You’re elbow deep in feed when there’s a yelling that cracks in the air. You freeze, waiting to hear a suffix of children’s laughter, but it doesn’t come. There’s a confused sort of shouting, and the gate at the border of Jackson slams and rattles like you’ve never heard before.

Shaky hands wipe at your pants, and you step out, a hand shielding your eyes from the glare of the sun.

Joel is slumped atop his horse, upright but hardly. There’s a cut somewhere on his head that streams a blurry red, and the horse whines when Tommy sprints to meet it.

“It’s Joel! I need some fuckin’ help here!”

And without fully connecting the dots or measuring the severity, you just run. Colliding with the crowd that’s formed, shoving elbows and shoulders as if in a trance. Like something’s pressing you from behind, throwing all its weight into pushing you forward.

You blink and you’re helping Joel down, Ellie’s tattooed forearm somewhere in the jumble of limbs. Tommy’s jean jacket stiff from the cold.

You don’t have to look in a mirror to know that you’re pale as a ghost. The moisture strips from your mouth, joints moving as if by marionette. Blood is already drying and caking in the creases of your hands. Knowing it isn’t yours makes you feel sick.

“‘M fine, Jesus Christ,” Joel coughs, a jagged edge in his throat that sounds anything but. There’s something underneath his coat that’s soaking through, blossoming a dark stain on the front.

Images keep shifting every time you blink, like you’re losing time in between and someone’s slamming the fast-forward button until it jams. Joel groaning on a makeshift stretcher. Ellie’s frenzied feet following as they take him to his house.

The tall one on top of you, squeezing your windpipe.

Your head cracking against the pavement.

Two gunshots firing.

Snow in your bloodied, matted hair.

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. I know, I know it hurts.”

Ringing grows loud and shrill in your ears. Tommy’s in front of you, calling your name. Shaking your shoulders.

“– need you to go fix him up –”

And you’re falling back into the present, vision shifting back into focus. You’re nodding, clinical now. You’ve seen worse, and strangely, that’s comforting.

“– whatever supplies you need, I trust you –”

The weight of Tommy’s confidence steadies you, tying up the loose ends that have untwined deep inside. You run through the mental checklist of what’s in your medical bag at home – stashed in your closet on the very top shelf. Bandages, antibiotics, sutures. But if you’re dealing with a bite…

“I got it. Promise. Keep everyone out, alright? I’ll let you know.”

He pauses, catching up with the subliminal thing that waits in the air between you. Wariness paints his gaze, and you know he knows what you’re afraid to say.

Tommy nods, but you’re already running.

#my writing #a heart for eating #ahfe #outbreak!joel #jackson!joel #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfiction #motherofagony

500 notes · View notes

togglesbloggle · 1 month

Text

In Defense of Bad Things

'Bad' here meaning mostly 'amateur'; stuff made enthusiastically by people at an unprofessional level. Art with visible gaps between what the artist imagined and what they achieved, products of flawed craftsmanship. I suppose everybody can appreciate them to some extent, it's a rare parent that doesn't put up their kid's drawings on the fridge in one way or another. But it turns out to be a fully general skill you can cultivate, and the more I do, the more I'm glad I did.

Partly, it's the teacher thing; finding delight in amateur work is one of the ways to find delight in the process of learning. Cultivating a love of striving-qua-striving can help make you a force for good in the world, as people start to feel safe trying to do things when you're around, even when their efforts are wobbly. You get to participate a little more in the process of atoms spinning themselves into ideas, even when there aren't any illusions about whether you're helping cultivate some revolutionary genius in the field.

And partly it's a fabulous way to build community. By necessity, our professional-level skills tend to be at the service of other people, performed for economic benefit; that's kind of how you get professionally good at something in the first place. When we're acting for our own sake, and among friends, most of what we do with one another is amateurish. I only cook middling-okay, I can't hold a tune that well, I'll never be a speed runner for anything. If you can only enjoy singing from the hundred best singers in the whole world, manufactured and polished by major studios, then you and your friends will sit shoulder-to-shoulder and passively listen to music. But it's so much richer an experience to sit face-to-face, actually singing together, even badly; you expose yourself to so many new ways to appreciate and respect one another, building relationships on what you've accomplished and not just by witty criticism or liking the same things.

And partly it's because some of the most powerful and innovative artistic experiences are in high-churn environments with low expectations and low barriers to entry, if only because those catch the passionate and driven young people that have been otherwise overlooked by our systems. The golden age of webcomics meant that a ton of the actual art involved was pretty lousy, but it also produced work that people still talk about today. D&D began as a profoundly unpolished collection of handmade rulebooks sold at cons in a plastic baggie. By the time these products of enthusiastic amateurs filter themselves through various levels of popularity and absorb mainstream cash influx, they're often risk-averse and missing a lot of the bold spark that inspired their fans in the first place; others will simply never drift towards the mainstream at all. I'm not saying you should be the person who goes out to dig through the slush piles of the internet looking for overlooked art, unless you want to be-- but sometimes a work of actual staggering genius also happens to be a Supernatural fanfic by a first-time author who's a little hazy on commas, and if that's a dealbreaker, you're going to miss out on some profoundly valuable experiences.

And hiding behind all of these things is, like...

Our appreciation of beauty has an odd structure, right? When things are done very skillfully, by brilliant artists with years of training, we can usually appreciate those accomplishments. And when we're looking at nature without human influence, and especially when we think very deeply about natural processes and understand them in context, we often rediscover that sense of beauty. There's just this bizarre hole in the middle where we declare things 'ugly'; as if a little skill is worse than none at all.

I really don't trust that gap. It feels like a trick my brain is playing on me, you know? It has me suspicious that a lot of what I consider 'ugly' or 'bad' is not a very direct experience of the world at all, or an informed judgment. That it is, rather, a declaration of (self-, social-) identity; a desire to be seen as a person of good taste, or as somebody who does things well, or just more primitively as one of the monkeys who is in the good-stuff-tribe and not one of the monkeys who is in the bad-stuff-tribe.

168 notes · View notes

thatdogmagic · 1 year

Text

Remember this smug as hell post?

Well, keep it in mind.

I'm going to give some people here the benefit of the doubt and go into this post with the assumption that they genuinely don't know how fucking awful the Tumblr """"porn filters"""" are for images deemed - or reported by users as - 'NSFW.'

This is a rehash of everything I wrote out before, but it's going over all of it in one big post, because this issue with community labels moves well beyond debates over what is and isn't NSFW. There are doublestandards within doublestandards, and no way at all for artists and creators to know for sure if their post is going to get blacklisted.

We're not merely talking about the fact that these filters exist. We're talking about the fact that they are wildly inconsistent, and that reported images aren't seen initially by a person so much as an extremely stupid algorithm. That's why there's the option to say 'this ruling was made in error.'

There are literally no set guidelines for what qualifies as NSFW, and what doesn't, when it comes to nudity, and to what characters those guidelines actually apply. Staff rulings do not match up to one another. They legitimately do not make sense. You cannot divine how a ruling is going to end up, and it is infuriating that staff is jerking us around like this when the platform very clearly wanted artists like us back.

Not only that, they were, yes: that fucking smug about it. In case you forgot, that 'cheater' picture is talking about people who fled the NSFW ban specifically.

Examples follow:

Both of these images were caught by the filters, and then appealed. The first one was (visibly, as you can see) downgraded to Everyone, in spite of the character showing more secondary sex characteristics than the first (breast, visible nipple).

Similarly, a male character showing a pube fluff was left alone, even in spite of being cited in my appeal on the second image.

Last, there is, as noted, this readily available image of Felicia, that you can find by searching 'darkstalkers Felicia' on the search bar. Did people forget that she's bottomless, and those aren't panties?

Using fluff to cover junk is an age-old trick for characters like this. And it clearly isn't a problem with the male character.

Further, you can go through just about any archive and see a ton of images that were not subject to community labels, many of which are much more racy, and much more legitimately "NSFW."

So, yes, beyond the disgust of Tumblr staff treating any body like mine as filthy and inherently sexual in nature, this is also about a system that is arbitrary, penalizes artists for no good reason, and has deeply opaque standards. You never know when a piece of yours is going to run afoul of a bot, or what a staff ruling will ultimately be, or why the ruling is there in the first place.

And that's bullshit. If you think it's anything other than bullshit, you're being a contrarian ass. Especially since a forced label absolutely WILL kill your visibility, where compared to implementing the label yourself. It is punitive, it is punishing, and I will say again: it is completely unnecessary to jerk us around like this when the platform very clearly wanted us back.

And now that we are, we're back to being treated like garbage, constantly having to guess what the rules actually mean, how they apply, and to which sorts of bodies they apply, all while watching our viewcounts on contested posts eat ten kinds of shit.

tl;dr, do not talk to me about 'following rules' when the rules are so ill-defined as to be quite literally useless, to me, and to every other artist on this website.

#tumblr #community labels #content filters #artists on tumblr

806 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 7 months

Text

On this week's episode of "Webtoon Controversies That Could Have Been Avoided If Only They Had Some Damn Quality Control"-

Oh boy, prepare yourselves, there's some TEA on this one.

Quantum Entanglement, a new Webtoon Originals series from creator Arts Angel (aka Sarah Ellerton) is uh... a teeny weeny painfully obvious that it was made with AI.

AI is getting better, but when it comes to comics, there are still a lot of "tells" you can pick up on once you know where to look. Hands are certainly one of them.

Not knowing how to draw hands efficiently and consistently is definitely an Artist Problem(tm) but it becomes a lot more obvious it was made by AI when you get weird little off-putting mistakes like a fingernail being just a little too long or missing joints (hot dog fingers, eyo) or the distinction between fingers not being clear.

But there's also hair and other detailed parts that are often lost in the translation process between prompt to final piece. Jewelry, text on a screen, phones, that sort of thing. The insinuation of a 'thing' is there, but it's like looking at it through a fishbowl.

And ultimately, a lot of AI art tends to just be a little too 'perfect'. Everything is just a little too smooth for it to look like it was naturally made by a person. Faces end up veering into the uncanny valley territory and there are inconsistencies between the eyes and the rest of the body. Backgrounds become lost in what I like to call "AI goop", becoming nothing more than weird blurred/filtered out insinuations of what's supposed to be behind the character.

Basically, at this point, it's undeniably clear that AI is being used to create this comic. While there are also plenty of signs in the handiwork that show a human was involved in some parts, there are other places that are undeniably filled in with the use of AI. So it's not necessarily a 100% made-by-AI comic, but it's absolutely AI assisted.

But what's REALLY absurd about this whole situation? The creator denies it. To the point of including a disclaimer in the first episode trying to "get ahead" of people who are assuming it's AI by saying, "No, it's not made with AI, here's the proof! Don't look at the blood on my hands or the body in the trunk of my car!"

Now, first off, the absolute absurdity of making yourself look guiltier by trying to prove your innocence before people have even started to suspect you... I'd like to think that this was edited into the first episode after the initial accusations started rolling in but considering it's an Originals series, it's hard to know if it was, as creators typically don't get as much control over just editing their episodes on the fly like Canvas creators do. Typically it's their editors who do that sort of thing for them. And even if it was edited in afterwards, it's still there for people who have no idea going into the comic blind and might not automatically assume it was made with AI, so it just looks like you're bringing up the potential of AI being used completely unprovoked. By planting the idea in your audience's brain that AI is even a question, you're making them suspect everything.

It's kind of like when Dream was suspected of cheating in a way-too-lucky-to-be-real speedrun of Minecraft a couple years back, so he went to all these painstaking efforts of hiring a quantum physicist to "prove" his innocence with a straight up THESIS documenting all of the reasons he couldn't have cheated through math and figures and jargon. Ironically, this just made Dream look guiltier, and sure enough, he eventually admitted he had cheated.

That said, did you notice something in that "art process" pic?

That finished panel isn't even what showed up in the final comic.

So the absurdity of this all, again, just makes Arts Angel look a lot more guilty of actually using AI, especially when it's basically undeniable in so many of those panels above. People don't paint like that.

But that brings us to talking about Sarah Ellerton, aka "Arts Angel", the creator. Many long-time readers of her work are defending this, claiming that she has, in fact, "always drawn like this".

What's insane? She actually is who she says she is. This isn't like some kid who came out of the woodwork with AI and claiming that they had 20 years of experience, Sarah Ellerton's main site, The Seraph-Inn, has been live and crawled by Wayback Machine as far back as 2005.

And you can see the art evolution over the years, starting with Inverloch-

-into Phoenix-

-and all the way to Immaterial-

But here's the thing about that last comic. The main protagonist is, apparently, the same girl from Quantum Entanglement, the newest installment in this series where it becomes abundantly clear the creator has started using AI.

You can see the effects of this being parsed through AI, because she's gone from being a unique character with two-toned hair and darker skin, to being turned into a generic Instagram anime girl. And lemme tell you, AI used in comics has NOT gotten better at depicting darker-skinned characters (I actually tested an AI-coloring tool WT was planning on putting out a year or two ago, it was uh... not great.)

But the most damning thing about Sarah?

She works in IT.

That on its own wouldn't be so telling if it weren't for the 20 years she clearly spent actually honing her craft, only to suddenly switch to using AI as a crutch.

Quantum Entanglement was picked up for Originals in July 2023. It launched two days ago, with four free to read episodes and 6 more under the FastPass paywall. Three months after it got picked up. That turnaround speed is insane for an Originals series. Now, I'm more inclined to believe that maybe she's using the exact same pages she used in the Canvas version (there's unfortunately no way of checking through Wayback, it never crawled the Canvas version, so unless someone has backups of the Canvas pages they're willing to share, we'll never know) but that short turnaround time is insane for a comic that's this insanely detailed. It likely means they didn't need much pre-production time to get a strong buffer going, and that it doesn't take them as long to produce these episodes on a weekly basis so they could be under way less crunch than creators who do this by hand.

By comparison, the winners of the Call to Action contest from last year are STILL working on their pre-production. Many other greenlit Canvas series are known for getting picked up and stuck in pre-production for several months and even a year or more simply due to how the company operates with when it chooses to launch these series and how much pre-production is necessary. Some creators have literally said that their pre-production was done, but WT still kept them waiting to launch. So three months for a freshly greenlit Canvas series to launch is NOT the norm.

All that said, I feel for the people who are trying to defend her. But it's so undeniably AI with the creator herself providing fake proof that it makes it really sad to think that this person was honing their craft for 20 years just to wind up utilizing AI. Being a good artist does not make you immune to the temptation of using cheap methods or developing bad habits. Going through "the struggle" does not make you immune to taking shortcuts that wind up cheapening your work or taking advantage of the work of others.

Now, maybe Sarah trained AI around her art. If this didn't play out the way it did, I'd be willing to give her benefit of the doubt and assume that. Training AI off your own work, while still up for debate as to how ethical that is, at least doesn't hurt other artists, because it's your own work the AI is "stealing". There are definitely ways AI could be used to make life easier for artists without replacing the art process entirely, the same way artists have learned to use 3D assets and digital art filters to make their process more efficient and boost the quality of their art up to the next level.

But the fact that she's being so cagey over it, claiming she's not using AI period when she very clearly is, providing "proof" that actually proves she definitely used AI, while operating under a penname that's strangely similar to a name Grimes - former tech wife of Elon Musk and staunch supporter of AI - used for one of her studio albums-

- that's what makes it a lot more clear she's using it maliciously.

The AI is very likely trained off another artist's work. Maybe someone whose art style is similar enough to hers that she could integrate it into her own and pass it off as legitimate. Someone whose art style is cartoonish but still modern, like if Disney made anime. Someone who's so prolific and consistent in their stylization that training an AI off it would seem like a no brainer to those who want to replicate that style quickly and easily.

Damn. What a disappointment. Do better, Sarah.

And for god's sakes, Webtoons, pay more fucking attention. I've been steadily picking away at moving the entirety of my comics over to other platforms on a weekly schedule, but at this point I kinda just wanna dump the last 30 or so chapters onto ComicFury all at once so I can ditch this platform for good, especially if it turns out AI comics getting greenlit is a feature, not a bug. The ratings for Quantum Entanglement have dropped significantly overnight, now sitting around 5.09 and still dropping, but is Webtoons going to do anything about it? That remains to be seen.

#webtoon critical #anti AI #quantum entanglement #quantum entanglement webtoon #webtoon controversy

287 notes · View notes

vellichor-of-the-solivagant · 6 months

Text

How to Plant Snapdragons (pt. 5)

Task Force141 + König + Keegan x Female Criminal!Reader (except Captain Price, because he'll be like a father to the bunch, and König and Keegan won't appear until later on in the story)

CHAPTER SUMMARY: You and Task Force 141 arrived in Rio along with Phillip Graves and his company.

You are currently reading Chapter 5. Here is Chapter 4 and the Masterlist!

CONTENT WARNING: Strong Language and Violence, Bullying Soap (don't take it seriously) WORD COUNT: 2.8k

“So, you fucked with him?” Soap questioned in a low voice, mouth next to your ear as you both took a seat in the plane. Gaz who was over his side leaned in the conversation as well, while Price sighed and Ghost simply stayed quiet beside you.

You pulled down the headset to your neck and raised a brow. “Who?”

Soap pulled a face and mouthed, "Graves."

You guffawed, throwing your head back that you slammed into the metal wall, but that didn't stop you. You repeatedly slapped your thigh, wheezing to the point you coughed and felt like vomiting.

The shadows on the opposite side of the plane stared at you with frowns underneath their goggles. They had worked and lived with you under the same roof, but they had never gotten used to how you laughed.

You hated Graves’ guts, but you could acknowledge a fine man who knew how things work. You had seen him in the gym during your time in the Shadow Company. Topless, and sweaty, his veins bulging every time his muscles flexed, and you couldn’t help but steal a glance and draw what you could remember when you were alone (which you sold to one of his shadows—you didn’t know if the guy was into Graves or his fans or maybe both). But that was it—he had done many things that you hated, and you had equally given him things that he loathed.

You calmed yourself down and smiled at Soap, who also stared at you in confusion. "I'd cut my vagina if ever I had his penis in me."

Soap and Gaz's mouths flew open.

Ghost grunted. "Fuckin’ Hell, have ya got no filter?"

"Watch the language, young lady," Price ordered, shaking his head.

You frowned, waving a hand. "What? It's the scientific term for the reproductive organs of females and males." You crossed your arms and huffed. "Is it because you guys don't actually know the right terms for women and your genitals? The outside of the pussy is called the vulva where you men are supposed to do your best to please—" The next words never left your mouth as Soap clamped his large hand on your face.

"I don't want to have SexEd in an airplane, please," Soap said, glancing at the Shadows across the 141. Was this what they experienced during your stay in the Shadow Company? Did they get it worse or did you mind your own business before? He doubted it would be the latter.

Johnny pulled his hand from you as you all felt the plane running and you quickly strapped your seatbelt on you to secure your position. It didn’t take long till the transport was airborne, the loud engines echoing through your headset, and it felt like something heavy was on you. You all kept silent until everything seemed to steady and Captain Price removed his seatbelt, rising to his feet and walking over to a table. He placed a laptop on top of it and pushed it open.

Graves followed suit, stopping on the other side of the table. “Shadows, gather around.”

The Task Force rose from their positions and crowded around the table, while you stood between Graves and Price, making them both look at you for a second before shifting their attention back to the device. Once again, both the leaders talked over the key points of the mission, starting from going to Graves facility in Salvador to travel by chopper instead, the raid in the favelas to capture the target, subduing the militia, and the exfiltration with Nikolai and the Shadow Company, before going back to the Shadows' facility.

“What if he refuses to speak English?” Gaz questioned, grabbing onto his vest. “We’ve dealt with people who wouldn’t speak even after torture.”

“So have I,” Graves claimed, making you silently scoff before he turned to you. “That’s why we have her.”

Heads snapped towards your way, and Ghost asked, “You know Portuguese?”

You raised a finger and opened your mouth to answer, but the CEO was faster. “Seen her teach one of my men before.”

You knew Portuguese, alright, but you didn’t teach one of his shadows Portuguese. It was Arabic numerals. Yet you also didn’t feel like correcting him and let Graves assume things. It was better for him to think that you only knew Portuguese and English.

You put your hand down. "What he said, but I'm not that fluent."

"Better than nothing," Price declared and he put a hand on the table. "Let's end it here for now. We still have some time later on."

One simple nod from Graves, the Shadow scattered, and he patted the Captain's shoulder before stepping away, going in the direction of the pilot.

As the Task Force 141 walked back to their seats, you patted Ghost's arm. He looked down at you with a questioning gaze and you asked, "Do you have any spare mask and war paint?"

"Why?" He inquired, reaching into one of the pockets of his vest.

You raised a brow. "If I want to get back safely in Rio again, I'll have to hide my face from the locals, no?"

He scoffed and pulled out a mask, handing it down to you. It was a black balaclava with a white skull design. Very Ghost fashion, but it was something similar to what you used to see every day before. "Ya know how to put on camo?"

"Yeah." You nodded, tracing your finger on the soft fabric—thankful that it didn’t actually smell of dirt, sweat, and blood. You weren't a fan of camo face paints as they were hard to remove, and you had someone put it on you instead because you couldn't paint camo on without poking your eye or putting some paint on your eye, said the person. That was a lie. That person just wanted to keep holding your face, running their thumb over your lips, or say there wasn't any mirror when in fact, they keep mirrors all the time as part of the tactic not to expose their head when peeking out a corner.

"Alright." Ghost gave you a can of paint and a mirror.

You both sat down and you began to paint the upper half part of your face since the balaclava would cover the rest. You put the paint down on your lap and pulled the mirror away, angling your head from right to left. Then, you slipped the mask on, adjusted the hole around your sight, and tucked the hem under the collar of your jacket. “How do I look?” you inquired, handing back the camo and mirror to Ghost.

“Ready to kick some arse,” Soap fired immediately.

“A she-ghost,” Gaz said.

“Ghost’s sibling,” the Captain commented.

You, Soap, and Ghost turned the other two. Soap pursed his lips to stop himself from smiling, while Ghost glared at them. You, on the other hand, had a grimace underneath the mask. “Agreeing with your favorite, Captain?”

A gasp escaped Kyle’s lips, facing the Price with bright, expecting eyes. “I’m your favorite?”

Johnny’s brows furrowed. “He’s your favorite?”

Simon couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Since when do we have favorites?”

Price pulled a face, shaking his head. “I don’t have favorites,” he proclaimed, but that wasn’t enough to convince both the Sergeants. You and Ghost merely listened to their debate and some friendly hits between the Sergeants, really starting to act like siblings fighting for some candies.

It was wonderful to witness, that even though these men weren’t connected by blood, they could be as close as a family who went through heaven and hell, stood in front of death’s door, but would always have one another’s back.

It was admirable—beautiful, that a desire to protect them bloomed in you. If they get dirty, so the world would stay clean, you’d get dirty, so they could continue what they needed to do.

You closed your eyes, feeling it become heavy due to the lack of sleep the past couple of days, and leaned back, a small smile painting on your lips.

Now, you felt like laughing.

Did Task Force 141 remind you of your old friends to feel this way? They’d probably laugh at you and say you’d leave the 141 as well, like what you did to them, or would they laugh because you wouldn’t be able to leave this time with a shackle on?

Oh, how you wish you’d know, no matter how hurtful the truth would be.

Ghost slightly stiffened at the sudden heaviness on his arm and he shifted down his head, finding you sound asleep, cheek squished against him. You looked peaceful with your mouth shut, not moving an inch unlike when you were awake and hyper as though you were on crack. Vulnerable, feeling safe enough to let yourself fall asleep on him in front of all these people who could snap your neck like a twig. But most of all, you looked like a normal person despite the disguise you had put on, simply sleeping because of the lack of.

It irked him to hear Shepherd refer to you as a tool—a weapon to be used and disposed of. It reminded him of the times before he met Price—before the said man made him feel like a human. Not as Ghost, but Simon. And maybe, if the Captain had done it to him before, perhaps Price can also do it to you.

“Soap,” he called, making Johnny halt from smacking Gaz, his elbow almost hitting you.

Johnny turned to face him with one brow raised, only for both his brows to arch upon seeing you asleep. “Didn’t know she could look quiet.”

“Anyone would look peaceful in their sleep except you,” Price said, crossed his arms, and leaned back, pulling his hat down to cover his eyes as he closed them.

Soap snapped his head at his way. “Captain!”

Gaz painted a smug smirk on his lips, lifting his chin proud. “And that’s why I am his favorite.”

“Ya goddamn—”

"Keep up, lass," Price's deep voice echoed on your headset as you jogged after him and Gaz in the dark—the Sergeant glancing over his shoulder to make sure you were following them and not planning to run away.

Not that you could.

You had a frown on your face, hidden by the night vision you had on, frustrated that you couldn’t get the chance to see the statue of Christ the Redeemer with all the houses (if you could call this cluster of shacks, houses) covering your sight. But there was no time for being hot-headed as you were already in the lion's den.

"Up the roof!" Gaz shouted, firing at the man on the rooftop above you three.

"Engaging enemies on the lower favelas," Price declared, running towards a corner of a house.

You slid for cover behind a crate, before aiming up the roof, shooting a man who had emerged from their covers. Blood splattered at each hit, painting the roof and the ground as he fell.

You quickly averted your attention from the sight and announced, "They're using assault rifles."

"Copy," replied the Captain and Gaz.

“Enemies on sight,” Ghost claimed in a rough voice.

There was a crackle on your headset. "Shadow 0-1 to Bravo 0-6 and Bravo 0-7, Shadows are ready for some takedown," Graves responded.

You pumped your fist in the air where someone would have been whenever you fought, a smile appearing on your lips. "Showtime."

You ran towards a corner and fired at the man crouching behind a window, shattering the glass, before aiming from left to right. With no man in sight, you proceed down to another alley.

A gunshot echoed in the air and you whipped around to where it came from. You pulled the trigger, and hid behind a wall, grabbing a grenade. You peeked out and threw it through an open window, then aimed at the house as it exploded. You sprinted towards it, slowly entering the shattered door, finding three men burned and unconscious.

You noticed a phone lit up in one of their pockets. You grinned, bending out and snatching it. You slipped it into one of the compartments of your vest and gazed up the stairs. "Found a way up the roofs."

"Good, do what you must," Price ordered, making you chuckle as you climbed up the stairs. It could only mean one thing, considering he had tested you in the range before. Show him what you could do.

"Wishing our lady death, Captain?" Kyle's soft voice resounded, making you smile.

"Why don't you save me like a good knight in vest you are, Sergeant?” you questioned, humming as you climbed up the stairs. You glanced from left to right and found a window.

A soft laughter echoed in your headset. “Alright, call for my name when you need me later.”

“How ‘bout I call ya, Gaz?” Soap questioned in a mocking voice.

“He’d kill ya instead,” Ghost said, there was a hint of amusement in his tone.

“I’d tell the militia they could take Soap home,” Gaz responded.

You cackled at the top of your lungs and jumped out of the window, blasting the heads of a couple of men you alerted with your laughter. “Perhaps you could learn Portuguese, Soap.”

“I’ll gie ye guys a skelpit lug,” Johnny barked out.

“Speak English,” the three of you remarked simultaneously, making the poor handwash groan and curse at you three.

“American English, perhaps,” Graves piped in, making you and Kyle howl in laughter.

“Not ye too, Graves!” Johnny yelled, making you flinch at the sudden loud volume, which quickly died down.

“You guys are bullying Soap too much,” Price said in a calm voice.

“Tell them, Captain. Tell them!” Soap exclaimed, and you could imagine him stomping and throwing his hands around like a kid.

Then, Price added, “Do it again, kids.”

“Fuck you!”

You ran, dashing behind walls that went higher than some roofs as bullets whistled past you, and slid, shooting multiple rounds.

A series of gunshots and explosions from all directions could be heard. It seemed that the Shadows had risen from the dark, and now the Task Force could focus on the target.

You launched yourself from one roof to another, landing with a thud and rolling. You got up to your feet and put bullets through a door from below. The door broke down and one man fell out. You proceeded forward, climbing up a higher shack due to the slope of the hill.

Just as you got inside, a curse in Portuguese shot to your covered ears. You slipped forward as the man aimed his handgun and you unsheated your knife, slashing his thigh. He fell with a stifled scream and you drive the blade to his neck. You pulled it off in a swoop and blood gushed out, splatting on your clothes.

You were thankful you couldn’t feel the warmth of it, but you could feel your skin slick with sweat. You looked down at the man next to your feet, blood pooling underneath, and sighed, averting your gaze away.

You marched toward a terrace on the side and noticed a light on top of a mountain from far away. You gasped. “Guys, I see him!”

“Fabricio?!” Price yelled over the comms.

“No, sir! Christ the Redeemer!” You leaped out of the terrace, grinning wide, although you couldn’t see it. You stowed behind a wall as you noticed several men jogging above a makeshift metal bridge to cross roofs. “Can we go later there? I want to see it up close!”

A silence answered you before Price responded in a low voice. “I can’t guarantee that, kid.”

You peeked from the corner and struck them down swiftly. “I know that, sir. I’m just messing with you.”

You heard another sigh from him that got blocked over by Ghost’s loud voice. “I spotted Fabricio! He’s headed down your way, Soap!”

“I see him!” Soap shouted back. “Ah, shite—Captain, he’s going your way!”

“Copy!” The Captain replied in a serious voice. “What the—he’s down yours, Gaz!”

Upon hearing his words, you ran and jumped to another roof, where the militia was headed earlier. Considering the direction where they supposedly proceed and where Gaz should be chasing down the man now, you would be able to see him from a bird’s eye view.

“Bloody man, can’t he settle in one way?!” Kyle commented, clearly frustrated by how annoying the changes in the route of the target were, which was expected as he was on his home ground. “Shit, he’s gonna get away!”

You turned to the right, jumped to another roof, and there the scurrying rat was. You leaped and everything seemed to be in slow motion as you went down and landed on Fabricio, bringing him down on the ground. He grunted in pain and you quickly aimed a gun on his head as you moved more comfortably on the man’s back, completely sitting down on him.

You looked in all directions and smiled under your mask at the Task Force emerging from the shadows one by one. “I better get a good dinner tonight for this.”

Next chapter is here!

You can also read the series in AO3!

Taglist: @yyiikes, @the-faceless-bride, @sae1kie, @sarahedwards16, @kenma-izhu, @kkaaaagt

Note: Ngl, Graves is cute and that makes me want to bully him so bad. As you guys can see, this is based on the Favela mission of MW2 2009. Also, feel free to ask to be tagged, guys! It makes me happy people are reading this shit LMAO

165 notes · View notes

moth-nana · 7 months

Text

Night time talks

Bonten!Sanzu Haruchiyo x gn!reader

Summary: Sanzu seeks shelter at the bookshop where you work from a shooting. You take a liking to him and apparently so does he.

Not proof read!

Words: 2.3k

You had gotten a new job in a bookshop. The bookshop you worked in was cute and nice but it was in an area that was not that safe for women nor anyone really. The unsafe environment was mostly connected to all the bars and clubs that were owned by different gangs around Tokyo.

You had seen your fair share of violence when you were in your teens and successfully removed yourself from all that after highschool ended and you started to study literature and arts. You were happy when you got your new job but the place had raised your concern. Even though the shop was at the outskirts of the street where there were hardly any clubs and people mostly walked past to get to all the clubs and bars. You had had some girls come in before closing to seek shelter from some creepy individuals and you had been nice enough to keep them company and escort them to the nearest bus stop.

Today was different. You had a good amount of customers and when the late evening came along you started to prepare to close after a long day and many customers. Before you knew it someone ran into the shop. He had a pink mullet and formal suit west. He jumped over the register and crouched behind it. Then you heard bullets being fired not far from your workplace.

"Fuck this." You mumbled to yourself. You were too tired to even care to hide with the stranger.

"I advise you to get down." He whispered loudly. You looked at him. Your eyes directly caught his scars on the corners of his mouth. He looked like he could be a character from a book or a tv show that you would enjoy.

"I think I'm good. I have no reason to hide." Your answer was heard but the stranger didn't care. He yanked you down to his level. You landed on your but hitting your tailbone to the floor. You whined from the pain.

"I said I was good." You snapped at him. He gave you a side eye.

"I normally don't care if someone dies but right now I have no energy to clean up any blood from my clothes." He snapped back. At that moment you glanced at his right wrist and saw a tattoo that you wished to never see, a Bonten tattoo.

You heard some shots that were not as close anymore. You started to wake up more and realize the situation you were in. Should you get up and run? That would not be a great idea. Staying and waiting seems a more stable way to go from this.

You glanced at the pink haired man who was typing something on his phone. He huffed frustratingly and looked at you.

"The shooting is going to be over soon." He said this time quietly but he didn't necessarily whisper.

"Good, I need to get home." You moved to lean on the wall on the opposite side of the counter.

"Why?" He asked you. He seemed to be bored.

"I have a cat who I don't like to leave alone for too long. He tends to destroy my stuff when I leave him home for more than eight hours." You told him and he nodded.

"Do you have any pets?" You asked to be polite and for some reason you wanted to know more about him. He seemed dangerous and compelling.

"No, I don't really have time for pets nor do I really like those furballs." He replied to my not so creative question.

“You seem like a guy who keeps a really cool snake but I guess not.” you shrugged your shoulders and he looked at you. His pupils were slightly dilated. Your guess was that he was on drugs.

“How much have you taken?” You asked without actually thinking about it more. You acted stupid with no filter from the lack of sleep that had followed you for weeks now. You were too tired to mostly care much.

“Little enough for me to have a clear head but enough for you to get into hospital.” He stated with a smirk and then added, “You want some?”

“No thank you, keep whatever you got to yourself.” you waved your hands to show that you were declining his offer that most likely was a joke. You hoped it was a joke.

“Nice, more for me then.” He was taking something from his pocket that looked like a pack of pills but you stopped his hand by grabbing it.

“I would really appreciate it, if you wouldn’t take any substances in my presence.” He gave you a stare and you stared back.

“Fine.” He snapped and took his hand away from your grip without his precious drugs. You heard another bang and then it was quite like there was nothing outside. No people, no cars, no wind, nothing.

His phone lit up and he read the message he had received. "We are good to go." He informed you and rose to his feet. You followed his lead and rose from the floor. You dusted your jeans and gave him a nod.

“Next time warn me…”

“Sanzu”

“Sanzu” You gave him a smile. His face had carried almost no emotion other than annoyance or boredom since he had run into the shop but now he looked like he was unsure of something.

He shook his head and started heading out. With a wave of his hand as to say goodbye.

“Nice tattoo!” You yelled after him just before the door closed behind him. He turned to look at you and narrowed his eyes before walking away.

“He has some beautiful eyes.”

Youfelt like you were drowning in your own work. Everyday since the shooting had been exhausting with no help from the owner. It was like they had disappeared after you asked him if he could hire someone else to work with you.

You had to manage all the new books that came in and every decision that came with it. You liked to have your freedom but having no one to ask what they thought or was something you did a good idea made you feel exhausted.

You were stoking up new manga that came in yesterday afternoon. You heard the door opening and someone walking in. You didn’t turn to look who it was since your hands were full of new volumes of one of the most liked and bought manga.

“Hi,” a greeting just beside your ear made you jump a little and drop three volumes you had in your hands to the floor. You cringed as you thought how the cover might have gotten damaged.

“Oh fuck,” You whined before greeting Sanzu. You picked the dropped mangas up and checked their quality. They were still in pretty good condition so you put them to their place.

“It’s rude to ignore your customers.” Sanzu snickered behind you as you loaded the shelves quickly.

“Sorry for doing my job. Anyway, how can I help you?” You turned to look at him. He looked to be in pretty good shape. He looked at you with a subtle smirk on his lips.

“I wanted to come and ask you to recommend a book for someone like me.”

“Seriously?” You asked him and lifted your right eyebrow up a little.

“no,” he leaned towards you, “I needed a reason to talk to you.”

“Interesting, what do you need?” You leaned your upper body a little closer to his. You could feel the building up tension between you two.

“Your name and your number would be nice.” His voice sends shivers through your skin.

“My name is (Name), but you need to put on more effort than that to get my number.” You leaned back to your original position.

“Is that so?” His lips were curved into a big grin.

“Surely it is, I would like to have you on a date after my shift is over.” You felt daring with him standing before you like that. He scanned your face with his eyes for something. A small laugh left his lips as he straightened his back.

“Then that is what we’ll do.” He gave you a wink. He turned away from you to leave.

“19.15!” you shouted after him while he was walking out again.

“See you soon!” He yelled before stepping out of the store.

You were really waiting for the closing time. Not many customers came after he left and it made your time fly by slower than before or maybe it was because you were excited. You were cleaning up the counter when you saw him. He walked in front of the shop and you greeted him with a smile and held your finger up to tell him without words that it would take a second before you would meet him outside but he came in.

“Can you wait up a few seconds?” you asked before putting all the counted money where you should before closing. He was waiting without a word next to the door of the shop. He was leaning on the window with his hands in his pockets and a smirk playing on his face. He looked really handsome.

You finished with your closing and the last thing was to lock the place up and it would be all done. You had shut all the lights and the small shop had become dark. Only light that came in was from the streetlights outside. You walked towards the door and he opened it for you and let you walk out before him. You thanked him and locked the place up.

“Where to?” you asked Sanzu while he started walking towards all the clubs. “I was thinking of taking you to one of our restaurants to eat and then we would go and enjoy a few drinks in a club.” He summarized his plan and your nose crushed up. He seemed to take notice of that and stopped walking and so did you. He seemed amused before asking, “What would you like to change about my plan?” You had to think for a while before answering him. “I would like to do something that doesn’t involve money since I can’t afford anything fancy… Also I would like to do something memorable for both of us.” He seemed taken back by your words. “Then what would you like to do?” He asked and you took his hand. “Follow me.” You started to pull him by his hand to the closest bus stop.

That night you had taken a bus with Sanzu to the closest grocery store and bought ingredients to a dish you liked very much. You had welcomed him into your apartment and let him pet your black cat, Niko, and cooked you two food.

He had enjoyed the food you made and you two had talked about anything you two had thought of.

He didn’t really tell you much about his work, but he told you about stupid shit his coworkers had said and done that had annoyed him. You told him about your studies and your boss who had just left you with the bookshop. He listened well and asked questions. You too listened to him and liked to hear him talk. In the end he left around two in the morning.

You were at awe how he acted more humane than you thought. He didn’t seem so scary after you had pulled him into the bus and partly forced him to go to the grocery shop with you. He seemed so out of place sitting at your dining table keeping you company while you cooked and after that sitting next to you on your couch.

After that night it became a habit for him to visit at your place at evening at least once a week. He seemed to be more at ease when he got to talk to you while you made food or did some studying.

He had found some paintings in your room once and had begged for you to let him keep one so he could have something to remember you by at his place.

You had one picture of him. It was a polaroid picture of him sitting on your dining table head leaning on his hand while partly falling asleep with an actual smile.

Sometimes when he came by he had blood on his hands and a wicked grin on his face. It did scare you a bit at first but after a while of him showing up like that on your doorsteps it also became a part of your reality. It wasn’t all new, you had been a part of a delinquent world before but knowing that the things he did were more than fights in a parking lot that left bruises on both parties made you feel weird. It felt like Sanzu was easing you into his world bit by bit.

“You know that I love you, right?” You asked him as he had come out of your shower with clean clothes he had brought to your place a few weeks prior.

“Oh, really?” His voice was playful as the look on his face. “Where did this come from?” He tilted his head and you shrugged. “I just wanted you to know.”

“I love you too.”

Bonus: Before he was supposed to take you on a date.

“Take them clubbing!” Ran earned a few approving nods.

“No, take them to eat in one of our restaurants or something more expensive.” Koko disagreed with Ran and sat with his hands crossing his chest.

Kakucho was shaking his head. “Ask them. By what you told us before they most likely will not like clubs.” He was ignored by most and Sanzu decided to go with both Koko’s and Ran’s ideas. But Kakucho knew better.

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #sanzu haruchiyo x reader #sanzu x reader #bonten sanzu #bonten x reader #tokyo revengers x gn!reader

288 notes · View notes

cecedownbad · 8 months

Text

Hold On

Summary: A missing child's case resurfaced so many memories you wished to keep buried. Sure enough, seeking comfort from the heavy feelings came by as a form of a person. [Spencer Reid X Fem!Reader] Part 1.

Warnings: Death of a child, made up case, made up case numbers, abusive mother, absent father, no Y/N, there is a last name: Cyrus. Hurt/ Comfort. A two part fic, Spencer is a supportive friend here. Pretty much a whole episode of CM. Probable inaccurate science facts, not that great at writing mysteries, I think, don't mind the weird conclusions. Self indulgent in all it's glory (minus the fem part), my apologies. Proof read but I'm blind so lmk if there are bothersome errors.

Word Count: 4.7k

Based on very sad songs that I won't put up cause we deserve better. Binged all 16 seasons in 2 weeks, it was worth it.

Enjoy

"I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise."

-Anaïs Nin

"Mom, where's Steven?" A dark room, with nothing but a single bed, and a desk that contained one clock furnished the surroundings. The ticking of the clock resonated within you, each tick causing you to step forward to a door ajar, light seeping through it.

Not too bright, not too dark, moonlight streaming in through the cracks much like a distant scream in a faraway place. "Sweetie? Go back to bed, you have to go to school tomorrow." A still voice poured in, the voice echoed in almost engulfing you but your feet already brought you face to face with what caused all your nightmares. "Steven has not come back from his play time. Where is he, Mom?" Your voice is so soft yet embroidered in concern. "Steven is okay, go back to bed." The woman in front of you smiled, her smile was stretched. Her eyes harboured nothing as if you stared right into the abyss.

Yet, her face was...gone, her eyes were full, her smile, so impeccable but where was her face, why couldn't you remember?

"Oh my sweet girl, you look just like me." She beamed but you stood there confused, to which you backed away from the room and entered your bedroom.

Nothing was out of place, everything remained as it was, like that day, what day was it?

When your eyes took in the room you noticed a small juice box, the very same one Steven had drunk, right after he...wait, who was 'he'?

Then you heard her, "I told you to go to sleep, didn't I?" The anger that seethed from her caused nothing but fear to blanket you. She towered over you, whispering, "I took Steven to a better place."

That was when you knew, your little brother, was never coming back from his play time, he was never going to drink his favourite juice again. That was his fault, he just didn't listen to Mother. This is what happens to children who disobey.

You turned around and smiled at her, "Mother," you called out, "I'll be a good girl, I'll never disappoint you."

All the while you quivered, knowing that your little brother was gone for good, "Steven, I'll find you, I promise."

'I promise, Steven...'

'Who's Steven?'

Your eyes shot awake like you'd been shot with a bullet to your gut, 'Ugh, what?' The sudden rush of light filtered in, waking you from your short nap and making you rub and squint your eyes, then you felt how sticky your back had felt, the palms of your hands damp from sweat. 'You were calling out to someone just now, you said, "I'll find you, I promise, Steven" in your sleep.' Spencer questioned you, his eyes gathering that you showed signs of having a bad dream.

'Uh, nothing, it's nothing, just haven't got much sleep, is all.' You brush off the question, looking around, you get up from your seat, taking in that you were returning from a case in Wichita and the team was on the jet back to Quantico. You excused yourself to the bathroom, the size of it and the dim light were not ideal but you needed to freshen up.

Twisting the faucet, you let the water run and washed your face, the cold water woke you up right away. A sudden rush of relief had hit you, a sense of comfort knowing that your bad dream could not seep into reality, the safety of it was that you knew nothing could get to you when you were surrounded by the best agents you could ever meet.

It happened not too long ago when you were invited to join the BAU, thanks to a recommendation from the Criminal Investigation Division.

Grabbing a tissue from the dispenser by the sink, you wiped your hands and face, throwing the used tissue in the slot made for waste disposal right below the sink. A sigh sounded out of you, with one last look at yourself in the mirror, you straightened your clothes and walked out of the loo. 'How are you doing?' Spencer asked you as you sat in the seat before him, his right hand holding an open book, which you presume is written in Russian. 'Yeah, I just had a bad dream, nothing big.' You once again dismiss him.

It wasn't exactly an alarming thing to have a bad dream. On the contrary, you were accustomed to having nightmares and bad dreams but this one was different, recurring in all its forms. The sounds, the sights, were familiar but all the more terrifying, there wasn't a feeling so twisted as this one. 'I don't think it was just a bad dream, your breathing rate increased from the normal 12 to 18 breathes per minute to 25 to 30 in the three minutes after you woke up and you were sweating profusely. Are you sure you're okay?' He breathed out, his eyes already reading your every movement, catching how you twitched when he caught that you were not telling him the truth. 'Reid...thank you for worrying but I—'

'Alright, crime fighters, how's everyone doing, all tucked in?' Saved by the bell as it goes, Penelope popped up on the jet's screen, 'Yeah, can't wait to get some sleep.' JJ groaned.

'Uh about that, I'm really sorry for putting this on you guys, I know you guys are tired and I hate doing this right after a case and- I have some bad news.'

'What is it, Garcia?' Emily asked

'Okay so you have another case, it's a missing child case in Bakersfield, a 6 year old boy named Stephen Turner, last seen in his, oh this is so sad, in his room. A report was sent 12 minutes ago.' The name made you freeze, you could hear your heart beat quickening, the way it felt like it could run for miles was a pain you were sure you put behind. 'Garcia is that Steven or Stephen?'

'Oh I'm pretty sure it's Stephen, my love.'

'Okay, thanks...' it wasn't relief that washed over you, but the name carried a heavy weight.

'Bakersfield, California, Right?' Luke clarified. 'Yes newbie, I'll have the files sent to you immediately on your tablets and the rest should be at the local Police department there, Good luck guys!' Garcia signed off immediately after.

'Okay, we know the drill, we only have 24 hours or we'll be looking for a body. I'll inform the pilot to change course. When we land, JJ and Rossi go to the Turner house and speak with the parents. Reid go with them, we need to know how he was taken from his room. Luke and Tara, I want you to scout the neighborhood, maybe someone saw something.' She turned to face you, 'Cyrus, you'll be with me, we'll speak with the Chief there.' Emily gave everyone their designated tasks.

Everyone exchanged nods with their partners. You exchanged a glance with Emily, standing up from your seat, you chose to stand all the while till it was necessary to be seated when the jet landed.

-----------------

'Chief Marks, this is SSA Cyrus, I'm Unit Chief Prentiss, What have we got so far on Stephen Turner?' She quickly shook hands with the PD Chief, You took it as a chance to observe the department, a missing child case gave you little time for formalities. 'So far, zilch, I have some of my officers posted around the neighbourhood, even questioned across the street, said they saw nothing.'

'My Agents are already there, let's hope they turn up with something new.' Emily informed the chief and led you both to an empty conference room, informing you that this was the only available room at such short notice. 'Chief Marks, would you mind bringing in prior missing child case reports, preferably going back 20 years.' You asked before he got the chance to leave, there was still one nagging question that you had to rule out.

Could your mother be involved? Or was it your paranoia getting the best of you? but a job was a job, if an MO matched with an old case, narrowing down suspects was a huge load off.

'Anything you need.' He answered in the affirmative after a pause.

'Something in mind?' Emily asked you.

'This is my hometown, I've read my fair share of missing child cases but if there's a chance one of them bares any similarities, we might be able to narrow down our search.' You explained, opening boxes of the gathered information on Stephen.

'Yes, I'm sorry I forgot, after the case maybe you can go see your folks?' The thought was so lighthearted but you had gulped in guilt at the words, 'No, we need to go back to the Academy...my folks and I aren't in good terms.'

'Oh, let me know if there's anything I can do?' She asked softly, which you smiled to in response, 'Of course.'

Emily was always a friend before a Unit Chief when she caught on to indications of a slight change in behaviour, it made it a whole lot easier to speak to her about things you wouldn't bother about with your old Unit Chief.

---------------------------

'What have you got so far?'

'Nothing solid, of the two stacks of cases brought in, 2/3ds hardly match the MO and, the remaining few, let's say it didn't end well for the kids.' You gritted your teeth at the last sentence.

JJ, Rossi and Spencer walked in right at that moment, 'What did you find?' Emily asked the three.

'There wasn't a sign of struggle in the room, it's likely the UnSub and Stephen knew each other or he could have been drugged, there was no sign of a break-in either but the spare key that was left under one of the plants was missing, UnSub definitely planned the kidnapping and was aware of the layout of the house.' Reid informed.

'Mom and Dad are worked up, said they didn't hear anything from the kids room upstairs, hasn't gotten into any fights at school or kids around the area or within the family.' Rossi states.

'Yeah, Joy, Stephen's mom, said he was well liked, got good grades, knew not to trust strangers,' JJ took a deep breath, 'He's a healthy 6 year old boy and apart from not being athletic, he's just one normal kid in a family of 4.'

'Wait, 4?' You stopped JJ.

'Yeah...he has an older—'

'Sister? Say 11 or 12?' You completed, the fear inside you built. 'Yes, 12, how, how did you know?'

That same empty feeling drained out of you, fear blanketed whatever memory you recalled from this place. 'Good guess, I think, is the family here I, uh, I want to speak with them, maybe the sister even.'

'I can ask them to come in but why?'

'I think she might know something or maybe even the UnSub.' You breathed, 'I'm gonna go out for some air, Emily?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Thanks.' You nod slowly and walk out of the conference room and out of the PD. You leaned back on the wall, sunlight barely visible due to it now being autumn, orange-tinted leaves lightly grazed the pavements. Passersby walking hand in hand or holding on to a warm drink. It's a pleasant scene for the beginning of the most painful nightmares.

'...Steven.'

'You said his name again.'

'Ah! Jeez, Reid! You scared the crap out of me, don't do that again!' Stepping back you raised your hands ahead of you in defense.

'Sorry, I brought you coffee.' He offered.

'Thank you, what are you doing? Out here, I mean.'

'I know it's a little bit of an unspoken rule that we don't profile on the team but-'

'But, you profiled me,' you sighed, this was expected, you knew he was only worried about you but it never occurred to you that he'd come looking for you. Being in the BAU for more than a year doesn't make you chummy with each other, especially with Dr. Spencer Reid, or so you've heard.

He was cautious around you, he was not afraid, just that he could tell you preferred solitude compared to the average population. But he never took the chance that when you displayed more emotion than you would otherwise, to walk away. Always asking if you were alright, leaving you small treats at your desk knowing that it helps you. You kept to yourself and he respected that, in turn, so did you. Not many catch on to your subtle way of pulling back from too much physical contact, or the way you'd always make the person before you speak, knowing they had no chance of asking you about the details of the life you lived.

In a way, admiring his skills as a profiler was easy to come by. More so his little actions that left you thinking that he was one of the few people you'd consider opening up to. So listening to his observations was, if not intriguing, worth betting on.

'Okay, tell me what you got.' You let him have at it.

'Well, I would go into statistics but I'll keep it short. You have been on edge from the moment Garcia mentioned your hometown and judging by the way you keep mentioning this person's name, who I'll assume is someone you know from here and bad...things happened, causing you to have nightmares now more frequently maybe due to an anniversary.' He laid out like you were an open book. Who were you kidding? Where would he be if he wasn't good at his job?

Your brows knitted and you let out a painful chuckle but you knew that wasn't all he figured out. 'What else?'

'You had also correctly estimated Stephen's sister's age simply based on the fact that they are a family of 4, which tells me that this isn't the first this has happened here, in fact the very first time it did, it was very close to you or maybe you were involved.' He finished the last of his deduction and looked at you, searching for a mistake in his findings, it concerned you after all.

'You got me, ha. That name, Steven, he um, he was—' you tried completing your sentence, your lips began shaking and you looked away from Spencer because other people seeing you cry was never on your bucket list. 'Steven was my little brother.' You bit the words but it spilled out in all it's shapeless glory.

'Was?' Spencer questioned.

'He went missing, 20 years ago...he was 6, just like Stephen and I was...11, just like that little girl.' It took everything in you, every bone and muscle to let out what you couldn't for 20 years. 'Do you know what happened to him?' Spencer quietly asked. 'All I know was that my mother had brought him out to play and he never came back, whenever I asked all she would do was look at me like maybe I should've been the one that was gone.'

'Does anyone know? Someone had to be searching for him—'

'Reid, no one knew my brother, they...forgot him, or chose to. I couldn't ask what had happened or go to the police station because my mother, she would tell me he was okay.' The warm streaks of salty tears had left your eyes, you wanted them to stop, it was shame and regret that filled your mind. 'Four days from now would be his anniversary of the day he disappeared.' Wiping your cheek and turning to face Spencer, you caught a glimpse of a man that looked like he knew.

Knew how much you were hurting, how that showing this side of yourself was only making it worse.

'I—'

'I'm sorry to interrupt but the Turner family is here.' An officer from the department had called you in. 'Yes, I'll be right there...Reid, thank you for the coffee and for uh, listening, I'll fill you in on the rest if you want.'

He subtly nodded and you both ushered inside.

You spotted the family and exchanged a quick greeting, expressing your apologies and understanding of the situation you began asking questions and later focused on asking the little girl, who was shaken up but put on a brave front to stay strong. Braver than the parents, you note.

'Hi, Tina, right? How are you feeling?' you bent down to meet her eye level. 'I'm fine, it's Stephen I'm worried about and you should be too.' She strongly expressed. Her concern for her brother was what made you smile inwardly, 'We are, Tina but we're going to ask you some questions. Is that okay with you?' Quickly gaining the quiet approval of the parents you proceeded.

'Are you and Stephen close?'

'Yeah, he's very clumsy so I have to look out for him a lot, and because he's so short, I don't like people thinking they can pick on him.' She answered true. 'That's very good Tina, you're a wonderful sister, tell me, lately has there been anyone you know who's been close to Stephen besides you or your parents?'

'No not really, he's got two friends but they both moved away...oh!' The girl had a moment of realisation. 'There's this lady that visits our house sometimes. My mom and dad usually say hi to her, and she keeps asking me if Stephen's been studying well.' She completed.

'That's Rosa, she's the head of the neighbourhood watch, she was with me even when I was in labour at the hospital here, suggested the name too, you don't think?' The mother's face contorted a little as her mind raced.

How could you forget your mother's name, she flaunted it for as long as you stayed with her. Rosa Cyrus, a symbol of hope so domineering, it paralysis any that gets too close to its core, that's who she was, or who she saw herself as.

'We can't say for sure ma'am, but you should stay here. Thank you, Tina, what you said was very helpful. We'll find your brother, I promise.' You stuck your hand out and she grabbed it quickly, giving you a wobbly handshake her little hands could gather. 'Uhm, Ms. FBI Agent ma'am, I really want to see my brother again, please.'

You sucked in whatever painful thought you gathered and gave the family a smile.

'Thank you, please find him.' The father could barely put up a brave front, his face already riddled with tear stains. 'We will.'

'Good job.' Rossi was outside the door, he gently patted your shoulder. 'Hmm, we need to find him.'

'And we will, after all, with a team like ours and not to mention boy genius, we'll find the kid.' Rossi's words brought comfort.

--------------------------

You immediately called Garcia once you entered the conference room where everyone was gathered, 'Find the location of Rosa Cyrus, any properties in her name and any known associates, She might have moved to this neighbourhood 10 years ago, also I need you to trace her past phone calls and bank transactions.' You felt your patience running thin, you knew this woman from the moment her name-dropped, she was your mother after all. Now all you wished for was that you got rid of all traces of her, including her last name.

'Um Hi?'

'Garcia, now.'

It wasn't your intention to be demanding, or sound angry, emotions getting in the way of work has rough consequences. 'O-okay, I'll be back as soon as possible.' You let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed your forehead. 'Who is she?' Tara asked you, and you paused and looked at her, it was then that you caught on that everyone in the room had a torn look of concern directed at you.

'My mother.' You took your chance and here spills the truth.

'Your mother? What does your mother have to do with this?' Emily asked, she wasn't asking as a friend but as your chief. 'Tina said that Rosa Cyrus had been visiting their house every now and then, checking in on Stephen, claiming that she was only doing her duty as the head of the neighbourhood watch. The mother said she was even present when he was born, and gave him his name too.'

'But why—'

'Okay guys, this is very suspicious,' Garcia checked back in right on time.

'Rosa Cyrus, born and raised in Bakersfield, once married to a construction worker named Daniel Carter. Later she gave birth to one, oh uhm, little girl-' you shut your eyes at the mention of your name, '-and she went into labour once again... the only thing specified about the baby was the gender, it was a baby boy, no records after that, hospital records don't mention a name, date of birth is listed but it looks like at the time they didn't stay in long to mention details. It was like this boy didn't exist.' Garcia sympathetically continued on, you knew she would want to be there for you right now, 'She got a divorce 6 years after her son was born but from her contact history, it looks like Daniel and her never lost touch.'

'That sorry bitch.' You whispered, more so as an undertone, it was loud enough that Luke and Spencer looked up at you.

'Okay this is where things get weirder, she started frequenting the Turner house since the birth of Stephen. A camera feed shows that she was on the way to the Turner's house the day before he went missing.' She finished up.

'Yeah, I asked the neighbours across the street if they saw anything but they hadn't, they did hear a car leave the scene at roughly the same time Reid narrowed down the time he was taken.' Luke filled in. 'Roughly between 11:30 pm to 2 am, which was around the time Joy went to check in on Stephen. Based on the time they heard the car fleeing, he was missing at around 12:35 pm.' Emily gave a quick nod at Spencer's deduction.

'Thank you Garcia, any known whereabouts on Daniel?'

'Searching now and there, the last known location was the police—He was right there. Okay uhh, sending you his address and Rosa's current address, please catch these a-holes!'

'Oh that's a done deal. Garcia?'

'Yeah?'

'My little brother's name was Steven, please, don't forget.' That was a plea. A plea that she understood right away, one that also was directed to everyone in that very room.

The two of you might be at a distance but you could tell she smiled on the other end, 'I won't, sugar.'

With Garcia hanging up, now things have increased in pace, you have a name and a face to give to your unsub all that's left now is to find them and the boy.

'Tara, I need you to tell the chief to pull up an APB on Rosa and Daniel.' Emily handed out orders, and Tara was just as quick to respond, 'Luke and JJ, head over to Daniel's address, If he's there, bring him in and be careful, he is likely on alert since he visited the station. Rossi, Reid and I will be on our way to Rosa's, Cyrus—'

'I know, I'll stay here, I'm too close to the case now.'

'Yes but also, if Luke and JJ get back here with Daniel, he'll demand to see you, There's a chance he knows you're here and that might convince him to assume you would be on his side if he asks for you, you'll only meet him with Tara or Reid in the room with you, can you do that? I need you as level-headed as possible.' She looked you straight in the eyes, which caused you to pause for a good minute to assess all possibilities.

Would you be okay seeing someone you haven't in 20 years? Someone who pretty much played a part in your brother's disappearance?

You took that one minute to take a breath, record all scenarios and with a tight chest you gave Emily your response, 'Yes, if it will get him to talk, I'll play my cards like I always do.'

'Good, let's get moving then.'

You sat down on one of the chairs, watching your team leave the PD, getting armed and ready as they darted out but you didn't notice one more lingering figure. He was quiet but he didn't startle you again this time.

Spencer gave a single pat on the shoulder, but before he could leave the interaction, you placed a hand over his and held on to him. Though the touch startled him, from his gatherings, he noticed that you didn't look at him, you hung your head low but latched on to his fingers in a desperate attempt to feel comfort. Your bad dream suddenly seems to stray from your head and bend the strings of reality, nestling in unrest you didn't want to feel again.

You let out a quiet sniffle, with a daft smile you let go of the hand that brought you safety. 'Go.'

Moreover, he did. The fading figure of your colleague and now close friend, caused you to huddle into yourself.

You're going to be okay. A silent notion of sanity.

---------------------------

'Hey, got you something to eat.' Tara walked into the room and sat next to you, she carefully placed a package of Choux Pastry before you. Eyes darted to indicate a grateful gesture was about to be appreciated. Tara required no words for the way you'd carefully taken out the plate, digging in right away to know that this was the little thing that might keep you going, thank yous fell out of your mouth after a good bite. 'Take your time and eat it though, can't have a good agent choking on a choux pastry on a Tuesday.' She chided.

'So no dying on Tuesdays, duly noted doc.' A light breathy laugh left you. It was the small things, nobody asked or pleaded for an offer of gold to feel better about themselves, if anyone knew that, it was everyone at the BAU. 'We're all here if you need us, okay?' Her voice said it all, that was enough. 'I know, it's why I'm still here.'

Silence had fallen in the room, it wasn't heavy, not at all, but that didn't make Tara's fumbling with case files any quieter. 'You can ask me, you know?' You broke the silence, and the rustling of papers stopped.

'What?'

'I know you want to ask me something so go ahead, don't believe I have anything to hide...at this point anyway.'

She sighed and rose from her chair, 'I just, okay, she waited exactly 6 years to take Stephen, she named him, tried to intervene and raise him like he was her own. She named him after her—your brother, who no one knew existed. Clearly she's reliving an event. So, why Steven? What happened to him?' she began, 'She couldn't have simply waited for another child to be born in the right circumstances, there has to be another boy, that no one knows about who's missing, or maybe a person, an adult who would match Steven's description? This woman needs a trigger to have to wait to do something like this.'

'So you're saying, there's a chance Grace is a...serial killer?'

'She would know how to take care of the bodies, a place or method she knows well enough so that nothing odd would ever turn up.' Tara walked over to the pile of missing persons reports, looking through them with brows crossed. 'Wait, I think there was one case, a 16-year-old boy. He looked exactly how I'd imagine Steven to, check case number 000612-M5-034.' You got up from the chair, standing right by Tara with arms crossed. 'Okay, let's see, Conrad Miller, 16 years old, went missing on June 12th, 2007. Last seen by the local church with one of the volunteers, she was questioned once but was never linked as she had a solid alibi, her name was Grace Cyrus.'

Part 2

189 notes · View notes

daenakills · 1 month

Text

His dark eyes.

Tom riddle x fem!reader

part 1

part 2. i will make more so don't worry this is kind of short. english isn't my first language so lmk there's any mistake. this is for fun.

You calmly wrote down your assigned potion's homework. Slughorn always found a way to assign tasks that, although they seemed difficult at the beginning, ended up being easy, and you even got a reward at the end. That was your favourite part.

The door opened suddenly, revealing a slightly upset Tom, which wasn't strange but at the same time, when you consider it, it was. He usually didn't show it so openly, you realized you knew him completely, or at least that's what you thought.

“I notice you're upset, my love.” Anyone who heard this phrase that you had addressed to Tom would have thought that it was just a loving nickname, but he knew perfectly well it was just irony. “Has something happened?” In response, he slowly turned his head to look at you.

“Where are my books?”

“I don't know, probably in your room. I highly doubt they're here. Besides, I cannot understand how you manage to get into the ladies room.” He ignored your question, and started searching through your clothes and things. No matter how much you could tell him to stop, you knew he wasn't going to, so you didn't even try. When he finished searching for what he wanted, he left without looking back.

It was depressing. It was depressing knowing that you were being used, and you cursed the day you decided to confess to Tom Riddle. Likewise, it had been almost a year. You could have had such a nice future, maybe fallen in love and married one of your classmates, but no, you decided to confess to the psychopath. You hoped that one day you could travel back to yesterday and return unscathed. Curled up in your bed, you allowed yourself to cry, and your voice was never louder.

Already in the dining room, with your mind blank and already recovered (not completely) from your little cry, the girls were trying to find conversations with you. You were wondering why. Usually when they talked to you, it was to get information from you about something that interested them. In fact, before becoming Tom's girlfriend you had never talked to so many people, apparently they didn't find you interesting. You kept questioning yourself internally what they wanted from you until one of them finally made her intentions clear.

��And… we were all wondering if you've had… you know, with Tom.” You were stunned. He had not prepared you for that type of question, and not in a thousand years would you have been able to answer it. The others who were around told that girl, Martha, to have a little more filter when she talked about those things.

The truth was that you hadn't had your first time, not even with Simón, he died before they could make that breakthrough. Everyone in your class had already had relationships with their boyfriends, and it was logical that those who were single (and those who were not also) were interested in knowing how good the beloved Tom Riddle was in bed. Obviously, you couldn't tell them that you felt an extreme repulsion towards the man who was your boyfriend, since that would completely damage their plan to deceive the professor. That prompted you to find him and ask him a question.

“Do we really need to stick with the plan?”

You had taken a while to look for him but when you found him he was talking to Professor Slughorn about a topic you didn't know about. Tom said goodbye to Slughorn, saying that he was going to attend to his beautiful girlfriend. You wondered if he was the teacher Tom talked so much about.

“Obviously, we must continue with the plan, dear.” He said with that voice that used to drive you crazy. “Why are you asking now? Is there another Simon out there?” He laughed sarcastically, you hated that laugh since you knew it wasn't genuine, it was genuine mockery and that was another topic.

“I just think everyone already understood that you love, you don't need me any more.” While you were saying those words you fixed your eyes on the floor, your gaze did not connect with his, it intimidated you to look at him. His penetrating gaze activated all the alarms in your body, telling you to leave, that something bad was going to happen. But you stayed to wait for his response.

“Okay. Let's do it, let's finish it. I can easily find a replacement. Do not think you're the only one. You're not, you're just another one of the bunch, who they are just going to use and throw away when they get what they want from you. People like you will not survive in the world I am going to create.” Your eyes were flooding with tears, you didn't want to blink since you knew that if you did, the sea of tears would come to light. “Stop crying, you know I hate seeing you cry!” He grabbed your face and crushed it in his hands, “You look horrible when you cry, you look weak, and you lose the only notable quality you have.” He finally let go of you. Adjusted his robe and left, leaving you alone with yourself.

Already there, in your state, you went to your bedroom and sank into the sheets.

The morning of the next day was no better, in class everyone couldn't stop talking about how you and Tom had broken up. Your assumption was that Tom had broken the news to them, and you were right. What perhaps hadn't occurred to you was that he had subverted the story slightly. He had said that he had broken up with you since you were unfaithful with Simon a while ago, but that he refused to accept it. Now, he was the victim of the story, the poor guy who refused to accept that his girlfriend was cheating on him. And you, anyone who dared to deceive him.

Nobody talked to you any more like they did when you were his partner, apparently they no longer found you interesting. That depressed you but not enough to cloud your common sense that told you that it was better to be alone than in bad company. And it was true. Even though no one appreciated you and everyone hated you, you managed to make it to the Easter holidays, even though it seemed like a short time, you needed to go home. You were excited to finally be able to go home freely.

With your bags already packed you were heading towards the exit when Tom arrived at your door.

“Hello.” He said, sitting on your bed as if it were his house.

“Hi.”

“How has your life as a social reject gone?” He smiled arrogantly.

“Well, the time alone has served me well to think and reflect.” You weren't going to let him see you badly, let him see you vulnerable once again.

“I imagine that once again you are going to stay here, I know perfectly well that you don't like being with your parents.” You knew perfectly well that he had already noticed the suitcases, but that he says it to bother you.

“I'll see how I deal with it.” I can't stand being in this castle any more, I'll ask my parents to give me classes at home, I can't stand being at Hogwarts any longer, you thought.

“You're not leaving Hogwarts, you are not going to study in your house,” he said firmly as he got closer and closer to you, until he caught up with you and choked me, pushing me against the nearest wall. “You know, I've let you be alone for a while because I think you need it, but I swear, you're never going to be free of me. Never. Do you understand me?” You nodded repeatedly, waiting for him to release you. When you had got out of his grasp, he picked you up and threw you against the bed, forcing you to give him your arm. You had already let him do whatever he wanted so that he would finally leave you alone.

And at that moment, with a knife that you had no idea where he had got it from, he marked your left arm, leaving a line of blood on you.

You could tell he was going to do something else if he hadn't been interrupted by the knock on the door. Alarmed that he would be upset by the interruption, you decided to stay silent and not respond.

“ Are you there? I need your help to fill out some paperwork!" Oh, god, it was your classmate Samantha, she didn't usually talk to you about those things, but it seemed like she did now.

“Don't even dare answer.” Tom murmured putting his hand over my mouth once more.

After a while Samantha stopped knocking on the door and left. It was then that Tom finally let go of you.

“You're going to finish your school year whether you like it or not.” You were left dumbfounded in your room, you were trying to understand Tom's outburst, but you couldn't. Couldn't understand how someone felt a pathological need to ruin lives.

You grabbed your suitcases and decided to spend the Easter holidays at home. Where he couldn't reach you, or well, that's what you liked to think.

#no use of y/n #tom riddle x reader #tom riddle #lord voldemort #harry potter #tom riddle x oc #voldemort #harry potter fanfiction #angsty

54 notes · View notes

jahiera · 9 months

Note

You mentioned in a previous Astarion analysis post:

"But, I think, given his behavior, his casual flirtiness, his "You want to lose yourself in me," (another line I can squawk about endlessly in terms of character analysis)"

I am encouraging you to squawk. I think you've got a really good grasp of his character and I love your posts!

UPDATE***written during EA

@littlemisstrancy Sorry for the late reply! I fell down another rabbit hole of replaying haha.... Aww, thank you! I'm so glad, a good grade in Astarion is a Normal and Reasonable thing to want to achieve. But YES, I find his entire sex scene to be extremely interesting (going off of what Larian said that, paraphrased, nonsexual intimacy with some will mean more than sex with others, because of the nature of the relationship.)

What I find most interesting about Astarion's romance scenes is that the scene itself is remarkably much more syrupy than he, by nature, really is. We can point to, "darling," "my love," as evidence of his tendencies for the dramatics, yes, but given that these are petnames he'll throw out to a Tav he hates as much as a Tav he enjoys, the surface meaning and connotations of dramatic flirtations and even more dramatic pre-sex speeches.... shifts.

The way we filter these interactions shifts because we have to filter what is, at first glance, a typical romance scene, through the lens of the character giving the spiel. If Astarion associates dramatic seduction and slinky purring as simply the easiest way to get what he wants--or, perhaps, more than that, the expectation, the only way for this interaction to occur, because hollow dramatics/play-acting have been likely the only pseudo-""romance"" he's engaged in in the 200 years he's been with Cazador, that changes the meaning of everything, including the line: "You want to lose yourself in me." <- sure laddie, just keep objectifying and disconnecting yourself from the experience itself and repeat the habits of behavior that you've learned from 200 years of being someone else's toy and tool where you weren't even a willing participant in what was happening, merely a mandatory one. that'll be really great. no backfiring here whatsoever.

Okay, sorry, under the cut the rest of this goes because I went off on three different tangents to try and tie them all back together again. This is mostly my background reasoning for above. WHAT DOES THE REST HAVE TO DO WITH TAV. Honestly I'm not sure anymore I started talking and then I didn't stop talking.

It feels like so much of the overarching realities of their circumstances fall away for Tav, but it also haunts the entire interaction with Astarion. Shallow charm. Winning over people. A pretty face opening doors. I'd chalk it up to sexy-video-game-scene-writing if it were any other game, but the other romance scenes aren't nearly so grandstanding and are written I think intentionally to subvert that, so this is an Astarion Thing, and likely goes deeper than that first glance. As it stands, Astarion barely even knows who he is now that he's outside of Cazador's control. "Another thing that I've lost." -- His personhood has been nonexistent, and he's been a tool, and he's been, for lack of a better word, dehumanized to the fullest extent for an insurmountable amount of time. So of course the thing he learned best is that the easiest way to get what you want, or get what you need, is to be easily projected unto. He can't keep the facade up for very long, I don't think, but in that scene his "don't ask too many questions just look at how hot I am" mindset is fully on to me.

The thing is that his circumstances with Tav here are entirely different than the ones he's been in before, but just because the circumstances are different doesn't mean that the behavior will be different, or that habits formed out of severe distress/torture in his own words will be so easily let go of. My ULTIMATE POINT is that charm and flirtations are things Astarion clearly separates from himself and his actual beliefs, and he treats what we conceive as "charming" behavior fairly flippantly--once again, that "my love," means... not... a lot. we just met 2 weeks ago, pal. And I don't think he's interested in using it like that anymore, because he's not making a super great effort to be perceived as likeable. It comes out mostly in scenes where flirting and charisma are expected of the interaction and then they're pushed to their most exaggerated format, when he isn't actually typically like that in other conversations. Dramatic and foppish, yes, and enjoys ridiculousness in several formats, yes, but not nearly so egregiously saccharine, at all.

If he is starting to give a fuck about Tav, or even the group, that's something else to grapple with, and it's still at this point I think partly wrapped up in the idea that Tav makes for a "good ally." His scenes where he says: "we're more alike than I thought" "You're stronger than I gave you credit for," feel more genuine and honest to me in some ways than his sex scene speech. His fondness for Tav and his idea that strength/power/security can be found by sticking close to Tav can be true at the same time, in an interesting dance between his growing connection to them and his general ideas on people, power, and control.

So secondary: is Astarion a manipulator who's using this sex scene to control Tav emotionally and that's what he's got going on here? Eh... maybe yes and no? He wouldn't ask Tav if he wasn't interested--as seen by how he'll shut you down if he can't stand your guts. If he's using sex for that, it's up in the air, open to interpretation, depends on your HC, I can see both interpretations and I'm not going to claim one is more true than the other, since there's evidence for both "manipulating" and "not manipulating" and to me, the truth falls somewhere in the middle. I'm sure the thought has probably crossed his mind, but I don't actually think he's good enough at charm to follow through on that, which I will now elaborate on in INTRICATE detail....

Astarion isn't actually concerned about being likeable, or wanted within the group--or, rather, he may be concerned about it (because there's both safety and danger in a group setting), but he also isn't concerned about it enough to not advocate entirely for self-preservation and selfishness at generally every turn. He also isn't concerned about winning over the group enough to abdicate his firmest belief: that the tadpole is an advantage they should use, and a power he intends to keep.

And, if you relent to the group, he calls you spineless in the face of everyone else. So he's not afraid to insult you, Tav, either, certainly not to preserve some loose semblance image of ""charming,"" which he's already really bad at maintaining in general, because his brand of everything can just as easily piss people off as compel. Bad taste central.

Hell, his intro scene displays this best: He lures you in with a silly little lie that makes him sound weaker than he is ("You can kill it, can't you? Like you killed the others!") and then he strikes when your back is turned. Shallow charm is an accessible tool, he doesn't have the patience for long-lasting plots or extended slinky charm. Or if he does, and he's been manipulating all of us, he's not doing a great job, since half the party is making faces at him the whole time. Buuut....

During the mirror conversation, if you tell him vanity is a weakness:

(Text - Astarion: It's an indulgence, I'll grant you, but a weakness? A well-presented face can open a lot of doors.)

There is an awareness of beauty and charm that Astarion references often. He isn't really afraid to objectify himself for his own means, or being perceived as weaker than he is (except in certain circumstances). He knows these things are quite relevant, socially. Beautiful people are treated better. Beautiful people typically can get away with more. Actually I could probably approach this from a Class and Wealth related lens too, because his history as a magistrate probably also influences this mindset a lot, but that is. a THIRD separate essay.

He seeks to be strong enough to beat Cazador, at least partly through the same means that Cazador himself uses. The tadpoles give us absolute authority, in the end, and Astarion has zero qualms inflicting onto others what was inflicted onto him when we use them. But prior to the tadpole, what tools did Astarion have at his disposal? Very few, and most of them revolved around empty charm, quick-thinking, and trying to predict unpredictable moods and then enduring whatever came of those moods. That hollow charm falls under these kinds of tools, which gave him very short-term influence over at least the people he would lure back to Cazador. Likely the only form of control or power he had within all of that, and where he himself was without control as his entire being was under someone else's thumb. And those habits will likely persist for awhile, until he relearns who and what he wants to do and be outside of Cazador's purview. Which could mean anything, this is not to make him sound softer than he is or sweeter than he is. His vainglorious bitch syndrome is 4D chess of truth and not truth, empty cloying, vicious lashing out, and 10 degrees of identity issues wrapped up in all of that, so it's difficult to pin down just one thing as Real or Not Real, and I don't think even he knows what's Real and Not Real right now.

#Hi Sorry. Guess who can't shut up. That's me.#astarion #bg3 meta #bg3 #This is fairly incoherent rambling.... I didn't actually have an end in mind when I started talking so you can hear the #pepe silvia meme vc in the background here #COMPLEX CHARACTERIZATION indeed. I want to bite down and chew on him #I'm still not sold on any of this either -- my interpretation of him shifts with the wind and every other thing he says #But these are my first.. initial... thoughts anyways...#thank you again for asking! so sweet of you hgfhghf

186 notes · View notes