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ebullientheart · 10 months

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the nice guy. spencer reid x reader

content — fluff. humour. fem!bau!reader. casual mention of sex. loosely based on season four episode nine. case talk. nondescript injury to reader.

you explain to spence the difference between a nice guy and a ‘nice guy’.

“i don’t understand this.”

morgan spun on his chair, “what’s that, wonder boy?”

the files he was flicking through were baffling him. each of the interview transcripts read the same sort of thing. ‘oh, he was a textbook ‘nice guy’ you know’, or something to that effect.

you were the one conducting that set of witness interviews, and the text before him showed no confusion on your part as you continued your original line of questioning. concluding this meant you understood, spencer ignored derek’s response and instead got up to find you. predictably, in garcia’s office, watching unreleased films, seeing as your paperwork was long completed.

“can i ask you something?” he interjected, causing penelope to throw popcorn at him as a consequence of her surprise.

“can you knock?” she quipped back, but he wasn’t really listening to her. spencer could become pretty single minded when he set his focus on something, especially if it was something he didn’t understand.

you excused yourself and followed him into the hall. the simple window on your right showed nothing but the clouded night sky, meaning only a few people lingered in the office now. spencer turned the light on by reaching past your head to the switch, while you tried to ignore the way your stomach felt upon having him lean over you.

clearing your throat, you addressed him, “what did ya need, spence?”

he showed you what he’d been preoccupied with, “what does this mean? we profiled our unsub as desperate, creepy, and we were right. why did they all describe him as a nice guy?”

you pondered for a moment on how best to explain it to him before you answered.

“they’re kind of being sarcastic. a textbook ‘nice guy’ is a guy who really pities himself, quotes ‘nice guys finish last’, that sort of thing. he thinks he’s so kind, and for that women owe him sex, so when they don’t meet that standard, he just believes women only like jerks. he sees himself as good, but he doesn’t comprehend why women would take offence to his sexual reward system for human decency.”

spencer frowned, “there are enough of them that women have a collective name for this?”

you nodded, “trademarked and everything.”

“really?”

“no, kidding.”

he smiled at you and you returned it, his curiosity fulfilled and his faith in humanity slightly lessened, as it was case by case.

a few days later, you were all jetting off to another police department, examining files and bouncing theories. spencer sat on your left, the only one close enough to hear the low rumble of your stomach. chuckling to himself, he produced a breakfast bar from his satchel and slid it over to you. the overjoyed expression on your face at food, and food in your favourite flavour, prompted him to remember your ‘nice guy’ conversation.

you offered him your thanks and he answered, “you’re welcome. no sex required.”

even though he was half kidding, half sincere, you gave him a whole laugh, easy and unabashed. the smile he donned was satisfied at initiating such glee from you.

as the investigation progressed, the danger became more and more apparent. the team knew someone was going to end up hurt, but it didn’t stop them from flinching as they saw you swinging your legs in the back of an ambulance, taking emergency blood supply. you rolled your eyes at their concern, “really, i’m fine guys. just a scratch.”

they weren’t so quick to dismiss your injury, but they didn’t hover. they had protocol to follow, local cops to brief, and press to alert. the only one who lingered was spencer, awkwardly sitting next to you at your invitation. he thought about wrapping an arm around your bare shoulder as a chill set in the air, but was too afraid to dislodge the tube. you bit the bullet of his worrying and leaned until he was prompted to support you.

“are you alright?” he knew it wasn’t the right thing to ask you, but he wasn’t sure what else to say in that moment, not when you were pressed against him so the warmth from your body bled through his vest to his own skin.

you gave a light shrug, but didn’t comment further, instead saying, “you’re nice, spencer. the real way.”

he hummed, “how’d you know?”

“nice guy trademark would’ve tried to kiss me by now. you’re just holding me.”

he knew what he was about to admit was a risk, but the question burned in his throat, “what if i wanted to? kiss you?”

you looked up at him and his heart skipped a beat. if he tried, he could count every one of your eyelashes, even though a few were clumped together by smudges of mascara that had congealed in your initial reaction to the wound. there was a brightness in your irises that sparked something in his chest. the hand you could move freely came up to his face, which had become flushed. you could feel the heat beneath your palm, but couldn’t make it out visually with his back to the ambulance light.

“i’d think you’re even nicer.”

he didn’t seem all that surprised, “can i?”

“please.”

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kyra45 · 3 months

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The Gaia Thomas situation

If you don’t use Twitter/X, here is a brief summary of what’s going on for those who use tumblr and have caught glimpses of the current events going on over there related to someone whose name is Gaia Thomas. All information explained here is publicly accessible and can be found if you search on X/Twitter.

Gaia Thomas made two gofundme fundraisers for the following people who needed help in relation to Palestine: Mai Rajab and Kareemadnan. She befriended them and promised the money would go towards them.

Unfortunately as of March 3rd, it seems Gaia had no plans to actually support them and sent Mai a text saying “I am not responsible for your travel. I wish you the best of luck.” And promptly closed the GoFundMe before reopening it. Originally both had been closed but both are open. Mai is the main one who’s posted about it, but Kareem is affected as well.

Currently there has been no updates about what Gaia Thomas has to say about the situation, but a post on Twitter/X made by cérise 🌻 says Gaia is “a disabled writer who is a self-claimed expert in cultural awareness, health and empowerment” (a direct quote from the original tweet) and Gaia does have a LinkedIn page.

The two GoFundMe’s are linked below if you’d like to report them as Gaia isn’t giving the money to the people she was going to help. This post will update if anything changes but I wanted to make a post that explained it without images. The fundraisers were still open as of posting.

Mai fundraiser (Closed now)

Kareem fundraiser (Closed now)

If you want to help Mai and Kareem, their on Twitter/X and their usernames are as follows on there: Mai _Gazan and Kareemalaklouk

—

Latest update at 3/5/2023 3pm: Following the accusations, Gaia posted this update claiming she was supposedly fell for a scam. The following text is copied from her response on the fundraisers:

Dear donors,

I was the victim of an online scam. My credit union caught the scam when I tried to wire transfer the proceeds of Mai's fundraiser. In the interests of donor safety, I blocked donations at that time. The evidence is in the hands of the Alameda Police Department. Please be aware that this could happen to you. All funds have been repaid in the form of donations to the original fundraiser as requested by the GoFundMe team. I have asked GoFundMe to return the funds to the hands of the original donors.

Sincerely, Gaia Thomas

Latest update at 3/8/2024: All the fundraisers made by Gaia have been closed and you can now find new ones made by someone else that is more reliable then Gaia was. Gaia insists that she was scammed but she wasn’t. She tried to take the money as her own and didn’t like it when she was caught out by the people she was supposed to help. The money donated has been refunded but those funds will likely never reach the three people Gaia was meant to help.

#scam #Palestine #psa #donation scam

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baejax-the-great · 1 year

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Absolutely reeling.

So I knew that the origin of "Hector was a great man, moral, noble, better than all of the Greeks" began as Roman propaganda that somehow has made it to now, the year 2023, and is still taught to high school students.

What I did not know was why scholars shit on Achilles as vehemently as they did (and still do).

My copy of Fagles' translation of the Iliad has a preface by a different scholar who I'm not going to bother to name because he's an idiot (and idk probably dead at this point). I read the entire thing, absolutely baffled, because he would cite a part of the text (that I admittedly had not read yet! at all!), quote it, and then come to the most batshit interpretation based on that quote I had ever seen in my life. His general take was that Achilles was a sociopath who had no feelings for anyone other than himself and his own pride, and every action he took (until welcoming Priam into his hut) was done in service of that pride. To support this, he decided that Achilles did not see Patroclus as a person, but rather as an extension of himself, and thus someone injuring Patroclus was them injuring Achilles, and so he did not care about Patroclus, he only cared about his wounded pride.

Yeah.

That sounded wrong before reading the book, and while reading the book all i could think was, "Did we read the same fucking thing???" Put in context, those quotations still did not support his conclusions whatsoever.

But i cracked open Caroline Alexander's "The War That Killed Achilles" last night, and she solves this mystery of "Hector good, Achilles bad" for me right out the gate (which is good because so far I've only read the preface).

Western Europeans by and large learned about the Trojan war from Roman stories, which became fairly popular, and not the Iliad, which was not translated into French or English until centuries later. As mentioned, these were propaganda that cast the Trojans in a much better light than the Greeks because the Romans believed they were descended from Trojan refugees. This starts a trend that is still going on in scholarly circles as casting the Iliad as a war between "barbaric Greeks living in a shitty, lawless camp" vs "civilized, educated, weaving, real-wife-having Trojans," making the Iliad a tragedy in which Homer for some reason skewers his own people and their warlike culture as barbaric while propping up a dead, foreign city-state. This interpretation is still extant and was the postscript to another copy of the Iliad I have.

According to Alexander, scholars closer to Homer's time saw the entire war as a tragedy--both the destruction of Troy AND the destruction of the Greek army. While this is not covered in the Iliad, very few Greeks actually made it home after Troy. Some that did were then outcast (Teucer for example), some were murdered (bye, Agamemnon), some went on to create new kingdoms in other places (Diomedes), but by and large, there was no going home from that war. There was no great victory with all their loot. The entire thing was a disaster for both sides, spurred on by fickle gods.

Back to the more recent European interpretations of this story, one reason Hector ended up cast in such a "good" light, despite being a dumbass who wants to dishonor dead people just as badly as Achilles ever did, was in order to make Achilles look worse. Why was it important that Achilles becomes a villain in this story in which he is very much not a villain? Because Europeans were involved in so much war with each other and the rest of the world that a young, insubordinate man who criticizes his idiot of a commander, decides his life isn't worth throwing away for this war, and refuses to fight to sack a city was an affront to their values. Young men were to be obedient, follow their commanding officers, and colonize the world for queen and country. Achilles suggesting losing his life is not worth it to prop up Agamemnon's war is a dangerous precedent for all the good little soldiers needed to make their nations wealthy.

It's almost funny that these analyses propping up Troy as a beacon of civilization were made by people living in countries so bent on colonizing the world. They identified with the city being sacked and not the greedy sackers of said city, who they were much closer to. And Achilles, educated, morally rigid, emotional Achilles, is recast as a sociopathic asshole who doesn't care about anyone other than himself, unlike all of those other beacons of selflessness among the Greek leadership.

The tragedy of the Iliad is that Achilles is right, the war is pointless, Agamemnon did dishonor the shit out of him, and it doesn't matter because he's going to die in it anyway.

Frankly, given how badly his character has been interpreted for so long, I think the muses owe him an apology.

#the iliad #achilles #I have only read the preface of this book #hope yall like essays #writing essays at 6am and hoping they are grammatical #haven't even had my coffee yet my head is too full of achilles #also a hefty chunk of it was FRENCH propaganda like come ON

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colleendoran · 1 year

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Misunderstanding

I received a note from someone who was upset I “failed to cite Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics” in my research for my work on Neil Gaiman's Chivalry and the essays I wrote about it.

I really appreciate that people want to make sure credit goes where it's due, and I have a lot of respect for Scott McCloud's accomplishment with his wonderful book.

I haven't read it myself in some years, and didn't cite it in my articles because I didn't reference it. I don't even know where my copy is so I don't know what McCloud referenced, either.

The information in my articles re: illuminated manuscripts and the Bayeux Tapestry, as well as other theories about the development of sequential art from prehistory, not only predate McCloud's work (and in fact, predate McCloud's birth,) but they are so common and so well known in comics circles that asking me to cite them seems as weird to me as asking me to cite the information that George Washington was the first President of the United States.

A part of me wonders if someone is trying to play, "Let's you and him fight."

No.

But I’m happy to bring to your attention some reading material.

Stephen Becker in his 1959 work Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons, and Animated Cartoons was among the first to discuss the Bayeux Tapestry as comic art. I read that book sometime in the 1980’s. I think a lot of people assume the Bayeux tapestry as comic art was McCloud’s idea, but we don’t all walk around with a reference library in our heads, so there you go. I can’t find my copy of Becker’s work to quote, but I did find an article by Arthur Asa Berger with a mention of the Bayeux Tapestry as comic art in the summer 1978 issue of The Wilson Quarterly.

My first exposure to the idea of comics as descendant of fine art was Maurice Horn’s 1976 The World Encyclopedia of Comics which was my first read re: comics history. I still have my tattered 1976 edition.

While Horn scorned the idea that tapestries and manuscripts could be comic art (see, it was a matter of discussion way back then, so much so that authors were writing snarky asides to one another about it,) he believed the origin of sequential art was in the Renaissance sketches of Leonardo da Vinci - which I think everyone now agrees is kind of a bonkers idea.

I think Horn was just intent on elevating the comic art form by hooking up with da Vinci.

You go, boi.

Comics as descendant of art on scrolls is a very common theory, the easiest to trace being in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics by Fred Schodt published in 1983 when I was still a teenager. I can't find my copy to show examples, but this text is still in print and you can go read it for yourself.

I was introduced to manga by cartoonist Leslie Sternbergh and bought Schodt’s book at Books Kinokuniya on (I think) a trip to New York around the time of first publication of Schodt’s work. And years later took a trip to Japan with Fred Schodt and a group of cartoonists including Jeff Smith and Jules Fieffer, Nicole Hollander, and Denys Cowan as the guests of Tezuka Productions.

Here we all are.

So, I’m familiar with manga, see.

As for comics as descendant of cave paintings, hieroglyphics and ancient art in general, Will Eisner’s 1985 Comics and Sequential Art not only made all of those points, but made those points with comic art examples. Like these.

And this.

And more than a few words on this:

I find it amusing that someone is questioning why I didn’t cite McCloud when what you should probably be questioning is why more people don’t cite Eisner who produced his book eight years before McCloud published his and who is well known to have influenced McCloud.

Whatever. My book's autographed.

I also danced with Eisner. Eat your heart out.

Understanding Comics is a terrific work with huge advantages over every book (that I know of) about comics that came before: it taught comics entirely in the language of comics.

But the discussion in it about the origins of comics and my work especially re: illuminated manuscripts/tapestries, did not originate with McCloud. I research illuminated manuscripts because it’s my hobby and it informs my art.

I encourage everyone to read Understanding Comics because it is an outstanding work.

But it’s not the book that introduced me to the concepts of the development of comic art. It’s not even the point of origin of those concepts. So, there is no reason to cite it.

Also, shocking as it may seem, I occasionally come up with ideas on my own. While I'm younger than McCloud, I've actually been a comics pro longer than he has. So I've had plenty of opportunity to, you know, read things and toss things around, and decide for myself.

When I first read Chivalry and first begged Neil Gaiman to let me adapt it, my head full of the work of Alberto Sangorski and his art for Tennyson’s Le Morte D’Arthur, Understanding Comics hadn’t been published yet.

It's been a good twelve years since I last read McCloud's work, and I don't think I've spoken to him five times in the last three decades. But I'm pretty sure he never mentioned Sangorski.

I hope that clears everything up, and maybe introduces some of you to some works you might not be aware of.

Have a great day.

#understanding comics #comics history #neil gaiman #scott mccloud #chivalry #jules fieffer #tezuka productions #manga #will eisner

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dejwrld · 1 month

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ʚ₊˚‧ ✿ no distractions, ushijima wakatoshi x black fem reader / nsfw + mdni

┊ •° ੈ ⋆° ┊ warning readers discretion is advised — black reader with descriptors, her/she pronouns, female anatomy described, established relationship (reader & ushijima are engaged), just some thoughts, quick drabble, mentions of reader being an influencer, nicknames (reader calls ushijima bear), alluding to smut but it ain't long just a paragraph or two, mentions unprotected intercourse, unedited, consider this a sorry for how long it's taking me to drop part 2 of marry you

He understood why Coach Susaku decided to rent out a traditional Japanese home for some of the players. Most likely to keep a close eye on some of them to ensure they make it to practice on time, keep their heads screwed on correctly before the season comes, and have no distractions.

He wasn't the one prone to break rules, especially with the start of the season so soon (in three days to be exact)—but he just missed her so much that he couldn't resist. A hot shower and an eager you up text later, he's guiding her in the darkness attempting to make as little sound as possible. Which he was sure was impossible because he weighed in at a whopping one hundred and ninety-nine pounds of muscle and was over six feet tall. Moving around stealthily even if he tried was going to be a challenge.

He wanted to mentally curse himself for switching rooms with Kageyama because he wouldn’t have to worry about going up the stairs. His original room was right down from the kitchen, closer to the back entrance of the house that was connected to the way of the hot springs. So here a 6’3, Ushijima was tip toeing up stairs the best he could so he can get to his room upstairs.

When him and his girlfriend finally made it to his room, he finally let out a sigh of relief. The first hardest thing he did tonight was done and he had to only worry about sneaking her back out before everyone else woke up the following morning. His muscular toned thighs can already feel the burn of the laps his coach was going to make him take if he found out he snuck his fiancé in a home where no distractions was allowed.

She was his distraction. He couldn’t help that he was strolling on social media and saw her post from earlier and his body got warm all over. He couldn’t help that he missed his girl. His true love. His other half. The two of them being so busy with their schedules by time they settled in bed, they’re snuggled up together or on their sides of the bed sleeping. Now that he was on the road, it felt like they were drifting apart. Not in a bad way, but more-so a way where their careers had them on a nonstop roller coaster. If he wasn’t away for a game, she was at a brand event in London. If she wasn’t at a brand event, he was training and practicing for a game.

“My bear is breaking the rules for little ole’ me. I feel flattered that he’s risking the most gruesome workout punishment for me.” Y/N giggles lowly while gently placing her sandals on the floor. She discarded them at the door to make the journey up here a little easier for the both of them.

Wakatoshi always cringes when she calls him that, but his cheeks always mask the cringe look he gives us by staining a rose pink color every time it rolls off her tongue. A silly nickname she gave him when they made their first red carpet debut. Quote on quote because of how big and stoic he was when they first met.

“Shh.” He brought his finger to his lips. “Not too loud. Hirugami’s room right across from mine.” He warns her before he’s sliding his white t-shirt off his upper half to get comfortable on the futon below him.

Y/N who came over here in just leggings and one of Wakatoshi’s worn out sweatshirts would nod and begin to slide her leggings off her legs. Ushijima felt like a horn dog for even looking, but who could blame him? They haven’t had sex in weeks. But he didn’t invite her over and possibly broke a house rule for that. He just missed her. Plus, he slept ten times better when she was in close proximity of him.

He climbed under the duvet first before she followed snuggling close to him. The warmth of her body forced Wakatoshi to swallow the harden lump that formed in his throat. His fingers running comforting circles on her body. They’re breathing practically in sync with the crickets that chirped outside.

“How the hell am I going to sneak out of here tomorrow?” She asks quietly.

“Just have to wake up early before everyone else does.” He responds placing a kiss at the crown of her head. The scent of her coconut scented conditioner engulfed his nose in a good way. A comforting way.

He had known she must have rushed over here because she didn’t bring her scarf for her hair. She simply just came with herself and her tote bag.

“I’m not much of a morning person, but perhaps that’s the consequence of sneaking in here.” She snuggles closer to him and lets out a satisfied sigh after bringing her leg to intertwined with his. Her foot teasingly rubbing up and down his calves.

“Baby.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t hm me, you know what you’re doing.”

“I can’t cuddle with my favorite bear.” She says

“Stop with the feet thing,” Wakatoshi warns.

“Fine. But can I get a goodnight kiss before we go to sleep?”

Even in the darkness of the room, he can tell she’s poking her full lips out at his words. She came over here with intentions to rile him up in some type of way. While he thought they was simply going to cuddle and fall asleep, she had something else slithering up her sleeve. She wanted him, which of course made sense. Her texts within him being away oozed with need of him. With how busy they were they simply helped the need with FaceTime calls and invisible ink videos. he still remembered the voice note of her sultry voice moaning out his name while she toyed with her pussy.

So, he's giving her what she wanted. Large hand bridging at the nap of her neck and tugging her into a kiss. He missed the feeling of her lips on his. Soft, delicate, kissable. It always made him feel like he was on cloud nine—laying on the softest clouds, receiving the softest kisses from an angel above.

When the two of them get started, you never can stop them. Wakatoshi knew this. One little kiss turns into making out. Making out trembles to him being in between her stretch-marks decorated thighs. Here he was rubbing his hardened cock on her clothed folds teasing her until her panties stuck upon her pussy lips. Soon he was on top of her, deep inside of her as her teeth bite at his broad shoulders to muffle her moans.

For some reason, through the harsh bites from her—he thought it was so hot. The thought of her poorly attempting to be quiet so they won't get caught. But as soon as he pumped forward one last time, her head fell back into the pillow to let out a dragged-out moan that Ushijima quickly muffled with his hand.

"Are you trying to get us caught, hm?" Ushijima questions through inaudible grunts, his words hitting the shell of her ear and sending a chill down her spine.

When Ushijima looked into her eyes, he saw a glint in her eyes that he'd seen many times. She always had this thing where she challenged him—he has grown to notice she does it so he fuck her a little more harder. Nibble a bit harsher on her skin. Kiss more passionately. The woman was going to drive him insane.

"Fine then.." was the last thing Ushijima Wakatoshi mumbled under breathless pants before hooking her thighs under his strong arms.

His coach said no distractions and he fumbled not even the first day in. But he couldn't help himself, he had such a beautiful girlfriend that he just had to be near her when they did have time. If he had to endure the most tiresome practice drills, he would take that risk, especially for her.

Days when the season started, Ushijima Wakatoshi was forced to run laps until he could remember the last fifty brands Y/N collaborated with all because Nicollas Romero let it slip out in front of their coach that Ushijima had his girlfriend over.

#ushijima wakatoshi smut #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #hq smut #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu smut #female reader #black reader #ushijima wakatoshi x black reader #hq x black reader #haikyuu x black reader #⊹˳⁺ ♡ 𝒻𝒶𝓃𝒻𝒾𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒸𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈

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hotteoki · 21 days

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meet uglys with stray kids (hyung line)

pairing: skz hyung line x reader (no prns used)

genre: fluff, strangers to lovers, humour

cw: language, throwing up/sickness, mentions of alcohol

wc: 1.9k

notes: it's been way too long since i've written stray kids fics... this was originally going to be arguments with skz maknae line but it got too difficult to write so here's a new fic! hopefully i can get maknae line out by 18th! p.s. this wasn't proofread at all so i'm sorry if it's ridden with mistakes...

chan (방찬) – greeting the new neighbour but turns out he slept at 5 last night

you had heard from jeongin, who lives across the street, that you’re getting a new neighbour

he had texted you about it mid conversation when telling you how to handle his house while he’s gone for his week-long vacation

truth was you hadn’t even considered greeting your soon-to-be neighbour

one, what if they hated you and you would have to be stuck with them for ages?

the only reason you’re even friends with jeongin is because he went around the neighbourhood holding up a cat asking if anyone lost it

(turns out it was a flea ridden stray but you both took it to the vet nevertheless)

two, you were quite comfortable laying in your bed

but ten more annoying texts from jeongin saying you should greet them because he did was enough to get you to make your way to their house

knocking on the door, you feel your palms get sweaty

you’re already regretting this

after one or two minutes of standing outside, you internally yell at them for making you look like an idiot

you’re about to leave until the door opens

revealing a man in his mid to late-twenties

wearing nothing but a tank top and sweats

with very prominent biceps

that are being put on display right now

you’ve probably been ogling at the man for a while now

shaking your head a little, you smile warmly at him

“hi, i’m your neighbou-”

“what time is it now?”

you blink a few times

you had just been interrupted by this hot neighbour, and his attitude was a little too sour for your liking

you aren’t sure which to address first

so it ends up with you going–

“huh?”

“what time is it now?”

he enunciates

“uhh…”

you pull out your phone

“9:20am”

“right. 9:20am and you’re already banging on my door”

you’re thrown so off guard

“i’m sorry, what?”

to be honest, you’re getting fed up with his condescending tone

“stores are up and running and kids are playing in the park playgrounds, maybe you’re the problem here”

you cross your arms, cause who does this man think he is?

this time it’s his turn to shake his head

“fuck- i mean- i’m sorry, i just- i slept at like 6 last night- or morning, and i just-”

he rubs his face

“i’m sorry”

you smile, a little strained

“it’s fine. i’ll see you around.”

even after him apologising you’re feeling slightly petty

so you turn around and begin to make your way home

chan feels horrible

except he’s running on like 3 hours on sleep so he honestly can’t process anything

so in his last efforts he grabs your arm gently

“wait, i’m sorry. c-can we- can i make it up to you over lunch tomorrow? you can show me around as well”

you contemplate

he did seem genuine enough

so you nod, smiling

“that sounds nice, what’s your name again?”

“i’m chan, what’s yours?”

and after you give it to him, he repeats it outloud, testing it out

the giddy feeling in your chest rises unwillingly

and maybe that lunch turns into a date, and maybe that date has a follow up, and maybe that follow up turns into a relationship

and maybe jeongin spends the rest of his life saying “i told you so”

but that’s a problem for future you to handle

minho (민호) – vomiting on him while drunk

you were initially against following jisung into the club

but he insisted you need to live life, and that it’s a saturday and you need to, quote unquote

“PARTAYYYYYYY”

to be fair, exams just ended and you have been spending the last couple of months holed in your room studying

so you agreed

he promised you he would look after you

don’t trust a drunk jisung

half an hour in and you’re absolutely wasted

you can’t remember when you stumbled into the toilets

but you’re hitting your fist on the door, yelling for whoever was inside to:

“STOP SHITTING FOR TWO SECONDS I NEED TO PUKE”

probably not the best way to tell someone to hurry up

but fortunately for you, the door opened

but not so fortunately for you, you vomit all over the guy

whose first reaction was

“what the actual fuck?!”

in his defence sober you would probably have reacted the same way

but again

you’re wasted

so you yell back at him

“what the actual fuck back to you!”

you push him aside and continue vomiting into the toilet bowl

minho’s conflicted

does he help you? even though you puked all over him, he still feels bad that you’re clearly trying to vomit but aren’t steady enough to support yourself

so he sighs, cursing under his breath

he hastily wipes clean his shoes and squats down to hold you by your shoulders so you’re facing the toilet bowl and not the floor

you would’ve thanked him if you aren’t hurling your guts out right now

after what feels like hours, you’re finally done

and minho washes his hands quickly, ready to leave

except you tug weakly on his pants

“m’sorr…”

he blinks, squatting down to hear you better

you clear your throat, a bit more sober now that the alcohol is out of your system

“m’sorry. i’ll- i’ll pay for the- the- the cleaning”

minho brushes the sweaty strands of hair from your face

“yeah you better”

his tone is soft, though

like he’s careful not to upset you

cause you look like you’re about to burst into tears

you smile weakly

“you’re soooo hot”

okay maybe you aren’t fully sober yet

he’s thrown off guard

“um… thanks?”

you giggle drunkenly

“you probably get tha’ a loooot”

he tilts his head, not sure how to respond

“i… guess?”

you shake your head, trying to clear your thoughts

“ca’ i get your n’mber?”

it takes him a few seconds to understand what you’re trying to say

which is a little awkward because he’s essentially just staring at you

you clear your throat to break the silence

“t’ like… pay for your clean’ng”

he nods, finally understanding

“yeah, sure”

and that’s how you got your future boyfriend’s number

he brings it up every now and then just to see you get embarrassed

which he thinks is absolutely adorable :(

changbin (창빈) – he left the tap on and water leaked into your apartment ceiling

you’re minding your own business

flicking through different films to decide what to watch

well, you were

until a drop of water drips on your tv

at first you thought you were hallucinating

except another water drop falls on it

so you look up at the ceiling

because you’re confused as hell??

you notice a huge splotch of water

and it won’t stop dripping

you’re about to scream

this is a brand new tv and they do not come cheap

so you calculate which apartment was upstairs

and sprint up

you’re surprised the elevator button didn’t break from how hard you’re pressing the button

you run to the perpetrator’s door, knocking on it rapidly

you’re about to yell for them to open their door until you feel a timid tap on your shoulder behind you

swinging around, becoming face to face with a very attractive, very muscular, but very scared looking man

“c-can i help you?”

you normally would’ve been nicer to strangers, except this man is literally breaking your tv

“you have a water leak and it’s breaking my tv!!!!!”

he begins to panic

“i’m so sorry!! i must’ve left the tap on or something i-”

he’s rambling while he unlocks his door

you peek over his shoulder when he opens the door

huh

there’s… no water at all?

he seems confused too

but then he walks over to his bathroom, opening the door

aaaaand there it is

a pool of water immediately spills out, creating a puddle around him

he quickly turns off the overflowing tap, smacking himself in the forehead with his palm

“god… i’m so, so, so sorry… if your tv’s broken i’ll… i’ll pay for a new one”

he rubs his eyes, looking at you apologetically

“i’m really sorry for this whole mess”

you stare at him expressionlessly

“i’ll check to see if it’s broken… uh… i’ll text you if it is, or something”

you’re thinking of what to do

you’re definitely not getting distracted by the sight of this attractive man in a tight-fitting black tee that compliments his torso nicely

he nods, “yeah i’ll uh, i’ll give you my number so you can… yeah, here”

he’s holding out his contact page

you copy down his number on your phone

smiling awkwardly, you turn around and wave goodbye

but of course, your messages with him won’t end with a “tv’s not broken! :)”

hyunjin (현진) – my dog hates you so i hate you too

it’s a regular friday afternoon

you clutch your dog’s leash in your hand, bopping your head to the beat of the music blasting in your earphones

you didn’t even notice her happily running over to another dog

until you take your phone out to switch to another song

you look up momentarily and did a double take

cause why on earth is a tiny chihuahua full on ATTACKING your dog

she never stood a chance

she runs back to you and hide behind your legs

you take out your earphones to tell the chihuahua’s owner off

except he looks even more terrified than you

you stare at him, waiting for him to do something

he seems to snap out of it and pulls his chihuahua away, leaning down to give him a snack for him to calm down

you give your own dog a few pets to soothe her before looking back at the chihuahua’s owner

damn

you didn’t get a proper look at him before

but now that you have

damn

he’s hot

but after seeing how scared your dog is

you can’t help but get a little annoyed at him

you might have been giving him the stink eye subconsciously because he begins to apologise profusely

“i’m sorry, he’s not very fond of people… or other dogs… or me… he’s not very fond of anything in general, if i’m honest”

he’s stumbling over his words

and even though you’re still miffed

you can’t help but feel a little bad for judging him

“yeah, that’s fair enough”

there’s an awkward silence that you’re pretty sure your dog can sense too because she starts whining

so you give him one more smile

“well, see you around”

hyunjin decides he’s not going to fumble the bag

because you’re seriously the prettiest person he’s ever seen in his life

“wait! what’s your name? we could… i don’t know, get some coffee some time?”

he wants kkami to bite his mouth off

he doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore

you purse your lips

his dog ≠ him you suppose

so you nod and give him your name

he grins at that

“i’m hyunjin”

networks: @kflixnet k-labels kbookshelf @neverendingdreams-net @straykidsland @k-films pirateeznet

#kflixnet #k-labels #neverendingdreams #straykidsland #k films #stray kids #stray kids x reader #skz #skz x reader #bang chan x reader #bang chan #minho x reader #lee minho #lee know x reader #lee know #changbin x reader #seo changbin #hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin

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magicalgirlfia · 10 months

Text

The Japanese Pikmin website has character bios for the rescue corps that haven’t been localized by Nintendo nor the fandom (to my knowlage) so I did that.

There are translation notes in the read more!

Note 1:

In the original Japanese text, Shepards “hobbies” section isn’t a run on sentence because the joke (being that her hobby is “dogs”) works grammatically in Japanese. I hate incorrect grammar (which is ironic because there’s probably something wrong in one of these) but the joke was silly so I wanted to leave it in.

Note 2:

Something lost in translation (because it’d be extremely difficult to localize) was the way he speaks. You see in Japanese he speaks in very short sentences with a hiragana and katakana mix which is a dialect completely different from anyone else in the game (as well as the fact that uses the first person pronoun "ミー" which is something I've seen exactly once and seems to be some sort of gratuitous English occasionally used as an indicator that someone is a foreigner but don’t quote me on that.)

(The localization is actually pretty good though because words in katakana are occasionally used to convey emphasis on a word.)

TLDR: In Japanese he speaks in a style that’s more noticeably non-standard than in English and that’s an explanation of why.

Note 3:

I changed my switches language settings to Japanese to check this and I’m pretty sure that the “soulmate” bit in Bernard’s “relationships” section seems to be referring to Santi as when talking to him he will recount a time Bernard said this to him:

Which directly translates to “Oh! My soulmate! Long time no see!” However to my knowledge in Japanese the term soulmate isn’t always used in a romantic context unlike in English and even then, that’s just my best guess of what it’s referring to based off of context clues in game.

Anyways thank you for reading have a nice day or night I have school to go to tomorrow and I should probably be asleep right now.

#Pikmin #pikmin 4 #Translfiations

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bloatedandalone04 · 30 days

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Wrapped Around Your Finger - Part 1.5

Series Masterlist | Original Fic

➪in which anakin and the guys are granted a break, but that still didn’t give him any hope that he could actually fix things between you and him - but that also didn’t stop him from trying.

PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.

WC; 3.2k | Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡ | THANK YOU FOR 4.6K FOLLOWERS

Anakin was sitting quietly on the couch as he half listened to Theo and Helena talk at the table on the bus.

They had been discussing something in hushed whispers for a while now, but Anakin still had no idea what they were talking about. He couldn’t focus on anything right now as he scrolled through the text thread he has with you, his expression one of misery and agony.

He knew you were back in LA by now. You had to be. You were probably packing your things as he sits and lets his eyes flicker between his bandmate and manager.

Anakin had left you so many messages by now, and you haven’t replied to a single one. He felt pathetic and worthless, and he hated himself.

He dropped his phone with a huff, instead deciding to trace his index finger along your handwriting on his wrist. It can’t be over between the two of you. It just couldn’t be. You were everything to him, his entire world. How was he supposed to do this without you?

“Helena, please, just a few weeks,” Theo begged, and Helena sighed as she rubbed her forehead harshly. “My sister just told me that our mom is getting worse. I can’t let her go through that by herself anymore. I can’t not be there for them anymore. Please.”

Anakin’s mood deteriorated further at his friend’s pleas, and he wished there was something he could do for Theo, but he can’t even fix his own mess. “I know, Theo, I know,” Helena mumbled, standing up and rummaging around in her bag. “I’ve been trying to get this thing pushed back ever since you know who decided to touch broody over there.”

The not so subtle dig had Anakin rolling his eyes and picking at the threads on the blanket he threw over his lap. “Well, can you?” Theo asked desperately. “Get it pushed back? Just a few weeks. I need to be there if my mom-” he cut himself off as he refused to say it out loud.

Anakin felt tears prick at his eyes as he stared at the floor. His heart ached for Theo, and it ached even worse for you. How had things gotten this bad? Just to make things that much more tragic, it seems like Clara and Vinny’s relationship was on its way out, too. She had left last night on a flight back home, and Vinny hasn’t been out of bed ever since.

Seriously, how the fuck had things gotten this bad?

Helena looked at Theo with poorly concealed pity, and she sighed as she ran her hands through her hair. “Okay, Liz’s contract will end soon, and I think I’ll be able to get the next few weeks pushed back, so she won’t be welcomed back on the tour once things go back to normal,” she started, sitting back down at the table and looking between Theo and Anakin. “So that might help fix his problem.”

She gestured over to Anakin, and he just scoffed, wondering why she was talking about him like he wasn’t sitting less than three feet from her.

“I think I can have all of you on flights back home by the end of the week, I just need to make a few calls,” she stated and Anakin’s scowl disappeared almost instantly.

“What?” He asked in disbelief as Theo made a beeline to his bunk to begin packing. “Really?”

Helena nodded, flipping through a notebook with various names and phone numbers in it. She was old fashioned that way, despite being not much older than Anakin. “Don’t quote me on that, but I think I can do it,”

Anakin sprung up, the blanket falling to the floor as he pulled her out of the chair and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you,” he rasped, aware that she might not be able to get the tour pushed back, but she was going to try, and that’s what counted. “I owe you. For everything.”

Helena huffed quietly, pulling away to look him in the eye. “We’re a team, Anakin. You guys are like my family at this point,” she murmured and Anakin felt more tears gather in his eyes. “You know I’ll try to do anything I can for you three.”

“I know,” he whispered, “Still, thank you.”

The next morning, after Anakin got about an hour and a half of sleep, he was waiting anxiously to hear if Helena had managed to get the tour postponed. He was sure Theo had been up all night, too, if the way he couldn’t seem to get comfortable in his bunk across from Anakin’s was anything to go by.

When she announced that she was able to push the tour back a few weeks, Anakin booked the first flight back to LA and had Theo beside him on the plane. Vinny was in no rush to go back, so he decided to stay behind for a few more days.

Anakin had sent you a quick text before he boarded the plane, which read,

I’m coming home. I’m going to fix everything, I promise, Princess. I love you so much.

And when he got into an Uber after the flight, he saw that you had read his text, but didn’t reply. That was the first text of his that you had read, and as pathetic as it sounded, it gave him hope.

Theo was in the car with him since they had decided to ride together. He lived a few minutes away from yours and Anakin’s apartment, so he would be dropped off after Anakin. He didn’t even care that Theo would involuntarily be listening to the voicemail Anakin is forced to leave you as you had once again ignored his call. “Baby, it’s me,” he started, glancing over at his friend and feeling grateful for the way Theo turned his body towards the window so Anakin could have at least a little bit of privacy in the car. “I’m ten minutes away from our place. I’m so sorry, for everything.”

He ended it after that, even though he had so much more to say. He wanted to save himself the embarrassment of pouring his heart out to you over the phone, just to have you delete it without even listening to it.

When the car pulled up outside the apartment complex, Anakin reached over and hugged Theo. “I hope things get better for you and Mary and your mom,” he mumbled, hearing Theo sniff quietly in response as he tried to hold off tears. “Text me if you need anything, okay? I mean it.”

Theo nodded and pulled away. “Same to you,” he says with a forced smile. “Y/n will forgive you. You’ve been together for too long to just give up on it now.”

Anakin returned a half smile, squeezing his friend’s shoulder before grabbing his bag and getting out of the car. He watched it pull away from the curb as his hand dug around in his bag for his keys, and he almost cried when he finally found them. He hadn’t used them in so long, and he was hit with the memory of the last time he was here. It was the day he left for the tour with you by his side.

If he could go back and do it again but better, he would in a heartbeat. But he couldn’t. He just had to deal with the consequences now.

Anakin blinked a few times as he entered the lobby and headed right over to the elevators, taking one all the way up to the fifteenth floor as he tried to think of what to say to you.

Would you even be there? Did you read his last text and flee the second he got on that plane? God, he hoped not.

He was a shaky, sweaty mess as he reached the floor you and he lived on, and his nerves were slowly taking over as he neared the door. Anakin couldn’t believe how nervous he was about entering his own apartment and facing you, the girl he’s loved for five years now. It had never been like that with you. Ever.

As he stuck the key in the lock and turned it, his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. He hadn’t seen you since that night in the dressing room nearly four days ago. He had so much to make up for, so much to apologize for, and he could only hope that you would listen.

When he pushed the door open and stepped inside the quiet apartment, his heart fell at how dark it was. He was sure you weren’t home and hadn’t been for a while, but then he heard some movement to his left, and he dropped his bag instantly and entered the living room. “Princess,” he whispered when he saw you sitting on the couch, your old Uni hoodie covering your upper half while a blanket covered the rest of you.

Your hair was tied back and your eyes were sad and empty, and when you looked up at him, you dropped your phone onto your lap with a quiet huff. “Oh, you actually were ten minutes away,” you mumbled. “I thought you were lying.”

Anakin shook his head as he scanned the dark living room. It looked like you had been living in here since you got home. Water bottles, your mugs he teased you about on the day you moved in, and cracker boxes were scattered on the coffee table he and Vinny put together. “Why…why would I lie about that?” He rasped, stepping further into the room. “Why would I lie to you?”

You tore your eyes away from him and shrugged. “Because you’ve done it before,” you simply answered, looking back up at him with tears in your eyes. “You said you loved me. And that I was the person you wanted forever.”

“Baby,” he gasped and made it over to you in three strides.

“Why are you home, Anakin?” You asked, making him stop a few centimeters away from the couch. And you. “Why are you here?”

Anakin felt hopeless and on edge. How was he supposed to fix this when he didn’t know where to start? “Because I love you. And I want you forever. Just you,” he answered. “I never lied about that.”

You bite down onto your lip and reach up to wipe at your eyes with your sleeves. “Um, Kenneth read my short story. I finished it on the flight back to London,” you tell him and he stood still, letting you say what you needed to. “He loved it. Um, he wants to get it published.”

“Y/n,” he said quietly, feeling so proud of you even though he was also feeling terrified. “That’s awesome, baby.”

You drop your hand onto your lap and look up at him with a heartbroken expression. “It’s about you,” you confess. “About us. About…how much I love you and…it’s our story, Anakin.”

Anakin’s shoulders dropped at that. You were so sweet and kind and too fucking good for him. He never deserved you. “Then publish it,” he mumbled, his own eyes welling up with tears.

“I can’t,” you cry, covering your face with your hands. “It’s too much. It reminds me of us too much, and I don’t even know what we are anymore.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head, unsure of what to say to that. How does he make this better? “I’m yours,” was all he could come up with. “Even if you’re not mine anymore.”

Those words physically pained him to say, and they only made you more upset. “Fuck, Ani,” your voice broke as you called him the name he only ever let you call him. “Why are you back?”

Anakin cleared his throat and pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes. “Theo’s mom…she got worse and they don’t know if she’ll be okay or if she’ll make it,” he whispered, knowing that his friend wouldn’t be mad he told you that. Theo was your friend, too, after all.

Your eyes widened at that and you sat up, sniffling as you began looking for your phone. “That’s…that..” you trailed off as you lifted the blanket and grabbed your phone. “I should call him. I should..call him and..”

You were becoming less and less in control of yourself, and Anakin could see the way you were getting yourself worked up. “Hey,” he mumbled, grabbing your wrist as you started to stand up. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” you whispered and he saw tears roll down your face again. “Why wasn’t I good enough for you? What could I have done?”

A broken gasp left his lips and Anakin fell onto the couch next to you, pulling your body into his arms as you cried against his neck. “You’re enough,” he promised, cradling the back of your head and holding you tight. “You’re more than enough. Baby, you’re…you’re everything to me. My whole world. I’m so fucking sorry for what I did, for what I allowed to happen.”

You cried harder against him, bunching up the fabric of his shirt in your fists.

“I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve been there to support you,” he mumbled against the top of your head. “I’m so proud of you, of everything you’ve done. I’m sorry if you feel like you can’t bring yourself to get your story published because of me. I don’t want you to hold yourself back because of me.”

You cling onto him and lift your head. “I don’t know what to do, Ani,” you sobbed. “Please, tell me what I should do. Please.”

He could see just how much you needed help, and how you needed to be guided right now. And he would help you for as long as you needed, even if it ended up with you kicking him out afterwards. “What will make you feel better? Do you want me to leave? I can give you some space or time or-”

“No, I don’t want that,” you shake your head and crawl onto his lap.

“What do you want, princess?” He desperately asked. “What can I do?”

“I want things to go back to how they were,” you cried. “I want to feel like I did before when I look at you. It hurts, Ani. I can’t do this anymore.”

Tears fell from his eyes and landed in your hair as he held you impossibly closer. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

You were shaking against him and he felt terrible. This was all his fault. “I want to hurt her,” you mumbled. “I hate her. I fucking hate her, Ani. I hate her for what she did to you.”

“I hate her, too,” he pathetically agreed and you lift your head.

“What are we going to do, Anakin?”

He lifted his hand and smoothed out your messy hair, trailing his thumb down to your lip afterwards. “That depends,” he murmured. “Do you still want me? Could you ever forgive me?”

You brace your hands on his shoulders and nod. “Maybe…eventually,” you answer. “I still want you.”

A breath of relief left his mouth, but he still wasn’t happy with himself. “I’m back home for a couple weeks, and I’m going to spend every single day making this up to you,” he promised.

“Then you’re back on tour?” You quietly asked and looked down. “With her?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Helena said something about pressing charges before I came here, and I might go through with it. She won’t be there, I promise. She’ll never be around me or you or us again.”

“Do it,” you encourage, grabbing the hair on the back of his neck with shaky fingers. “I don’t want her near you ever again. I hate her so much.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” his lips curved upwards just slightly as he gently massaged your hips. “That was quite the nose job you gave her.”

You laugh quietly, lifting your gaze to meet his. “I need to know that it was a mistake, Anakin,” you went back to being serious. “If you felt anything for her, even a little bit at all, I’m out.”

Anakin panicked and shook his head. “Never. I never felt anything for her,” he assured you. “She means nothing to me at all. You’re my girl, the one I want to be with for the rest of my life. I’ve known that since I was seventeen years old.”

You nod, trailing your fingers through his hair. “You promise?” You asked and he nodded instantly. “Okay…okay. Ani, these next couple weeks…I need this to be okay. Maybe not completely fixed, but…okay.”

“I’ll fix everything,” he swore, pulling you against his body again. “I promise you, I’m going to make everything okay again. I love you so much. I always will, you’re it for me. My one and only.”

You give him a small smile, tracing your fingers along his cheek before leaning up and kissing his jaw. “I love you,”

Hearing you say that had his heart skipping a beat. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to fix this,”

Anakin kisses you all over your face before letting you sit in his lap for as long as you wanted to.

It wasn’t okay, what he did. He knew that. But he was going to make damn sure that he made everything right again. He had to.

Three weeks later…

Being back on stage after the brief break Anakin was given felt great.

He loved being on stage, loved the lights and the screams of fans and the feeling he got from it all.

But it wasn’t what had him feeling so happy right now.

Theo’s mom had pulled through and was getting better by the day, and was able to stay awake for most of the day now. When she regained control of her voice, she practically forced Theo to go back and finish the tour, and told him that she would be there when it was over.

Vinny and Clara broke up, but are still friends, and Vinny decided to focus on music and the band. He had even started writing a few songs about the experience that he couldn’t wait to get out there.

And as for Anakin, he was getting ready for a court date that was set for a few months from now. He did press charges against Liz, and though she claimed she was going to fight it, he knew he had a whole team behind him. There was no way she was winning this thing.

And you. His sweet, beautiful and smart girlfriend. Well, he was gaining your trust back more and more as the days went on. You allowed Kenneth to send your story to his publisher, and it would be released by the end of the year.

He was so proud of you, and when he began singing the first verse of Wrapped Around Your Finger, he glanced over to his right and saw you standing next to Helena backstage, a smile gracing your lips and the red rose he had given you before going on stage in your hand. He knew you were proud of him, too.

And he knew things would be okay.

Goodbye, my Rockstar and Booknerd. Til we meet again.

Thank you to everyone who read and followed along with this series. I loved writing it so much ! And thank you to my sweets, @everydaydreamer for the original fic idea. Who would’ve thought we’d end up here?

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toomuchracket · 2 months

Text

it's only been a year (birthday party matty x reader fluff)

surprise! happy 1st anniversary of the blog, and therefore to these fuckers. love you all. enjoy <3

matty’s so glad you're here.

not that he doesn't love his job, because he really, really does - and, to be honest, playing music for lovely people with his best friends has never felt like a proper shift to him - but the touring sparkle is starting to fade a bit now. it's been nonstop for almost two years, the end of this album cycle is in sight, and, as much as he hates to admit it, he's not as young as he once was. the tiredness catches up to him faster, because the adrenaline doesn't last as long, and all the dancing around is taking a bit more of a toll on his body than it used to (which reminds him: put the knee support on before travelling tomorrow). what used to be hours-long hedonistic afterparties have turned into staying backstage for a couple of drinks at most, before hurrying to the hotel for a hot shower to soothe the muscles in the voice and the rest of the body, and then getting as much sleep as possible. arguably, not particularly rock'n’roll, nor very exciting.

but you're here. at the shows, on the planes and trains and buses, and, currently, cueing up an episode of derry girls from the bed in matty's (well, both of your) hotel room. and because you are, the sparkle is still there, still glimmering away like glitter under strobe lights. he's not in the habit of quoting or relating to abba songs (although it's been happening more often recently, probably because of your love for mamma mia), but matty thinks they hit the nail on the head in super trouper - he truly cannot be sad knowing you're in the crowd, seeing you dance along to his songs and smile at him like he hung the moon.

wrapping the towel around his waist, matty steps out of the bathroom, and immediately smiles (probably gormlessly) at the sight of you, frowning cutely as you try to get netflix to load; his heart melts when you push up your glasses, then turn to beam at him when you catch a glimpse of him from the corner of your eye. “hi, baby. how you feeling?”

“tired,” matty sighs, smiling again when you climb off the bed and peck him on the lips, before tugging him into a cuddle. he hums. “thanks, sweetheart.”

“s'ok,” you press a kiss to his chest tattoo, a move so tender that it never fails to weaken his knees. “d'you want me to make you a hot chocolate while you get ready for bed?”

matty pulls back to look at you, brow furrowed. “we have hot chocolate?”

“there's a setting for it on the coffee machine.”

“there is? i didn't notice.”

“yeah, it's in french.”

“oh,” matty laughs, kissing your head. “this is really a recurring thing for us, isn't it? you keeping me right with drinks in europe because you're the only one of us who can speak french. thank god you were a pretentious teenager, darling.”

you blink at him. “you're taking the piss out of me for being a pretentious teenager?”

“well, i’m not the one who learnt another language so i could read the original text of les mis,” matty smirks. “how's that going, by the way?”

your face takes on the adorably bashful expression matty loves so much. “haven't even finished it in english yet,” you say, before crumbling into laughter that matty can't help joining in on - fuck, he loves you so much. when he tells you as much, you kiss him again. “i love you, too. now - hot choc, or no?”

“i'll take one, please, darling.”

“okay,” you kiss his nose, beaming at the way he scrunches it when you do. “can you see if you can get netflix to work once you're dressed, please, babe?”

“course, darling.”

“thank you, lover.”

there's a final kiss, then you let go of matty and wander to the coffee machine; as silly as it sounds, because you're only about three feet away from him, he misses you as soon as you leave his arms. having you in them, being in yours… that's matty's favourite thing in the world, and he'd gladly sacrifice most other things in life to have it for five minutes longer every morning and night, ten more minutes per day of him just being yours and you just being his.

although, looking at you now, it's so clear that those things are true even without him holding you - the hoodie you're wearing is an old one of his (that honestly looks better on you), the boxers you're wearing as pyjama shorts are his, and he's preeeeetty sure the overly-long nike sports socks you're wandering around in are also his. he gives parts of himself to you, and you accept them gladly, proudly displaying that you're completely his; in heart and mind and soul, too, not just in wardrobe.

he still can't get over that. he doesn't think he ever will.

once he's dressed (clothes warm, because you were sweet enough to put them on the radiator for him) and the tv has loaded properly, matty settles into bed, beaming at you as you wander over with his drink and giggling when you place it on the bedside table and just crawl over him to get to your side of the bed. he kisses the side of your head as you snuggle into him. “you're not having one, darling?”

“nah,” you let out a world-weary sigh. “i've had far too much chocolate today as is. remind me never to agree to going to a gig in switzerland ever again. s'awful for my digestion.”

matty laughs. “or you could just, you know, not eat chocolate.”

you frown adorably at him. he laughs again. “or not.”

“thank you,” your face softens. “s'good, though. try the hot chocolate, see for yourself.”

“right,” matty takes a sip, humming happily at the rich sweetness. “mhmm. yeah.”

“amazing, isn't it?”

he nods, swallowing, then grins. “nowhere near as sweet as you, though.”

“oh, you sap!” you roll your eyes, tucking your face into matty’s chest in mild embarrassment while he giggles; he can feel you smiling through his t-shirt, though. “put the telly on, i can't cope.”

he obliges, free hand coming up to stroke your hair as you watch the episode in relative calm - that is, aside from the two of you constantly laughing at the onscreen antics, and from you covering matty's mouth in an attempt to stop him doing his god-awful impression of a northern irish accent. the whole experience is really domestic, as sweet as the hot chocolate matty finished ten minutes into the episode, the perfect end to a busy work day.

matty stretches when the episode ends, moving to wrap his arms around your waist and rest his head on your chest. “time is it, sweetheart?”

“ten past midnight,” you yawn; suddenly, though, you perk up. “oh! happy anniversary, baby!”

he smiles into your chest, dragging himself up to hover over you. “happy anniversary, my girl,” he coos, thumbs stroking your pretty face. “i love you.”

“i love you,” you smile. “kiss, please?”

matty nods, leaning down to press his lips to yours; on instinct, you open your mouth as soon as he does, soundtracked by a sigh that makes his head spin. even now, a year on from it, every kiss you share feels like the very first one up against the wall in the smoking area, full of passion and adrenaline and just total love and devotion that you'd both kept buried for each other for years. the only difference is that now, 365 days on, you know exactly how to kiss matty to make him melt - a moan slips from his throat as you softly swipe your tongue around the perimeter of his lips, which in turn makes you smile, and another follows when you gently bite his lower lip and drag it to release. but it's the way you beam at him afterwards, breathing just as heavily as he is, that gets matty most, makes him hug you as tightly as he can and press little kisses all over your face and hair and get you giggling (his favourite sound in the world).

once you've both caught your breath, kissed some more, and caught your breath again, you speak. “d'you want your anniversary present now, baby?”

matty grins. “yeah. you want yours?”

“yeah,” you beam. reaching across to your bedside table, you take out a little wrapped gift and hand it to him. “for you.”

“thank you, sweet girl,” matty kisses your forehead, rolling off you to pull a thin box from his bag at the side of the bed. “for you.”

“thanks, darling,” you kiss him softly. “go on, you open yours first.”

“alright,” matty carefully rips the brown paper - after smiling, lovesick, at for the love of my life written on it in your unmistakable handwriting - to find what looks like a zine, small enough to fit in his back pocket. he laughs in slight shock at the cover, displaying both of your first initials in a heart and subtitled year one, and this continues when he flicks through the pages. the very first has a picture of the two of you at that fateful birthday party, taken by a friend across the table, as well as one of the receipt for dinner, with little hearts drawn on either side of the listing for your favourite wine; the next, a short typed-out musing ‘written on matty's couch. he's in love with me. he knows i'm in love with him. i've never been so happy in my life. i fell asleep thinking my heart might burst, and that feeling hasn't left me at all. this is true love. i know it now’.

flicking through the pages - he so badly wants to spend time poring over every single one, but he knows now isn't the time - matty feels the exact same way. you've always been shockingly good at gift-giving when it comes to him, but this… this is the best thing anyone's ever done for him.

he doesn't even think love is a strong enough word to describe how he feels about you, to be honest.

you smile when he tells you as much, lifting his hand to kiss it. “i'm glad you like it, baby. i had a lot of fun compiling everything. it was just constant reminders of how much i love you - although, i agree, it's not a strong enough word. maybe i should come up with an alternative. like how coleridge did with soulmate.”

“thank fuck he did, by the way,” matty sighs, leaning in to kiss you. “what would i call you otherwise?”

“i'm sure you'd figure it out. you're very good with words.”

“not when it comes to you, darling,” he smiles. “and that's actually relevant to your gift, so…”

“point taken,” you wink, lifting the lid. your beautiful face takes on a confused expression as you lift out a thin, a3-sized hardback book. “this looks like one of your lyric books from stage…”

“it does, a bit, yeah.”

“...and it has my name on the front,” your jaw drops, and you open the book so frantically that matty can't help but giggle; he laughs even harder when you look up at him, aghast. “this is a score. you wrote me a song?”

“kind of, sweetheart. i mean, i've written you lots of songs already-”

“but none explicitly with my name!”

“no, that's true,” matty moves to sit behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist. he feels you relax immediately, which is good, because for a second he thought you were about to go into genuine shock. “and this one is slightly different in another way, too.”

“it is?”

“yeah. look - there aren't any lyrics,” he takes your hand in his own, dragging your finger over the score to show blankness where the words would appear over the stave. “when i said a minute ago that i wasn't good with words when it comes to you, i mean it. you're literally the only person in the world that can render me speechless; trying to concisely convey everything i love about you in words that 1) made sense and 2) worked in a song was impossible. so i figured i would just let the music do the talking,” matty kisses your head. “no lyrics, parts for almost a full orchestra plus the instruments i'm used to writing for… this isn't a song, darling, it's a symphony, the one that plays in my head whenever i think about you.”

“matthew,” your voice is shaky when you say his name; when you turn to look at him, he notices your jaw is too, the telltale sign that you're about to burst into tears. “i think you're absolutely fucking mental. and i love you, i love you, i love you,” your voice cracks into a sob on the last you, and you bury your face in your boyfriend's neck while you cry. “that's the most romantic thing anyone could do, i think, and you did it for me. what the fuck!”

matty giggles, caressing your back and kissing your head soothingly. “s'the least i could do, really.”

“oh, shut up.”

“alright,” he coaxes you out of hiding, wiping your tears away and kissing your nose. “i'll play it for you when we get to a piano tomorrow, yeah?”

“i'd like that,” you peck his lips. “thank you, my love.”

“you're welcome, darling. and thank you for the little zine about us - can't wait to read that tomorrow, too.”

you nod happily - suddenly, your eyes widen. “wait! that reminds me: i got you something else too. and i want us to use them tomorrow.”

“let's see, then,” matty sits up in anticipation, but almost immediately slumps back down exasperatedly when he sees the rolling papers in your hand. “baby…”

“what? it's on-theme!” you grin. “it’s paper! the thing you're meant to give and get to celebrate a first anniversary. and, let's be serious, it was me wanting to smoke that got us here, wasn't it?”

“you’re incorrigible, sweetheart,” matty shakes his head, hand tracing patterns into your thigh; he can't help but smile, though. “but alright - tomorrow, at some point, we'll smoke.”

“promise?”

“for fuck's sake,” he sighs. “i promise, even though i think you're demented.”

you beam. “thanks. i love you!”

“i love you, too, darling.”

#mads muses #mads does writing #into the birthday partyverse #matty healy fanfiction #matty healy fanfic #matty healy fic #matty healy fluff #matty healy x reader #matty x reader

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hedgehog-moss · 6 months

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Loved your mentioning of learning poetry by heart: this is something I haven’t done since school! What are some of your favs that you’d suggest to ease my brain back into it?

(Française ici donc les options 🇫🇷 autant que anglais sont welcome :) merci!)

Hi :) You can look at the poem tag of my quote blog if you want—some of the ones I've learnt by heart (or excerpts from them) include this one by Sara Teasdale - Nanao Sakaki - Velimir Khlebnikov - Wallace Stevens - Rabindranath Tagore - Archibald Macleish - Howard Nemerov - and these paragraphs by Henri Peña-Ruiz which I consider prose poetry... My favourite French verses (from Corneille, Aragon, Anna de Noailles, Hugo, Valéry...) are all alexandrines and I find it to be the easiest type of verse to remember, as the structure is so rigorous and consistent. I sometimes translate English poems into alexandrines (like this one) to make them easier to learn in this more familiar form—I think even after all this time English prosody still feels foreign to me; the patterns of sound and rhythm in French are more deeply embedded in my brain so it can more easily predict what comes next...

Re: easing your brain into it, I guess that depends on your style of learning? For me the best way to learn a text is to spend time with it in written form, be it by translating it, or by writing it down by hand (slowly) and then (sometimes) keeping it for a while in a place where I often stand idle, like taped to my microwave so I re-read it as I wait 1 minute for something to heat up.

One thing I like about learning poems is that it's a costless, always-accessible way to get a sense of personal accomplishment. Beyond that, I've got three categories of poems I like to learn for different reasons—I'll go into some detail in case it can help you figure out what you're after :)

1. Classic poetry, because it's just fun to have little snippets of ancient tragedies or epic Victor Hugo poems living at the back of your mind and accompanying you through your own everyday tragedies—as an overdramatic person who tends to feel devastated or exasperated over tiny stuff, it helps me to take some distance from my feelings. Like if I spill a bucket of manure on my boots and my first reaction is rage and despair and my second thought is a couple of verses by Euripides where Iphigenia bemoans her relentless fate, it's a way to make fun of (and get over) myself.

My grandmother did this a lot, she knew so many poems by heart and often used them ironically. If I went whining to her when I was little she'd recite to me the last few verses of Alfred de Vigny's La Mort du Loup (it sounds better in the original but):

[...] With all your being you must strive To that highest degree of stoic pride [...] Weeping or praying—all this is in vain. You must instead shoulder your long and heavy task In the way that Destiny has seen fit to ask Then suffer and die without complaint.

(Let me tell you, that's just what a five-year-old wants to hear after scratching her knee at the park) But really I admired this treasury of poetry she carried within her, especially as she only went to school until age 14 and came upon most of it thanks to her own curiosity; as well as the way she used it playfully in everyday life, using dramatic classical verse to de-dramatise minor annoyances.

2. Nature poems are great in the opposite way, to magnify minor positive things :) Like seeing a fox and having a few lines by Mary Oliver come to mind, seeing a frog and thinking of that Basho haiku... I recently discovered Jean-Michel Maulpoix and I also love his nature poems, like 'The recovery of blue after a downpour', the way he describes snow melting in the spring, or golden-blue evenings:

[Snow] takes some time to leave, but delicately. She doesn’t insist, hardly persists, never roots… She gives way. No one else dies so merrily With such good humour Unmatched is her disdain for eternity…

L’azur, certains soirs, a des soins de vieil or. Le paysage est une icône. Il semble qu’au soleil couchant, le ciel qui se craquelle se reprenne un instant à croire à son bleu.

3. And then there are the poems that proudly serve no purpose. <3 I mean beyond distilling language in a beautiful way. No deep meaning—or no meaning at all, e.g. surrealist poetry. I learnt this passage from Les Champs magnétiques back in middle school:

La fenêtre creusée dans notre chair s'ouvre sur notre cœur. On y voit un immense lac où viennent se poser à midi des libellules mordorées et odorantes comme des pivoines. Quel est ce grand arbre où les animaux vont se regarder ? Il y a des siècles que nous lui versons à boire. . . Prisonniers des gouttes d'eau, nous ne sommes que des animaux perpétuels. . . Nous ne savons plus rien des astres morts ; nous regardons les visages. . . Quelquefois, le vent nous entoure de ses grandes mains froides et nous attache aux arbres découpés par le soleil.

—and I've often recited it to myself just to enjoy these gratuitously nice sentences that aren't here to deliver information. Like Kay Ryan said, "Poetry makes nothing happen. That's the relief of it." It's a nice break, a way to remember that communicating isn't all language is for; beyond the social dimension there's also an intimate one that relies on our own aesthetic sensitivity. Most of the time we look through language, to access ideas, meanwhile enjoying poetry means looking at language, for a change, appreciating it for itself.

I just realised I'm paraphrasing John Brehm here—in The Poetry of Impermanence he wrote something that can be read as an ode to learning things by heart:

When you read lines that seem especially lit up—that move or intrigue you in some way, or that are simply pleasing or even dazzling—don’t focus on being able to formulate a statement about what they might mean, as if you might be called upon to explain the poem, to yourself or to someone else. Just linger with those poems or passages that resonate with you. . . Rest your mind on them; let them live inside you.

#ask #poetry

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eggtrolls · 24 days

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haiku misinformation: a fact check

there's an post going around about haiku that has a lot of incorrect information about haiku, its terminology, history, etc. I will try to debunk some of the biggest inaccuracies here. everything in quotes is a direct statement from the original post. this is also really, really long.

"Haiku are made of 14 on, which are essentially the equivalent to Japanese syllabic structures, except the nature of how Japanese as a language is constructed versus English means that any given proper haiku could be translated in extremely and intensely different ways, each giving a subtle but distinctly different meaning."

Starting off strong - haiku are (usually) made of 17 on. It's the classic 5-7-5 pattern! 5+7+5=17! [possibly this is a mix-up with wakiku (脇(わき)句(く)) which is another type of Japanese poetry that does use 14 on but who knows.]

Definitions: an on is a phonetic unit, the equivalent to a mora (pl. morae) in English. this concept a) exists in English and b) like on, is related to syllables but distinctly different from them (i.e. ba is one mora but baa with a long vowel is two morae). On can be counted using the number of hiragana (phonetic syllabic characters) when the text is transliterated, so a word like Osaka that has the long O sound (made up of 4 kana) would be 4 morae or 4 on (o-o-sa-ka; おおさか). it's not really a syllabic structure at all, and more importantly has nothing to do with translation. idk where that last part comes from because that's really...not the point here. Yes, any given "proper" haiku could be translated in different ways with a subtle but distinctly different meaning but that's true of just...translation, period. check out Deborah Smith's translation of The Vegetarian by Han Kang for more on that.

Furthermore, haiku were/are not rigidly locked into the 5-7-5 on pattern. That's just not true, which is why I said usually above. Easy example: a 1676 haiku by Matsuo Basho that uses 18-on:

冨士の風や　扇にのせて江戸土産; ふじのかぜやおうぎにのせてえどみやげ; the wind of Fuji /I've brought on my fan/a gift from Edo <- that first line is 6-on!

2. "The best way I can explain what I mean is that in English a good poem can be defined as a shallow river, whereas a good haiku is a deeply-dug well."

Not dignifying this with a response. Deeply incorrect and untrue. @bill-blake-fans-anonymous can handle this assertion.

3. "The presence of the kigu. There is a specific series of characters/words which are used to imply a season, and specifically a specific aspect of a season which the haiku revolves around. The creation of a haiku is often done as a meditative practice revolving around the kigu--you're essentially contemplating on this particular natural feature (nearly always the temporal aspect emphasizes either ephemerality or the opposite as well bc Buddhist ideas of enlightenment and beauty begin coming into play) and building an evocative and purposeful point that revolves around it like a hinge. It functions as both ground and anchor."

First (and largest) problem: the word. is. kigo. kigo. It's ki (季; season)-go (語; word) = 季語. Both the English and Japanese language Wikipedia, or a 3-second google search, will tell you this immediately. I have no idea where the term kigu comes from.

Second problem: plenty of haiku, both traditional and contemporary, do not use kigo. these are described as muki (無季; seasonless). Matsuo Basho, the haiku-writing poet non-Japanese people are most likely to know, wrote at least ten seasonless haiku that exist today. Masaoka Shiki, the Meiji-era haiku poet and reformist, wrote hundreds of kigo-free haiku and as an agnostic, tried to separate haiku from Buddhism and focus more on the shasei, the sketches from daily life. you can actually, today, buy what are called saijiki, which are lists of words and terms that refer to specific seasons (in the traditional Japanese calendar, so there are actually a lot of "micro" seasons as well). some saijiki include a whole section of "seasonles" words - here's an article about non-season kigo in a saijiki.

so the claim that English-language haiku are invalid or not "real" haiku because they lack a kigo doesn't hold up, unless you invalidate a whole bunch of Japanese haiku as well. the op also claimed they would categorize a lot of English "haiku" as senryū which is...an opinion. Yes, haiku tend to be focused around nature (more on that below) and senryū tend to be more comedic or about human foibles but...that's it! it's a tendency! it's not a hard and fast rule!

Third problem: the claim that a haiku is as meditative practice revolving around the kigu kigo...yeah, no. the earlier form of haiku, the hokku, were the introductory poems of the longer poetic form, the renga and the hokku gradually became a standalone poetic form known as haiku. the hokku had a lot of purposes and we have a historical record of them going back ~1000 years to Emperor Juntoku where they were declamatory poems tied to events (births, deaths, etc.) or social events (moon-viewing parties) - not really meditative. haiku, if a genre can focus on a single idea, focus on an experience and that can be real or imaginary, direct and personal or neither.

Here's another Basho poem for your consideration:

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡 (natsukusa ya tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato; summer grasses--/traces of dreams/of ancient warriors)

both the dreams and the grasses are those of Basho (contemporary) and of the warriors (ancient); it's about travel, it's about connecting the present to the ancient past, it's not really so much about the summer.

(Fourth, minor problem that I'm not really going to get into: you'd have to take this 'Buddhist ideas of enlightenment and beauty' up with haiku scholar Haruo Shirane but he explicitly says in the Routledge Global Haiku Reader (2024) that "pioneers of English-language haiku [such as D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and the Beats] mistakenly emphasized Zen Buddhism in Japanese haiku".....so.)

4. "The presence of the kireji...it's a concept borderline absent from English because it's an intersection of linguistics and philosophy that doesn't really exist outside of the context of Japanese."

Let's begin with clarification. What is kireji (lit. a 'cutting word')? It's a class of terms in Japanese poetry that can do a few things, depending on the specific kireji and its place in the poem. In the middle of the poem, it can mark a thematic break, a cut in the stream of thought highlighting the parallel(s) between the preceding and following phrases. At the end of the poem, it provides a sense of ending and closure - it helps mark rhythmic division, to say the least, and it is seen as the 'pivot' word.

Two problems with claims above:

a. there are haiku that do not use kireji. For the hat trick, here's a Matsuo Basho haiku from 1689 AD that is kireji-free: 初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也 (hatsu shigure saru mo komino wo hoshige nari; the first cold shower/even the monkey seems to want/a little coat of straw) <- NB: I love this haiku so much

b. the idea of a kireji, as in a pivot word that provides an inflection point with rhythmic division and structure, exist not just in English poetry but in multiple different types of poetry across time and space! The caesura in Latin and Ancient Greek! The volta in sonnets! Whatever is happening in the third line of the Korean sijo!

final thoughts:

the op included language, which I won't quote here because it was messy and tied into other rbs, about Orientalism and appropriation in English-language haiku, which is definitely a real thing. but this blanket statement ignores that the relationship between haiku and "the West", much like Japan and "the West", was and is not a one-way street. Western writers were influenced by haiku and, in turn, those writers influenced Japanese writers who wrote haiku inspired by these influences - this process has been going on for well over a century. Furthermore, English and Japanese are not the only languages in which haiku are written! Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore was writing haiku in Bengali; other Indian poets were and are writing them in Gujrati and Malayalam, particularly by the poet Ashitha. the Pakistani poet Omer Tarin has written haiku about Hiroshima! The Spanish poet Lorca published haiku in, get this, Spanish, in 1921 and the Mexican poet José Juan Tablada published more in 1922! Italian translations of Yosano Akiko were published in 1919! any discussion of the idea that English/non-Japanese-language haiku aren't really haiku because they don't hold to the "rules" (which Japanese authors have been revising, adapting, critiquing, and/or straight up flouting for centuries) or because English/non-Japanese poetry is "a shallow river whereas a good haiku is a deeply-dug well" just shows a lack of knowledge around traditions and depths of...well, poetry itself.

my god this is so long.

in summary: this is a complex topic. If anyone would like some actual information about haiku, its history, common themes and forms, or a collection of good poets, the Routledge Global Haiku Reader (2024) and Haiku Before Haiku : From the Renga Masters to Basho (2011) are great references and really accessible in their language! hmu if you're interested and I can send you some pdfs.

#'99% of all haiku written in English might at best be called a senryu' is QUITE a take #the idea that kireji is a uniquely mysteriously super special Japanese term that has no equivalent and could never be understood. hm.#where have I heard that line of thinking before.....#haiku #Japan #long post

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familyabolisher · 9 months

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haphazard assortment of thoughts on the unwanted guest:

firstly, it really does have to be said—crazy good, probably my favourite of all the tlt short pieces, and i say that as someone who lost my mind over as yet unsent for like a week. excellent conceit and excellent execution, just a really gorgeous piece of writing. the play format of course reminds me of what abigail says to harrow in htn—that the river bubble is a ‘play [she’s] directing’—the inside of one’s head as a stage in which other actors can intervene & whereby mileage can be gotten out of Symbolism as immediately “real,” tangible presences that the kind of realist baggage that a more quotidian prose form would usher in would probably falter in accomplishing. it’s a lot!! i think even if i wasn’t already a tazmuir writing style defender (contra the insistence that she’s yknow homestuck fanfiction serial numbers filed off hack) then this would have had me floored anyway.

the play format also works in the way that muir’s general dexterity in form and willingness to really make use of craft as a technical space where discourse can be generated always works—i’m talking about the ‘fanfictiony’ voice in gtn which manages to say something both about fanfiction and about the text itself, the use of the dramatis personae as a space where atmosphere can be established and plot points hinted towards (thus blurring the lines between what is and is not diegesis), the drastic shifts in style between different close thirds, the shifting from third- to second- to epistolary first-person, the use of poetry both diegetic and not (the noniad, the epigraph poems…), the mimicry of the ‘voice’ of the king james bible in the nona epilogue—she never stays in one place for too long and she never seems to stick to one central style or form, and it really works in her favour. insofar as tlt as a whole is a very ‘patchwork’ kind of work, building itself up from its big big index of references and intertexts and memes with hugely variant levels of ‘prestige’ or legitimacy attached to them, the ‘patchwork’ use of form really works in muir’s favour. however i am also fuming because i was right in the middle of writing a tlt fic which jumps into a play format two-thirds of the way through and now my idea doesn’t look ORIGINAL but ANYWAY—

& i really do need to flag my good friend vee’s mercy/augustine fic, which makes use of a similar conceit and pulls it off masterfully—i am deeply jealous of vee’s talent and i think the unwanted guest makes this piece (from 2021!) shine even more, if anything.

i am DYING to see where muir is going with the use of hamlet, of all things—dulcie quoting it to palamedes immediately catapulted my mind back to abigail’s reference to ‘that undiscovered country’ in htn. obviously muir likes to drop contemporary (or contemporarily canonical) references and turns of phrase all over the place, but the attention drawn to the quote as diegetically referential (“I like that. Is it from something?” / “Yes. It’s complicated.”) has me wondering about a) the survival of ‘pre-res’ literatures ~over the river and like WHY and b) what a thematic interlocking of tlt and hamlet can do, here…….real aveheads remember cytherea ophelia theory where i tried to use ophelia as a point of reference for teasing out some arguments about cytherea and death and aesthetics and white femininity and whatnot. all of which is to say i need to sit with this hamlet reading a lot more but i love it, i am so here for it.

of course ‘kissing or feeding, we can’t be sure’ calls to mind ‘how meat loves meat,’ alecto biting harrow’s mouth by way of a kiss…and the general thematic throughline of, you know, certain practices of love as practices of consumption, naberius later being figured as the ‘meat’ in question contains echoes of this eroticism which ofc guides the contours of the necromancer/cavalier dynamic, eroticism as a currency of power, we know all of this stuff because it’s all over the text but i am just thumbs-upping it from the sidelines

the coffins had me thinking of utena’s black rose arc, which is a fun link to make considering the equivalent moment in the main body of nona is also referencing utena, ie. with the ‘rules’ of the duel being that cam has to get the handkerchief out of ianthe’s pocket as kind of an equivalent to skewering the rose. i feel like the tlt/utena overlap is pretty self-explanatory but it’s just fun to see the fingerprints all over lol

i think a lot of this was treading old ground thematically (erotics of consumption, dog motifs, we’ve seen it already!) but i will say that i did Yell Out Loud over ‘who's she got dawdling behind her but that creature—tugging visibly at her leash like an overeager dog.’ reminded of the other memorable use of ‘leash’—’even the devil bent for god to put a leash around her neck’—and, of course, the endless parade of commonalities between gideon & alecto. anyway there’s not really anything in this line that we didn’t already know about gid as a character, thematically speaking, but i point it out because it inflicted +100 psychic damage when i read it. gideon as a ‘creature’ is particularly slimy, & sort of puts me in mind of ianthe's tendency to talk about what appears to us as 'butch masculinity' (as opposed to the more effete masculinity of augustine or even babs) with a notably derogatory slant (the 'hurtful threats of sexual violence' line comes to mind); i don't know that i have much to say about it here specifically but it's an interesting one that i think informs the kirianthe dynamic pretty heavily (especially when held up against, like, harrianthe ... ianthe has a kind of respect for whatever harrow's gay and stupid gender is Doing (at least insofar as she can mould it to her own desires; i'm thinking of the dios apate forcefemme scene lol) in ways that i don't think she has for kiriona? but this is v off-topic, lol).

i have never been especially taken by dulcie as a character but i think this may finally have forced me to fold and admit that she’s great. her haters!!! her agonies!!! camilla would have to cook!! the balance between levity and sincerity was really well-managed. & i love the double meaning of “unwanted guest” as both palamedes intruding on ianthe’s mind palace and naberius setting up shop inside of her.

i need a week to sit with where this idea of the consumed soul as being literally ‘digested’ such that it can begin to ‘inhabit,’ however immaterially, the host body, or like to alter the characteristics of the host body such that to carry out such a consumption is to kind of kill yourself as well, slots in with lolita theory. or like, i need alecto right now. i am however reminded of chew, a short story that muir wrote in 2013, which also plays with these ideas of sexual assault as a forcing of a part of yourself meaningfully ‘into’ another person, and cannibalism as the reenactment of such a process, figured in the story as kind of a reclamation or at least an assertion of permanence—“I was always going to be in the ground with him in me,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure.”—which the unwanted guest seems to kind of, play with in reverse? i don’t know, but i’m interested—as ever—in where muir wants to take these ideas of rape and consumption and absorption that she’s got in her hands.

i keep returning to…i hesitate to say ‘parallels’ because i think that imposes a narrative onus that i’m not actually that convinced by, but these, like, commonalities between babs and gideon. gideon is played off against so many people (cristabel, loveday, alecto being the big ones) that it feels kind of inane to add another person to the pile, but like…they’re the two who get got in canaan house, they’re both ironically ‘false’ cavaliers and expressions of the ‘truest’ or most paradigmatic form that cavalierhood ‘can’/’should’ take, they both have unconventionally gendered names (‘babs’ is a shortened form of ‘barbara,’ it is a typically feminine name imo) and (by our standards) somewhat unconventional genders (gideon is butch, babs effete)—and of course the unwanted guest places a lot of emphasis on the coercive ‘making’ of cavalierhood (the reference to babs being ‘fixed’ were he to have a disability! ianthe’s glib ‘society really is to blame’ comment—ironic, obviously, but not wholly untrue) not dissimilar to the emphasis that gtn puts on cytherea moulding gideon into the state she comes to be in at the end. babs and gideon as the two possessed corpses in nona, obviously. two wildly diverse but ultimately converging trajectories! a dialectical tension between their fundamental ‘opposition’ (as by-the-book cavalier vs whatever gideon is doing) and their fundamental ‘sameness’ whereby the dialectic is resolved in their mutual deaths. also just, of course, continuing the throughline that muir has had going for a while now, of gender/gendering as a set of coercive enforcements loyal to a hegemonic structuring of the world.

that’s all i’ve got, i think. just. really good everyone say thank you tazmuir

#.txt #tlt #the unwanted guest spoilers #this was originally bullet points but tumblr's formatting is bad and i can't be bothered editing to improve the flow here. so.#rape cw

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peachesofteal · 1 year

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Alone / Chapter 2

Part eight of the Sassy series.

Simon Riley/female reader 4.4k words - AO3 Warnings-tags: 18+ Minors DNI, panic attacks, angst, PTSD, trauma, blood and torture, hospitals, emotional hurt/comfort, medical stuff, coparenting, relationship issues, reader is going through it, soft dad Simon Riley. You’re living in a nightmare.

Blood has a distinct smell. To many, it’s the pungent minerality that turns their senses but to you, it’s the tang of the metal that makes your lip quiver. It’s the saltlick iron that makes you press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose slowly, an effort to try to prevent the tossing of your stomach.

Here, the scent is everywhere. On the walls. On your face. On your clothes. There was a puddle of it, beneath your knees. It’s a combination of yours and nameless others, their blood one of the only things left of them in the world, seeping into the fabric of your jeans, staining the concrete blocks of-

“Mrs. Riley?” Your doctor, your therapist, looks at you expectantly over the rim of her glasses, and you huff. “Where were you just now?” You try not to scowl. Be honest. You’re supposed to be honest.

“The room.”

“Where you were being held?” You nod. You force your fingers flat against your thighs, beating back the urge to scratch your nails against your skin. “And what were you thinking, about the room?”

“I was remembering what all the blood smelled like. What it tasted like.” To her credit, your shrink doesn’t flinch. She holds your gaze steady, until you are the one looking away, glancing over her shoulder at the clock that always seems to move too slow.

You’ve tried this once, already. Tried to get her to crack, to push you off. Tried to get her to cower, or recommend you speak to someone else. She’s stronger than you originally thought, you’ll her give her that, but you supposed it didn’t hurt that she’s been having twice weekly sessions with Simon when he’s not away on an op for over two years now, and you’re well aware your dog and pony show are nothing compared to whatever he’s been telling her.

Simon Riley, the closed off ghost who wouldn’t even show you his face when he got you pregnant, turned father of the year who bent over backwards for his wife, now goes to therapy, and meditates when he’s out on ops.

“Do you remember how you felt, when you were in that room?” Oh, for fucks sake. You nod, lips pressed into a line. “Can you tell me?”

“Worried.”

“Worried about what?”

“Theo. And Simon.”

“Not for yourself?” You shrug. Your lungs hurt, like they’re being constricted, and you look down to your shoes.

“Can we talk about something else?” You say it to your laces, not to her, but you know she hears it when her pen clicks and the scratch of the tip scrawls across her pad.

“How is co-parenting going?” Your head snaps up, and you smother the glare that pulls at the edges of your face.

“It’s fine.”

“You and Simon are communicating alright?” Jesus christ.

“Mostly.” You shrug and don’t elaborate. She nods at your silence, an indication she wants you to keep going. You grit your teeth. “Sometimes, he calls, or texts and I don’t answer him. Or I don’t answer him in a timely manner.” Your fingers make air quotes around the timely manner bit.

“Why is that?”

“It’s… hard to explain.”

“Are you uncomfortable with the communication?”

“No!” you rush out. “No, no of course not… I want him to see Theo as much as possible. I just feel, mixed up. So, when I see him, or hear from him, it makes those mixed-up feelings feel… more intense. More mixed up.”

“Can you name a few of those feelings?” You close your eyes and picture Simon’s face. You see him holding Theo’s hand in the supermarket or pushing him on the swing set in the park. You see him in bed beside you, before, eyes soft and full of love, his smile beautiful and easy on his lips. Unburdened.

“Sadness.” You pause to take a deep breath. “Sadness and anger, confusion. Guilt.” The pen scribbles on paper when you pause, and you glance up at the clock. Bingo. “Looks like we’re out of time.” You supply, smiling at her cheerily when she narrows her eyes, and then writes something down before giving you a nod.

The man says your name.

Not Sassy. Not Sass.

Your real name, before he tuts in your face, like you’ve let him down.

“Yer da ‘d be real disappointed in ye.” Saliva builds in the back of your throat.

“Don’t talk about my father.” You hiss and he outright laughs.

“Still fightin’ even when broken.” His fingers fold over the wound in your arm, pressing into the open, infected flesh, digging against it with his fingernails and the pain burns, it scrapes across your skin like a million little knives. “Maybe ye’re not so worthless after all, eh?” You launch the spit into his eye, grim satisfaction creeping over you when he staggers back in surprise, rage brewing across his face before he’s gripping you by the collarbone and thrusting you backwards, tipping the metal chair until you’re slamming into the ground, your head bouncing on blood slick concrete like a child’s ball.

“Stupid bitch.” His leg draws backwards until he’s firing the toe of his boot into your stomach, kicking you once, twice before you’re gasping for air, pain blooming across your abdomen as he batters you.

You close your eyes, and think of Theo. You think of Simon, of the two of them together. At home, safe. You pull the string of a memory until it comes to the forefront of your mind, Theo’s first words, his first steps. His second birthday party, when Johnny bought him that obnoxious drum set, and Simon bent you over the couch after Theo went to bed. The day you got married, your first wedding anniversary, the hotel room in Florence. You slip into these memories like they’re real and try to block out the smell of the blood and the pain in your body, try to drown in the shadows of your old self, your past, while you lose everything to the present, over and over again.

The little house is quiet when you get home in the afternoon.

At first it doesn’t bother you. Theo is with his dad for the night, already been picked up from school and probably taken to the park, his favorite Friday activity. Si will probably get him pizza, because he spoils him endlessly, and he’ll let him fall asleep while they cuddle on the couch and watch some awful kid’s show. You can see it, in your mind, the image of Theo in the crook of Simon’s elbow where he still fits, his little arm stretched across his dad’s ribs, Simon with his feet on the coffee table.

It rips your heart apart. The swell of emotion is strong enough that tears pool in your eyes, dripping down over your cheeks while you curl up into a ball on your own couch, blanket tucked up under your chin. You did this. You are a nightmare. You did this to yourself. You press your palm to your lips and scream into it, smothering the sound as best you can, your throat turning raw with each breath. Your body shakes with sobs until you’re exhausted and your eyes slip shut, tears still webbed in your lashes, while the sun shines through your living room window.

Your phone jolts you awake a few hours later, your hands scrambling to find where you’ve lost it in the couch, the realization that it’s going to be Theo breaking through the heavy weight of your misery. Must be close to bedtime. When you slide open the facetime call, he’s grinning at you, little dab of red sauce on his chin.

“Mum!” he shouts, glee coloring the word and you smile back at him easily, hastily rubbing your face to erase the evidence of your state. “Dad got ‘izza!”

“I see that.” A big thumb drifts in front of the camera to wipe the glob of red away and Theo giggles.

“Say goodnight.” Simon says in the background and Theo pauses, little eyebrows creased in confusion before he recovers and looks back to the phone.

“Goodnight mum. Luh you.”

“Love you too bug. Have fun with dad.” The phone shifts, darkness covering the camera for a second before it’s righted, and Simon’s face fills the frame. Your stomach clenches.

“His mates from school are all gonna be at the fields tomorrow morning. I told him I’d take him, if it's alright with you.”

“Okay, that’s fine. Thanks.” You can see him studying you through the screen.

“Everything alright?” his tone shifts, takes on something softer, something sweeter, something that feels like a memory, and your chest tightens.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good.”

“If you need-“

“I’m fine.” You snap. He sighs.

“Alright then. Goodnight, Sass.”

“Night.”

“There she is, see?” Simon points, and Theo frowns when he sees you, lower lip tugging downward, his face confused before he looks back to his dad, burying his face in his chest with a cry.

“Hey bug. Come here.” You hold your arms out to him, but he just cries into Simon, the scared wailing splitting you open and pouring concrete into your lungs, so it feels like you’ve got an entire building sitting on your chest. “It’s okay baby.” You call, hands still waiting, voice edging on desperate. You want your baby. You want to hold him, to feel him in your arms and know he’s okay, that he’s here, that Simon’s here, and you’re here and there is no danger, nothing to fear. Simon steps closer to you, his emotions raw across his face, and Theo screams in his arms, legs kicking ferociously.

“It’s mum, Theo. Stop. Look.” Simon tries but it’s no use. You know Theo is terrified of you, your battered and bruised face, the wires and tubes that are connected to your chest and the IV that’s stuck in the back of your hand. Your brain buzzes, a low droning noise between your ears making your head spin and you call Theos’ name with a croak.

“NO!” Theo shrieks, he screams it at the top of his lungs and Simon looks lost as you stare wordlessly, hands reaching out into the void, begging to hold your son that doesn’t even recognize you.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel the tears drop down onto the arm that’s folded across your abdomen.

The door slides open, and Johnny appears, pulling Theo from Simon’s arms, patting his back softly and giving you a sympathetic look.

“C’mon lad, let’s go get a lolly, yeah? Give mum and dad some time.” Theo hugs his uncle around his neck, and heaves little sobs into his skin while Johnny shushes him and carries him back out the door.

“I-“ you choke on whatever it was you were going to say, the buzzing in your head so, so loud that it drowns out your thoughts, covers up your feelings until you’re pressing the heels of your palms to your eyes.

Knuckles tap against the glass, Johnny’s face appearing in the window.

“I’ll be right back.” Simon assures you, leaving his foot in the door while he talks to Johnny, their voices fuzzy, and suddenly, the world is tilting and all you can smell is blood.

The buzzing in your head is ferocious, a searing sharpness that feels like a lobotomy, your mind screaming inside your head. The stitches in your skin burn, and you swear you can feel each cell trying to pull closed, the sticky edges of your wounds slowly seaming back together, sealing shut everything inside of you, trapping the buzzing away within your own body so you’ll never be able to pull it out.

You need to go home. You have to get out of here. You can’t stay here. You have to get home. Where everything is safe. Where there is no danger.

You fidget with your central line, trying to unclick, unscrew it until you’re just tugging on it as hard as you can without making a sound, pain throbbing into the hole that’s been created for the port as you start to pull the sticky pads off your lower rib cage. The noises in the room are going berserk, bells and whistles chiming and beeping while the buzzing in your head gets louder and louder, and your fingers dig into your IV, trying to rip it from your skin before Simon is grabbing your hand.

“I have to get out of here.” You tell him. He’ll understand. You know he will.

“Bloody hell Sass, stop.” Your fingers are still scratching away, trying to crawl towards the IV, the last thing tethering you to this place, keeping you from your family, and you push against the pressure holding you still. The buzzing in your head is screaming now, louder than Simon’s voice, louder than the frantic beeping of the machines that have lost their leads.

“Let me go! I ha- have to go. I have to get out.” Simon tries to grab your other hand but you’re too quick, nimble and lithe like you always have been, and you latch onto the needle in your skin, ripping it free, blood trickling down your arm and dripping across your thin hospital gown. Heavy hands grab your shoulders and press you back against the bed.

“Hey, hey. Look at me.” His elbow pins your collarbone down while his hand comes up to cradle your face. “Everything’s alright.” What? No, it isn’t. It’s not alright. This is certainly not alright. Can’t he hear that noise? You shake your head vehemently and he tries to hold you steady.

“No. N-no, no, Simon. I have to go. Please, we have to go.” The door swings open and a man in blue scrubs with a badge walks through, a nurse at his side, capped syringe in her hand. Your stomach roils. “Simon.” You plead as you eye them, their slow steps bringing them closer and closer to you, and you shift on the bed, up against your husband, trying to bury yourself in his body, hide from whatever the people in scrubs are going to do. “Simon, we have to go home. Please, we need to get home.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” He strokes the hair away from your face, and you realize he’s got tears in his eyes, his gaze heavy and sad, and your own eyes widen in fear when you feel a new set of hands on your body.

“Get off me!” you scream, thrashing in the bed, Simon trying to talk to you, trying to calm you while the man in scrubs pins your arms down.

“Don’t hold her like that.” He snarls, and the foreign hands on your body adjust, letting your forearms go loose while the pinch of a needle punctures your skin. “It’s alright, I promise.” Simon’s voice breaks. “I’m here, Sass. I’m right here. You’re safe, you’re safe, I swear.” The needle pulls free of your arm and the world shifts, bright light blowing out the edges of your vision until your eyes are slipping closed, Simon’s face the last thing you see before everything goes dark.

It's three in the morning. The dark and stormy nightmares that keep you under in your sleep have finally slipped away, and you’re staring at your bedroom ceiling while your brain turns a mile a minute until you’re reaching for your phone.

Your thumb hovers over Simon’s contact for too long, way too long while you think about what it might be like to hear his voice before you’re scrolling to the next name and clicking the digits.

The phone rings and you try not the count it, try not to think about what you’re doing and the line clicks open to a bleary, sleepy Scotsman saying hello.

When you don’t say anything back, you can hear him sitting up.

“Sassafras?” Johnny tries, and you blow out a breath.

“It’s me.”

“Ya okay?” No.

“Yeah.” He sighs, and then starts to tell you about his day, his family, what he’s been doing in his off time. It’s not the first time you’ve called him in the middle of the night, and probably won’t be the last, and he knows it. He fills your head with mindless details, funny stories about his latest op and the 141, other things he thinks you’ll want to hear. You never talk, just listen, and he does a good job of distracting you from whatever it is that’s going on in your head until you’re chuckling on the other end of the line, spirit just a hair lighter than it was when you called.

“Thanks, Johnny.” You murmur into the phone.

“Anytime. One more thing-“

“Yeah?”

“Call your husband next time, yeah?” Prick.

“Bye, Soap.”

“Bye Sassy. Love ya. Kiss the wee lad for me.”

“I will.”

At ten in the morning, the doorbell rings. Even though he has a key, he won’t use it, just waits patiently for you to open the door, not wanting to encroach on your boundaries.

Theo runs straight at your legs when you open it, and you scoop him up in a big hug until he’s complaining, insisting you put him down and let him show you the picture that’s clutched in his hand, something he drew last night.

“That’s you!” he points to a sloppy stick figure that’s holding hands with a little stick figure, a bigger stick figure on its other side. “an’ that’s me and that’s dad!” His eyebrows raise and you rub his head affectionately.

“Good job, you’re a real artist!”

“Put it on fridge?” As soon as you nod your approval he takes off, running towards the kitchen, leaving you and Simon in the living room, the straps of his backpack fisted in his dad’s hand.

“Johnny called me this morning.” You draw a quick breath before letting it out slowly. Traitorous bastard. “If you want me to take him for the rest of the day so you can get some rest-“

“I’m fine. Thanks, though.” Simon sets the backpack down, and you hear the click and clack of the alphabet magnets against the stainless steel.

“You can… call me, too. If you want. If you need… someone to talk to.” You expect to rebuff him immediately, to snap at him, to tell him you don’t need to talk to anyone, let alone him. You want to. You want to keep taking it out on him, keep dumping it on him, over and over until there’s so much of it between the two of you that he’ll never find his way back. Why would he want to? After everything you’ve put him through? You’re broken. Useless.

“Why?” you blurt, and it surprises you. Looks like it surprises him too.

“You’re my wife, Sass. I love you.” Your skin feels hot and your heart thumps loudly in your ears. “Your trauma, the torture, what happened after… nothin’ is ever gonna change that.” You scoff, anger flickering in your veins, the heat of your irritation warming you from the inside out.

“You can’t mean that. Not after… everything that’s happened.” He studies you for a long moment, eyes pinning you where you shift your weight uneasily, until he’s raising the back of his hand, holding it upright to display the ring. The ring, that he refuses to take off. The ring, that he still wears, even after you tossed your own at his head. The ring, that has your call sign and his last name initialed on the inside.

“I will love and honor you all the days of my life.” He whispers it, and you swallow the lump in the back of your throat.

“Mum!” Theo yells, and you turn away, shoulders tight under your ears, fingers clenched together. “Mum, can we ‘ave popcorn?” Theo shouts again and you give him a tight-lipped smile when you reach the kitchen, your enthusiastic four-year-old trying to push a chair in front of the pantry.

“Popcorn?”

“Daddy said you might wanna watch a movie.” Theo pauses, eyes flicking between you, and his father, who you can just feel at your back, before he nods decisively, like he’s already determined that will be his next activity. “Moana?” He shrugs a little, face hopeful and you ruffle his hair.

“Sure, baby. We can watch Moana.” Your heart pangs when you realize that Simon probably told Theo you’d want a movie because he was thinking about how you didn’t sleep, how you might be too tired to go to the park or do something more involved. He’s still taking care of you, after everything. Still wears the ring, still calls you his wife, still tells you he loves you, he-

“Can daddy stay?” The room suddenly feels devoid of oxygen.

“I’m sure dad has things he’s got to do tod-“

“I don’t.” He cuts you off and you smother the glare that threatens to pull across your face. You look down at Theo, who’s so excited, so blissfully pleased at the idea, head shifting as he looks back and forth between the two of you and you crumble a little bit, unable to take his happiness away from him. You destroyed his family, why can’t you let him have this? Guilt sears across your skin, the pressure of it so intense that you’re nodding your agreement before you even realize it.

“Okay then.” Theo shouts with excitement and sprints to the couch.

“I can go, if you’re not comfortable.” Simon offers when he’s out of earshot and you shake your head.

“No, it’s fine. Makes him happy.”

“Mum! Make popcorn!” Theo calls to where the two of you still stand, an awkward distance apart in the kitchen.

“What did you forget?”

“Pwease?”

“Thank you, much better.” Your crinkle the thin plastic of the popcorn bag into the trash, the noise similar to the static that’s now playing in your head, before you clear your throat. “Want to uh, go get him settled? And then I’ll be in. In a minute.” Simon doesn’t respond, just disappears from the kitchen, and you focus on the minute countdown on the microwave while you take deep, long breaths, a desperate attempt to fill your lungs with as much oxygen as possible, until it beeps and you’re pulling the door open to dump the popped kernels doused in butter into a bowl.

You’re tracing the wood grain pattern in the living room floor between your feet when you distantly hear a voice, calling you over and over. It feels far away, impossibly far away, like you’re at the bottom of the ocean or you’re on another planet.

“Hey, mum.” Simon’s voice draws you out of the depths sharply, and he strokes a gentle fingertip down your arm, over the pockmarked scar beneath your shoulder. The touch startles you, your head snapping up to see Theo standing in front of the coffee table in a red cape, construction paper mask, and Simon sitting delicately on the couch next to you. “Someone’s trying to show you something.” He inclines his head to the excited little boy, and you blink before shaking your head, trying to clear the fog that’s settled in your brain.

When it doesn’t, you shake your head again, and then look to Simon hopelessly. He reads you instantly, ushering Theo upstairs, enticing him with blocks and promises of story time later.

Blood. The scent of blood fills your nostrils, so strong that you think it might be dripping from your face, washing over your tongue, filling your mouth, filling the whole house.

Not real. It’s not real. You’re not there, you’re here. There is no danger.

Large palms cover yours, and then you’re looking up at Simon, his eyes soft, sympathetic, and you know he knows. You know he can see, what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking.

He can see it all, because he’s been here before, too. He’s survived, he’s fought, he’s lived.

But he’s never been… this. He’s never been a nightmare. Never been useless. Never been this broken like this, dirty and pathetic like this, weak like this.

Simon was strong. He fought. You failed. You couldn’t even get back to him. Couldn’t get back to your baby, your family.

You feel his touch again and you choke on a gasp.

You can’t let him touch you, he’ll know. He’ll see it. He’ll feel it.

“D-don’t.” you hiss, forcing a hand forward to hold him at bay.

“Shhh. It’s just me, Sass. I’ve got you.”

“No, n-no.” He can’t know. “No, I… I need” You stand, stumbling forward, catching yourself on the coffee table before straightening, Simon’s confused gaze tracking your every step while you put as much distance between the two of you as possible. “I need to lay down.”

When you cross into the living room, Simon’s sitting on the couch, Theo already snuggled up into his side, both watching the television intently. Theo looks so happy, his eyes light and joy filled, body weightless with love and the knowledge that he’s with his family.

His family, that you broke. That you destroyed. That you took from him.

Simon’s thighs are spread wide, their width in his jeans momentarily distracting you before you’re cataloguing his face, his lips, his eyes, the line of his nose, all things you used to know better than yourself, things you used to be able to trace in the dark. Your stomach flips, and the walls of your house look like they’re shaking, the buzzing noise in the back of your head roaring to life, drowning out the sound of Moana singing to sea.

“Mum?” Theo calls, hand out for the popcorn, and you deposit the bowl on the table before you’re backing away.

“I have to go fix something, in the kitchen really quick.” You explain to him, and he shrugs, eyes fixing back on the movie, fingers mindlessly bringing pieces of popcorn to his mouth.

Theo doesn’t notice when you take the stairs instead of turning into the kitchen, but you know Simon does, and you’re not surprised when he’s rapping his knuckles against your locked bedroom door, where you’re sitting with you back against the wood, hands pressed to your head, trying to control your breathing. He knocks again, but there’s only silence to answer him, and it stretches on for miles.

“Sass?” you hear him shift, feel his weight press against the door and at first you think he’s trying to come through but then you realize, he’s sitting against the other side, just like you.

His fingers slide underneath where there’s a gap between the floor and the door, just wide enough for a few fingers, just enough for you to see the glint of his ring.

Without thinking, your own fingers cover his.

Neither of you speak.

#sassy series #simon x sass #peaches writes #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon riley x you #simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon riley x female reader #ghost cod #ghost x reader #cod fanfic #cod mwii #cod mw2

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dianawinchester03 · 2 months

Text

Supernatural Series Rewrite (Dean Winchester x Reader) by @dianawinchester03

Prologue - Enter Y/N

Series Masterlist

Y/N's POV

I straighten out my shirt,sighing as I watch the corpse ignite into flames in-front of my eyes.

Salt and Burn. Check. The chilly air in the cemetery engulfs my body, I warm my hands over the burning corpse, rubbing my hands together to gather the heat.

Internally rolling my eyes, I pick up my duffle bag and make my way towards my bike. My pride and joy. Quinn's a Harley-Davidson VRSC. I named her after my favorite DC Comic book character, Harley Quinn. Original huh?

Breaking me out of my thoughts I hear my phone ring. Fishing my phone out of my pocket as I lean against Quinn. Rolling my eyes, I answer roughly after seeing the contact.

"I'm alive, f/n" I say hastily. I could practically hear the frown crease on my fathers face with the way I answer. Don't get me wrong, I love the man but boy can he be a pain. "I'm glad to hear you're okay baby....how're things" He asks.

I pull my bottom lip into my mouth answering "Everything is fine, I just finished a quick salt and burn of an old pastor who had been terrorizing atheists" I chuckle ironically at the fact. Like father like daughter, my dad chuckles over the phone. "Wonderful, I knew you'd do well on your own" He says lightly.

"Is that so?" I say sarcastically. "Aren't you the same one who said, and I quote, 'Don't come back if you go out there on your own, don't call, don't text, pretend I'm dead' " I mock his rugged voice as I quote his words to me two years ago bitterly. Granted he's called me every so often since our falling out but I haven't dared called him.

Flashback

September 2003

"Daddy I'm 20 years old! I can hunt in my own. I've been doing it since I've been in diapers!" I yell frustrated at my father. "You better watch your tone with me! Who the fuck do you think you're yelling at!?" He screams back at me causing me to flinch.

"You're not ready! I know the shit that's out there in the world and I'd prefer if you and I do it together. There is no reason we can't hunt together!" He yells in my face, causing me to flinch in habit.

"Your obsession with finding the thing that killed mom is the reason I can't work with you" I say harshly. The look on his face alone, scared the crap outta me. When I was younger, anything he said would scare me. I'd listen to him and follow his orders like a good little soldier but I'm sick of it.

Two decades of this crap, it was bound to happen. My mother died in my nursery when I was six months old. Pinned to the ceiling just like Sam's mom, only a couple months after Mary died, my mom died.

Mom and Dad were childhood friends with Sam and Dean's mom. They bonded through all of them coming from families of hunters. Basically my parents were childhood sweethearts which honestly touches my heart.

After knocking back a few, dad could tell the story of when he fell in love with mom a million times. He loved her with everything. I always wondered if I'd have something like that. Frankly, I don't believe love like that exists anymore.

My mother was also a psychic, a powerful one too. She basically had these abilities like seeing into the past/present/future, moving objects with her mind, summoning/binding ghosts and reading minds. Psychics develop their abilities by 18. She could even communicate with the dead.

She and my dad hunted together after meeting and settled down in Lawrence, deciding to have a family. Giving it up for the apple pie life. Honestly sometimes I think my dad's disappointed at the fact that I'm not like my mother.

"So you don't care about your mother then?" He says back to me coldly, rage dripping from his voice. "I never said that dad! I just can't deal with you every single goddamn day breathing down my neck. I love you so much daddy but shit! I can't take this anymore" Tears prick at my eyes as I pick up my helmet and army green duffel bag. I throw on my leather jacket and head for the front door.

Jumping on my bike, before I could put on my helmet I hear his yell from the safehouse. "Listen to me and listen to me good Y/N L/N. Don't come back if you go out there on your own, don't call, don't text, pretend I'm dead". My heart jumped out of my chest, my helmet clutched to my side. Angrily I wipe my tears away from my cheeks "Fine". With that I snap my helmet on and make my way out of the driveway and into the night.

Present Time

September 2005

My father sighs heavily over the phone because of my habit to hold a grudge. I was surprised last year when he called me for my birthday to say the least. Since then, he's called me every so often. "Listen baby, I didn't call to argue. I just wanted to make sure you're okay"

"I'm fine dad, look I've gotta go. I'm hungry and tired. Okay? We'll talk whenever" Without letting him say another word, I hang up. You might think I'm being harsh but if you've lived a day in the life of my childhood, you'd be just as angry as me right now.

I straddle my bike, placing my helmet on my head. The roar of the engine fills the quiet cemetery, revving the engine I make my way towards a local dive bar to pick up some grub and hit the hay.

________________________________

"Say your prayers little one,

Don't forget my son,

To include everyoneeee"

I jump awake hearing the beginning guitar riff and first couple lyrics of "Enter Sandman" by Metallica from my phone. Without looking at the contact I click decline, turning over to see the handsome naked man next to me. I slightly jump before realizing he's the guy I met at the bar. I'm not one for constant one night stands but sometimes I need a release. Especially after that call with my dad. I groan from the pounding pain in my head. Great, I'm gonna get a bitch of a hangover.

Sighing I check the time. 3:33 am. Who the fuck would call me at this hour? It's a bit creepy no? I put my phone back onto the nightstand and wrap my arms around my mystery man, resting my head on his chest. Mark? Mike? Im not sure. He stirs a bit but eventually falls back asleep. As if on cue my phone rings again.

I let out an exhaustrated groan before turning over and answering my phone. "Whoever the fuck this is. you better have a damn good reason to be calling me at this ungodly hour because I am *this* close to reaching into this phone and going all terminator on your ass!" I whisper yell angrily into my phone while I hastily put on my flannel, buttoning it up and slipping on my panties as I was still naked.

The deep humorous chuckle that I, all too well recognize echo in my ear. "Sorry princess, didn't mean to interrupt your night. I've been trying to call you for weeks and couldn't get a hold onto ya" My heart flutters at the sound of Dean's voice, he's one of my best friends. He's always called me "princess" and I've always called him "charming". His brother Sam and me have always been closer, being the same age and all. Me and Sam shared a stronger bond.

Where as Dean and me....there was never a Dean and me I guess. He's sees me as a little sister but while growing up I had a slight crush on him. I always reminded myself that he'd never see me like that so I just discarded it. One thing for sure, he's always protected me when necessary. Same with Sam, he's like a brother to me.

Growing up Dean teased me and Sam all the time, joking calling me his little girlfriend. Saying we'll get married and all that crap. But me and Sam came to the conclusion that we are just friends. Hell. We're basically siblings.

It's kinda bothered me knowing I had a crush on Dean but that died down when I hit my teens and puberty. We all grew up together going from motel to motel to Bobby's house to motel over and over. Our dads were hunting partners, my dad would leave me with Sam and Dean.

Dean always in charge of course, John made sure to enforce that. I tried my best to help Dean out because no kid should have that much responsibility but he'd always say "I've got it" or "It's okay y/n/n, just go play with Sammy". I love those boys with all my heart.

Last I'd seen Dean for my 21st last year, he took me out and I quote he wanted to be "the first person to see me take my first legal drink".

I turn around to see Mark/Mike stirring in his sleep again, grabbing pack of cigarettes and lighter I walk towards the door and unlock it, stepping outside the sleazy motel room. I respond to Dean "Jesus Christ Dean, it's 3 am" I roll my eyes as I flick my lighter, putting one of the cigarettes to my lips, lighting it and taking a puff.

"Like I said, been trying to reach ya but you're basically a ghost" He says ironically. "Sorry man, I've been trying to avoid pops" I say, taking another drag. "Yeah I actually called him to get a hold onto you, told me you hung up on him. Kinda cold not gonna lie" Dean says lightly chuckling and it all clicks into place, that's why my dad called me.

"Shit, my bad. How have you been? You alright?" I ask worried, leaning against the door of my room. I just know he has that shit eating signature grin on his face when he hears my tone. "Awww is the Princess worried about me" He teases. "You better watch that tone before I hang up on you too" I mock threaten, teasing him back, trying to fight the smile on my face.

I take a drag from my cigarette that's nearly done as he dramatically gasps "You wouldn't dare" He say's melodramatically like an old lady in a soap opera and I laugh "Try me, Winchester" I chuckle as we share a laugh. "It's good to hear from you, Charming. What's the problem though? I know it has to be serious for you to call me at this hour" I queried, waiting for an answer.

"It's Dad, Y/N. He's gone on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days" He says, his voice somber. "He went on a case and hasn't updated you? That's strange" I say as I out my cigarette on the door still, now leaning against the railings over the ground floor of the motel.

"I'm on my way to California. I'm gonna grab Sammy from Stanford and head over to Jericho. That's where dad was working his case. You wanna tag along?" He asks hopefully. Without hesitation I say "I'm in Phoenix, just finished a milk run. If I leave as soon as sunrise I can make it for probably the next morning with a few pit stops"

"Great! I'll see you soon princess" He says flirtatiously. "Yeah yeah whatever Charming" I say chuckling "Wait did you say you're gonna grab Sammy? Have you guys talked since...." I ask cautiously. "Nah we haven't, but I'm hoping to change that. Have you?" He asks now sounding a little down. Truth is, I've talked to Sam a couple well times since he left for Stanford a couple years ago. I supported his decision to leave hunting and live a normal life. It's all we've ever talked about as kids.

He's updated me on his life at Stanford, he's got a girlfriend now. Jessica Moore, boy is she gorgeous. My little Sammy is all grown up. Ignoring the fact he's a couple months older than me and never lets me live it down but that's besides the point. He's happy and I feel bad that Dean has to go get him, but his dad is missing. They always butted heads but if it were me I'd wanna know. He needs to know.

"Yeah a couple times..." I say softly. "He misses you Dean" I add, trying to reassure Dean, knowing him he's probably overthinking going to see Sam. Dean sighs heavily before saying "I do too. I miss you as well you nutcase" I smile at this before replying "I miss you too you asshat. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, see you tomorrow" He says and with that I hang up. I walk back into my motel room to see Mark/Mike still asleep on the bed. I gather my things, tossing them into my duffel bag. After taking a shower I wait a couple hours for sunrise so I can leave.

Right as I'm about to pick up my helmet Mark/Mike wakes up, causing me to freeze. "Didn't take you for a dine and dash type" he says chuckling. I laugh as well "I'll take that as a compliment, I'm actually on my way out to meet a friend. It's important"

"That's cool, it was nice meeting you Y/N" he says nicely before laying back on the bed "You too Mark" I say back smiling, his face drops "It's Max". Crap.

Authors Note

HOLY SHIT! I'm so excited I can't. If you haven't noticed this is my first fanfiction, not my first book. The others I've deleted because they were embarrassing and I wrote them when I was 12 lol.

This book however, I plan on sticking to it. I've been contemplating doing a series rewrite on Supernatural for monthssss. Honestly I've read so much and there are plots I loved but also hated in some. So I decided to add a bit of a twist on mine.

I really hope whoever decided to read this that you like the plot I'm going with and I'm sure you've noticed that y/n is a little cold towards her father. I'm gonna be honest, I'm writing based off my my experience with my dad.

I do plan on developing their relationship but in the later episodes/chapters. Whoever is reading I just want to say thank you for giving my book a chance and I do hope you like the plot I am going to use for y/n's story.

As I am bisexual, I've been thinking about making y/n bisexual also but I know there's a lot of straight girlies on Wattpad. So I'd like to know your opinion if I should add that fact. Also I know Harley-Davidson VRSC came out in 2006 but this is a fictional book so let's just pretend it came out in the 90s or something lol.

Side note.

Y/N- Your name

Y/N/N- your nickname

F/N - your father's name

M/N- your mother's name

Xoxo

#spn #dean winchester #supernatural #sam winchester #dean winchester x female!reader #dean winchester x you #dean and sam #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fanfiction #dean x reader #sam and dean

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lady-harrowhark · 1 year

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hello, can you explain to me in more clarity your “waxen” theory regarding Ianthe? I’m not picking up on what this implies but it’s making my brain itch.

Sort of! Totally fair question, I just don't have a lot of clarity myself in that I don't have a fully formed theory lol. There's definitely some links and parallels in verbiage that are pinging on my radar, so I do think something's funky, but I wouldn't say I'm fully on board with this yet. I'm just playing in the sandbox Tamsyn has provided us, tossing out ideas and thinking out loud. But I can go into some more detail, and add some more thoughts that have occurred to me since I posted that last night.

(Here's a link to the post in question, for context)

Anyway! So let's first lay out all the times we get someone described as some type of wax. At various points in HtN, we get the descriptions "a shoddy wax cast of some more beautiful sculpture," a "wax figure in a pink dolly dress," a "wax figure in pale purple chiffon," and "waxen face" for Ianthe. We also see that descriptor used a few other times for other people throughout the series. In GtN, Harrow's parents' bodies are called "waxy" and the first introduction of Protesilaus (as the beguiling corpse) says he was "waxen looking in the sunlight." In NtN, Kiriona's skin is said to have a "weird, waxy quality," then Naberius's skin is called "waxen" when they first meet up with Ianthe, and again a few pages later it again references the "waxen, handsome face". What I'm getting at here is that every time this sort of description is deployed, it's in reference to a dead body that's been preserved, manipulated, and is essentially masquerading as a living person... except for Ianthe.

We also know there are a multitude of times that she's described as looking like a poor copy of Coronabeth. There's that "shoddy wax cast of some more beautiful sculpture" line, her first introduction calls her a "starved shadow" of her sister ("or the first an illuminated reflection [of Ianthe]," and actually, off the top of my head I don't know that we ever see their descriptions framed that way again... I'd have to investigate this more later, but this might be the only time that Corona is described as a "better" version of Ianthe, rather than Ianthe being a "worse" version of Corona, which is interesting), there's a point where it says "The second twin was as though the first had been taken to pieces and put back together without any genius. She wore a robe of the same cloth and colour, but on her it was a beautiful shroud on a mummy," etc etc etc. I know there's more, but I'm too lazy to go pull the rest of the quotes and you get the picture by this point I'm sure. So nearly all of these situate her, at least visually, as a copy or approximation of Coronabeth, and one that doesn't quite live up to original at that.

So now let's pick apart this snippet of conversation we overhear between Silas and Ianthe at Magnus and Abigail's dinner party a bit. Ianthe says she was born via "surgical means," which I'm assuming is referring to a C-section delivery (or whatever the necromantic equivalent is) and notes that Corona is a few minutes older. Silas seems surprised (or perhaps concerned?) that they "risked intervention" and Ianthe says Corona had "removed [her] source of oxygen". At this point Silas says, "A wasted opportunity, I'd think." I had always taken this for him just being a dick and implying he wished she'd died in the womb, but coming back to it with this new angle... well. She says "Corona's birth put my survivability somewhere around definite nil." And I'm wondering if that doesn't tie to Harrow's comment about infant deaths generating "enough thanergy to take out the entire planet." Basically, could Silas have been implying that the Tridentarii's parents wasted an opportunity to use the thanergy from baby Ianthe's death to power up Corona?

Harrow says that twins are an ill omen, but the text hasn't come back to that as of yet. Given the difficulty necromancers experience with pregnancy, I'd imagine twins would could be especially dangerous and that in and of itself could be considered an ill omen. Ianthe's comments certainly suggest that their mother carried the pregnancy, although I don't think we know for certain whether she was a necromancer. I am so intensely curious about the Tridentarii's childhood and their parents; we get so many gestures towards some really twisted family dynamics, but very little in the way of concrete explanations. Particularly relevant here, I'd love to know more about their father wanting a "matched set" and how that came about. Did they intentionally plan for twins from the start? Was it only once they knew they were having twins that that became a factor? What's the significance there?

Outside of those "waxy" descriptors, Ianthe tends to be described as much more sickly looking than even other necromancers. We know that necromancers on the whole tend towards a phenotype of physical weakness, but even still, there's an emphasis on this with Ianthe beyond that. This might be due in part to narrator bias (coughGideoncough) or the direct juxtaposition between her and Coronabeth's vivaciousness, but what really jumps out at me as contributing to this effect is how frequently she's described as being colorless, pale, washed out, bloodless, pallid, anemic, etc etc etc. It very much makes me think of the way the color drains away from Colum (and even the rest of the room and the others in it) when Silas is siphoning. Silas himself is also often described as colorless ("mayonnaise uncle," "milk man") but not so much in a way that implies frailty as much as I read it as implying a stark coldness, in line with the very black-and-white moral authority he presumes to wield, a purported "purity", much different than Ianthe's colorlessness. With Ianthe, you get a sense that her palette ought to have been or perhaps was closer to Corona's, but the color's been drained away; where Corona's hair is described as golden, Ianthe's is "canned butter", for example. Almost like the life's been siphoned out, one might say.

So to kind of circle back around, do I actually think Ianthe is dead or a corpse like the other "wax" figures we've seen? Nah. Between Harrow and Palamedes, and especially Palamedes's medical necromancy, I think we would have heard about it by now if that were the case. But I do think it's entirely plausible that she's had a bit of a brush with death and that perhaps she's never quite fully come back from, and I do think she's being intentionally positioned as somewhat adjacent to death. If their parents were wanting twins from the outset, perhaps they used necromantic means to encourage the conception. Or if the pregnancy was as high-risk as I suspect it was, perhaps she'd died or nearly died at birth and been resuscitated. Their parents may have gone to extremes to keep her alive, to maintain their matched set. Given the themes of this series, I do feel it's necessary to draw a distinction between "resuscitation" and "resurrection" although they are curiously adjacent to one another. For all the text has grappled with dying and staying dead, dying and coming back, dying and choosing whether or not to return... we haven't touched on what something like a "near death experience" would look like. I'd imagine having that sort of experience, even at an incredibly young age, might lead one to be fascinated with, to use Ianthe's own words, "the place between death and life... the place between release and disappearance."

#it was making my brain itch also!#thank you for indulging my meandering rambles lol #I’ve got another ask sitting in my inbox that I’m working on too… I promise I’m not ignoring it!#tlt #tlt meta #ianthe tridentarius #nona the ninth spoilers #ask #mcdreary #two halves dead

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