#Moon-of-Many-Adjectives

[loveindefinitely]

༊*·˚ FOREVER WINTER (IF YOU GO) — task force 141 x reader

12 — IN SOME SAD WAY, I ALREADY KNOW

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price + (non-endgame phillip graves)

warnings. nsfw, fem!reader, fmmmm, enemies to lovers, slow burn, polyamory, ghostsoap, pricegaz, alerudy, heavy angst, requited unrequited love, graphic violence

series masterlist. read on ao3. read on wattpad. fanfic playlist.

<- previous part | next part ->

“A written statement from the General himself.”

You mindlessly nod, eyes unfocused and ears ringing as you sit at the conference table, Laswell at the head with the paper in hand. Her brows are furrowed, and one of her hands rests at her hip as she reads over the paper’s contents once more.

Everything feels numb. Like your entire body’s been reset, and nothing makes sense – as if your very existence has been muffled.

Price and Ghost sit at the table, too, sharing looks with each other. The Sergeants are out training rookies – and a small, minute part of you is grateful. You don’t want them to see you so…

Whatever you are. Numb, cold, unfeeling. Any adjective that fits.

“Shepherd traded her,” Price seethes, knuckles whitening on the tight grip he has around his pack of cigars. 

“But why?” Laswell asks, exasperated, pacing at the front of the conference room. The overhead beams have been left off, so the frosted window is the only source of light. It allows a soft, gentle glow from the moon to fill the room, and it helps with your racing mind.

“We need to find him,” Ghost demands, voice gruff and icy. Thinly veiled anger – you recognise the tone all too well. 

“This gives us evidence to push the search further,” Laswell cuts in, her footfalls pausing as she searches the scrawled handwriting for something. “And it opens up a new trail. Why did Graves want you? And what did Shepherd deem worthy of trading his star soldier?”

Your leg’s bouncing, the soft tap tap tap of your foot against the linoleum floor sounding more like a ticking time bomb than anything.

When you look up from the table, your eyes instantly clash with a pair of dark brown. Ghost.

He’s watching you – something hidden behind his gaze that you can’t unpack. Not now, at least, with your mind racing at a million thoughts per hour. With your body feeling as sensitive as a live wire. Every breath feels manual, a feat in and of itself.

You break your eye contact with him suddenly, weary, looking to the window instead. The moon isn’t so complicated; doesn’t hold so many layers of darkness, both in colour and soul.

There’s nothing like the feeling of moonlight against your skin, the brush of nightly breezes against your chilled skin.

“Sweetheart –” Your attention instantly goes to Price, whose hands are clasped on the table, gaze heavy where it sits on you, “Do you know anything at all that could help us. Any leads.”

You go to open your mouth, but everything feels wrong, your stomach sinking and hands trembling and vision going blurry.

Without any thought, or reason, you abruptly stand, slightly shaky on your feet. You swallow, once, a difficult movement against your barren throat. Scratchy and harsh.

“I – I’m sorry, I need a moment,” you manage to mutter out, taking a step back in a shadow of defence.

Brows furrow, a question’s asked – you don’t hear, don’t see, because all you can do is turn and bolt out of the room, shouldering the door open and heading down the hospital light-white corridor, the white burning your vision.

Your eyes sting with unshed tears, your chest heaving, the echoing sound of your boots against the floor a distant soundtrack.

“Fuck,” you mutter, palms coming up to rub harshly at your face as you slow, unsure. You just need space, a moment to yourself, a place to break apart with no one as your witness.

A slightly ajar closet to your left seems like your best bet.

Heading for it, you push in, the stale scent of cleaning products hitting your nose. It’s difficult to find any part of you that cares in the slightest.

The door closes, and you just stand, for a moment, your head resting against the wood. Every breath rattles your bones, like your core is falling apart at its seams. Another breath. Two more.

Except it’s getting harder, with every breath, to fill your lungs. They come out harried, shallow and not unlike slices of a knife against your windpipe. They tear from your mouth like coughs.

Your back hits the wall, and you slide down, until you’re sat on the floor, head sat between your bent knees as the first tears finally fall down your cheeks. Hiccups leave your chapped lips, and you squeeze your eyes shut as your shoulders shake.

You haven’t allowed yourself to break down like this in... Gods, you can’t even remember. All you know is that it hurts, at your very core, but it’s also kind of freeing.

It’s as if your world is closing in around you; your breaths doing nothing to quell that intense sense of suffocation, cruel in the grasp your fear has around your throat. Nothing makes sense – everything hurts, your tears leave lines of heat down your cheeks –

The door creaks open.

Heart stuttering in your chest, you look up from your balled up frame with blurry vision, to see who your intruder is. Did Gaz or Soap leave the rookies early? Did Price or Laswell get worried and come check on you?

“Sweetheart.”

The tall, threatening frame of the man fills out the small crack of the door in a way that has your breath catching for a whole other reason.

“Ghost?” You find yourself asking, your voice threatening a whine with the state you’re in. 

He steps in, the scent of blood and some cologne filling the space as he does. You wipe at your bloodshot eyes, curling in closer.

“If you want to kill me, this is probably your best bet,” you bite, posturing, an attempt of goading so your image isn’t completely ruined. The idea isn’t completely unfound, either – he very well could pull out his gun and shoot you clean through the head.

He shakes his head, closing the door – allowing pitch black to envelop you both.

“You’re too cheeky for your own good,” he mutters, and despite all of your notions of the man, he slides into a sitting position next to you.

If you could stabilise your breaths, you would, if for no other fact than your own embarrassment. Your body still trembles, and small hiccups still leave your lips with every shaky breath.

His presence is warm against yours, and when he moves, the fabric of his uniform brushes against your own.

“Why are you here?” You find yourself asking, a whisper under your breath. Just loud enough for him to hear, for him to hear the fragile undertone. The risk you’re taking, sitting beside him in this state. 

He looses a breath – easy, soft. Unlike everything you know about the hulking man. “I understand.”

You can’t help the uneasy chuckle that leaves your lips. “You understand? Mister been-conspiring-against-me-since-day-one?”

“I understand what it’s like to have the weight of the world on your shoulders, with no one you trust there to hold you, too.”

You look to him, but in the darkness, it’s more of an instinctual act than anything. 

“Didn’t realise you were a poet, Lieutenant,” you chide, voice breaking slightly around the syllables. He doesn’t comment; a small mercy.

He shrugs, brushing against you as he does. “Not a poet. Just a soldier.”

“And an asshole,” you hum, and you can’t help the breathless laugh that escapes you when he elbows you in the dip of your waist. You elbow him back, unthinkingly, freely.

Silence fills in the gaps, except for the background noise of your shaky, tight breathing, and the bounce of your knees.

That is, until the man beside you breaks it.

“I asked my dog what two minus two is,” Ghost says, easily. You loosen your posture, just slightly, brows furrowed when you turn your head towards him once more.

“What are you on about?” You ask, incredulous. He shrugs. Nods.

“I asked my dog what two minus two is,” he continues, despite the confusion that is surely emanating off of you. “She said nothing.”

You let out a shocked, lost bark of a laugh at that, turning your body around so you’re facing him in the enclosed space. “Was that a dad joke?”

“I found out why my dog’s such a bad dancer,” Ghost starts once more, continuing despite your elongated groan. Seems to relish in your dismay.

“And why’s that?” You entertain him, despite the anxiety in your gut, the words left unsaid burning your tongue.

“She’s got two left feet.”

You heave a sigh, shaking your head – but the corners of your lips pull into a cheesy grin, and your breaths are lighter. Easier, natural, less harsh against your dry throat. “Do you even have a dog?” You ask.

“Her name’s Riley. She’s my family,” he says, earnestly, and your heart shatters just a bit more.

“What breed is she?”

“German Shepherd. Used to work in the military, till a mission gone wrong left her too scared to work in the field. Saved ‘er from the pound.”

How can this man be the same one who threatened your life? Who – who had made it very clear how little he trusted you, and was generally such a jerk? A complete asshole, of whom you had no qualms hating?

“She’d like you,” he adds, and you blink, “Always did like girls more than guys. Strong ones, at that.”

“You think I’m strong?”

You can tell he rolls his eyes, even without being able to see it. “I’ll bring ‘er in, when this is all said and done.”

“When this is all said and done, we’ll probably never see each other again. Small mercies, hey?” Your tone takes on a joking lilt.

He doesn’t laugh.

And it hits you, then. How fragile this very situation is. How unimportant, in the real scheme of things, your relationship with the 141 is. When Graves and Shepherd have been dealt with, where do you fit in? What purpose will you have?

You don’t, can’t, truly fit in with them. They’re already so interconnected, memories spent together that you’ll never understand, connections you have no place in joining.

Oh, what a stab in the gut that is.

“I can get Johnny or Kyle if you want,” Ghost offers, but you find yourself answering just this side of too soon.

“No.”

You realise, as you sit here beside him, that he is all you need. Soap and Gaz would’ve tried to ramble or make a move on you, Price would’ve tried to embrace you. Ghost just sits, and waits, his presence speaking a thousand words. He’s your anchor, right now.

“What does a bee use to brush its hair?” Ghost breaks the quiet, once more, his words steady and grating with the low timbre of his voice.

You exhale, but go along with it anyways. “I haven’t a clue.”

“A honeycomb.”

You scoff, but the smile on your face doesn’t waver – your cheeks hurting from the way it tugs on the muscles of your tired face. “That was awful, Lt.”

“Johnny laughed at that one,” he replies, head tilted to rest his skull against the wall. His arms rest on the bends of his knees.

“That’s cause he feels bad for you,” you hum, satisfaction weighing on your words.

Ghost elbows you once more, a bit too hard, but you find the movement grounding more than harmful. Like a way for your body to come back to itself, and register the world around you. No need for self-destruction or derealisation.

“They really like you, y’know,” he murmurs, and your breath pauses in your chest. “The Sergeants. Won’t shut up about you when you’re gone.”

“Well, if you’re gonna hate me, some support is nice,” you retort, and he huffs a low breath. Pauses, like he’s thinking something over. Weighing the risk and reward of his next statement.

“I don’t,” he rolls his tongue in his mouth, “I don’t hate you.”

“You’ve had me fooled,” you retort, the cool wall against your cheek a steady reminder of the world. “The whole threatening to kill me thing, and all.”

“If it means protecting Johnny, Kyle – even Price, I’d do it. Still will,” he says, the last statement bordering on a warning. “If you’ve somehow fooled us all, then I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

You swallow. Scratch at the skin of your wrist.

“I just need to figure this shit out,” you admit, looking to the roof for answers. “Once Shadow Company’s been taken down, and Shepherd’s dealt with, everything can go back to normal. This’ll just be a blip in time.”

“The Sergeants aren’t going to let you go,” Ghost warns, an edge to his words. “What are you gonna do, anyways? Live in the countryside?”

“I don’t know,” you confess, picking at your fingernails. “I’ll figure it out when it comes to it. We’ve got bigger things on our plate.”

With his shoulder pressed against your own, you let your body relax, your breaths finally even. No tears on the verge of falling down your cheeks – and no fear lacing your veins with a thick coat of adrenaline.

However, that short-lived relief is quickly replaced with the all too familiar crash.

Your head pounds, and your limbs suddenly feel heavy. Your eyelids threaten to close, even though you don’t feel the need to sleep.

“Tired?” Ghost asks, low and soft, careful not to startle you. So at odds with the idea you had of him.

Without meaning to, you lean further against him, using his frame to hold your own up. He doesn’t comment on it. “I’m – just need a minute,” you murmur.

His hand moves to rest at the side of your head, pulling you in so your temple rests against his shoulder. It’s warm, comforting – a parallel to the man of which you thought you hated.

Rest comes easy, at the side of one of the men who wants to kill you.

*

When you come to, it’s with the feeling of fingers brushing through your hair, and the scent of cajun.

The gentle mid-morning light filters into the room, casting light through your closed eyes, the faraway sound of bullets being fired an odd comfort. Soft sizzling, too, can be heard, as well as the chopping of a knife against a board.

“That smells bloody divine, Si,” a familiar, Scottish voice calls, quietened by what you can only suspect is due to your ‘sleeping’. “Ya’d be a bonnie housewife.”

“Watch it, Johnny,” Ghost replies, stern, even with the undercurrent of humour in his voice. 

The fingers in your hair continue to card through your strands, pausing to massage at your scalp every now and then. The movements have you melting further into Soap’s lap.

“Ken the other two are goin’ at it?” Johnny chides, and even without vision, you can see the goading smile on his face.

“I ken you should shut your face,” Ghost retorts, the sound of chopping finally coming to a pause. “And, no, you’re a bloody idiot.”

“Rude.”

Fluttering your eyes open, you let out a small huff of air, stretching your tense muscles. They feel sore with lethargy, and stiff from the position you fell asleep in.

“Mornin’, Sweetheart,” Johnny smirks, looking down at where your head sits in his lap.

When you look towards the kitchen, it's to find Ghost, flipper in hand as he stands by the stove, a glass bowl filled with salad to his side. One thing in particular has you looking twice.

“A bit promiscuous, don't you think, Lieutenant?”

Ghost's eyes narrow, but Soap lets out a pleased chuckle. “Like a lad seein’ an ankle, aye?”

Instead of gloves, the pale skin of his hands is shown for the first time, patterns of ink decorating the back of his hands. The small hint of a sleeve has you desperate to see the full thing.

“You're both fuckin’ ridiculous,” Ghost scoffs, starting to swap the contents of the pan into the salad bowl.

As you move to sit up, Soap’s hands fall to your waist, pulling you so your back presses against his chest. His thumbs trace circles into the skin where your shirt rides up, but it’s more out of instinct than anything else.

“What’d you make us?” You ask, rubbing at your weary, sleepy eyes as you deflate against Soap.

“Cajun chicken ‘nd salad,” Ghost quips, serving up a plate for each of you. It smells nothing short of delicious, and you sit up straighter against the Sergeant.

“Lt and Gaz are our personal chefs,” Soap chimes, squeezing you tighter against him. “Bloody perfect at it.”

Ghost rolls his eyes, but comes over with two plates, setting them on the coffee table in front of both you and Soap. It’s a small space, next to the personal kitchen, but it’s nice. Intimate.

The first mouthful of salad is like heaven on your tongue, and you look up at Ghost with wide eyes as you swallow. “This is amazing.”

“You’d better eat it all then,” he jerks his chin towards your plate, grabbing his own before sitting on the chair to your left. Soap, still with his chest to your back, shovels his food into his mouth like a man starved.

It’s quiet, for a few moments, just the three of you enjoying your food.

“What’s the next step?” Johnny asks, around a mouthful. You elbow him in the side, and he feigns hurt. He swallows, before continuing, “Aye mean, what’re we gonna do? What lead do we follow?”

“I think,” you work your jaw around the words, thinking, “I think if we get to the root, we can bring down the whole tree.”

You scan the two men, and it’s Ghost who understands your words first.

“Shepherd. You think we should take him out first,” Ghost leans back in his seat, studying you with calculating, chocolate brown eyes. They shine in the midday light.

Nodding, you swallow around some lettuce, before continuing, looking between the two. 

“If we can find Shepherd, and learn why everything’s happened the way it has,” you rub at your face, “Then we can bring it all crumbling down. Like dominoes.”

“He’s MIA,” Soap furrows his brows, placing his empty plate on the coffee table. “We’ve tried finding the twat – he’s gone.”

You shrug, a plan forming in your mind like the final pieces of a puzzle connecting. A small, pleased smile spreads on your lips, before you’re moving off of the couch, ready to head to Price’s office.

“Where’s you going?” Ghost queries, leaning forward, elbows resting on his spread knees.

You tilt your head.

“Power in numbers, right?” Heading for the corridor, you open the door, before turning back to look at the two men one more time.

“I know two soldiers who’ve been waiting for a call.”

taglist. @lilpothoscuttings @jng-yuan @iruzias @insatiablekittie @1wh4re1nova @kaoyamamegami @supernaturalstilinski @inthemiddle0feverywhere @msecho19 @nogood-boyo @alfa-jor @lalashhyl @letmeapologise @honeybeeznutz @1mawh0re @lalashhyl @someonepleasedateme @letmeapologise @uhhellnogetoffpleasenowty @inarabee @simp-sentral @littlecellist @clear-your-mind-and-dream @browtfyoudoing @oreo-cream @fanngirl19 @infpt-zylith @marispunk @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago @xvintageghostx @thigh-o-saur

#🤍 : forever winter #⌨️ : love's writing #cod mw2 #ghost cod #cod x reader #ghost mw2 #john soap mactavish #mw2 #soap cod #tf141 #tf141 x reader #john price #kyle gaz garrick #captain price #price x reader #gaz x reader #soap x reader #ghost x reader #gaz garrick #cod #kyle garrick #gaz mw2 #gaz cod #soap x ghost #soapghost #call of duty x reader #task force 141 #task force 141 x reader #cod smut #simon riley x reader

[noahsresources]

munday asks!

🌈 — name(s) & pronouns 🎈 — gender and/or sexuality 🎂 — age and/or birthday 🕗 — time zone 💕 — single or taken? ⭐️ — sun, moon, & rising signs, if known 💭 — MBTI and/or enneagram, if known ❓ — three adjectives that describe you ❤️ — what are some of your best qualities? 💔 — what are some of your worst qualities? ✨ — what would you change about yourself, if anything? 💘 — what and/or who do you consider near and dear to you? 🚗 — what vehicle(s) do you drive? ✈️ — ever traveled anywhere interesting? ⌨️ — what operating system(s) do you use? 📱 — mobile or desktop version of tumblr? 🖥 — favorite platform besides tumblr? 🎮 — favorite video game(s)? 🖱 — any cool devices/tool(s) of the trade? (i.e. type of mouse, monitor, keyboard, tablet, etc) 💍 — any piercings? 💎 — want any (more) piercings? 🖊 — any tattoos? 🔏 — want any (more) tattoos? 🎄 — favorite holiday(s)? 🍝 — favorite food(s)? 🍦 — favorite ice cream flavor(s)? 🍰 — favorite sweet(s)/dessert(s)? 🐶 — any pets? 😍 — celebrity crush(es)? 😊 — any career desires? 📚 — if you’re in college, what’s your level (undergrad, grad, phd, etc) and/or degree program? 😖 — what annoys you? 🎶 — favorite song at the moment? 📕 — favorite book/series? 🧶 — any non-writing hobbies/interests? 📺 — favorite movie(s) and/or tv show(s)? 📇 — does your url have a meaning? if so, what is it? ✏️ — how long have you been roleplaying on tumblr? ✍️ — what other platforms have you roleplayed on? 🗒 — what is/are your favorite genre(s)/theme(s) to write? 🤔 — what genre(s)/theme(s) do you struggle to write the most? 😁 — what’s your favorite part about being part of the rpc? 😤 — what do you dislike the most about being part of the rpc? 💻 — how many friends have you made in the rpc? feel free to tag a few of them! 🎧 — do you write while listening to music/podcasts/videos/etc, or do you need total silence? 🤗 — are there any rpc mutuals that you’d like to meet irl? 😀 — are there any rpc mutuals that you’ve met irl before? 💖 — what was one of the greatest/happiest moments you’ve had in the rpc? 🖤 — what was one of the worst/most depressing moments you’ve had in the rpc? 😳 — what was your most embarrassing moment in the rpc? 🎁 — what have you accomplished in the rpc that you’re proud of? �� — how many friends are in your irl friend group(s)? 🎉 — what are some of your favorite things to do with your irl friends? 😗 — what are some of your favorite things to do when you have some time to yourself? 💯 — share three random facts about yourself that your mutuals may not know about you.

#munday #munday prompts #munday meme #ask meme #ask memes #ooc #symbols #memes #mine

[funnier-as-a-system]

sorry for the possibly dumb question

what the fuck is a system

Don't worry, anon, this isn't a dumb question at all! Systems aren't very well-known, so I'm happy to explain them to you. I'll start by explaining what a system is, then go more in-depth about systems in general.

So, you know how most people are one person? Or, rather, you know how when you meet someone, you assume they're the only person in their body? You don't really think "I wonder if this person shares their body and life with other beings." or "I wonder if this person I know is actually multiple people all sharing the same body.", but that's how it is for systems!

In simple terms, a system is any collective group of self-aware entities that share the same body (which is, I fully acknowledge, a complicated definition, but basically we have multiple selves whereas most people would have just one, and each self has their own identity). We may not specifically consider ourselves individual people (some systems see themselves as separated parts of one whole person, for instance), but it'll probably help you understand if you think of us as people that happen to share the same body. We each have our own sense of self, ideas, feelings, personalities, and on and on, just like anyone else.

Although this probably sounds very strange and surprising, it's likely that you've heard of systems before – just not with that language. Many people have heard of "multiple personalities" or "Multiple Personality Disorder", which is how systems used to be known. This sort of understanding of systems is especially common in horror movies, which tend to depict systems as serial killers or monsters. Of course, systems are no more likely to hurt others than anyone else is, but the stereotype and stigma persists, and can lead to harassment or even violence against systems.

However, you may have also come across more positive depictions. Body sharing is a common trope, for instance. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder, who often describe themselves as systems, are being more often portrayed as regular or kind people rather than serial killers, such as Uendo Toneido from Ace Attorney. I've often seen systems point to characters and series like Venom, Sense8, and Moon Knight – which depict systems or situations and characters that resonate with systems – to describe what their lives are like. We often find characters that are rather like systems that may not have been intended to be read as such and have a laugh about it; you might be able to spot the same, now that you know what you're looking for.

So, systems can be understood as when a single body is inhabited by more than one person, or being, or entity (whichever term you prefer). We may share the same body, but we each have our own selves, and often, our own names and identities, too.

That's the essence of it! I'll put more under the cut about systems in case you're curious.

For starters, if you're looking into systems, you'll probably run across the term "plurality", which is an overarching term that refers to all instances of someone sharing a body/brain; it is the state of being more-than-one, not just an individual collection of beings in a single body (the latter is what the word "system" specifically refers to). There's also the word "plural", which can be used either as a noun to mean the same thing as "system", or as an adjective to describe things that involve or exhibit plurality. For instance, I am plural. I very much enjoy talking about plurality and plural characters in fiction.

(As a comparison, you may think of video chats/group calls. Plurality, here, would be video chats in general. Meanwhile, a specific video chat – called a webinar – would be a system. And the people in a webinar would be the members of a system. Or, for another example, plurality would be education, a system would be a class, and the members of that system would be the students.)

Speaking of, beings who share a body – who are part of a system – are called many different terms. Two of the most common are "headmate" and "alter", although I also see "system member" a lot. I could say that my headmate was rather helpful today, or that my alter was fronting yesterday. Alter is more medical of a term, but it's more standard, especially in some other languages outside English.

But, wait, you might be wondering what fronting is! Well, since we all live in the same body, we've got to share control of it too, don't we? Fronting is what we call controlling the body, and switching is when we change who is in control. Some systems switch often, while others switch rarely, or only under certain circumstances, and some systems never switch at all. Switching may be involuntary, or it may be a voluntary skill a system has picked up. There's a lot of variety across systems.

Plurality is most often known in the context of DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, which often involves a lot of involuntary switches. P-DID, or Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder, meanwhile, involves very few switches, but these are likely to be involuntary, as well. There are other disorders that plurality may be a part or symptom of, but plurality can also exist as its own non-disordered state, so long as there's no attached or related issues causing problems for the system (ex. memory issues are another frequent problem in DID, and these memory issues come from the members of a system not remembering what the others did when those alters were fronting).

You may be wondering, how does this happen? How does someone become a system? There are many different ways. Sometimes, it's a part of someone's culture, religion, or spirituality. Sometimes, it's the brain's response to trauma, trying to protect itself. Sometimes, someone is simply born this way. Sometimes, someone may become a system out of the blue, or cause their own plurality somehow. Some systems have a multitude or mix of origins. Most studies on systems currently focus on systems that originate from trauma, as these systems most often have issues – including the trauma in question – that need to be looked into and addressed, but there are some budding studies into systems with other origins, such as the few current and ongoing studies on created systems (the aforementioned systems that cause their own plurality).

I'm simplifying some things here; identity such as this gets increasingly nuanced and personal as you learn more and more (for example, as said before, not all system members identify as individual persons, even if it can help understand them to think of them like individual persons that just happen to share a body). But I hope this helped you learn at least the basics about systems!

#thanks for the ask! #I'm leaving reblogs on for this one y'all better behave #and those of you who know a lot about s.ystems better read that last paragraph about simplifying things to make them understandable #before any of you start arguing

[leafostuff]

Adjectives Thrown Around [Ft. CSR's Yuna]

Warm, the way you recall the first time you ever met Lee Yuna for the first time, she was introduced to your class as a Transfer student from Japan at the start of September. And as luck would have, she was sitting next to you, the known loner of the class since you were half Japanese so you could translate for the small girl however even to you her attitude couldn't help but strike a conversation with her.

Talkative, the first thing you notice about her personality when you sit together at lunch for the first time after class, two weeks since Yuna joined your class. her ENFP nature truly shined as she was talking almost nonstop about everything, the weather that kept frequently changing in her words or the Interesting types of food she was curious to try in Korea as a foreigner.

Bright, Yuna's reaction when you promised to take her to taste the food she wanted to try, you can't forget how her eyes shined when she held your hands, you were so focused on them that you didn't hear her tell you the address to pick her up from.

Soft, the feeling of her cheeks when you had to clean her face with a napkin since she had leftovers all over her face when she was eating tteokbokki too quickly, she giggled as she teased you about how much of a boyfriend material throughout all of your "date" after you both left the Restaurant together.

Energetic, just like how she was running near, behind and around you as both of you were walking around the stops in the summer festival that happened in your town, trying to get as many prizes as possible (most of those were plushies that were donated to her room), her smile as the pile of plushies grew larger as you had to hold almost all of them, leaving only a small Eevee plushie to let Yuna hold.

Magical, the atmosphere around you as both of you find a quiet place to sit and stargaze, the only light that you could feel was the moon, being in its fullest form as it shined the Japanese girl like a spotlight like she was an idol looking at millions of fans, you were happy to admit that you were a fan of her as well.

Sweet, the taste of her lips as out of nowhere she leaned in and captured your lips, the kiss wasn't quick nor slow, it was in the perfect pace, you could feel her hands slowly creep around your neck, as she released her lips from you she couldn't help but look at your eyes, with her addictive smile that you had to join in.

Emotional, the way she confessed she had feelings toward you for a long time, and how she imagined herself being like this. you were shocked at the start however it quickly replaced itself with happiness when you told her you also felt the same way toward her.

People may not know Lee Yuna as well as you, being her boyfriend for now over 5 years as both of you shared thousands of memories, both in Korea and outside of it, you couldn't find someone else to make you as happy as you are, you couldn't even remember how you were before she came to your class.

However, as you gripped the ring box behind your back, both of you were standing in the same place you shared your first kiss with her, instead of a usual schoolwear, Yuna was instead in a plain white dress, looking at you with a smile as bright as the sun that slowly begins to descend, her eyes are shining like the stars that slowly start entering the dark sky.

you know that now its the right time

================================================

written and finished on February 2nd

#kpop fanfic #kpop #fluff #kpop fluff #csr kpop #csr #csr yuna #yuna

[lanaxoxoxoxoxox]

guitar strings, darlin'

musician!bur x afab reader

warnings: none, just a silly lil blurb with some silly lil fluff

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Wilbur and I were in a weird stage of friendship. We hang out almost every day (every other day at the very least), but if we separate for whatever reason, when we finally meet again, its as if nothing came between us. Many people, including the other members of Lovejoy, say that we're lucky to have that. Though, I don't think much of it. That's just Wilbur and I.

Wilbur and I first met at one of their first live gigs. They were playing at my local bar, so I decided to help out a local band near me. My thoughts then were, "Not like it's gonna hurt me! Nothing will come out of it for me anyways." And those thoughts? 100% wrong. Turns out, Wilbur has seen me play at the gigs I play, and happened to notice me in the audience at their gig. They asked me if I wanted to join, and I was starstruck. I was starstruck by not only getting asked to be part of Lovejoy, but by Wilbur. I mean, what can I say. He's practically an angel. He's sweet to everyone he meets, even if they're a total prick. He's funny, and god, he's pretty. Like, top tier level pretty. His eyes remind me of old brick libraries and the smell of burnt out cigarettes.

Obviously, I accepted the offer. And that's where I was brought to at this current moment. Sitting alone in the recording room with Wilbur, recording and trying out different stupid lyric ideas, with the light of an old lamp in the corner besides a burning candle.

"We need a good adjective to describe what the singer is feeling that still goes along with the rhythm of 'One Day'." I stated. Wilbur nodded his head in agreement, playing with the strings on his guitar.

Will's head looked back at me. "What if we make the chord using these notes?" I looked at his fingers, observing the notes he was demonstrating. I looked back at the guitar in my hands, struggling to find the right positions that he was in.

"How do you manage to put your fingers in that position?" I laughed. Wilbur laughed back at me, placing his guitar to lean on the desk besides us. He leaned over to me, and grabbed my hands and adjusted my fingers to the right strings. I looked up at him as he did so, getting lost from admiring the small features on his face.

I didn't even notice when Will was done with my hands until he made eye contact with me. I quickly looked away and fixed my hair. Wilbur chuckled, and lifted my chin up. He looked at the moon necklace displayed on my collarbone.

"That's a pretty necklace you got there." he said, playing with the metal. I blushed in response. He seemed to notice, but sighed, and sat back down. He then pulled his chair closer to mine.

"Can I tell you something, Y/n?" he asked. I nodded.

"I think I'm in fucking love with you."

My eyes widened at his words. Those were the words I have been waiting to hear for months at a time, and they finally came.

"I think I'm in love with you too, Wilbur." I smiled.

Wilbur looked at me and pulled my chin up slightly. "Can I kiss you?"

Instead of responding, I closed the space between us first. I could feel Wilbur smiling into the kiss. His lips were soft and slightly parted. Wilbur was the first one to pull away and he laughed. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for that."

I giggled and wrapped my arms around his neck, giving him one more peck on the lips and sliding my face into the crook of his neck, giving him a hug.

"LET'S FUCKING GO! I knew it was gonna happen! Ash owes me £50 now!" Mark yelled outside the door.

Wilbur scoffed at Mark and Joe standing outside the door. "Oh fuck off!"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

ahhh i love this fic so much 😭

likes reblogs and any sort of feedback is very appreciated

love ya!! <3

#fanfiction #teen fanfic #mcyt #dream smp #wilbur soot #wilbur fanfic #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur soot x you #wilbur soot imagine #imagine #female reader #one shot

[neomedievalistbr]

good god i hate gacha games

every new month there will a new ultra popular gacha game (this time there were 2! limbus and honkai [again]!), everytime ppl will play them, everytime after a certain amount of time ppl will grow tired of them and notice how it's affecting them negatively, theyll get too addicted to it and end up playing it too much or will spend money on it

and everytime damn time someone comes out of it after getting completely fucked over and says "guys please stop playing this game its literally doing bad for yall" and they'll get harassed bc theyre speaking against a largely "neurodivergent and q*eer fandom" or whatever

ppl will always get addicted to these games bc theyre made for it. limbus is no different, the difference is that ppl are Much more defensive over it bc of its "good story" "no fanservice" "actually well written female characters"

(its always the same shit. arknights is the same thing too)

the game has a system that forces ppl to keep replaying it for HOURS (but not too much, bc then youll lose interest) just for you to play the main story, fail and have to wait a whole day to repeat the process

or just spend money to make it go by much faster

but its not that bad, obviously! bc project moon is "incompetent"

which is my most HATED adjective to any company

theyre not "incompetent" they have full knowledge of what theyre doing (THEIR GAMES ARE LITERALLY ABT THAT) youre just incredibly stupid and prefer to look the other way while ppl are starting to go in debt trying to spend more

its actually disheartening to see so many stupid ppl coming together to defend companies that actively hate them and just leech off of them.

in conclusion:

gacha fans try not to defend that terrible capitalist company challenge (impossible)

#yumuda.txt #copypasted directly from discord dms #so if theres spelling mistakes here? not my problem

[teatual]

hi! hope this is an alright question to ask, but i really really wanted to start adding IDs to my posts and stuff! im worried my IDs that ive done before are too long and detailed, so do you have any tips for ID writing? thank you in advance if you answer this!! =^.^=

QUESTIONS OF LOVE AND JOY

Tbh the biggest bit of advice I can give to anyone wanting to write IDs is that literally any ID is better than no ID even if you think it's too long. Genuinely just give it a shot and the more you do it the more you'll get a feel for it, just like any other skill!

If it's my own post, I start by identifying the type of image ("a screenshot of", "fanart of", "original character art of"), then identify the subject, then a quick verb or adjective about the subject. So

[ID: (image type) of (subject). (Subject) is (adjective and/or verb). End ID]

Yoinking my pfp: [ID: a PNG (image type) of a sticker sheet (subject) of holographic stars, moons and suns (adjective!). End ID]

Everyone who uses IDs will have different preferences for them. U could ask 20 people who require IDs for images about them and get 20 different answers. AFAIK the general consensus is that many prefer brief IDs because screen readers take yonks to read it out? But you do want to make sure you don't miss out relevant context.

IME the most accessible thing to do is write one directly under the original post (NO read more) and in plain text. small text (small text) or coloured text (coloured text) might or might not be picked up by screen readers but is gonna be difficult to read for many people with low vision, which is the main demographic IDs are used for.

uhh what else. There's a difference between an ID (image description under the post) and ALT text (embedded in the html of the image) and there's no single agreement on which is better (see paragraph 2) but sometimes a screen reader will skip the whole post if there's an image with no ALT text. Good practice is to put a very brief (1-2 sentences) in ALT text and the fuller ID under the post, like how my mutual's done it here.

There's more i could probably say but this is quite long whoops so linking some more posts about them for you here, here, here and here!

Also also if you want to make a huge difference to accessibility on your blog you can search through the notes of a post to see if there's already one (copy and paste it to your version if you want a different reblog chain! the writer won't mind!) and tag image posts with no ID as #undescribed or equivalent.

#💌 #parbelle-time #long post #<- geniunely so sorry about how long that is please do ask for clarification or a summary if you need. whoops #accessibility #online accessibility #image descriptions #but YEAH THANK YOU FOR ASKING AND BEING INTERESTED MWAH

[unadulteratedsoulsweets]

A DC X DP IDEA #15 Beauty and the Beast

Imagine dis…

 By definition when you search these two terms…

 beau·ty- noun- a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially sight. 

 beast- noun- Negatively calling a person a beast likens them to a monster and implies that they behave in a crude, brutish, or animalistic way. This use of beast can be especially offensive, especially due to likening a person to an animal. The adjective beastly means monstrous, nasty, vile, or cruel.

 A young man who was discarded by his father for being born as a failure in the sacred line of the Al Ghul empire met a young man whose eyes give you the illusion of clear blue skies while it sparkles like stars above. 

 Danny is the beast while Dusan al Ghul also known as Ra al Ghul is the beauty.

 …

 It was 1013 A.D. The young Dusan also known as Ra al Ghul in the future, was full of life and youth, and was just starting his journey to create a league of his own, when he noticed a young man on the horizon. A traveler, perhaps, but what strikes him his interest is that the man’s blue eyes shine as of all the sapphires in the world or maybe the man/ traveler is unbothered by the scorching sun of the desert sand.

 Ra didn’t know what made him dawned on him, but at a split decision, he asked the stranger what he was doing in the middle of the desert. The stunning stranger just looked at him head-on, with those lovely eyes those eyes, and told him he is just a mere traveler, wandering from one place to another. Intrigued by the stranger’s way of life he was prompted to follow as he too wanted to see the world more than these desert dunes.

 The stranger had introduced himself as Danny Nightgale, short for Daniel. He wore a cloak that has the embroidery of a combination of flowers, skulls, stars, a clock, and some Egyptian polygraph, as it covers his entire body aside from his face. He carries no weapons but a satchel full of things that surprises the young Al Ghul. The first time together they were at odds, seeing that Ra strives for perfection as well as order through meticulous planning while Danny thrives at the chaos around him.

Dusan loved nature while Danny loved the stars, it has been months since they both went on a journey. The number of things that Danny had done that almost caused a permanent heart attack in Dusan to the point he is the cause of his early gray hairs. Both began discovering hidden places as well-hidden cities from all around the world, from the ruins of Gobekli Tepe to the hidden and lost city of gold. They, Danny, befriended the locals and learned and understood with them. Took part in their rituals and cultures. Some may not be as friendly as the last one, He was sure that he and Danny would die from the endless brigade of poisoned arrows that they keep shooting at them, but they still learned from them. Their intelligence as well as languages were thought lost in time.

 Dusan learned many things in the years he had traveled with his friend. Yet his feelings for him changed like the seasons that pass by them. With each passing day, Dusan noticed himself leaning towards Danny’s direction as if he was the sun and he was nothing but a mere moon or a planet rotating around him, how he would find comfort in his warmth and presence, how he could not take his eyes off Danny’s own eyes, how he would beg the stars to listen to Danny’s laugh and how he would indulge himself to listen to his endless rants about a particular constellation. He was not favored by his father for being an albino, but when Danny looked at him, it is as if he hung the moon and arranged the stars for him. He kept sending Danny hints like holding his hand for too long or wanting to be in his presence. He saw that Danny never once looked in the direction of every exotic beauty that they saw. Which made him hopeful but he remembered that he is a prince not favored but a prince none less. But he could not see himself without his life companion.

 It was a gamble per se, confessing his love and asking Danny to officially court him. Dusan planned everything to the very last speck. A dinner using the finest ingredients whilst they were on top of the highest peak of the mountain as the stars shine brightly above them. Moreover, that love between two men is frowned upon. In his family history there have been king, prince, and men falling in love with other men but was written as friends or even blood brothers, Dusan may have believed those scholars if he hadn’t found a hidden corner in the palace, while he was exploring, that contains a journal of his predecessor’s life as well letters he had exchanged with his lover.

It was said that at his marriage the King only slept with his wife until he bore him a son after that it was noticed that the King abandoned his wife, it was speculated that he has another woman or even that the queen cannot satisfy him making her a laughing stock as a woman who never pleased her husband enough.

 Confessing was harder than he thought he would be, Danny who was on the opposite side of the table was quiet. Feeling rejected Dusan dared to look at the disgusted look at Danny but the moment he opened his eyes his eyes widened in disbelief. Danny is looking at him with awe as his cheeks are slowly turning red like the desert mariposa lily flower. Both ended the night after a kiss that the two of them shared as the stars seem to congratulate them knowing found relationship bore more brightly at the endless night.

 Now you would see the two of them walking from one place to another holding each other’s hands. You would see the two of them rest under the endless stars as they both bask in each other’s presence. You would see the sweet smile that Dusan Al Ghul that he only shows to him and only him. How Dusan became so smitten at Danny's mere presence, how he would present Danny with not only the best but the most exotic flowers to present to him. How he would indulge Danny’s wishes, if Danny does wish for the world on a silver platter he would say wait to his lover and present the world on a golden platter.

 But life isn’t a fairytale.

 A king who has a son, his only son dying and at the mercy of death asked for the traveler’s help to cure his child. Dusan saw, dug, and discovered the restorative chemical pools to heal the prince, about to present it to the king to cure the dying prince. Danny who saw the consequence as well as the true nature of the pools tried to stop his lover, but his warnings fell on deaf ears as Dusan thought that this might be the key for his father to acknowledge him.

 It may have cured the dying prince but it drove him mad to kill Danny. As Dusan felt his lover’s warmth leaving his body with each passing minute, he curses the heaven as well himself for taking away his lover his love the only person whom he ever surrenders his heart to.

 Dusan who is the cause of his lover’s death said the lover used his remaining strength to whisper his last words. 

 To me, you are everything. The last several years have been fantastic, and if reincarnation exists, I would have chosen to be yours again and again until the end of time.

 …

 Damian Al Ghul- Wayne was only 6 years old when he stumbled upon his grandfather’s room. It is said that no monks, assassin, or even mother had stepped into grandfather’s chambers or even found the said chambers, and whoever was found it was said they met a painful death. 

 Damian told himself to forget and go back to the useless tutors that his mother had assigned to him, but a small part of him says that a quick peek wouldn’t hurt. 

 Curiosity won as Damian was still a 6-year-old, opening the double doors slowly he was greeted by the darkness of the room. Slowly he looked for any switch of light, as he flipped the switch on, he was astonished at what he saw. 

 The large fireplace above it contains a large portrait of what looks like a younger version of grandfather alongside someone whom he never recognizes. A lean frame that looks like a grandfather towers over him, a mop of midnight hair, ice-like eyes as well the having the aura of softness and warmness in his body language and smile as if the portrait is alive. 

 Looking around he was even more flabbergasted, shelves that contains countless miscellaneous things that the League considered worthless yet his grandfather seems like he has a large collection. Shells that have bits of sand in a large jar, a small floral terrarium, fabrics that contain embroidery of different constellations, a necklace made out of beads and small polished rocks, and many more. He was about to reach a wooden sculpture of what looked like a figurine between lovers when he felt a faint pain behind his neck and promptly lost consciousness.

 When he woke up he was back in the main base of the League his mother explained that he had been asleep for almost three days due to one of the tutors poisoning him slowly, and his mother exclaimed that they were upping his dosage of poison during his poison training as it was embarrassing for the heir to faint from a mere poison.

 Damian kept quiet as he was sure that the explanation of his mother didn’t happen, he may not have seen whomever attacked him from behind but he was sure that nobody had poisoned him. The moment he recovered he immediately went back to the room that he had found, but the moment he opened the door the room was completely deserted; all of the trinkets were gone including the large portrait. 

 He thought that he may have dreamed the said room and what he saw was a hallucination product of the poison in his system.

 But the moment he met Danny, a mid-20-year-old man who has black hair and blue eyes, an owner of a small book café that both Todd and Drake come frequently at the tender age of 11 he began having a strange sense of de ja vu, especially after he saw the man smile at him when he was petting the owner’s pet dog named Cujo.

 …

 Danny decided to have a vacation, after years of becoming the Ghost king and after years developing his eldritch appearance, he had felt bored as he had already fixed the Realms due to the neglect that Pariah Dark had caused, in just a few centuries. He may have his friends, sister, and daughter with him, but even then, his boredom continues to grow every decade. Clockwork had advised him to explore the endless dimension that was connected to the realms. 

 Seeing the appeal, he immediately went straight in, but at the last moment, Clockwork grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and told him that he cannot just go to the human world looking like a cryptid. The mortal plane as well as the locals may not handle his aura and appearance. He reminded the young king, even though Danny became one of them and immortal but compare to the rest of the ancients he is nothing more than a toddler or a child in the eyes of the ancients, that due to his ever-growing powers as well as his titles his mere presence would either kill or make a mortal faint. Pouting at the reason, he asked Clockwork how he would explore the mortal realms when Clockwork handed him a digital tablet, courtesy made by Pharaoh, and told him to create his avatar that can contain some of his powers that connects him to the realms and vanished.

 Danny stared blankly at his avatar, which looked no different from his previous human and fleshy self, and asked if someone introduced SIMS to the ancient of time.

 Carrying a satchel that has an endless space, a gift from one of his subjects that was a manifestation of fans in fandom, people, or topic. 

 He started his journey.

 He never planned to meet a mortal, to sweep him off his feet to the point his nonexistent heart seems to beat for only him. Danny’s north star made him love the green-eyed beauty, the tan skin that looked like the fresh sand of the dessert while his eyes reflect the polished emeralds that they have saw deep in the ocean during their stay in the middle of the Caribbean, as when they have gone for scuba diving. 

 Nor dying while his lover begs the gods or any higher power out there to bring me back, when his Astrophel had dug out corrupted ectoplasm he immediately warned his star but his warning fell on deaf ears as he saw what in his love’s mind, he wanted HIS acknowledgment more than anything. He knew that even though his bright light had told him countless times that he didn’t need his father’s approval his eyes and actions screamed at the mere fraction of attention that he could have if he had saved a prince. 

 Danny prepared himself for any side effects that may affect the prince but he was caught off guard at the immediate reaction of the prince to his presence. He knew that sometimes ectoplasm leaked to the mortal plane what he was surprised is that ectoplasm was affected by the former king, as the prince was straggling him he came to the conclusion that the ectoplasm was affected by the previous king making it corrupted as well it explains his immediate reaction to kill him as he is the one who stood up to the tyrant king.

 As he felt his avatar’s life force slipping away his final thoughts were about returning to this reality to be with his lover. 

 As he returned to the Infinite realms he was immediately whisked away by his knight for another scheduled meeting. 

 After what had felt like centuries, he immediately created another avatar to enter the dimension and be with his lover. When he returned, he immediately noticed that time flowed too fast for his liking. Feeling devastated he originally planned to return to the Infinite Realms to mourn for his lover when he met the scrawniest 6-year-old boy stealing old books from the trash. Even the thin boy on the roof holding a camera waiting for the vigilantes to come, made up his mind and stayed. 

 The scrawny boy he dubbed before, his name is Jason and he lived in Crime Alley with awful parents. Danny would give him real food, light yet filling, to Jason while he would teach the boy to read books. He fell in love with classical books, he was happy to learn that he got adopted by a nice family who can feed him three times a day and he could go to school as well having a warm place to sleep. When he noticed that Jason stopped going to his shop for his usual visit, he was worried. 

 He knew that the boy he grew to love as a brother became a vigilante alongside that Batman fellow, so when he failed to show up, he began to panic. Carrying a handful of posters in his hand, he began spreading missing posters despite that many children are missing in Gotham every day. A rich fruit loop, to which he was sure he is Batman as every rich people who he meets has a secret lair in their basement, approached him and asked for the posters to which he replied that the young boy in the pictures came to his café before he was adopted. He couldn’t do anything to help the boy aside from the warm meals and sometimes sleeping over at his place, He could feel Clockwork’s warning and his connection that this boy has a destiny to fulfill and it mustn’t be disturbed, as he was just starting his business, and other legal and identity stuff, to keep the boy.

 Bruce, the fruit loop introduced himself and said that Jason passed away a few weeks ago. Which Danny would have believed if he noticed Lady Gotham grieving for her knight or bird? He kept quiet as Bruce asked where he got the picture, gesturing at the poster, as he didn’t recall having a picture of Jason with this kind of outfit, Danny answered by saying that sometimes after the kid got adopted, he would still come at his place and just hang out with him. Both became quaint acquaintances as both settle down and drink warm cups of coffee as two people share and tell stories of Jason.

 The thin one came into his life when he noticed a small silhouette in a roof over in front of his shop. A child too thin for his liking was carrying a camera focusing on any rooftop to catch a glimpse of the vigilante. Tim, who introduced himself, loves the vigilantes in Gotham and often would sneak out of the home to catch a photo or two and even a glimpse of the iconic duo. Danny asked himself what good parents wouldn’t notice their child missing every night surely the small eye bags below his eyes is already an indicator. Danny was sure he didn’t add a meta gene in his avatar so why is he getting too close to the family of a vigilante as well as having children who are neglected by their parents come to him? Gave Tim actual food than letting the id starve in the empty house and he didn’t get even surprised when months later he was adopted by Bruce. 

 During Bruce and Danny’s rare get-together, Danny mentioned hardly that having empty nest syndrome does not excuse him to adopt every black hair and blue-eyed child who is potentially traumatized in Gotham. This caused an immediate choke from Bruce and assured Danny and tried to refute him but Danny continued as if he had gone deaf at Bruce’s denial, that it is natural for teenagers to leave the nest and he felt pity and understanding for the butler for his efforts to stop Bruce in adopting every child in Gotham. 

 When Jason appeared and opened the doors to his café with a white streak on his hair as well as getting noticeably larger than last time, he didn’t say anything but prepared his seat in his favorite spot with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen at one side and a Neapolitan ice cream sandwich on one side. Weakly whispering, Welcome back, to the person he had missed and loved like a brother. Danny knew that Jason didn’t like real-life sappy moments but Danny was just about to open his arms when Jason suddenly rushed to hug the man. Danny began filtering the corrupted ectoplasm in Jason’s system each time he stayed at his café to have a quick snack or lunch away from his brothers.

 It was when he took notice of the youngest Wayne that he experienced de ja vu. He looked like a mini Bruce, he inherited everything from Bruce including the scowl aside from his coloring. His color reminds him of his deceased lover in the desert, he traveled in this dimension in the past and he knew a child assassin in the making when he saw one. He tried everything to give Damian a sense of innocence as he was sure that this one would turn into a Robin at any given moment, going as far as having a menu dedicated to vegetarians.

 That should have been the first warning sign that fate is up to something.

 …

 There has been a spike in occult activities in Gotham and the Bats decided to investigate as there has been evidence of live sacrifice. Their occult problem seemed that the followers of that particular occult are trying to revive the Pariah Dark who was known as the tyrant king as he ruled over under his rule. 

 As they were busting another botched attempt in summoning whatever was named king, they noticed Danny, a lovely café owner by the way, all tied and scratched up but no fatally noticeable injuries and seemed unconscious from the way he laid down. All birds wanted to rush in and free Danny from the tight binding that they were sure would leave a mark and a wound when the sound of shattering glass made all of them look up. A band of assassins accompanied by the one and only Ra Al Ghul the demon head. Now there is a heavy tension in the air as both sides are looking at each other with apprehensive, distrust, and blood lust. They didn’t know that Ra was following them nor his agenda for today but both sides know that no one is going to leave the dimly lit abandoned warehouse unharmed.

 But Danny chose to wake up that very moment to witness the two still not moving an inch from their spot and continuously staring down at each other. Danny would’ve slowly left the scene or even sunk into the shadows to watch both sides when he noticed the supposed leader. Danny felt his non-existent heart begin to beat again, something inside of him recognize the man. Looking closely Danny’s face slowly turns to one of awe and pure love as he stares at the Demon's head.

 In what would have been forever as the tension was broken by Danny who awoke and called out Astrophel while staring at Ra. 

 Batman and company are surprised to see Danny awake but also curse themselves for their luck for Danny to witness this. As Jason is about to pounce at any assassin that tries to harm Danny, they all have their respective jaws drop as Ra responded to Danny by having a whiplash too fast that they were sure they heard his neck crack at sheer speed.

 When they saw Ra and the League in tow, they were expecting a battle and bloodshed, not the fact that Ra looked like he is on the verge of tears nor the amount of emotions present in his eyes, aura, and body language.

 The joy, excitement, peacefulness, overwhelm, disbelief, hope, and nostalgia emitting from Ra made them double check their very eyes as well check their reality because never in their lives would they witness Ra such vulnerability and emotions to the café owner they both love and acquainted. 

 …

 Danny is overjoyed to learn his lover is still in the mortal plane, he is ready for another adventure and journey just the two of them and maybe they would get married this time. 

 If only the Bats both in and out of their costume and civvies would stop getting in their way.

 …

 PS: If someone out there wanted to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so, don’t forget to tag me though.

#batman #BatFam #dc #dp #dc x dp #dc x dp prompt #Danny Phantom #danny fenton #ra al ghul

[protoindoeuropean]

Something that annoys me (mildly, but still) is when people say that the name of the star in the middle of our Solar System is Sol. Because that's just flat out made-up. There is no official or technical name for the the Sun, it's just simply the Sun. And even further, there is absolutely no benefit to calling it Sol, because that doesn't help disambiguate anything.* Like, at least I get calling the Moon Luna (though it borders on the same kind of pretentiousness), because there are indeed many moons in our Solar System so I guess for some people having a “the” in front isn't enough of a disambiguator 🙄 but like, even for all of those distant suns out there we already do have a perfectly nice word you can use without having to metonymically reference the Sun.

The star in the middle of our Solar System is called the Sun and the fact that it has a latinate adjective in English doesn't mean that the name itself must then also be in Latin – just like having an adjective paternal doesn't mean that the true word for 'father' in English is pater.

*A sol, however, is indeed a technical term, denoting a solar day on Mars, for example.

#j #astro #lang #and yes i have seen that in the wild unfortunately

[tugoslovenka]

Sanguinans

Summary: Tephraxa had never thought of blood afflictions much, not until a pale elf by the name of Astarion came into her life. She now craves the feeling, and longs for the full moon when the vampire is at the height of his bloodlust.

TW: Blood stuff, knife play, some gore

Sanguinans adjective san· guin· e· ous bloodthirsty; of, relating to, or involving bloodshed; of, relating to, or containing blood

A/N: This is an edited re-post after I fixed up some stuff that I didn't originally like. This is one of the more hardcore smuts I've done so, I suppose read at your own disposal?

Also available on AO3!

Tephraxa had never pondered about the smell of blood.

She used to quickly tend to cuts, knowing the dangers of leaving an open wound to fester for too long. She didn’t mind the metallic taste that occasionally tinged her tongue when she accidentally bit the inside of her cheek.

Yet, life’s crimson elixir was a fragrance she now carried. A path of punctuated passion trailed from the crook of her neck down to her lower belly, where it ended in a deep gash. The pooling was thick at the surface, scarlet in color and running hotter than the heritage she inherited from Zariel.

It was comforting to her now, the sight of her own injuries. 

The pale elf she had the fortune of meeting taught her many things. She wasn’t innocent in pleasures of the flesh, but what he offered was akin to the celestial delights people spoke of in the Upper Planes.

The first time his fangs found their mark was during a desperate plea for aid, a starved beast that craved food for sustenance, lest he die. Tephraxa wasn’t too keen on the idea, but ultimately decided to give in. What felt like an ice pick jabbing at her skin soon turned into a numb pain that overwhelmed her—and ultimately scrambled any sense for self-preservation. She wouldn’t dare admit her stifled moans as he drew blood, though she was almost certain he was too busy to notice. What surprised her was that she was his first—more than a rotting rat found in the lowest depths of the Lower City.

That night marked the beginning of a twisted relationship that would reshape her forever.

During a particularly rough fucking, Astarion told her he would keep suckling at the memory of her even after she was long gone. Even in a thousand years, when he would all but forget how to love, it would be Tephraxa who would flit back into his heart. 

If she didn’t offer hers on a platter before that, she thought.

Toxicity manifested itself in many forms. While she was familiar with numerous ailments that caused physical suffering due to it, what they both shared could undoubtedly be categorized as such.

Bloodlust had been an alien concept before meeting him. The nocturnal creatures typically associated with such cravings lurked in the shadows, seeking a quick fix when no one was looking—which was especially heightened during a full moon. She soon learned however, that a full moon held a special place in his tragic history.

Astarion had passed during one. Centuries of torment had blurred some of the details, but he could still recall the pale moonlight gently kissing his skin on that fateful evening, when a group of Gur took issue with his rullings. The high elf used to be a magistrate with a power to strike down those who the Council saw as disposable, she learned. Cazador was his savior the same night, rescuing him from the vagabonds with an offer of eternal life.

An offer he would come to regret, realizing how long "eternity" truly was. Two centuries he spent trapped beneath the Szarr estate, sustaining on diseased rodents and long-lost memories of a once he once led. 

It was during a full moon that he was turned. He could barely remember the blur turning into blackness as his life drained alongside the only self he knew himself to be. From that day forward, he would be known as Astarion, the charming servant who had served the Szarr family.

Hence, every full moon ushered in an animalistic, voracious side of Astarion that stripped him of all reason. His charming demeanor gave way to an insatiable hunger, rendering him more beast than man. She witnessed his struggles to restrain it during their first month of travel. Whether due to trauma or sheer habit, his fangs grew sharper, nails longer, eyes ruby red at the sight of the smallest droplet of blood—like the one that had trickled down Tephraxa's skin when she injured herself in battle.

It took every bit of his control to stop from gnawing at her arm, as he had later confessed.

In the second month, she watched as he savagely tore animals apart in the forest, drinking their blood until he fell unconscious from the copious amounts he had consumed. At the time, she had already agreed to becoming his bloodbag—a term he detested—and she couldn't help but wonder if her consistent feeding was contributing to his further descent into madness.

Tephraxa couldn’t remember when this blood sharing turned into something more perverse. Maybe it was the hardness she felt against her thigh as he latched onto her neck that ignited something inside her. Even in her weakened state, she reached out to touch it, which elicited a moan so delicious, she had it etched in her mind ever since.

It began slow, noviced even. His fingers were deep inside of her, exploring her cunt with three digits while his fangs worked her throat. A drawn out moan had him momentarily lose control, driving them deeper until she swore he could feel him biting into her vocal cords.

The dagger came next. He used it as a way to tease—mostly himself—preventing his throbbing fangs from finding release as he made shallow cuts on her body, using his tongue to trail the blood that trickled down her purple skin.

What Astarion hadn’t mastered however, was the ability to feed while he was buried inside her. By the time their foreplay finished, he already had her blood coursing through his veins, content enough to not require more. The only goal he was preoccupied with was to fill her to the brim—an exchange, he had called it—her blood for his seed.

There was something invigorating about slowly growing fatigued, limbs shaking from lightheadedness as she felt the suckle of his teeth take from her life force. Heat occasionally escaped her body and for a few moments, she was as cold as he was. She was completely at his mercy, weakened, pale, with every nerve screaming for pause.

But she wouldn’t give in. All she needed was his touch. It was the only refuge she sought.

“What a delectable sight," Astarion commented, dragging his thumb softly over the gash on her lower belly as blood began pouring out. The tiefling used her tail to balance herself, hands bound together by rope so as to prevent her from moving. "You love to be defiled, don't you, my sweet?"

Astarion’s voice was sickly sweet, speaking in a tone one would to a dim-witted mutt. He reached a hand over the cut, pressing down and eliciting a loud yell from Tephraxa. She began shivering, feeling a cold sweat build up at her temples and drop down her body.

He smoothed an adoring hand over her hair, coating it in blood as he tutted in disapproval. “Though I adore your pained screams, darling, I do believe you are making too much of a fuss.” He reached down to grab her smallclothes, bunching them into a ball before shoving it in her mouth.

She could taste the earthiness on them and almost gagged at the grassy texture on her tongue. Astarion had kneeled before her, admiring the laceration that was yet another decoration added to the collection of many depraved memories they shared.

His lips began kissing one end gently, coating his lips in blood as he looked up at her. She was completely paralyzed. Had it not been for the tip of her tail keeping the slightest bit of stability, she would have keeled over from exhaustion.

His tongue curled, licking away at the now-dried blood below her abdomen and seeking out the crimson heat as it was continuing to pour from her bowels. “Delicious as ever, my love,” he purred, grabbing a hold of her hips and keeping her steady as he hungrily lapped.

It felt like an eternity.

For a brief moment, Tephraxa was certain they had gone too far. She could no longer feel his tongue or touch, and she swore she lost her hearing when he dipped his tongue inside her injury. It was only when she felt two fingers reach for her cunt that she jolted awake, a shot of adrenaline coursing her to blink to attention. Astarion began pumping his fingers—coated in her juices and blood—keeping her balanced with his other hand while his tongue was licking her injury clean. Her eyes shut, a mixture of pleasure and pain overwhelming her. She began fighting her constraints, willing closure, but the elf had ensured she remain firmly restricted.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Astarion’s focus on her. His eyes were glazed over, and she wasn’t sure if they had turned completely black instead of the scarlets that commanded her. 

He reached forward and with a small tug, her smallclothes fell to the ground as a string of spit followed suit. Quickly, he took her lips in his, immediately tasting the metallic flavor of her own blood as he did so. She moaned in response, not hesitating to allow his tongue to coat her insides with more of it.

The restraints on her lower body had loosened a moment later, Astarion having expertly unhooked them during the passionate kiss. It was only then did she realize just how weak she was, as in an instant, she began falling forward, legs too weaked to support her weight.

“Easy now, darling,” Astarion whispered, cupping the sides of her hips as she crashed her body into his. “I may have indulged a little too much.”

“No…”  Tephraxa immediately retorted, weakly looking up in his direction to find his eyes. “No. I—I’m fine.”

He smiled in return, an expression she could only recognzie as a challenge. He often pushed his darling to her limits, making sure to take her to the point of no return before giving her a release. “The little death”, he called it, and it was only a matter of time before she thought they would go too far, make an unfixable mistake that would bring about her doom.

But they never did. It was as if he knew exactly when to stop.

A hand pet the top of her head, lightly adding pressure until the tiefling understood his hint. With shaky legs and some steady guidance from him, Tephraxa lowered herself until she was at eye-level with the crotch of his trousers. She barely had time to steady herself before her hands grabbed at the bloodstained leather that already revealed the outline of his cock.

She flinched when she felt his fingers tug at her hair, aiming her gaze towards him. He looked demonic—pale and bloodied—breathing heavily as he bared his fangs. And yet, she still felt a gush of heat between her legs, a depraved response to a horrifying sight.

In one swift motion, he had dropped his trousers on the ground as the gleaming head of his cock collided with her nose. She looked at the tip, and then back at Astarion before reaching her tongue out for a tentative lick. She ran it across the whole length with the direction of his grip, before stopping at the head.

The pressure increased on the back of her skull as she pushed herself forward until her nose reached his abdomen, choking and gagging as he groaned in pleasure. He held her there, tears forming in her eyes from the pressure in her throat. She was too weak to protest—not that she would want to—the usual playfulness of the tease being taken over by a need to follow his animalistic whims.

And then, his grip loosened, disappearing entirely as he ran the same hand through his curls while fixated on her. Tephraxa opened her mouth wider, sucking more of his length back inside as she bobbed her head, making sure to dart her tongue out just as he had instructed the first time they did it. His unconscious thrusting eased her efforts, and she could feel saliva running down her chin, mixing in with the dried blood from the kiss.

Astarion gave no warning before fully pushing back in and almost knocking the tiefling into the ground. She felt the tip hit her tonsils, immediately prompting a gag from her as her throat convulsed around him.

“Remember to breathe, my love,” Astarion reminded her, thrusting with slow and deliberate strokes as he let his palm graze down her face.

She took in deep breaths from her nose, knowing it would help her take more of him in. Whether it was the cut or her lungs burning from the lack of oxygen, the tiefling felt like her body was on fire. Reaching out to claw at his hips, she heard Astarion hissing and moaning as he neared his release.

He suddenly grabbed a hold of his cock with one hand while another craned her neck back up. He let his wet member rest on her cheek as tears fell, a sly grin on his face, satisfied with his work. “You take me so well, devil," he cooed.

She knew better than to ask for her own pleasure. Challenging him at the height of his bloodlust was a mistake, since he would probably opt for teasing her to the point of hurting instead. It was best she allowed him to decide when he would give her a release, even if her cunt was throbbing with need.

He set another brutal pace then, hand now gripping her hair so tightly that she was sure a few more thrusts would scalp her. A flash of steel interrupted her thoughts, and she saw the blade that left many decorations on her body rest below her chin.

“No choking,” Astarion warned.

Tephraxa nodded as he continued to pump into her throat. Every signal in her body was asking for relief, though she knew she would receive none. More brain fog occupied her as the elf quickened his pace, and she soon started seeing spots of darkness as she felt dangerously close to passing out.

Astarion seemed to have other ideas, however. The tiefling felt empty as his cock retracted violently from her mouth, leaving her agape and staring up at him like a dumbstruck animal. He kneeled down, using one hand to push her forward, and it didn’t take much before her back hit the cold dirt.

Hitching her legs up until they were hooked over his waist, he began licking down her navel until he reached the wound. He spent some time taking in the scent and admiring his work, his hand gently going over the hardening skin.

“Beautiful...” he breathed, mostly to himself. His eyes briefly met hers, before he bared his fangs, angling his head down until it reached the inside of her thigh. He had bitten there many times before, with bruises now faded enough so that he could create new ones.

It was a much smaller puncture wound as he drew the blood. He had once told her she tasted sweetest there, something about the heat coming from her core. He didn’t spend much time, knowing she had already lost too much blood already.

With no small effort, he pulled himself from the bite with a gasp, panting heavily. He slid down until he was laying on his stomach, assessing the area. Tephraxa was at a loss for words and breath, with only a whimper escaping her lips, barely.

She couldn’t find the strength to say anything. Not to scold, or compliment. 

Taking hold of her knees, he pried her legs open and leaned forward. With the grip he had on them, she knew he was trying to steady himself into control. She could hear him swallow before his lips touched the wetness on her clit. She was certain the gush had turned into a flood, because the sounds he created while lapping were similar to a full tankard of ale.

She spread her legs further, allowing him better access while barely making any noise. He pulled her hips forward, mixing in the blood trickling from her thigh with her juices, coating the slick flesh with the sin of their deed. Astarion knew better than to ask her to speak, knowing the squirming and barely-audible murmurs escaping her lips were enough praise.

He exhaled slowly once he reached either side of her slit, muttering a silent “Gods, you are delicious,” before pushing his tongue inside. Her aching entrance received some release, and his thumb found its way on her nub, massaging in slow, circular motions—just the way she liked.

Unsure of the source of her sudden strength, she began grinding her hips against his face, angling him to other bits of her wetness. The undignified whine that escaped her lips was nothing short of embarrassing, even more so considering how he had literally cut her open to bleed in the middle of it.

The sting from his fangs almost made her heart leap out of her chest. He occasionally warned—promised, to bite her cunt, never enough to actually cause injury, but the threat was enough. With a small chuckle, he continued tasting her, savoring every bit of her heat as she tightened her legs around him, squeezing weakly.

“Is my sweet ready to come?” he asked, continuing his ministrations once he heard the first audible moan escape her lips. She had enough energy to bite at her lips, feeling her pulse quicken until she could hear ringing in her ears.

“How I love that feeling,” Astarion hummed. According to him, the intensity before her orgasm quickened her pulse so much that he could feel it on his tongue. It ached in his fangs, and he had to exert inhumane levels of control to not dig them into her soft flesh when it happened.

Tephraxa threw her head back in pleasure, the dizziness making her go temporarily blind. She came undone around him with a sob, releasing mews as the aftershock of her orgasm made her body twitch involuntarily. She lay there, completely frozen, muscles shaking vigorously as Astarion continued licking, pushing his tongue in her entrance as she continued to clench.

When her breathing had finally stabilized, he released her cunt with a pop, resting his head on her thigh while grinding into the ground. Whatever blood was mixed in his hardness demanded he find release, but he would allow Tephraxa a moment before he buried himself to the hilt.

“Ast—Astar—“ she began, a series of incomprehensible sounds following what he could only discern was a compliment. The tiefling was pretty sure he was going to break her one day, but she would have lived a happy few years nonetheless.

He crawled up her body until he met her lidded gaze, a hand following to wipe away at the blood, spit and come on his lips before leaning down to give her a kiss. She didn’t respond, her withered state disallowing any muscle on her body to move. Astarion often told her she looked particularly adorable when she was flushed, a purple flush covering her cheeks—and oddly enough, the tips of her horns.

She noted the strained erection on her lower belly, gently rocking in an indication of his desire. Tephraxa hissed when she felt his sharp fingernails dig into her skin, dragging down until she felt the familiar drizzle of blood follow. Astarion’s hands patted over her flesh, covering his hands entirely before moving them between his legs.

Her clit was sensitive, not enough to hurt, but enough to make her involuntarily buckle when she felt his hand there. His other hand moved to his cock, and her eyes followed his movements until she saw him mix his pre-come with her blood—something he found surprising pleasure in.

Once he was satisfied, he pushed the head of his cock on her clit, looking down to admire his work. “I will never tire of the sight,” he muttered. He leaned down, sinking his teeth into the dip between her neck and shoulder, not to draw more, only a moan from Tephraxa who was unsure how she was able to produce any sound at all.

With a thrust, he was inside her. Her tight ring of muscle accepted him without much resistance, and Astarion roared into the cold air of the forest as he began to thrust. Tephraxa watched as his muscles flexed with each push, noting the veins that were more visible in the moonlight now that he had her blood pumping in them. She could never get used to his cold length, not entirely. Shivers ran up her spine as he rutted aggressively, opening his mouth to show fangs that must have been hurting from use.

“Mine, m—mine...” Astarion kept repeating, his eyes not leaving hers as he leaned forward until their foreheads touched. She knew she belonged to him in a way, forever bound to his needs by her blood alone—and while a much younger Tephraxa would be disgusted at the thought, she had no protests being Astarion’s bloodbag until he no longer had any need for her.

With one push of her leg, he had it hooked around his waist as he sought for depth, making sure to slow down every once in a while to admire his work. She could feel his balls slapping at her cunt when he did so, and her mouth drooled at the thought of him releasing inside her soon. It was something she learned to crave since meeting him—to be coated in his seed.

Sometimes he would choose her face to paint over. She eagerly would lap at the string of saltiness coming on her face, before he forbade her from doing so, stating that a piece of art should be kept untouched. Instead, once he was satisfied with the sight, he would feed her his spend from his own fingers until they were licked clean.

Her mouth opened in silent pleasure as he continued, now pinning her further into the ground as his thrusts became erratic, no longer rhythmic, control leaving his body entirely as he sought for release.

Tephraxa’s own body was shaking. The pain that she initially felt was now completely numbed, a pleasure washing over her that made any other sensation pale in comparison to what she felt when the full moon couplings came. Sometimes, she thought about becoming a spawn herself, if only to experience the joys that he did. But she knew he needed her for sustenance, and she was content with it.

Raw, undiluted pleasures of the flesh were no longer something she was satisfied with. Astarion had shown her a world of perversion that she would crave for the rest of her life. Even if her body was marked from his scarring, his bites, his vampirism—she wanted nothing else.

With a loud groan that echoed in the wind, Astarion’s movements suddenly halted. She felt the warmth of his seed, moving deep inside her until it coated every part of her. His cock was throbbing deep inside her, much stronger than she had ever felt before, and it was the sight of him that was her undoing as well.

She released in silence, her voice no longer being capable of making sound as her legs began to shake underneath him. She thought about the mix of her and his come, their spit and blood, and it made her tremble uncontrollably until she too, stopped moving.

Astarion would be her death, figuratively or literally.

And she would have it no other way.

#astarion smut #astarion fanfiction #astarion x tav #astarion x original female character #astarion x ofc #my fics

[thepenultimateword]

Broken Wings and Parcel Strings

“I won’t ask you to stay,” Protagonist said, staring up into the treetops.

The miracle rolled onto her side, wings readjusting on her back as she stared straight on into Protagonist’s face. Dappled light streamed between the branches overheard, catching in gleaming strands of coppery hair.

“Tired of me already?”

“Don’t tease.” Protagonist rolled away from her, seeing her so beautiful and impossible beside him while also knowing the inevitable beyond made his chest ache. “I know it wouldn’t be fair to ask.”

Soft fingers ran through his own ashy mane, too drab to be silver or starlight or any of the other adjectives she flattered him with. “If it helps, you feel closer to home than anything else I’ve experienced.”

Protagonist smiled, but the words didn’t breach the stony fortress he’d already built around his heart. “You probably say that to all your lovers.”

She snorted. “Pray tell, who are all these lovers?”

“I don’t know, I just assumed… You go everywhere and meet everyone, it can’t just be me.”

The miracle wrapped her arms around his middle, spreading her feathered wings to full span before settling them overtop him. From the waist up, they both laid enclosed in dim, clean scented warmth. “Would you prefer me to have others? Would it make it easier to know I leave lots of people?

“No.”

“I do leave many people. Friends, teammates, ties stronger than bloodlines. But you may take comfort in knowing there’s no one else like you.”

“But you’re still going.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t ask me to stay.”

“I won’t.” The thought of holding her down, binding this living definition of freedom to one place, one cage, it made him sicker than letting her go. Miracles weren’t meant to be hoarded. “J-just…come back, ok? Now and then. When you can.”

“I always do.”

And she did. 6 months later. In the dead of night during a rainstorm. It was as if the skies were crying just for her.

When Protagonist answer the slow but insistent rapping, he almost didn’t recognize her. First of all, she seemed smaller, head bent toward the ground, arms wrapped tightly around clinging clothes, ears poking out pink from sopping hair. She almost looked ready to seep between the porch cracks with the rain.

He peered sideways at her clenched jaw and empty eyes.

“Miracle?”

She inhaled abruptly. “Can I…stay here?”

The way she said it was almost like she expected him to decline.

“Yes!” he said, opening the door wider. “Yes, of course!”

She slunk over the threshold, and as she dripped into the corridor, he noticed the red stained across her back, sticking her shirt taught between her shoulder blades.

It struck him all at once the real reason she looked smaller.

The wings and the carefree days were gone.

…

(Inspired by the song The Moon is Down by Radical Face)

Master Taglist:

@moss-tombstone @crazytwentythrees @just-1-lonely-person @the-vagabond-nun @willow-trees-are-beautiful @cocoasprite @insanedreamer7905 @valiantlytransparentwhispers @whovian378 @watercolorfreckles @thebluepolarbear @yulanlavender @kitsunesakii i @deflated-bouncingball l @lem-hhn @office-plant-in-a-trenchcoat @ghostfacepepper @pigeonwhumps @demonictumble @inkbirdie @vuvulia a @bouncyartist t @lunatic-moss-studio @breilobrealdi @freefallingup13 3 @i-am-a-story-goblin @ryunniez @rainy-knights-of-villany @distractedlydistracted @saspas-corner r @echoednonny @perilous-dreamer @blood-enthusiast @randomfixation @alexkolax x @pksnowie @blessupblessup @wolfeyedwitch @thedeepvoidinmyheart @cornflower-cowboy @bestblob @a-chaotic-gremlin remlin @espresso-depresso-system @prompt-fills-and-writing-spills @paleassprince @takingawildbreath @yindo @psychiclibrariesquotestoad @harpycartoons @pickleking8 @urmyhopeeee

#writblr #writeblr #fantasci #I don’t know what the parcel strings are yet #but I liked the title #fantasy #fantasci writing #winged #writing #my writing #writing snippet #creative writing #fiction

[necrowyrm]

I have abandoned the identity of "goth girl" because it is true, I don't really listen to goth music, im a metalhead.

But I have been lost as to what to call myself now

I'm many types of girl but what in that kind of vein can I choose?

Spooky girl?

Gothic girl?

I still wear all black and my accessories are largely themed around skulls and blood and the moon and I love horror and death and such, so surely I must describe myself in some manner that implies that

Please adjective me!!!!

[direwombat]

she wip on my wednes till i day or something (etc., etc.)

tagged by @ivymarquis, @socially-awkward-skeleton, and @inafieldofdaisies (tysm y'all~!)

tagging: @strangefable, @voidika, @madparadoxum, @adelaidedrubman, @aceghosts, @josephslittledeputy, @g0dspeeed, @simplegenius042, @miyabilicious, @trench-rot, @strafethesesinners, @confidentandgood, @poetikat, @cassietrn, and anyone else with something to share this wednesday! (to be added/removed from the taglist please like/reply to this post!)

writing has been going at a snail's pace, but here's the intro to the first jacob pov scene in the werewolf au (he's sooooooo normal and not creepy at all <;3)

Jacob is running through the woods. 

His paws fly over the uneven terrain, pausing just long enough to sniff the air before taking off once again. Last night’s hunt had been an overwhelming success. After months of trying to pinpoint the exact location of the Hunter’s cabin, it was a fucking Sheriff’s Deputy that led the pack straight to him. The Hunter knew they were on his trail -- he’d been acting skittish, paranoid, doing a better job of covering his scent and tracks -- but the look of sheer surprise and terror in his eyes when Jacob had bust down the door to his cabin had been priceless.

In the end, Chad Wolanski bled and died just like anyone else. He was weak. Fragile. Human.

And he’d had his Betas leave a message for Eli, just to remind him that no matter how many silver bullets he and his crew may have -- no matter how much wolfsbane -- the second claws and teeth are close enough to rip into flesh and rend it from the bone, it’s over.

Of course, his own pack isn’t without weakness, and it’s weakness that he’s currently trying to root out. The junior-most member of the Hunt was an initiate, newly turned, and somewhere along the way, he failed the test. He lost himself to the bloodlust and went feral, the Wolf taking over and consuming his human mind. 

He was weak. He gave into the beast rather than controlling it. He’s now a threat to the Pack. They didn’t survive for as long as they have by allowing their failed recruits to run amok and terrorize the sleepy little backwater county. Humans may be slow, frail, and stupid, but an increase in violent animal attacks is something that they’d notice. And after this little display of showmanship, it’s best they lay low until the Blood Moon, when Joseph says that all their waiting and patience will finally be worth it.

So, in the meantime, it’s Jacob’s duty to find the whelp and put him down before he kills too many other people. 

He sent his Chosen out to scour the county in search of the Feral, while he, himself, has been combing the woods around St. Francis since dawn -- just in case the little pest comes back home, groveling and begging for mercy.

He stops for a moment as the wind changes directions. Sticking his nose into the air, he sniffs and catches a familiar scent. Not the one he’s looking for, but it gets his ears perking up, and his lips pulling tight as he bares his teeth. 

Deputy La Roux. 

He’s smelled her the few times he’d seen her around Falls End, but it was always muted and muddied by the stench of all the other humans around her. It was only last night that he got a good, unfiltered whiff, and once he made it past the thick blanket of tobacco, she was nothing short of delicious. His tongue lolls out his mouth at the memory of her pulse racing like a rabbit’s, all frightened and tender. It took every ounce of his willpower to not salivate at the sweet, [another adjective] that came through the small crack of her rolled down window. Every heartbeat made the vein in her neck throb, and were it not for the body of her truck serving as a barrier between them, the Wolf inside him would have made a compelling argument of sinking his teeth into her, just to get a taste. 

He wouldn’t have even killed her. He would have been content to lick at the sweat beading on her skin and her pulse jumping against his tongue; to hear the little gasps and moans she made as he pinned her down, asserting his dominance. There’s a sharpness to her, one that tells him she’d fight back -- claw and buck against him, snarling and gnashing her teeth -- and he’s curious as to what it would take to get her to submit. What would he have to do to get her rolling over onto her back, bearing the soft, fleshy parts of herself to him, and him only.

Then he had followed her to Eli’s hunting cabin where he smelled the sweet scent of her arousal, and he’d nearly lost control. He’s no stranger to the smell of sex. The Bitches at Joseph’s compound are kept well bred by their Mates. Establishing a strong bloodline, a pedigree, is important to Joseph and to the Project -- it’s their only way of being taken seriously as an actual Pack -- but Jacob never felt any kind of possessive draw towards any of them. They’re all taken, bonded, and mated. 

But her…

For the love of the Full Moon, he wants her so bad. The Wolf wanted nothing more than to charge into that cabin, rip Eli’s throat out, and make her his. Show her what a real hunter looks like. His own arousal got to the point where he had to satisfy his lust with blood instead, and had gone off to kill a moose on his own, all because he was so angry that he wasn’t the one making her cunt dip or pulling those cries of pleasure from her lips.

#i'm soooo on the fence about including the whole 'mates' trope because like...on one hand. i like it. it's a staple of werewolf romance #but on the other hand. the idea of jacob /convincing himself/ that syb is his mate because he's mad she's eli's girlfriend #is soooooooooo funny to me #but also. helps drive home the horror aspect of it all #it's not about love or soulmates...it's about /possession/. jakey wants something he can't have so he makes plans to get it #anyway. au where the cult is actually allowed to fuck due to pack politics lmao #wip wednesday

[ckret2]

@cipherdragon said: #now i wanna learn latin but i don’t wanna put the effort into it #wonder if memorizing words is easier

Having studied Latin for four years: if you're just doing it for fun rather than for a class with vocab quizzes, and if you're not aiming to fluently read/write it but just toss together a sentence once in a blue moon? Memorizing words is the most difficult and least necessary part of learning Latin.

The most important part to learn is the grammar. How do you decline nouns & adjectives (i.e. change the way they're spelled to indicate gender, singular/plural, and the part of sentence it's used in), how do you conjugate verbs (i.e. change the way they're spelled to indicate singular/plural, present/past/future tense, etc), where in the sentence should you place the verb, how do you indicate that a sentence is a question, what do "ablative" and "pluperfect" mean, etc.

If you understand the grammar, you have what you need to write really basic Latin even if you don't know any words, and you have the ability to look at Latin and go "okay I don't understand what they're saying but I can tell where the verbs/nouns/conjunctions/etc are and that will make it easier to translate once I look up the words." Online Latin dictionaries are easy to find, and many of them (including wiktionary) have full charts declining/conjugating the nouns/verbs, so you don't even have to memorize that, just understand how it works.

If you want to translate "I will kill you," if you've memorized the vocabulary, you might know a word for "I" and a word for "to kill" and a word for "you," but probably not the correct versions of the words so you still can't write the sentence correctly. On the other hand, if you've studied the grammar, you'll know that you need to find the first-person future-tense version of a word that means "kill", so you can look up "kill" in any Latin dictionary and find the first-person future-tense spot on its conjugation chart and now you DO have a single word that correctly translates to "I will kill"

It's slow, it's lazy, and it's never gonna make you fluent in Latin, but if your interest isn't "fluency" but rather "knowing just enough that you can patch together a simple technically-correct sentence in a story from time to time," grammar over vocab is the way to go.

#cipherdragon

[icedteaandoldlace]

15 Mutuals, 15 Questions

I was tagged by the fabulous @orangesunsets12. 🍊🌅

Are you named after anyone? A little girl my parents knew. I wanna say they used to babysit her, but I could be getting my stories mixed up. Dad thought she was just the cutest thing, and he loved her name. I've never met her myself, but she did wish me a happy birthday on my mom's Facebook post about me turning 20.

When was the last time you cried? Yesterday. Some video of a guy doing something nice got me.

Do you have kids? No kids, just a lot of cats. But I do have a five-year-old in Peru that I sponsor.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? It's my first language.

What sports do you play/have you played? Kickball, and my sister's been attempting to teach me pickleball. Once in a blue moon my family gets the volleyball bug, and we get a big group together for that, but kickball is our go-to.

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Their face? I guess?? I'm not the most observant person.

What’s your eye color? Dark blue.

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings ftw!!

Any special talents? Writing, singing, and drawing. I can't do anything super realistic in the drawing department, but I am good at nailing expressions.

Where were you born? My parents' bedroom in our old mobile home.

What are your hobbies? Writing, making fan vids and gifsets, the occasional crochet project, photographing my cats and pretty things outside.

Do you have pets? Many cats. Some of them are strays/dumpees, some are my uncle's barn cats who migrated to my house, some are descendants of my house cat from her philandering days. I have 3 cats indoors (first cat + two of her daughters), plus my sister's Petsmart adoptee. We have two dogs that were dumped down our road, and one who was adopted from a shelter.

How tall are you? 5'8"

Favorite subject in school? English and literature (yes, just "literature", there was no specifying adjective in front of it. 🌸Just homeschool curriculum things. 🌸)

Dream job? Author. Not necessarily a bestseller, but a big seller at least. I'd also really love to be an engine mechanic, but upper body strength is not something I have in spades, and I would need to seriously up my hands' skin care.

And I am tagging @starstruckpurpledragon @sscrambledmeggss @frosty-the-killer-doll @galaxy-creationz @shrinkthisviolet @daftydraw @vividly-violet @fictionandmusic @phoenix @alittleflashvibe @chocoholicannanymous @music-stories-and-lots-of-sleep @ilovewrighting @jwmelmoth @backslashdelta

No pressure. 🤩

#tag thing #not everyone here is a mutual but you're all people I like so 👋🏻

[bakedbakermom]

Stained

Chapter 7: Sublime // start at the beginning

tagging @today-in-fic @ao3feed-msr

sublime verb: to convert something inferior to something of higher worth; to transform adjective: beauty which inspires awe -- Scully remembers; Scully chooses.

Content warning for violence that, while not sexual in nature, does have sexual undertones. I went just a smidge farther than either show does in canon with the sexuality and violence, but only a smidge. Proceed with caution.

Scully wasn’t sure how long she lay there in the quiet dark beneath the earth, with only the distant dripping of water and her own, lonely heartbeat for company. She cried until her eyes were hot and dry, until her throat was raw and her nails had dug little half-moons into each of her palms. Mulder’s body grew cold beneath her cheek; the blood soaking his shirt was thick and sticky and would have pulled at her skin if she had the strength to move.

Guilt raked her with jagged claws. He had saved her—they had saved each other—so many times, arriving on that knife edge where “just in time” threatened to become “too late.” How many times had they kicked down the door, brandishing guns and a righteous fury that blazed away the darkness and left the nightmares with no place to hide? How many times had they pulled each other back from the brink of death, cleaned their wounds and brushed away their tears? And now, when he had needed her the most, she had been helpless to do anything. In her mind’s eye she watched him die again and again: the spill of blood, his frightened and pleading stare, that last echoing whimper of her name.

The little part of her mind not lost to grief kept screaming at her to get up, to find a way to escape, to get to Mulder’s friends back in town and figure out the next step. But she could not bear to leave him here: in the cold, in the dark, all alone. She could not lift her head from his silent chest, because to do so would be to admit that he was gone.

When he twitched under her cheek, she thought it was her imagination, that she had begun to shiver from the cold leaching into her from the damp stone floor.

Then he moved again.

Scully bolted upright, staring at him in disbelief. “Mulder?” she asked tentatively.

“Easy, love,” came a slithering voice from the corner, and Scully jerked around to see Lettie coming back into the cavern, still in the tattered wedding gown it had been wearing—though some of the stains were new. “Some of us are cranky when we first wake.”

“‘Us’?” she repeated. “‘Wake’? He was—he’s dead . Y-you killed him and…” She shook her head, trying to clear it, but her mind was reeling and her heart was skittering and he was dead, she had watched him die but Mulder was moving and it couldn’t be, couldn’t be…

“Not dead, girl. Just another naughty boy, another naughty boy who breaks the thing he loves, like all naughty boys do.” The thing was playing with a ring around one pale, bony finger, and its voice was sad. “They always break their favorite toys. And then they must be punished.”

It moved across the floor like a whisper; Scully scrambled away from it as best she could. It leaned down close to Mulder’s body; he was definitely moving now, his eyes squeezed shut, mouth slack,  his head moving from side to side like an infant rooting for mother’s milk. Its dark, dirty hair spilled over his face, partially hiding him from view as it whispered to him. She couldn’t hear what it said, but his eyes popped open and he was dead but he was staring at her now, mouth open and nostrils flaring like he could smell her.

“Hey, Scully,” he purred, in a voice her Mulder would never use, and her mouth went dry. The vampire slipped a key into his hand; he rose with an unnerving grace and stalked towards her. The hunger in his eyes kicked her panicking heart into a higher gear. He leaned down close to her, so close she could smell the vampire’s blood on his breath. His smile was a cruel knife between her ribs. “Miss me?”

“Mulder, what happened? What are you—?”

“I’ve got you, Scully. Just relax.” He reached behind her to unlock the cuffs around her wrists, and then did the same for her ankles. She rubbed the bruised flesh around her arms. “There. That’s better. Now, where were we?”

His hand was around her throat before she could answer, shoving her across the room; her back slammed into the wall and he lifted her until her face was level with his, her feet scrambling for purchase in the air. His thumb found the pulse point below her jaw and pressed, cutting off the flow of blood to her brain; her vision swam and her head pounded. She couldn’t speak, but she pleaded with him with her eyes overflowing with tears. Please, don’t. Not you, not to me.

He only smiled.

Behind them, Lettie was crying. “Naughty boys and broken toys,” it said over and over, clasping its arms around its body and rocking back and forth.

Scully’s eyes rolled back in her head, the pounding oblivion of unconsciousness filling her vision, when he finally loosened his grip. “Mulder, what—please...” She searched his eyes for the man she knew, hoping he was in there somewhere, hoping she could reach him. Tears traced hot lines down her cheeks. “Mulder, you don’t want to do this. You have to fight it.”

All she saw in his eyes was darkness. The Mulder she knew was gone.

This was a monster under his skin.

He touched his finger to her lips and leaned in so close his coppery breath stirred the fine hair behind her ear. “Shh, Scully. I just want to play.” He nipped at the skin of her jaw and she yelped. “Don’t you want to play with me?”

“You’ve got to let me go, Mulder. I can get help. Buffy, the others—”

“Don’t need help,” he growled. He slammed her backwards into the wall so hard her skull bounced; her ears rang, and she felt the warm trickle of blood in her hair. His nostrils flared as the smell of it hit him. “Need you.”

She sagged when he released her throat, unable to do more than keep herself upright as he gripped her wrist tightly and yanked it to his face. He ran his nose along the delicate ridge of her tendon, flicking his tongue out to taste the little blue vein. The shackles had left deep, purpling bruises, like a bracelet hung with jewels of blood where the metal had cut her. He licked at them, then suckled, and then moaned as he closed his mouth around her and bit down.

Scully cried out and tried to wrench her hand away, but he gripped her arm fiercely, squeezing the fine bones of her wrist until they creaked, driving his teeth deeper into her flesh. She grabbed his hair with her free hand, pulling with all her strength; he finally released her with a snarl and she screamed in pure, animal terror at the sight of his monstrous, yellow-eyed face.

This was not her partner. This was the thing that had killed him.

“What’s the matter, Scully?” he asked, his consonants muddled around the new, long teeth filling his mouth. “Don’t you have a kiss for me?”

He slammed her wrists into the wall above her head, gripping them in one large hand and lifting her until her feet were off the floor again. He yanked at the collar of her shirt hard enough to rip the buttons off; the thing that had been Mulder snuffled like an animal against the pale skin of her collarbone, tonguing the swell of her breast. She thrashed and kicked, but he only pressed his body against hers and wedged his knee between her thighs, pinning her in place.

“Come on, Scully,” he crooned. He scraped the tips of his fangs against her skin, leaving little red trails down her sternum. “Won’t you be a good girl for me?”

“Mulder, please—”

“Mmm, that’s right, beg.” He bit her again, burying his fangs in the soft flesh above her breast and drinking deeply. She was beginning to feel woozy and nauseous, breath coming in shallow pants. Her head rolled weakly, loose on her neck, and she stared up at the blood trickling down her arm from the wound at her wrist. Her fingers started to tingle. Hypovolemic shock , her mind supplied from some distant place.

Time began to slip away.

One moment she was pinned to the wall, a butterfly writhing helplessly as her wings were torn off; the next she lay on the floor, Mulder shoving her skirt roughly up her legs and kneeling between them to rip into the delicate flesh of her thigh. Femoral artery , she thought as her blood gushed into his mouth. Another swoon and he was on top of her, the bulge of him digging into her hip, his mouth fastened to her throat, moaning and rutting as he drained her. His tongue caressed the edges of the wound almost delicately, lapping at her veins like a kitten with a bowl of milk.

Again and again he bit her, her anatomist mind cataloging each one: iliac vein, radial artery, great saphenous vein, carotid, jugular. No single bite deep enough to be fatal, but the combination leaving her faint, cold, unbearably dizzy. Her screams turned to whimpers, her whimpers into breathless, begging whines. Hot, stinging tears leaked from her eyes, and her strength bled from her limbs with every swallow he took, until she could do nothing but lie there, helpless, as he devoured her.

Her body slipped away from her, the pain becoming a distant dream. She was fading, dying—

The Morrígna are there beside her, three hands and one holding hers tenderly. She watches what comes next from inside her body, through the dark gauze of the veil falling around her; and from outside it, tears streaming down her face.

Lettie creeps up behind Mulder, pulling a tarnished, blood-stained knife from the folds of its dress. He is nestled in the crook of her elbow, her spent veins trickling weakly into his mouth; Lettie’s  long, tangled hair brushes her skin like the writhing of maggots as it leans in to purr into Mulder’s ear. It slips the knife into his hand.

Then Lettie jerks, its spine twisting as it claws at its back; it wrenches a crossbow bolt from its shoulder and whirls with a hiss to face the opposite side of the cavern.

“My God.” Giles steps into the cavern, a flashlight in one hand and a large wooden cross in the other. The Scully on the floor hadn’t met him in person yet, hadn’t known his face, but she does now; his eyes widen in shock and recognition. “I was right. That’s Leticia Crane! On her wedding night in 1871—”

Buffy comes sailing out of the darkness, her feet landing in a flying kick squarely in the center of Lettie’s chest and sending the vampire crumpling to the floor. “Save now,” the girl grunts as she rolls back up into a fighting stance, “history later.”

Scully had missed this the first time around, slipping in and out of consciousness, hearing the fight more than watching. Even now it unfolds almost too fast for her to see. Buffy moves like a whirlwind, her fists and feet flying with inhuman speed, a one-woman army with a singular focus. Lettie slips between the blows like a wraith, a boneless and unnerving grace, here one moment and gone the next, slashing jagged nails toward the Slayer’s eyes to keep her from getting too close. Then it stumbles, caught in the tattered remnants of its dress, and that’s the only opening Buffy needs; she closes in, landing a series of punches and kicks that quickly force the vampire to the floor. She plunges a wooden stake into the monster’s heart.

The vampire’s eyes widen with shock and rage; it fumbles weakly at the stake protruding from its ribcage, helpless against the death that is coming for it at last. A grim satisfaction blooms in Scully’s chest as Lettie’s flesh crumbles into dust, its bones flake away, and finally the entire creature collapses into a heap of gray ash. It takes less than a second—over a century of bloody death, countless lives snuffed out to feed its hunger and pain, gone in an instant. It was too quick, she thinks. It wasn’t quick enough.

“Buffy, there’s another one!” cries Willow, cringing against the wall with a ball of light glowing between her outstretched hands. The other Scoobies crowd close behind her, draped in weapons and holy symbols.

The light spills across Mulder as he turns, snarling, to face them. He rises into a crouch, Scully’s spent and failing body forgotten as he scents fresh meat. He spins the knife in his hand and a slow smile blooms across his blood-smeared face as he advances on them.

Buffy is on him in an instant; her first kick knocks the blade from his hand, but he has the advantage on her in reach and mass. Though his new strength makes him clumsy, his combat training is evident in the smooth ripple of his body, in the swift volley of blows they exchange. The Slayer backs away, circling, studying him with cold and calculating eyes. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth.

The Scoobies take advantage of his distraction to rush to Scully, lying in a pool of blood, breath shallow and eyes glassy. Tara drops to her knees beside her as the others take up defensive positions, a wall of flesh and crosses between Buffy’s battle with Mulder and Scully’s own, quiet struggle against the encroaching darkness. “Oh my god,” Tara says, fingers slipping and sliding in Scully’s blood as she probes her neck for a pulse. “Willow, she’s still alive! I need my bag!”

Willow turns, letting the light in her hand float upwards as she unslings a heavy canvas bag from her shoulder. She rummages through it and passes Tara a small jar, and they smear some kind of salve over Scully’s wounds. She remembers the smell of mint, the unbearable way it had itched. She watches her own body twitching as she tries to scratch, too weak to move.

“This will help stop the bleeding,” Tara whispers. “We’ve got you, okay? Stay with me.” Her arms are stained red up to the elbows, and her voice trembles with fear.

“We’ve got to put pressure on,” Willow pants. Her skin has gone green and a faint sheen of sweat covers her forehead, but her hands are steady as she begins to wrap long bands of cloth around the wounds on Scully’s arms. There are symbols written on the fabric in a rainbow of inks; Scully recognizes the caduceus and ankh among them—symbols of life and healing. Her blood seeps into the cloth and the symbols flare to life, their light throbbing in time to her weak and thready pulse. Enchanted bandages , she realizes. They saved my life with magic bandaids.

“Move her hair, there’s one on her throat that—”

“Please.” Scully is shocked at the strength in her voice, coming from that broken doll of a body. She is so pale—eyelids and lips blue, cheeks ashen, her blood-matted hair shockingly dark against her skin. Her hand lashes out with startling strength to clamp around Willow’s wrist. Her eyes flutter open but roll in her head, unable to focus, and her whole body shakes with cold and shock. She has to force the words out through teeth clenched to stop their chattering. “Please, help him.”

Willow pushes a clump of sticky hair off Scully's face. “Miss Scully?” she gasps. Her mouth hangs open as she makes the connection, the horrible realization, then she yells over her shoulder. “Buffy! That’s Mulder!”

Buffy’s eyes widen and she freezes for half a second, just long enough for Mulder to land a solid punch to her jaw. They clash, break apart, come together again in a dizzying flurry of fists and fangs. Scully knows how this fight ends—Buffy manages to subdue Mulder, binds him in chains, and she and the Scoobies drag them both back to the surface. But she cannot stand to watch Buffy beat him halfway to oblivion, to watch him try to murder one of his friends. She turns away.

“It wasn’t him,” she finally manages to say. Giles had said as much, in those first dark hours after Mulder’s soul was returned, when she had finally allowed them to take her to the hospital; as she had lain in a nest of IVs and monitor wires and listened to him explain how the world she thought she understood was barely more than a thin skin to hide the incomprehensible horrors beneath. How what had woken in that dark, cold hell was not her partner, not the Mulder she had known, but a demon wearing his face. They’d brought him back, restored his soul, but the demon would always be inside him, lurking and tempting and thirsting for blood. Like an infection that could only be managed, but never cured.

Until now.

For a dizzying moment, Scully is in three places at once—on the stone floor deep beneath the earth, her blood trickling out of her in fits and starts as she flickers back and forth across the line between life and death; in the crumbling graveyard church, her skin glowing with starlight and a blade plunging toward her heart; and in the strange place in between that the Morrígna have made for them.

The world goes still as a photograph.

The Mulder in the cave is a snarling monster, crouched and foaming pink at the mouth as he circles the Slayer, looking for the opportunity to strike. His hands twist into claws, still dripping with Scully’s blood; his face a mask of twisted rage, smeared with red. That Mulder is a terror, a demon wearing his skin, empty of everything but bloodlust and rage.

The Mulder in the church is the picture of agony, his mouth opening in a futile cry and tears brimming in his eyes. The muscles of his neck and shoulders strain as he fights Buffy’s grip, trying to wrench the knife away from its deadly descent—trying until the last to spare Scully’s life, even though it will cost him his own.

That is the Mulder who held her hand as she held her dying daughter, the only thing left to do for a life doomed before it began. Who had nearly lost his life trying to save her from Duane Barry’s trunk, and gave up everything to sit at her bedside when she was returned. The one who refused to let her sully her name and reputation even as she lay begging him on her deathbed, blood in her nose and on his hands. The one who found her at the edge of the earth and breathed life back into her frozen body.

Memories cascade through her again, with that same strange sense of the Morrígna paging through her mind like a book. She opens, welcomes them, lets the sensations spill out of her—vibrant as life, ephemeral as love. Mulder dragging her ghost-busting on Christmas Eve, so she wouldn’t have to be alone on a grim anniversary, exchanging gifts they’d both sworn they wouldn’t buy. Mulder sitting with her on a rock in the middle—or not—of a lake, cracking jokes about cannibalism five minutes into their stranding, dissecting the nature of obsession. Mulder’s voice on the phone no fewer than seventeen times the one weekend she tried to go on vacation, just to tease her about black magic while he threw pencils into the ceiling. Mulder’s hands on hers, wrestling over a baseball bat, hitting line-drives into a diamond field of stars. My constant, my touchstone.

Mulder, laughing madly with her in the rain.

That is the man she knows. That is the man she would die for.

That is the man she…

Certainty washes over her, warm as the tears on her cheeks.

Scully touches her chest and her flesh parts like water around her hand. There is no pain, not exactly—only the ache of a life unlived, of words never spoken. She reaches inside herself, seeking out the flame in her heart, and her hand emerges cupped around a mote of brilliant, golden light. It is blinding in its intensity, like a captured star, and she knows it should burn and scorch and sear her flesh from her bones; but it is soft as sunlight through a dusty basement window, tender as a hand in hers. It pulses gently in her palm.

She reaches for Mulder, for the center of his chest where the light from the knife has not yet spread to the symbols she had painted above his heart. A wound filled with shadow blooms in his chest; sludgy tendrils of black smoke writhe inside it like a living thing, spreading to wrap his body in darkness. A hideous cold radiates from it with a force that makes her want to recoil. It hurts her just to look at, just to stand in its aura of blackest winter that bites and tears and howls for the hot gush of fresh blood.

She can only imagine how he must feel with it living inside him.

Scully forces herself forward into that icy shadow, brandishing her flaming heart like a weapon. Every place the light touches, those coils of piercing darkness shriek and shrink and wither away. She knows now why the Morrígna would not let her proceed without all her memories intact; there can be no place for darkness or doubt as she presses forward, no shadow that this blight could hide behind. The fire she wields was not born from a single spark; it is born from the striking heat of flint and steel that has defined their every word and touch and gaze, every fight for and against each other, every brush of their fingers since that first fateful handshake in the basement, banked and kindled and built for years into the blinding incandescence that pulses in her hand with a life of its own.

What darkness could stand against that?

The shadow in Mulder’s heart crumbles into ash and flakes away before light in her hand, until she is staring at the empty wound in his chest. “He’ll be okay?” she asks at the last; she can no longer see the Morrígna through the blinding light, through the stinging veil of tears in her eyes, but she can feel them close by; the weight of their sadness and hope rests like a cloak over her shoulders.

They answer in one voice, in a chorus of voices, in her own voice. “The light casts out the darkness. The flame kindles life where once was death. To share it freely with another, to yield it unto him that he might live: there is no greater gift, no more perfect sacrifice.”

Scully nods, unable to speak past the tightness in her throat, and tucks the light into Mulder’s chest; the symbols on his skin glow and begin to pulse with the same slow, steady rhythm as the flame. She lays her hand over the wound, watching as the edges knit themselves together, but rather than fading away, the light instead grows even brighter, flooding through the symbols burned into his chest and stomach and arms until they burn too brightly to look at. It fills his eyes, shines through his skin until she can see the shadowy ghosts of his bones beneath; the world turns gold, then white, until she can barely make out his face in the blinding radiance. She feels the heat of it now, as if she is a wisp of cloud, a bubble of sea foam, dissolving in its brilliance. She lets it subsume her.

As her last sense of self evaporates in that overwhelming light, she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Goodbye, she tells him. Live .

I promise I'm done killing people after this. Y'all when I say this chapter almost killed me! It took by far the longest to write, because landing a plot plane is hard. And then. AND THEN. I LOST like 90% of it in a pebcak error (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard, aka it was my own damn fault for not saving) and cried for hours. I almost threw up. Haven't felt that level of slow-dawning visceral horror since the last time I accidentally deleted a paper in high school. It took even longer to reconstruct than it did to write the first time, and I'm not entirely sure the second try is as good as the first, but here we are. I hope it broke your heart! <3 My immense and eternal thanks to@perpetually-weirdening and @storybycorey for putting up with my insanity as I struggled with the same 4 lines for a solid week. I was lost in the trees and they helped me see the way through the forest. We're in the home stretch now! Comments, scrapbook, you know the drill. (I am 100% literal about this. I keep it by my computer for motivation.)

#stained #my writing #my fanfic #crossover #txf #the x files #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #fox mulder #dana scully #buffy summers #willow rosenberg #tara maclay #xander harris #rupert giles #spike btvs #anya jenkins