#and given there seems to limited supplies i think one of them would have died if shidou needed to treat three critical patients

[good-beanswrites]

If it's okay with you, could you write a drabble about the hypothetical aftermath of Amane getting attacked by Kotoko?

Welp thank you pal for making me absolutely insane with this request 👍 I ran through a few hypotheticals and realized I had to shift some things around since there were so many absolutely tragic outcomes. I worked something out but damn if it didn’t make me emotional to think about how uniquely rough Amane has it. Even making sure she's in a good place at the end, this got pretty serious, so warnings for child abuse and cult references. 

(So in canon, Kotoko goes in order and attacks Fuuta, but Kazui steps in. Then she attacks Mahiru while he’s distracted with his injuries. She’s about to attack Amane, but Mikoto gets in the way (my hc that he did it on purpose survives!). By the time they reach a draw, Kazui is back, and the two of them can prevent Kotoko from any further action against Amane. Sticking to this apparent system of three attacks and one rescue, I’m just shuffling around the injuries for this story. Fuuta’s attack went unnoticed, and he’s in the same state as canon Mahiru. Mikoto steps in before Kotoko can fight Mahiru, so Mappi’s the one who get out physically unscathed. While Mikoto checks on Mahiru, recovers himself, or discovers Fuuta, Kotoko is able to attack Amane next. Kazui comes to help, but not before she leaves Amane looking like canon Fuuta.)

Mahiru could practically feel her heart shatter into a million pieces when Amane finally cried in front of her. She hadn’t shed a single tear yesterday – it was the shock, Shidou said. Mahiru was skeptical. After all, she had been shocked, too, and cried plenty.

Amane woke as she came in with breakfast. She took a moment to survey herself, bandages peeking out from beneath her pajamas and an eyepatch securely over her right eye. As calmly as one might say “good morning,” she started to cry. Mahiru might have missed it, if Amane hadn’t wiped at her good eye with her sleeve.

“Oh, sweetheart…!” Mahiru rushed over to her. “It’s okay, I’m here.” She wanted nothing more than to wrap the girl in a secure embrace, but she remembered the mass of bandages that were around her chest. Shidou had mentioned broken ribs and bruises. It took everything in her not to cry along with Amane, at the thought.

“I can get you another ice pack, if you need. Or more medicine.” Her mind spun with ways to help with pain. Many of the first aid supplies had been used to keep Fuuta from the brink of death, but surely there were extras to spare for Amane. 

The girl just shook her head. 

She muttered, “I can’t… I…I’m going to be punished, I’m going to be punished…”

“No! You’re safe now.” Mahiru placed her hands gently on Amane’s arms. “Kotoko’s not coming back. We’re all watching over you. You’re safe. She’s not going to hurt you anymore.” 

“That’s not…” Amane pulled away. Her voice stayed level, despite hiccups interrupting her. A hand reached up to her eyepatch. “It’s this. It’s all of this. It’s sinful. I took it off last night, but he must have…” She started unwrapping it. “They’re going to punish me...” 

With a careful motion, Mahiru held it in place and took Amane’s hands into her own. She’d been picking up on the signs ever since they arrived here together, and a final wave of understanding washed over her. 

“I can’t let you do that.”

Amane’s expression twisted, though words came out far more frantic than fiery. “Let me go.” 

Mahiru didn’t. “I’m sorry. Amane, you need this treatment.”

“That is not your decision to make. That is not any human’s decision to make.”

Mahiru pressed her lips together. “I know. But I can’t watch as you… I can’t sit by again while someone…” She was careful not to apply any pressure, but she could no longer fight the urge to gather Amane up in her arms. “You don’t need to be afraid of those people, anymore.”

“I’m not afraid.” Amane hiccuped. “They love me, and I love them. I need to be good for them.”

“I love you, and I don’t want to see you in pain.”

“You just pity me because I’m young.”

“Why does your age matter? You are a lovely young woman – you are my friend – and I can’t bear to see you in pain.”

The two sat in silence for a moment. Mahiru doubted she would take that as an answer; Amane had refused to call any of the others her friend. At least she didn’t argue. In fact, it seemed she was leaning into the embrace a bit more. She sighed a shaky breath into Mahiru’s uniform.

“Listen, Amane. Can you do me a favor? I’m trying to be a good girl, too. To make up for something awful, I need to make sure you’re alright. Can you help me? Can we be good together?”

A long pause followed. Amane’s voice spoke up, ever so gently.

“I suppose I can consider it.” She added quickly, “for the sake of your redemption. Of course.”

“Of course.”

#milgram #amane momose #mahiru shiina #thank you so much! i dont want to be bubbly on such a serious drabble but i want to give an enthusiastic thanks because this one really got #the gears turning!! #i started making plans as soon as i saw the ask and it took so long finding something that wouldnt result in straight up tragedy :( #if i kept to the initial timeline and said kazui didnt step in until amanes attack then both fuuta and mahiru would be close to death #and given there seems to limited supplies i think one of them would have died if shidou needed to treat three critical patients #so i moved people around to make sure everyone survived #which brought me to the main problem of amane self sabotaging her medical care #even minor injuries could have resulted in death if she got her way and removed bandages/refused treatment #but the mental strain of keeping the treatment would be just as bad as the physical pain -- shed be paranoid 24/7 of #divine punishment and repeating the mistakes that led her here.... it would hurt more to be forced like that #so i needed someone to be able to get through to her gently #but the only one who shes been able to trust just got the shit beat out of him and is in no position to talk!!!! #everyone else would just make her more upset or not know how to convince her the right way :( #still - i think mahiru could do it the best! with her own trauma from allowing loved ones to die in front of her i think shed be motivated #so. yeah. #i know amane is supposed to be talking in the plural pronoun now but i couldnt get it to work - lets just say that kicks in soon after this #tw cults #tw child abuse #drabbles

[akajustmerry]

"The cycle of violence in The Last of Us Part II appears to be largely modelled after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I suspect that some players, if they consciously clock the parallels at all, will think The Last of Us Part II is taking a balanced and fair perspective on that conflict, humanizing and exposing flaws in both sides of its in-game analogues. But as someone who grew up in Israel, I recognized a familiar, firmly Israeli way of seeing and explaining the conflict which tries to appear evenhanded and even enlightened, but in practice marginalizes the Palestinian experience in a manner that perpetuates a horrific status quo.

The game's co-director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, an Israeli who was born and raised in the West Bank before his family moved to the U.S., told the Washington Post that the game's themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story.

“I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal?” Druckmann told the Post. “This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.”

"That's what this story is about, do the ends justify the means, and it's so much about perspective. If it was to save a strange kid maybe Joel would have made a very different decision, but when it was his tribe, his daughter, there was no question about what he was going to do," Druckmann said.

In the game, most of the Wolves regime's restrictions are directed at a post-apocalyptic religious sect called the Seraphites (the Wolves call them "Scars" after the ritualistic scarring of their faces). These Scars vexed FEDRA as well when it was in control. The dynamic in the city when the game begins is one of conflict, escalation, and a broken truce. The Wolves, like FEDRA, leverage more resources and raw power, while the Scars rely on surprise strikes against Wolf patrols, and a zealous willingness to die for the cause.

To run through just a few key ways in which the Scars uncomfortably reflect some Israeli stereotypes about Palestinians: Later in the game, Ellie finds a location called "Martyr Gate," where the Scars' spiritual leader apparently died, indicating a religious significance of a specific and disputed location, and emphasizing the notion of martyrdom as central to their culture. The Scars are able to get around Wolf patrols and various barriers around the city via an elaborate, secret system of bridges between skyscrapers. These function as a kind of flipped version of the underground tunnels Palestinians use to bypass Israeli blockades and other means of limiting free movement in order to get supplies and carry out attacks on Israel.

In The Last of Us Part II's Seattle, Scars and Wolves hurt each other terribly, and the same can be said about Israel and Palestine. The difference is that when flashes of violence abate and the smoke clears, one side continues to live freely and prosper, while the other goes back to a life of occupation and humiliation. One side continues to expand while the other continues to lose the land it needs to live. Imagining this process as some kind of symmetric cycle benefits one side more than the other, and allows it to continue.

Ellie's journey of revenge seems especially cruel, even idiotic, because we are never given a good reason for why she keeps recommitting to it. Acts of cruelty along the way, like Ellie's torturing another character to get information, are presented as inevitable. This seems to be The Last of Us Part II's thesis: humans experience a kind of "intense hate that is universal," as Druckmann told The Post, which keep us trapped in these cycles. This is not a universal feeling as much as it's a learned way of seeing the world. 

The Last of Us Part II is an incredible journey that provides not only one of the most mesmerizing spectacles that we've seen from big budget video games, but one that manages to ask difficult questions along the way. It's clearly coming from an emotionally authentic and self-examining place. The trouble with it, and the reason that Ellie's journey ultimately feels nonsensical, is that it begins from a place that accepts "intense hate that is universal" as a fact of life, rather than examining where and why this behaviour is learned."

The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of 'The Last of Us Part II' by Emanuel Maiberg

#tlou #the last of us part 2 #the last of us #neil druckmann #free palestine #palestine #unfriendly time to rmr who made this game and why the violence is like that #/

[alhilton]

hi! i just finished distraction in the hunters universe and just started arcove’s bright side - i’m super enjoying them so far! i did have a bit of a question when it comes to the worldbuilding if that’s all right to ask? do the creasia have a taboo against incest, or does it not matter after a certain point of relation? i’m curious if only because carmine and wisteria are both related through arcove (arcove being his son and wisteria his granddaughter) and attention is drawn to that in the narrative, in terms of how much they both look like and take after arcove. is this sort of thing generally accepted in creasia society, or is it given a pass since they’re both higher-ranking? i’m not asking to be a weird freak or anything, it just kind of hit me as a “oh right that’s a little odd” when i realized fully, haha. genuinely just curious - but also feel 100% free to delete this if that’s not something you’d want to discuss on your tumblr blog, i get that it’s kind of A Bummer by nature. again, super genuinely enjoying the books, i really love your prose and how the world feels so deeply lived in and real and how textured every character is, even the minor ones. wisteria is also an absolute icon with her two boyfriends, god bless her lmao

Hi, there. Thank you for your kind words! I'll answer your question, but I've done so in even more detail here - https://shop.abigailhilton.com/b/1HLeF (it's a free download) These are essays I wrote while researching lions for Distraction and Bright Side. I examine the potential for inbreeding depression, not just in creasia, but also in ferryshaft and other species on Lidian. I talk about the (highly bisexual) biology of real lions, the ways in which I modeled creasia on them, and the ways in which I made creasia different. In answer to your question, real lions have no inbreeding taboo. Ruling males don't usually hold a pride long enough to mate with their adult daughters. Teenaged males have a strong instinct to roam once they hit puberty. They travel far from their natal prides and seek to take over a distant pride. Females stay with their natal pride. That's how real lions avoid inbreeding. If young males are prevented from roaming (by habitat fragmentation), they may end up taking over a pride with relatives and will mate with them. I have given my creasia some degree of incest taboo, partially because I think it's too difficult for humans to relate to them otherwise and partially because I think it's a useful trait to have evolved, what with their limited range and food supply. They have an incest taboo that applies to siblings and parents, possibly great-grand parents. Those would be the most generically dangerous pairings. However, their are many other types of relatedness that humans recognize that creasia do not. In addition, creasia generations run into each other in ways that could not happen in human beings. Human women enter menopause right about the time that their daughters hit puberty. In creasia, mothers and daughters will have babies at the same time, perhaps for decades. Creasia are teenagers capable of reproduction at 4, young adults at 6, and fully adult by 8-10. Historically, most alpha males have died in fights by their 20's or 30's, while females and unambitious clutter males have sometimes lived into their 60's. This allows plenty of time for generations to run into each other. Now they're living even longer because they're becoming less violent. In this milieu, you would see generational pairings that would seem strange and impossible to human beings. Carmine is Wisteria's half uncle on her father's side and her great-half uncle on his mother's side. It really is a pretty twisty family tree. FYI, Wisteria has 2 kings in her ancestry. Ketch was Caraca's father. Creasia would not regard this as a close familial relationship or any form of incest. Indeed, it's unlikely to cause their cubs any problems. Arcove has been a very successful male creasia, which means his genes are going to be dominant in the population for quite a while. Halvery even more so (lol). In real lions, nearly all the females will contribute genetically to the population, but not so the males. A tiny percentage of the most successful males will sire all the cubs. So you have this same effect. Any deleterious genes lurking in those successful males could have outsized effects on the population, unfortunately. But real lions seems to weather this just fine.

#hunters unlucky #creasia #I babble on and on and on about lions genetics #lions #FYI Wisteria and Shimmer have a long conversation about the history of the king's den in Legacy #In answering this question I realized that I probably should mention that Wisteria is blood of two kings; she's got that over Carmine #Polyamory in creasia would be a form of hedging their bets genetically since they do have a fairly small population

[itsmnee]

wip wednesday

tw: major character death

canon divergence in which naruto dies during the war and sasuke has unresolved amnesia afterward. because i wanted to hurt myself, apparently.

///

On the twenty-eighth day, Sasuke begins his morning the usual way. Ten minute shower. Fresh clothes, all brand new and bearing the family crest he feels no connection to. Breakfast consisting of tea, two eggs over rice, and a piece of fruit. Quick skim of the newspaper that is left outside his door by five o’clock. Then, he walks. He never has a particular destination in mind. He’s committed a map of the entire village to memory by now, but he wanders aimlessly, waiting to stumble across something or somewhere that doesn’t feel quite so foreign.

He ends up in the woods, examining the trees that have been endlessly abused by various weapons and jutsu over the years. Had he made that mark? Perhaps he sat under that one’s shade to eat his lunch? Has he climbed this trunk, those branches? His questions are met by silence, and he keeps walking. 

Soon, he’s gathered a collection of abandoned shuriken and kunai. He drops them into a pile near a tree with a painted target and picks up a shuriken first, twirling it around a finger, measuring its weight in his hand. It definitely feels like something he’s done before. Without aiming, he tosses it toward the tree and it hits the target dead center. It was intuitive, his wrist automatically replicating the movement it’d made a million times before. He experiments with a few more, then throws a handful at once, then tries multiple targets. He never misses. 

When his supply is depleted, he starts to retrace his steps back toward the main part of town. The target practice was satisfying at the time, but now he just feels frustrated. He was told he's one of the strongest shinobi in existence, of course he can hit a static target without thinking. But it’s been difficult to envision himself as a shinobi—no one was eager to test the limits of his muscle memory during his recovery and rehabilitation. After all, why see what an ultra-powerful amnesiac with no present loyalty to their village is capable of?

He’s reached the Academy now. He’s been here several times, wondering how he could spend so many days in one place and not remember a single second of it. The swing on the tree out front sways lightly as he passes it, just as empty as always. As he lifts his gaze to the Leaf symbol above the building’s entrance, a brown-haired man exits the door, busily shoving a mess of papers into a bag. Then, sensing Sasuke’s presence, he looks up and promptly freezes on the spot. Sasuke hasn't talked to him before, but he recognizes his face from his studies with Sakura.

“Sasuke! Well, I’d heard you were discharged recently… h-how are you doing?” 

“Iruka,” Sasuke acknowledges. “I’m… alive.” What else is there to say?

“Ah.” Iruka awkwardly scratches the bridge of his nose. “No changes on the memory front, then?” Sasuke’s silence is his answer. He clears his throat, then appears to be lost in thought for a moment. “I have something to give you, actually.” He starts to walk away from the school and motions for Sasuke to follow him.

They walk the short distance to Iruka’s apartment without talking. Inside, he immediately offers Sasuke some tea and senbei that he gratefully accepts, having yet to eat lunch. He then disappears into his bedroom and reappears a few minutes later, carrying a hitai-ate. 

“It’s—was—Naruto’s,” he explains as he sits at the table across from Sasuke, gingerly placing it on the surface between them. He’s quiet for a few moments, blinking rapidly. “It was given to me after his funeral, but… I know he would want you to have it.” He glances up, regarding Sasuke’s impassive expression. “I understand it may not mean anything to you, since you don’t remember…” He trails off, and it seems to take some effort to speak again. “It’d mean a lot if you kept it. I’m sorry if that’s too much to ask.”

Sasuke lowers his cup, careful to keep his face blank. He reaches forward and takes the hitai-ate into his hand, bringing it closer. He traces over the engraved metal just as he’d done to Naruto’s name on the gravestone the day before. Sakura has spoken of Naruto exactly once, in a clinical, detached tone that Sasuke didn't have to remember her to know disguised her pain. Naruto was, apparently, the greatest hero of their time. He’d gone from a lonely orphan to one of the most powerful and well-respected shinobi in the world. He tamed—no, befriended—the Kyuubi. And above all else, he was Sasuke’s best friend and rival. They had a connection no one else could understand. Soulmates. Naruto would go to the ends of the earth to save him, would sacrifice his life for him without hesitation. And he did.

It was a lot to bear, this legacy of someone he could not remember. Naruto was renowned throughout the village, throughout the world. The current state of peace was largely attributed to his actions. He was everywhere, his name on everyone’s tongues, his loss tying everyone together with collective mourning.

Everyone except for Sasuke. 

“I’ll hold onto it.” 

Iruka breathes a sigh of relief, turning his head to discreetly wipe his eyes. “Thanks, Sasuke.” He swallows, now meeting Sasuke’s gaze full-on. Sasuke fleetingly wonders how he got the scar across his nose. “You meant a lot to him.” His voice is a bit forceful, as if he needs Sasuke to understand this.

Sasuke simply nods and takes another drink. He hesitates, then says: “Tell me about him.”

#bymnee #wip wednesday #sns #sasunaru #narusasu #tw: major character death

[kongthapatom]

Our Song is the new gay anthem

I’ve been thinking a lot about the lyrics of Our Song, the montage in episode 11 and how Bad Buddy retrospectively changed the way I perceive romance. The song made PatPran become THE couple of the 21st century whose love story holds enough magic and power to nullify whatever preceded them and might possibly follow. The lyrics see Pran considering the possible definitions of love and arriving at a conclusion, only that conclusion is madly inspirational and completely startling. Let’s do a breakdown.

“If our love was a song If our story was written out to sing along What kind of a song do you think our love would be?"

The song establishes itself as a metatextual ode at first, planning on turning their love story into a timeless song and wondering what great feats of love it might boast about. Traditionally, love stories are often romanticized to talk about extraordinary things and leave us wistful for the impossible but that's also what distinguishes the ordinary stories from the ones that stand the test of time.

"Is love a beautiful world? Something of grandeur Is it a sky, a mountain, a sea, or other kind of splendor?"

The song wonders if PatPran's love story could perhaps be like those awe-inspiring love stories that have portrayed love as a force that stopped at nothing, that which the heavens have wept for, the mountains toppled for and the seas rose in fury for, or other such life-changing stories that people have fought, died and conquered the limits of nature for.

The stories we tend to remember are ones that elevate mortal romance into something miraculous and undying. Modern day love stories seldom talk about that soul-consuming kind of love. After all, doesn't love seem to be more indomitable in a time or world where the stakes are much higher and people have to fight kingdoms, gods, monsters, corrupt governments, time-traveling assassins, aliens or anything else you can imagine to exhibit the sheer power of love?

I think PatPran's love story acknowledges it isn't your typical extraordinary love story, but in doing so, it also becomes the living example of 21st century romance that has convinced the viewers of the magical nature of PatPran's love, that especially queer people have not witnessed since the inception of time.

"I've now realized what my love is about It's something small that I just can't live without"

The song goes on to dismiss the association of their love with something so grand and epic, and it is right given that this is a simple story about two boys who lived next door and fell in love. Only I see it as PatPran rejecting the definitions of love that romance has supplied us with so far and creating their own.  

Naturally, all these popular love stories have had straight protagonists and though they all displayed these epic qualities, it had little resonance with the queer experience in love. It is only in recent times that romance is being written with badass, relatable queer protagonists and making up for what was lost. It isn't an exaggeration to say a lot of queer kids have grown up without inspirational examples of love that showed them they can do everything straight protagonists have been doing and so much more. PatPran are the first example of an explicitly queer love story that has given us the kind of validation straight people get everyday. Simply put, we didn't have a great example to look up to the way straight people have had dozens but PatPran just became our first and ultimate one.

The scenes chosen for the montage celebrate their love as one that is made up of seemingly insignificant memories like a childhood friend, a broken watch that will one day start ticking again, a guitar pick, a song you wrote with the person you love, a second chance with this fated one, pushing the fine line between friendship and something more, finally having the courage to follow your heart and the happiness that results from these small things because you are living your life wholeheartedly with the love of your life. These are all experiences that echo deeply with any queer person growing up in the 21st century. 

But PatPran’s story embracing the small things doesn't change the fact that Bad Buddy has still managed to become an extraordinary love story and a whoppingly successful romantic comedy that certainly deserves the kind of praise and hype that has surrounded the het love stories humanity remembers. In fact it deserves much more because it has done for queer people what history has inadvertently done for cishets by perpetuating straight romance. It also showcases grand romantic moments the genre allows it to like Pat's confession on the steps, Pran's declaration via this song and the fact that this story is the queer iteration of a tale as old as time. Have we not swooned and squealed for it from start to finish the way most people would for any so-called epic romance? 

This queercoded interpretation of PatPran searching for an example of a love like theirs and becoming one when they didn't find any also coincides with Pat asking Pran, "What we have now, what should we call it?" on the rooftop. It is an inherently queer sentiment a lot of us grew up with. The world has told us that the way we love was not at all the ordinary or normal way and that left a gaping question mark as to what words can be used to define a love that did justice to us. I have great news because we no longer have to listen to the nonsense anyone tells us or let queer kids grow up wondering. Pran Parakul found the answer for all of us!

"Just a love song that you need to listen to Just lyrics that are nothing new But you and I know the meaning between the lines"

These lines best embody BBS team's vision to depict PatPran's love story as something absolutely commonplace as het romance and normalize the heck out of queer relationships in doing so. With three lines, it makes up for all the queer erasure from the past and becomes a story that unconditionally belongs to us now. It proves there is no difference between queer love and what the majority of earth's population experiences. It is as ordinary as, and the same thing as what countless love songs and endless lyrics have talked about all this while. And it does that without a half-assed attempt at queer representation, or portraying queerness as the central source of conflict or their entire identity, or ending up ostracizing queer people more instead of making queer romance more mainstream.

Bad Buddy really did that! It changed everything wrong with queer storytelling so far. And this is the truth that queer people, represented by Pat and Pran in this universe have always known and fought for. The meaning between the lines where we have always been right.

"There are no perfect sweet words Just listen with your heart to find The answer I've been searching for Love is nothing else but you"

I have to admit I cry every time I hear Pran sing the line "Love is nothing else but you" to Pat. Pran concludes in plain and profound words that love is nothing else but the guy that he is in love with and he thus formulates the definition of love for queer people. Because what is love? It is nothing other than the freedom to be with the person you love and nothing else but living out our heart’s desires as our truest selves. To choose the person we love above all else and choose them to be our everything for the rest of our life. That single line personifies entire lifetimes of queer sentiment. Though others have tried to define it, PatPran’s definition is the most impressive definition that we connected with and felt represented by so far. 

In conclusion, Our Song is truly a significant song that summarizes their relationship and shows us happy endings are possible in real life. If that is not proof of magic for queer people, then what is? I’m not sure if we can convince everyone on this planet to watch this love story and listen to this song but I promise to not stop until PatPran have become a queer household name. Bad Buddy has done way too much for us to not keep its legacy alive. 

#bad buddy #bad buddy series #patpran #pat pran #bad buddy the series #bad buddy meta #bad buddy analysis #backaof noppharnach #patpran meta #patpran analysis #p'aof #bad buddy episode 11 #bad buddy ep 11 #our song #pat x pran #queer representation #bad buddy finale #bad buddy ep 12 #bad buddy episode 12 #bad buddy ost #jan's 2 cents

[anika-ann]

In the Strangest Place (We Just Might Find Love) - Pt.1

Type: two-shot, pretty much canon

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader     Word count: 3700

Summary: You’re hiding from your boss in a supply closet, minding your own business, when a stranger joins you unexpectedly. 

This is not a beginning of a steamy story; given the reason you’re hanging out in the dark, even a make-out session is honestly the last thing you want to fantasize about right now.

But that doesn’t mean that the nice stranger cannot make your day much better. 

Warnings: mention of sexual harassment, a bit of angst, attempt at humour, language

You were on the verge of screaming – or crying, you honestly weren't sure anymore. But you knew you were done. You had worked your fingers to a bone just to get here; to become a little bee in the most famous hive in Manhattan. Stark Industries. The Stark/Avengers Tower. The beacon of the New York skyline. The dream coming true.

Yeah, not so much.

You hadn't expected super-important assignments – after all, you were just an assistant to the head of one of too many departments – but God, you had not expected to be handling coffee so often. To be running ridiculous errands. Your degree from MIT should actually mean something here! If nothing else than that you were not just some pretty face and that you fucking didn’t deserve the treatment you were receiving.

And that was the root of trouble, really. You could handle making your way up, it would be tiring but not surprising, it was pretty much what you had assigned for.

But you had not assigned for the sexist comments, disgusting innuendo and for the grabby hands of your sleazy boss. Thomas Gregory was a fucking nightmare of a man and you swore that you were quitting if he called you a ‘Dollface’ or slapped your ass one more time.

And that was how you had got here, into this very moment; hiding in a dark supply closet like a creep with two cups of overpriced coffee in a cup holder and a piece of organic carob-nut muffin.

You weren't about to come out any time soon, because you simply knew your boss still would be a pig and give you yet another reason to hand in your notice and you had fucking wanted this job for so long, worked for it so hard and sacrificed too much that you just couldn't make yourself to quit no matter how much your skin cringed and your stomach rolled over every time Thomas Gregory touched you. It was so frustrating you wanted to scream.

Or cry, you still couldn't solve the dilemma. Maybe both.

You barely registered the hurried footsteps – and then the door was yanked open, you glimpsed a tall blond male figure and suddenly there was dark again. Except there was one more body in the very limited room of the closet, making you press your back onto the shelf.

Something rattled with your movement and the newcomer hissed a barely audible ‘Be quiet’ as two columns of muscles that were probably his arms framed your head leaning onto the very same shelf, so you could both fit in here.

The little order leaving his lips broke the last seal inside you. You were tired, frustrated and were receiving enough humiliation as it was, you did not need some random guy invading your hideout, barking orders.

“Look, mister, if you have any problem with me trying to make a little space for you in this tiny-ass closet, I recommend you to-”  

“Shh!” he hushed you and you thought you had never heard someone whisper so urgently; at least it sounded less bossy than before. It did not mollify you though, because this guy actually had enough impudence to-

“Don't you dare to shush me-!”

A hand went to cover your mouth and you let out an exasperated mumble of curses, while his voice continued.

“Please, just— I'm sorry, please, don't make a sound, my friend is trying to set me up and-”

Your eyes went wide and he suddenly fell silent. Before you could question his methods of shutting you up, his exclaim or the pause, and ask him to be so kind to find another closet, another male voice sounded somewhere behind the door.

“Come on, Steeeve. Man, don't be such a prude. Lillian is a great chic, okay?”

The man – the friend, you assumed – seemed annoyed and you couldn't believe that Steve had not been kidding you. He was actually hiding for the very reason he had offered you. You nodded as you heard the stranger behind the door move and the hand covering your mouth hesitantly disappeared.

“It's just a lip piercing, don't be such a tight-ass. It can actually be quite fun, you wouldn't believe what a girl can do with such thing…”

“Gross,” you commented soundlessly and you could feel your companion’s eyes burning a hole into your head in silent agreement.

“Goddammit, Steve!”

The voice and the footsteps slowly disappeared in the distance and you… you were face to face with a stranger named Steve in a limited space of a dark supply closet, his breath tickling your scalp, his cologne very much assaulting your nose; at least it was a pleasant assault.

“I'm sorry for being so rude. And thank you,” his voice caressed your hairline gently and hearing his suddenly polite tone and evaluating this whole situation, you could barely hold back a giggle all of sudden.

“You're welcome, Steve. How long has this been going on?”

“Two days-” That didn't sound too bad, he could probably take a lot more- “-at this level. With Lillian. It was Emily before that and Angelina before that. In smaller scale, it's been happening for about four months,” he recited dutifully as if he was reporting a status to his boss and this time you couldn’t help it – you giggled.

When you could feel the wounded gaze he gave you, you obediently made a sympathetic noise.

“Aww, poor you, your friend supplying you with no doubt great relationship material…”

“That’s what he said! But I don't want a relationship material. I don't want any material, not even his… one-night stand material. What does that mean anyway? These are women he's talking about, not a material-”

You let out a tiny pleased sound at his exasperation, which shut him up. You wondered if it was your turn to speak – it was hard to tell, supply-closet conversations weren't exactly your area of expertise.

“Kudos for that thinking,” you noted after short silence and the darker shadow of his figure tilted his head. “Did you try to tell him that you weren't interested…? Of course you did, why am I asking, that was a stupid question…”

“It's okay. I'm sorry, I got a little… carried away. It just… it's like talking to a brick wall.”

You hummed in sympathy again and the room fell into silence once more.

It was ridiculous how much your mind started working over hundred percent, trying to come up with something appropriate to say. The best you could do was:

“Hey, you want a cup of overpriced organic coffee? I happen to have two.”

The needy noise that let his lips was downright pornographic. Or maybe it was your mind playing tricks on you, the strange environment finally getting to you.

“I knew I smelled coffee here! I thought I went completely insane.”

You couldn't help but smile at that. Yeah, you knew the feeling all too well.

“Nope, your senses were not playing tricks on you. Help yourself. It should be around your left hand.” A rustling of a paper bag. “Oh. That's a carob-nut muffin – with carob instead of cocoa. You can have that too, I won't need that.”

“Alright, I gotta ask. Why are you hiding in a supply closet, with a muffin and two cups of expensive coffee nonetheless? And may I hand you one?”

“Such a gentleman. Thanks,” you murmured and accepted the cup. You weren't lying about not needing it – you wouldn't. Because you were about to quit; it was inevitable.

You sipped the warm liquid, its taste as bitter as the reason behind your actions.

“So?”

“I'm hiding from my boss.”

Your voice must have sounded terrible, because his own softened at the confession.

“And why is that?”

“Because if I bring him his coffee and muffin, he'll probably call me his good girl and— and slap my butt and-”

“I beg your pardon?” he growled, like honest to God growled, the strange sound warming your scalp.

And it was the righteous outrage in the sound he let out, the reaction that you needed, someone agreeing with you – a stranger, who wouldn’t feel obliged to do so just it was a duty of being a good friend to you – that made the levee break. Suddenly tears were streaming down your face, anger and humiliation, and your breath was hitching in embarrassing hiccups and the dark space felt so anonymous and safe at the same time that you didn't even care anymore.

“And if he does that I’ll have to– to quit, because I-I'm so fucking fed up with his dis-disgusting hands and si-sickening voice voicing his lizard thoughts a-and I ca-can't quit goddammit, I worked so fucking hard to-to get a job h-here and-”

You didn't realise your hands started trembling until the cup disappeared from them, placed back on the shelf, and a pair of much bigger and warmer hands gently enveloped yours, his body shifting just a little closer as he lost the support that had been keeping some distance between you.

“Hey, hey, shh, it's gonna be okay…” his voice washed over you soothingly, sounding almost at your ear.

Still, there was space between your bodies, a respectable distance – as respectable as possible in the limited space. It was as if he acknowledged it could make you uncomfortable – which probably wasn't exactly hard to figure out, given what you just told him.

“I'm sorry,” you sobbed and cleared your throat afterwards in attempt to compose yourself. “I didn't mean to load that on you, my problems are none of your concern-”

“Like hell they aren't. Sexual harassment on a workplace is everyone's concern, or it should be,” he grunted. His hands tightened their grip, not uncomfortably – reassuring. “This okay?”

You smiled through your tears. This Steve guy was really sweet to you. You almost forgot what it was like to be treated with respect.

“Y-yeah. Thank you for-- for asking. That was really nice.”

He huffed. “It should be a normal human decency. And I did grab you before that, sorry.”

“Something tells me you would let go if I said no more vehemently.”

“Of course I would.”

You gave him a watery smile he couldn't see and tried to calm your breathing completely. His thumb caressing your wrist helped. You wondered which department he was from; if his skills in comforting came with a job description or if he was a natural.

“Have you… have you tried to fill in a report?” he asked hesitantly, making your heart stop.

Oh yeah, you had. It had ended up in a shredder machine, because Thomas had spotted it. He had made you do it yourself, standing over you and watching, claiming the complaint had been baseless and it would pointless to hand it anyway, because he would explain the HR how it truly was. That you had made a move and he, the good father and husband he had been, politely turned you down, which turned you vengeful.

You whispered the story to Steve, your voice trembling, more tears escaping and you could immediately tell he believed you – because his grip grew steely strong, his teeth grinding.

“This is wrong. You should have never been forced to work for a man like him– objectifying you, touching you, threatening you, that's just--- you should talk to Tony,” he blurted out in the end and you frowned.

“Who's Tony?”

You had checked the whole HR department via their website when doing your research. You couldn't recall any Tony.

There was a short pause, broken by Steve's confused voice. “Stark.”

You blinked, wondering if Steve was joking. He didn't sound like he was joking, which was strange, because so far, he had seemed to be a smart and reasonable man.

“There's no way I'm scoring a meeting with Mr. Stark. And it's not like he’s dealing with things like that.”

“...Talk to Pepper then. I doubt she has bigger than zero tolerance for harassment,” he exclaimed confidently as if talking to Pepper Potts (this time you assumed whom he was talking about – did he call all of the big bosses their first name…?) was an option for a regular human being like you. Realizing that all over again though, that was tough.

“While I believe that’s her policy, it's not like I can just walk into her office.”

Steve seemed to consider that, while his thumb was still drawing patterns on your skin, almost subconsciously.

“I think you could. But if you're worried it might take a while and you’re scared to go back to your office now, let me walk you. I can explain him that every employee deserves to be treated with respect,” he offered finally, deadly serious, yet still sounding kind.

Your heart swelled. A guy you just met (in a supply closet, a good story to be narrated at parties, you supposed), suggested to help you out, no hesitation. God, wasn't he just too pure for this world?

“I… thank you, Steve. But… while you do have an impressive frame, I think it would only get worse. I think I'll just enjoy this extremely hipster coffee, which I'll later have to pay for no doubt and… and go face my boss to hand him my resignation. There are plenty jobs, right? I can as well serve coffee in a café,” you said with a sad smile, letting your hands slip from his comfortable hold.

“That's not right. Especially if you worked hard to– not to mention it's a matter of principle. You run away once and… running is a very hard habit to break,” he whispered, as if a secret, trying to reason with you.

You bit your lip when the truth of his words washed over you, along with the way he spoke; with such a strong believe in principles that should stand a standard. It… he made you forgot your own trouble for a second as you let yourself get lost in him. In the way he treated you, the protector's persona, yet not forced. He had suggested you to ‘let him come with you’, not even a note of command in his approach. This was not a man seeing an opportunity to be a hero when spotting the damsel in distress; this was a man who believed in what was right and wanted to fix things that were apparently broken. You wished there were more men like him, selfishly wanting one of them to be your boss.

“And men like these – they need to be put in line,” he added darkly, snapping you from your daydreaming of a better world. “Let me come with you. I'll—I’ll help you fill in the forms, walk you to HR. You don't have to deal with this alone.”

For all the comfort the dark had offered you so far, you wished for a little bit more light now, enough to see his face, his eyes. You knew they would be burning with honesty, you were sure of it, maybe a little rage aimed at a man who dared to treat another human being the way he did.

The offer was so tempting. But just imagining the security escorting Steve from the building for wanting to help you was enough to put out the fiery need to accept. It was ridiculous to care so much about his well-being after what could be minutes of knowing him, but no one could call you out on it. And if they did, you could always play it cool with ‘matter of principles’; good people only deserved good things.

You carefully reached out, hoping to find his hand again. Your heart skipped a beat when you brushed his thigh instead, but at least his hand was right next to it. He released a surprised breath when you took it into yours, way smaller one. You bit your lip when leaning in a little, blindly trying to meet his gaze.

“You’re a good man, Steve. I’m sorry your friend is giving you a hard time, you don't deserve that – even though I'm sure he means well. If you ever want to get him off your back...” you wavered at the ridiculous idea, but hey, why the hell not, he had offered to help you out first, “you can say you're seeing someone. Give him my card. I'll confirm we're together – he seems like a kind of a guy who would check.”

Shocked breathless laugh erupted from his chest and you assumed you hit the nail on the head. You fished out one of your business cards, handing it to him and releasing his hand then.

It was time to leave and face your fate, but Steve didn't make any attempt at moving out of the closet.

In fact, he seemed to examine the card for a while and then he quietly read out your name. You gasped in surprise. How the hell could he see anything? You could barely make out his silhouette!

“How-”

“I'm used to working in dark spaces,” he muttered absently. “Would you really do that?”

Slightly taken aback he was considering your offer, you nodded, only to realize he couldn't see it--- actually, he probably could.

“I would. Hell, I think I could handle one uncomfortable dinner with your friend vetting me,” you added, slightly amused at the idea. When you could hear his shocked exhale and wanted to take it back. “I didn't mean to-”

“Let me come with you to your office,” he repeated like a broken record and you frowned at the sudden change of topic.

“What-”

“It could throw your boss off your back for long enough for you to deal with the complaint. If you would be comfortable enough to play my girlfriend for a dinner time, why not now?”

Your eyes went wide and you almost choked on air.

“I-what? I told you it would probably only make it worse-”

“It will work.”

“How can you be so-”

The door yanked open and your eyes were hit by an unpleasantly sharp light, making you squint.

“Holy-” a ridiculously familiar voice you couldn’t place breathed out. “Wilson! I found him! You’ve gotta see this!”

You wanted to see the owner of the voice, but your view was completely blocked by the broad chest of your companion.

So you at least raised your head to meet Steve face to face so to speak. You couldn’t see much, your eyes still adjusting; with the light shining from behind him, playing a mysterious game with his blond locks, framing his impressive figure, he looked like a freaking angel, beautiful and righteous, bringing justice, yet wrapped in an aura of peace and serenity. You barely kept your jaw from falling on the floor.

You kept staring, focusing on his face, and slowly started realizing that his features too, were familiar. Mortification was creeping up your back as the puzzle pieces started falling into place, creating a horrifying picture, making you wish for the Earth to swallow you.

The voice from behind Steve’s back resolved the last doubts you had about your temporary mysterious roommate.

“Wouldn’t peg you as a get-freaky-in-a-closet kind of guy, Capsicle.”

You wanted to immediately protest that you had definitely not been getting freaky in the closet, but your brain was still frozen because of the big revelation – that you had just been comforted, hell, that you had just offered to be a fake date to Captain America.

You simply stared at him, unbeing able to hold your jaw from falling anymore. Because– because-- oh god.

Now it made perfect sense that he thought Thomas Gregory would be intimidated… by the idea of harassing Captain America’s girlfriend. You couldn’t really blame Steve for being sure it would work. Also, it kinda explained why he called Mr. Stark or Ms. Potts their first names – they were on the first name basis.

Which really was the least relevant thing right now.

A bashful smile appeared on Steve’s lips, a little guilty perhaps, and you just… giggled at the absurdity. You couldn’t help it. You had just spent minutes in a supply closet with Steve Rogers without having a single clue about it and while you didn’t do anything heated as someone would assume, it was one of the most amazing minutes of your life.

You must have looked like an idiot or something, because he chuckled too, completely ignoring another male voice growing in volume as the newcomer approached.

“Holy hell, man! I can’t believe what I’m seeing!”

At those words, Steve tentatively took your hand with an encouraging smile and led you out to the hall. You were met with two pairs of curious eyes examining you from head to toe. You lowered your gaze, now fully aware of the fact they belonged to Tony Stark – the Iron Man – and Samuel Wilson – the Falcon.

Well. Now the ‘party story’ finally got the right juice.

“Then don’t, Sam, because it’s not what it looks like,” Steve replied to his match-maker friend and took a deep breath, squeezing your hand tighter. “Tony, this woman would like to report harassment on her workplace.”

Your head snapped to Steve’s face with panicked gaze. What the hell was he doing?!

Tony Stark made a noise of disapproval.

“Couldn’t you try harder so she wouldn’t complain about you?”

“Tony,” Steve addressed him, his voice solemn just like his expression, which clearly surprised the billionaire. “I’m serious. It’s not about me. Her boss is the reason why she was hiding here.”

Without commenting any further, Steve handed him your business card and Mr. Stark hummed. You weren’t brave enough to look up. Was he going to wave it off? Was he going to fire you?

He said your name, making you gulp in fright. You had to look up now and you really didn’t wanna, too afraid of what you’d see. You were shocked to meet with a searching gaze, but not a mean one.

“It is true? Is your boss giving you trouble? Making sexist comments? Worse?”

You felt tears in your eyes, utterly taken aback by his sensitive tone, the inviting light in his eyes. It was too much to bear and you wanted to escape the kind gaze; and he wouldn’t let you. You only managed to nod when you felt Steve’s thumb caressing the back of your hand.

Mr. Stark sighed, adding a dark ‘goddammit’, and returned Steve the business card.

“Alright, kids. Let’s have a trip.”

And you just stared.

…what?

Part 2

I know, I know, Steve is a little bit of Knight-In-Shining-Armour here, but it made sense to me O:-)

Happy weekend!

Thank you for reading!

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers imagine #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #steve rogers #captain america #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #captain america fanfic #captain america fanfiction #civilian reader #in the strangest place we just might find love #anika ann

[jedidruid]

Lightsaber Forms Meta - Pt. 1

Form VI: Niman 

Aka The Way of the Rancor, the Moderation Form, the Diplomats’ Form 

Honestly, in my experience, I think this form gets too much of a bad reputation. In Legends, supposedly a large number of Jedi who fell during the first battle of Geonosis primarily practiced Niman. This lead younger me to think of Niman as a weak form, and to think of the Jedi who died during the battle as lesser Jedi for their use of it. A opinion in part due to my very strong association of Jedi with warriors and combat. 

Now, after returning to Star Wars after a few years of lower interest and a new outlook on the Saga, I can say it’s one of my favorite lightsaber forms. Here’s why. 

I. Jack of All Trades, Master of None, Often better than a Master of One

Niman is a hybridization of the other primary five forms of lightsaber combat. It was developed to take the best of each of the forms in order to cover for each of their weaknesses. This built-in adaptability serves it well as a basis for less conventional types of saberwork, like the use of a lightstaff or even Jar’kai.   Of course, that also means it has less of the strengths that a ‘purer’ form might provide.  

Fortunately, the versality over specialization works very well with the daily role a Jedi plays in the galaxy. A Jedi rarely knows what threat they will face on any given mission. A large group of pirates with raining blaster fire down from above? A sole combatant rushing forwards with an electrostaff? A desperate hoard of civilians attacking blindly with improvised spears? Niman easily adepts to what threat a Jedi finds themselves facing. 

II. Trust only in the Force. 

Niman substitutes a good portion of bladework for a focus in force techniques, like the classic Force push. This provides any practitioner with further versality, especially when it comes to nonlethal takedowns whether by throwing someone off their feet or disarming several opponents at once. 

Additionally, since the Force is an external energy field that simply requires the right mindset to use, the form would serve older Jedi very well. No matter how skilled, eventually an elderly Jedi’s body wouldn’t being able to keep up with younger opponents. By relying on the Force, a Niman practitioner can level the playing field and create opportunities to end the conflict. 

(The concept of Force Exhaustion, i.e. someone losing access to Force abilities due to overuse, exists only in legends. We may see Forces users ‘strain’ under large weights but that seems to be due to the required focus rather than a physical limit.)

In short, Niman lowers the physical strength requirements for effective combat and instead places them on a Jedi’s strength of will. 

III. We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers. 

This final realization is primarily what changed my mind on the form. The Jedi we often follow in canon are the ones who go on daring adventures and defeat the villains. That’s simply the story being told. 

However, even in canon, the greatest victory any Jedi can achieve is the one earned without physical violence. Whether by calming rampaging animals, inspiring others to stand up for peace and justice, or bring relief supplies to a far flung colony, a Jedi’s influence reaches far further than the end of a saber. 

Yes, Niman is a simpler and less intensive form, but a Jedi is so much more than a warrior. Its a form that allows a Jedi to study and improve in areas that may save so many more lives than what they could save through brute force alone. 

Might does not equal right. So now, I have to appreciate Niman for what it is.  

[Source: The Knights of Fate Sourcebook for the Force & Destiny RPG and The Jedi Path.]

#star wars #lightsaber forms #lightsabers #jedi order #meta #star wars meta #pro jedi #in defense of the jedi #I know that a RPG source book isn’t the strongest source of Canon #but people still quote the 'Jedi Code' that came out of one #so i figure its fine

[afictionalwhore]

A Mermaid’s Mate

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A/N: this was inspired by a long and beautiful conversation with @jadequeen88 about nasty Pirate!Dabi and a little Mermaid!Reader and poor first mate Tenko. I’m an absolute slut for mermaid AUs and Dabi just seemed like the natural choice for a scummy pirate.

Pirate!Dabi x Mermaid!Reader ; little bit of First mate!Tenko

Words: 4K

T/W: noncon, fingering, little bit of anal play, mermaid anatomy, cucking, Captain Dabi is unhygienic in his sex life.

⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽⎽⎼⎻⎺⎺⎻⎼⎽

Captain Dabi was to be, above all else, feared. He had developed quite the reputation for himself, covered head to toe in tattoos and piercings, a tuft of unruly black hair, and maniacal blue eyes that burned with something almost inhumane. Dabi quickly rose to be one of the most feared pirates of the sea. The rumors had spread like wildfire. He’ll steal your eldest daughter and eat her heart! had to be Dabi’s favorite. Combined with his love of pyrotechnics, the dirty captain found relative ease in pillaging unsuspecting coastal towns throughout the seas, leaving quite the impressive trail of broken hearts and devastated livelihoods.

Despite his fearsome reputation, Dabi found himself tossing and turning at night recently, unable to fall asleep. News, rumors, that his father’s navy fleet had been following his ship did not settle well with the captain. Sure, Dabi had stolen this ship from said fleet but that, amongst many other unmentionable crimes, was just a part of the territory of life as a pirate. What better way to start off a life of piracy than to change his name and steal a ship from the father he hated so much? Regardless of the rumors, as Dabi told himself they were, he had found himself unable to sleep that night. 

Dabi swung his legs up and over the hammock that swayed with the motions of the ship, hopping on the floor of his quarters with a small thud. He swaggered up to his cabinet before swinging the doors open, hoping to find some rum. None. That was fine. He’d just have to ask Tenko if he had some. That’s what a first mate was for anyways, right? Besides, a walk across the deck under the crisp ocean night air would do him some good, maybe clear his head and relax him a bit. That’s just what the doctor, him, prescribed: a night under the stars with his one true love, rum.

As he made his way towards Tenko’s quarters, he saw a light at the end of his ship. As Dabi crossed the deck, he could make out the skinny twig of a man hanging over the railing, pale blue hair shining under the light like a beacon.

Scurvy must have got the poor soul, Dabi thought as he creaked along the open deck, as though that would explain the man’s behavior, despite the fact that Tenko had always been, in Dabi’s eyes, a weird one.

When Dabi stole his father’s ship, he brought Tenko on as his first mate, since that backstabbing Keigo had joined the Navy with Dabi’s father. Dabi thought he’d have to drag Tenko on board, knowing the awkward man much preferred the indoors, always hunched over a pile of books. To Dabi’s surprise, it didn’t take the shy, blue-haired man much convincing at all to join. 

“Do you think we’ll see a mermaid?” Tenko had asked Dabi as they snuck away and sailed into their new life under the veil of stars. 

“Sure, kid.” Dabi shrugged, more focused on the rope work than whatever mythical creature prowled the ocean depths.

Ever since then, Tenko was always ranting and raving about mermaids. Dabi had already given the scrawny man lecture upon lecture after catching Tenko throwing their limited food supplies out into the ocean. It was only a matter of time before the man died trying  to fuck some poor, unknowing ocean creature in belief it was a living, breathing, genuine mermaid. 

That’ll just leave more rum for me. Dabi thoroughly believed, turning back towards Tenko’s quarters to retrieve the rum, head too full of worries about his father to bother with lecturing Tenko once again. Karma would deal with Tenko for wasting their food yet again.

Dabi had almost made it to Tenko’s quarters when he heard it: a soft, feminine giggle. Dabi wondered if he had already drunk the last of his rum that night and simply forgot. There was no way a woman could be on board, not without womanizer Captain Dabi knowing. It had been only Dabi and Tenko for weeks. He was simply hearing things. He had to have been.

Dabi decided to creep closer, just within earshot of Tenko and the mystery woman. He heard Tenko’s raspy voice—“fruit”—following by a lighter, almost airy voice— “foooot?”

“Try again,” said Tenko, leaning a little further over the railing. “Frrrruit.”

“Frrrrrrooooot. Frrrrrrrruit. Frrrruit. Fruit!”

“Good! That’s perfect!” Tenko exclaimed before tossing whatever fruit he had stolen from the kitchens into the water. “You’re learning so fast!”

Dabi expected a splash, prayed there would be a splash. Instead, his ears were greeted with more giggles. Dabi shook his head before turning around and slinking back to his quarters without the rum.

“I’m out of damn mind,” he mumbled as he tucked himself into his hammock, the swaying of the ship lulling him to sleep.

It didn’t stop there. The food kept disappearing. Tenko was just a little too eager to stay out at night for someone who usually didn’t enjoy the fresh air. Although Dabi felt his first mate could really use some refreshing ocean air. Dabi found himself sneaking out at night, stalking his first mate and listening in on his conversations with whatever the man was talking to. 

This had gone on for about a week. Dabi was growing more and more restless, finding himself inexplicably irate with his first mate. Conversations with Tenko usually were about some ocean myth, but they began to take a turn that left Dabi more irritated than uncomfortable or bored, especially combined with what Dabi was watching at night.

“Did you know mermaids can mate with humans?” Tenko said one clear day as he was cleaning the deck while Dabi charted their course.

Dabi stopped mid step and turned to face his friend. “Please don’t go and fuck the manatee.”

“I’m not going to fuck a manatee! I’m telling you! There’s genuine mermaids out there!” Tenko was working himself up into a fit.

“Fine, fine,” Dabi waved him off. “I believe ya.” I need to get this man laid. I need to get laid, fuckin’ Christ. 

“Unrelated, though,” he pointed an accusatory finger at his first mate. “Tenko, do you happen to know where the food has been goin’? I know mannin’ a ship with just us two fuckers is a lot, but we really can’t be out of apples already.”

“No, captain. No, sir,” Tenko fumbled with his fingers. “I can’t say I do know. Perhaps we have some rats?”

“Rats, yes, of course.” Dabi said, fearsome blue eyes never leaving Tenko’s red ones. “Rats. Tenko, make a note for when we’ve stopped in the next town. We need to pick up more apples and rat traps.”

“Yes, sir.” Tenko scurried away, and Dabi didn’t see his first mate for the rest of the evening.

The interaction had left Dabi more irritated than usual. Not only did he have to deal with a lunatic first mate, but he had to deal with the fact that said first mate wasn’t actually crazy. Add that to the stress of being out on the open sea for a week since he had heard the rumors of his father catching up with him and Dabi found himself on another sleepless night in need of a drink.

Knowing that he had already drank the supply he had stolen from Tenko a week ago and there would be nothing in the cabinet, Dabi once again heaved his body out of his hammock, boots hitting the hard wooden floor of his quarters, and found himself making his way across the deck under the moonlight to Tenko’s quarters.

Once again, there was Tenko, in his regular spot, hanging over the railing with his lamp beside him resting on said railing and illuminating his pale features.

“Tenko.” Dabi heard his first mate’s scratchy voice and watched as Tenko pointed a long finger towards himself. He heard the water move, splashing ever so softly, before the airy voice replied. “Teeeehnnnkooooooh. Teeeenko. Tenko!” Musical giggles floated into the night air.

“Yes!” Tenko moved his hand over the ship’s railing to point out into the water.

After a few moments, a soft voice answered back, telling Tenko your name.

Tenko sighed and repeated what you had told him. “That’s beautiful.”

Dabi scoffed. A burning feeling in his chest left him uncomfortable. That was enough foolery for him. God he needed a drink. He quickened his pace to Tenko’s quarters, nothing but rum on his mind.

Dabi made it to Tenko’s quarters, the blue-haired man too distracted to notice Dabi sneaking about. He fumbled around the room with the sway of the ship, throwing objects around until he had found what he was looking for. Rum in hand, Dabi left to return to his own quarters. As he made his way back, he overheard Tenko’s raspy voice once again.

“I love you.”

Dabi could feel the bile rising up. As he went to take a drink of the rum, bringing the bottle up to his lips, a gust of wind and a big wave caused the ship to rock, throwing the drunken captain off balance. He fell with a loud thud, disrupting Tenko. Dabi couldn’t believe his luck when the wave had also thrown Tenko’s lamp into the ocean below. He quickly scurried back to his room, going unnoticed by Tenko. Still, it was just the two of them on board. Tenko had to know Dabi had been spying on now.

The next night, Dabi found himself in a similar predicament as the first night he had caught you and Tenko, sleepless and drunk. Funds were running low. More importantly, the rum was running low, nearly out at the pace Dabi was drinking. He had been pacing the floor of his cabin, when it finally clicked.  Dabi heard the giggling once again, annoyed by the creature and his first mate’s consistent flirting. 

You. You were the answer. How much had Tenko taught you to speak? Surely Dabi could teach you a few new words, a few more tricks. Dirty sailors would run for miles for a chance with you. Hell, even some of the corrupt lords of the nearby islands would pay the big bucks to look at you. If Keigo was still the man he was when Dabi and him were friends, Dabi was sure Keigo would keep his mouth shut about his whereabouts to his father in exchange for letting his little mermaid suck him off. 

Further, Dabi convinced himself that he would be doing Tenko a great service by catching you. Dabi was a smart man. Growing up under his Navy officer father’s thumb, Dabi had heard a fair share of mermaid tales before meeting Tenko. What kind of friend would Dabi be to let poor, innocent, unsuspecting Tenko fall in the clutches of an evil mermaid?

Last night was too close for comfort for Dabi. He had to move fast. They would be docking soon. It would be the perfect chance for Dabi to see how much he could make off of you.  He swung open the door to quarters to see Tenko making his way towards your usual meeting spot.

“Tenko!” he barked.

The young man jumped and turned around, hiding whatever leftover food he had saved from dinner behind his back, hoping Dabi wouldn’t notice the disappearance if it were from his own plate.

“Yes, captain?” he asked.

“We’re docking at the next town. I need you to take inventory and make a list of what we need.”

“Yes, sir.” Tenko made his way to the storage below deck.

“No!” Dabi yelled. Tenko turned around, confused. “Start with the kitchens.”

“O-okay, sir.” Tenko turned to make his way to the kitchen, near his own quarters and across from Dabi’s.

Once Tenko was out of sight and well in the kitchens, Dabi ran below deck. He grabbed the net from the storage, and headed to the spot he always saw Tenko waiting for you at.

You had swam up to your usual spot, waiting for Tenko. Tonight, you were a bit more impatient. You had been practicing the phrase Tenko told you the night before and were excited to tell him. You felt the footsteps approaching, the vibrations rippling through the air and water. Something felt off. The footsteps were heavier than Tenko’s. A small voice in the back of your mind screamed at you to swim away, but in your excitement to impress Tenko, you pushed the thought back. Perhaps Tenko just wasn’t feeling well.

Finally, a figure appeared over the edge of the railing. You popped your head up from below the surface, splashing water as you threw your arms up in the air to exclaim “Love you!” 

It happened too fast for you to comprehend. At a dizzying speed, a net was thrown over you, trapping you in and dragging you across the water before hoisting you up into the air. You struggled against the bindings, crying breathlessly, “Tenko! Tenko!” 

As the net containing you was swung around the ship to hold you over the deck, you heard a rough, dark voice. “Tenko? No, doll. The name’s Dabi.”

You were dropped unceremoniously on the deck floor, net still draped over you.

In the commotion, Tenko had returned from the kitchens. He ran towards Dabi and you, trapped under the heavy net on the hard flooring. Whatever he was holding in his hands fell to the floor.

“No!” Tenko cried, calling out your name, reaching for you.

“Please don’t!” Tenko sobbed, falling on his knees. “Please. You don’t understand. I love her. Mermaids mate for life! I’m sure she feels the same for me.”

An inexplicable anger rushed over Dabi at Tenko’s pleading. When had Tenko ever been with a woman? And he expects this mythical beauty to love him? Dabi felt that he could burn up his whole ship with his rage at his first mate’s stupidity. 

That at least, is what he told himself. Dabi would be the last to admit that he was actually jealous of Tenko and whatever relationship he had with you. You were beautiful beyond words. How a creature as breathtaking as you could love someone as shrimpy as Tenko was beyond Dabi, and it left him pissed. 

“Would you just shut up!” Dabi spat at him. “Are you stupid? I thought you were the expert here. You should know it doesn’t have any feelings. It doesn’t love you, it only wants to kill you.” 

Dabi’s cruel words ached in Tenko’s heart. He clutched at the thin fabric of his shirt over his chest.

“You’re a pitiful excuse of a man! If you love her so much, then just take her from me!” He dragged the net off your shaking frame. “Oh wait. I’d have ya tossed overboard for mutiny. What a piss situation for you then. Well! Go on! Watch your woman, your thing, get claimed as your captain’s!”

Tenko’s head dropped. His whole body dropped. His hands gripped his dirty pants so tight his knuckles turned white. Tears ran down his face, dripping off his chin and onto his dry, cracking knuckles and pants.

Dabi swung a leg over you to straddle you at your waist, knees pressing in on either side of your slippery fin.

“Let a real man show you some real fun. Okay, babe?” Dabi smiled down at your quivering form, shaking with fear and cold.

Dabi ran a long, cold finger up and down over your small slit, just below where your fin and waist merged. After it had gained enough wetness from your natural slick and the ocean water that was still dripping off you, Dabi pushed the rough finger into you, causing you to gasp and jump.

“She’s so tight, Tenko!” Dabi exclaimed as he curled a finger against your spongy walls. “Well, damn! If I’d have known she was this tight, I’d have caught her a long time ago. Why didn’t you tell me she’d be this tight? Holdin’ out on your captain now?” 

You thrashed around the deck, beating your tail against the wooden floor of the deck and gasping for air, reaching out for Tenko, as Dabi continued to finger fuck you. 

“Tenko! Tenko!” you sobbed.

“How many times do you have to tell you, bitch?” Dabi growled. “The word you’re looking for is Dabi.” He shoved two more fingers in your small slit, pumping a few times before spreading them. “Gotta make sure this little mer-cunt is nice and stretched out for me.” Dabi chuckled to himself.

Dabi continued to finger fuck you as you sobbed below him. Your clawing at the wood of the deck had stopped, little scratch marks left behind in the wake. The air was heavy with the sounds of you gasping for air between your sobs and hiccups and the squelching of Dabi’s fingers in you.

“Oh? And what’s this?” Dabi took the hand that wasn’t busy with your cunt and poked a finger around your tighter hole just above the slit he currently had three dirty fingers stuffed in. He basked in your widening eyes and shocked gasps as he continued to finger around.

“Tell me, Tenko,” Dabi mused. “Is this her tight little asshole?”

Tenko, still staring at the deck, answered bleakly. “Yes, captain.”

“Fascinating.” Dabi slid his thumb past the rim of muscle. A thrill ran down his spine as you jumped underneath him.

“You like that, baby?” Dabi applied more pressure with his thumb. You squirmed more beneath him and cried. 

“Shhhh” Dabi cooed. “You’ll feel good real soon.” He turned to Tenko, who could be mistaken for a statue with how still the man was. “Tenko, tell me where her clit is.”

“She doesn’t have one like a human girl, sir,” came the small, dry reply.

“Oh? Then how is she supposed to feel any pleasure?”

“You see the thin skin around her waist? Right by her fin and skin?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“That’s her skirt. Right at the base of her skirt, where it dips in that V shape, that’s essentially her clit.”

“Ah, right here?” Dabi took the thumb out of your ass and pressed against the small V where your fin and skin met.

You couldn’t contain the moan that spilled out of your mouth. Dabi smirked at your reaction. 

“Bingo,” he said, as he massaged small circular patterns in that spot. He curled the fingers inside you, pressing against your gummy walls, before dragging them out. As your moans increased in pitch, Dabi increased his speed. Soon, you were putty in his hands, on the brink of orgasm.

“Come for me, doll.” Dabi whispered as your walls clenched on his fingers. He pressed once more on your “clit” and the knot tightening within you broke. You threw your head back against the wood of the deck, eyes squeezing shut, and cried out.

“Good girl. Good girl.” Dabi praised. 

Once you had calmed down from your orgasm, Dabi raised up to his knees, still trapping you underneath him. Your previous orgasm in combination with the fight you had put up left you exhausted below him. You looked up at the clinking of Dabi undoing his belt. He pushed his ratty pants down just far enough to release his aching cock. Being with you had excited him in a way that no human girl he had slept with before ever had. He had never been so hard and just watching you writhe behind him was enough to turn his cock an angry purple, precum leaking from the tip. 

Your eyes widened in fear as you took in the sight of him. He was bigger, much much bigger than any merman your mated sisters had told you about. He was pierced too, a Jacob’s ladder crawling up the underside of his massive length. This was completely foreign to you, and only served to make you all the more scared. Your adrenaline kicked in once again, and you resumed your beating and clawing against the deck, screaming “Tenko! Tenko!”

Tenko sobs resumed as he heard your calls for him. He could do nothing but watch Dabi stroke himself with you fighting beneath him.

“Please,” he rasped, barely audible.

“Would you just shut the fuck up before you make me go soft?” Dabi shouted at the man.

Tenko bowed his head again, resembling a kicked puppy. He sobbed and hiccuped, only serving to turn Dabi on more despite what he had just yelled at the man.

Dabi gave himself a few languid pumps as he lined himself up with your sopping cunt. You stilled as you felt the tip against you, frozen in fear.

“This is going to hurt at first, but I promise you’ll feel good soon,” he whispered to you, placing a hand on either side of your head and dipping down to kiss you. You turned your face to avoid him, only causing the possessed man to laugh.

As Dabi pushed himself in, inch by agonizing inch, your mouth fell open in a silent scream. Your hands scratched at the floor of the deck, trying to find purchase as Dabi stretched you. Dabi let out a groan as he bottomed out, tip kissing your cervix. The initial stretch felt like it was burning you from the inside out. He was too big.

“God. You must be a virgin, huh? Ready for the real fun, doll?” Dabi smiled down at you before pulling out and slamming back in.

You gave a scream, and threw your arms around Dabi, desperately trying to hold on to something, causing him to chuckle. He repeated the motion, again and again. You buried your face into the crook of his neck. The pirate smelt awful, but you were too scared to let go of him. However, as he had promised you earlier, the pain had subsided into something much better. You couldn’t help but moan at the feeling of Dabi’s piercing dragging along your walls, his cockhead hititng your cervix with each thrust.

“I’m not gonna last long.” Dabi grunted against your ear. Between your soft moans and warm, sticky cunt, Dabi was in ecstasy.

He lifted a hand to press back at your sensitive spot, causing you to squeal and tighten your grip on him. Your walls spasmed around him and clamped down on his cock. As he picked up his speed, Dabi’s thrusts became sloppy, beating against the barrier to your womb.

“Gonna cum,” Dabi panted. “Cum with me. Cum all over this too big cock.” He pressed on your spot, and your orgasm ripped through you, hot pleasure running through your body as Dabi painted your insides white.

As Dabi pulled himself out of your vise grip, cum dribbled out of your too small hole. Dabi marveled at your gaping cunt, whistling at the mess he had made of you. 

“Would you look at that,” he spread your hole, causing more cum to leak out. 

He stood up over you to fix his pants. Once he was fully dressed again, Dabi picked you up, cum still leaking out of your small slit, and dropped your lifeless, ragdoll form on the hard floor of the deck in front of Tenko, who lunged for you. 

Tenko cradled you in his arms. Your head lolled over his arm as his fell on your shoulder. His tears dripped down on your barely rising chest as sobbed racked through his small frame, the salty tears from the both of you mixing with the ocean water on the deck. 

Dabi scoffed at the scene in front of him.

“Better go get her some water and fast. How long can mermaids be out of water, again? Doesn’t look like she has a lot of time left,” He said to Tenko. Dabi wouldn’t be surprised if you were in shock.

He turned on the heel of his boot to retire for the night, but soft, broken sob stopped him in his tracks.

“Daaaah-beeee. Daaah-bee. Dabi. Dabi!” Despite being held safe in Tenko’s arms, you were reaching out for Dabi, crying for the man who had devastated you. Your pitiful state pierced his heart. 

Mermaids mate for life.

#dabi mha #dabi x reader #scummy dabi #mermaid au #pirate au #I can’t stand Dabi #but here I am writing him again #OTL

[lesdemonium]

romtober day 1: fake dating

Rating: T Ship: Geraskier Word Count: 2421 Summary:  Jaskier is invited to his parent's annual banquet, and to keep the nobles (and his parents) off his back, he asks Geralt to pose as his husband. Geralt completes this task a little too well. 

read on ao3  

The banquet was the picture of opulence. Not a single expense was spared, and Jaskier could read the envy in the partygoers eyes as he passed them. His mother really had outdone herself this time; even Jaskier had to admit he was impressed. It was difficult for him to admit that, considering his family was as close to the heart--and hurt feelings--as they were.

Even the music was amazing. Now that took some effort to admit to. It would have been better, of course, if he’d had the opportunity to play for the banquet, but Jaskier knew that was a far-fetched idea at best. His mother and father still liked to tell the other “respectable” company that he was off studying, taking his time and exploring the world, before he came back to accept his title and lands. Truly, it was giving him a good head on his shoulders, allowing him to be worldly and lead the people of Lettenhove with grace and wisdom. It helped that they only referred to their wayward son as Julian; even in these circles, Jaskier was proud to say his stage name carried.

Despite the beauty, despite the fine wine and food, despite the beautiful lords and ladies around him, Jaskier was having a terrible night. It was his own fault, he knew. When he had received his invitation--really a summons, as Jaskier knew he had little choice but to accept--he had panicked. Another event in which his parents tried to court him into staying and taking over as Count, and tried to get him to court a lady or two of agreeable upbringing. Jaskier couldn’t stomach the dread. So he had asked Geralt for a favor.

Geralt was delivering.

“Darling,” Geralt started, drawing Jaskier’s attention back to the task at hand--a conversation with the Duke of some township or other. The hand Geralt had on the small of Jaskier’s back sent shocks of heat through Jaskier’s body, every time it moved ever-so-slightly. “There was a vineyard in Dorian, wasn’t there? The one where the owner gave you five bottles?”

That was an interesting retelling. Much more polite than saying that Jaskier stole the bottles after the owner had insulted Witchers and tried to cheat Geralt out of his pay for dispatching a pack of drowners tainting the water supply. Jaskier was learning a lot about just how talented Geralt could be at traversing a crowd of nobles--when he wanted to.

“Ah, there’s some controversy over that. Technically, when the borders changed, that vineyard moved to Maribor. Ask any of the workers, though, and it’s still in Dorian,” Jaskier answered, just barely remembering to add a smile at the end.

The duke guffawed and wagged his finger at Geralt; apparently Jaskier had managed to settle something for them, but Jaskier hadn’t been listening to the rest of the conversation. He wasn’t listening now, even, as Geralt continued on with the Duke as if this was something he just did on a regular basis.

Geralt was baffling. Jaskier had expected him to say no to Jaskier’s favor. Why would he want to pretend to be Jaskier’s husband at the party Jaskier’s parents threw every year? Even Jaskier didn’t want to go, which might have been partly why he even asked Geralt in the first place. Part of him was holding out hope that Geralt would give him an out.

Instead, Geralt had not only agreed, but had listened to every bit of advice and every pointer Jaskier had given him. All night he had been impressive--he had even managed to charm Jaskier’s mother. Jaskier did not often find himself at a loss for words, but apparently watching Geralt entertain a noble with stories of monster slaying with an unfortunately well-behaved hand on the small of Jaskier’s back was enough to render Jaskier speechless for hours. He had been the disappointing one all night.

“Excuse me,” Jaskier said, bowing a little as he shrugged himself out of Geralt’s grasp. It was rude, Jaskier knew, and if Geralt had done it he would have… well, he would have expected it, and maybe would have silently thanked him for the out, while outwardly complaining about his lack of decorum. But Geralt had been the picture of grace all night. Jaskier was the one that had been disheveled and thrown off guard and, at times, downright rude.

Jaskier couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment, however. Let the nobles talk. He knew they all would as soon as they left no matter what happened tonight, so Jaskier might as well underperform rather than living up to the lies his parents were no doubt telling the other people of the court.

The night air was crisp and cool against his face as Jaskier pushed the doors open onto the balcony. Technically, this area was off limits. No guest was allowed here and the servants had gone to great lengths to make sure that no one made it out here. But what were they to do when the Viscount of Lettenhove was the one trying to escape to his parent’s balcony?

Finally, Jaskier felt as if he could breathe. It should have been a relief to have Geralt so willing and helpful, and really he had been completely wonderful all night. Far better than Jaskier would have ever expected. And yet, he was so thrown off and upset by it. It would have been so easy to just lean into this, to accept Geralt’s exemplary behavior and pretend, just for a night, that Geralt regularly called him things like “darling” and “love.” That Geralt kept a hand on him at all times. That Geralt checked up on him when Jaskier left abruptly. As he did now.

“I must ask you to return--” a servant started, but Jaskier cut her off.

“It’s alright, Orla. He’s my husband,” Jaskier said, and even he winced at how bitter his voice sounded. He didn’t turn to see if anyone else noticed, though. Instead, Jaskier leaned against the railing, his forearms resting on the cold stone as he stared out over the grounds.

He heard rustling behind him and a door closing, but it was still a moment longer before Geralt joined him against the stone wall. There was still a space between them and Geralt, bless him, seemed almost hesitant to step closer.

“What’s wrong?” Geralt asked, finally leaning against the stone beside Jaskier.

Jaskier huffed an extremely forced laugh. “Wrong? What could be wrong? You’ve only been perfect all night. Everyone loves you. Even my mother, who could find fault in a saint.”

“And… that’s a problem?” Geralt asked, and Jaskier could almost picture the way his eyebrows must have been knitted in confusion.

Jaskier sighed, then buried his face in his hands. “No, darling, of course not. You’re doing exactly what I asked. You’ve made a wonderful impression and have made everything far easier for me.”

Geralt stood silent beside Jaskier, probably trying to decipher what, exactly, Jaskier was going on about. Jaskier wished he could do more to help, but Jaskier was just as flummoxed. This should have been perfect; a night Jaskier would tease Geralt about for years to come. Jaskier should have been preening under the attention and prideful over how much the other partygoers enjoyed Geralt. Instead, he felt empty and cold and as if he was missing something.

“You don’t seem like you in there,” Jaskier finally settled on. 

The truth was far too big for him to speak just yet, so he settled for a half truth. The man inside wasn’t the Geralt Jaskier knew and loved, and neither the man inside nor the man outside was a Geralt that belonged to Jaskier.

“I thought you didn’t want me to be me. I thought you wanted me to be your husband,” Geralt said, and his voice was just a touch too serious for his teasing to be believable.

Jaskier straightened up and met Geralt’s eye, finally. Geralt looked lost, like a little boy who was just trying so desperately to be good, and coming up short. Or, perhaps Jaskier was projecting, since that was the way he often felt, especially when he was in Lettenhove. Geralt had a hand on the stone wall, and Jaskier covered it with his own.

“I always want you to be you. I’m sorry I made it seem as if I would ever want someone else,” Jaskier mumbled. He took a moment to stare at their hands, before finding Geralt’s eyes again. “This is all just a bit… much.”

Geralt hesitated a moment, then took a step forward. His hand turned beneath Jaskier’s and he took Jaskier’s fingers, his thumb running absently over Jaskier’s knuckles. Jaskier waited, but Geralt didn’t say anything, and Jaskier found he wasn’t surprised. The silence hung between them as they both waited for Jaskier--of course it would be Jaskier--to break it.

“I don’t think I knew what I was asking for when I asked you to do this,” Jaskier whispered, and he took a step closer to Geralt. The tips of their shoes just barely brushed together and if Jaskier wanted to, it would only take a quick sway to bring their lips together. “I don’t think I asked for the right thing.”

Geralt hummed. “What would you ask for now?”

“For you to accompany me. As yourself. Rather than as a puppet or novelty for the court,” Jaskier started. He wanted to say more, opened his mouth again to do so, but the words died in his throat.

Geralt’s eyebrow raised. “I doubt your mother would approve of me as I am for your husband. Didn’t you want to avoid her appeals to court suitable ladies?”

Jaskier looked away. Back over at the gardens. Geralt’s fingers tightened around his, as if Geralt was afraid Jaskier would pull away. This felt different than the hand at Jaskier’s back, but had Jaskier’s heart beating faster nonetheless.  “I shouldn’t have had you pose as my husband at all.”

There was a long silence, and it wasn’t until Geralt tapped Jaskier’s hand with his thumb that Jaskier realized Geralt was waiting for Jaskier to continue. To explain. Jaskier sighed.

“You’ve been amazing in there. I didn’t expect you to… be so wonderfully physically affectionate, or use pet names, or talk me up and be otherwise… casually affectionate. Truly, you are a master at your craft, and if this whole witchering business goes to the wayside, you should consider a future on the stage.” Jaskier huffed and bit the inside of his cheek. He would keep himself together. “It’s easy to believe it’s all real. You play the part so well. There’s not a single person in there that doesn’t believe us as a couple, and sometimes even I forget.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said. His voice was low, firm. Get to the point, Jaskier heard.

“I don’t want to spend a night pretending. I don’t want to enjoy myself too much, only to wake up to reality come morning.” He pulled his hand back from Geralt’s grasp and swiped it over his face. “I’m sorry, I thought I had a better handle on myself than this. I thought I could separate reality from fiction, but apparently I have fooled myself too thoroughly.”

The embarrassment rose through his body to paint his cheeks a vibrant, hot shade of red, and Jaskier could not bring himself to look at Geralt again as he turned toward the doorway.

“We should go back inside. I’ll get it together, and we can continue on as if--”

“We could start smaller,” Geralt interrupted, taking Jaskier’s hand again and using it as leverage to pull him back. Jaskier allowed himself to be pulled, and faced Geralt again, his eyebrows furrowed in his confusion. “Make reality. Different.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier started. His mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried, very carefully, to find the words he was looking for. Nothing sounded right. “You’re not proposing--”

“I’m proposing we change tomorrow, rather than tonight,” Geralt answered. He took a step closer to Jaskier, his free hand cupping Jaskier’s hip. “Build up to tonight.”

Geralt dropped Jaskier’s hand in favor of trailing his fingertips along Jaskier’s cheekbones, his jawline, his lips. Jaskier found himself breathless, almost dizzy, and he closed his eyes, trying to convince himself that this was real. It seemed far more likely that he had managed to stumble, hit his head on one of the many heavy, solid, and jagged rocks, and was now having a very imaginative, blunt-force-trauma-induced dream.

“Geralt, I’m afraid I might have been struck with delirium. It feels rather like if I asked you to kiss me, you would,” Jaskier whispered. Surely his imagination wasn’t good enough to create the feeling of Geralt’s thumb shifting as Jaskier’s lips moved. Jaskier may have to come to the conclusion that this was real.

“Why don’t you try it, bard?”

Jaskier let out the breath he had been holding, and rested his hands on Geralt’s hips. He opened his eyes again to find Geralt staring at him with probably the softed, most fond smile Jaskier had ever seen on his face. It was that smile, that barely-there tick of the corners of his lips that gave Jaskier his courage. Jaskier smiled back, just as small and soft, and Geralt stopped tracing Jaskier’s lips and held his face instead.

“Please kiss me,” Jaskier breathed.

The words were barely out of Jaskier’s mouth before they were swallowed into Geralt’s. Jaskier’s arms wove themselves around Geralt’s back, pulling him closer, and Geralt’s hand crept up Jaskier’s back as well. Geralt still held his face, cradling Jaskier’s cheek carefully, no matter how they moved together.

The air was just as cool as it had been when Jaskier stepped outside, but now Jaskier found himself warmed by the heat of Geralt’s lips. He put every ounce of longing into the kiss, and was almost surprised to find just as much wanting in Geralt. They had wasted time, so much time, but Jaskier was already quite fond of their methods for making up for that.

Finally, they had to part. Neither strayed far, though. Their foreheads pressed together, their breaths intertwined as Jaskier’s heart settled. Geralt’s thumb stroked Jaskier’s cheek, and Jaskier could hardly hear the din of the banquet hall over his own disjointed, trailing, endlessly giddy thoughts.

“If I ask you again tomorrow, will your answer be the same?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt hummed. “And every day after that,” he answered.

#my writing #octoberfest #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #geraskier fanfic #i'm so bad at tagging things #put me out of my misery and just read this fluff #lmao #romtober

[uhgoodmoni]

Oil Paints | MYG

Summary: t’s Yoongi’s bday!!! His girlfriend has noticed how he’s been blowing off the idea of anything happening for his birthday. Everyone will be busy. You don’t have to get him anything. He just wants to relax. Blah blah blah. Despite all that, she still wants to do something a little special. Nothing crazy because she knows he wouldn’t like that, but just a nicely set dinner, some wine, and a couple of gifts to surprise him when he gets home from work. It’s perfect, mood lighting at all! Surprise, surprise! He’s not answering his calls, worrying her to death.

(This is so late for his bday but thats okay because life happens! Thanks for reading!)

Warnings: - angst, pure angst - fluff -

Ao3 - Wattpad

How’s it going?

This was the tenth message that I had sent to Yoongi. It was also the tenth message he didn’t respond to. He was just busy. I already knew that. He told me. But I was just worried. He had a horrible week. Each day was more draining than the last, and I was sure that he wasn’t giving himself a break either. I can always tell when he’s about to hit his limit. I wish he wouldn’t hold it in so much. Especially since it was his birthday. Big Hit wouldn’t overwork him on his birthday? Would they? 

Well, they probably would, except I knew that Yoongi himself was overworking himself too. He works so hard. Too hard sometimes, and the boys or I would have to remind him to take some free time. But he wanted the projects to be perfect. I was proud of him for working so hard but I just wished he would take a break when given the chance. 

Today was one of those chances. Of course, he went to work early, so did I. But he said he would be working a bit late, he wouldn’t get home until around eight. It was a little disappointing to not be able to spend his birthday with him. Not that he wanted me to plan anything, but just being able to shower him with affections would be enough. Watching movies, listening to him rant about his next mixtape. That’s all I wanted for today. Instead, I had to watch his birthday live from my work desk. He seemed happier than he had been the whole week. Namjoon and Jin came in to visit him. It was refreshing to see him smile so freely. He really was happy doing this job, it just always seemed to nag at him, till he overflowed. Even the things you love can be stressful. Usually, he never got this bad, holding onto the stress and then letting it out on a song for something, but recently he hadn’t found time to work on his solos. Busy with schedules. 

That’s probably the same reason Yoongi’s bday live didn’t last very long. Yoongi didn’t seem too happy to be leaving. But he had said that they had more filmings coming up, and to look forward to new works. How much work did he really have? I just couldn’t wait for him to get home. He could kick up his feet, enjoy some good alcohol and be the little spoon if he wanted. 

Despite his wishes for me to do absolutely nothing for him. I had catered his favorite dinner to the house. A surprise for when he got home, I didn’t mind a late dinner. With his busy schedule he hadn’t found time to do more art. He enjoyed painting so I got him some art supplies for home. Tonight I knew he would just want to stay home and relax so I figured dinner from home and maybe a movie didn’t sound too bad. The boys had already greeted him separately from their busy schedules and now it was my turn. Waiting, waiting. 

The day went by slowly. My worries were rapidly taking over my mind, however, I tried to assure myself that he was just busy. He’ll come home and the rest of the night will be okay. 

Except he didn’t. It was nine and he wasn’t home. No answer to any of my calls or texts. I tried to not spam him too much, but knowing that he normally always answers, I was beginning to stress. 

“I’m sorry for calling, I just am really worried about him.” I bite into the skin of my finger, tapping my foot on the floor. In front of me, the dinner sits. Cold now. 

“No it’s okay, maybe he just fell asleep in the studio.” Namjoon hums through the other side of the phone. I let out a strained chuckle. That would be such a relief. Worked himself so hard he just took a nap. Namjoon is always the right person to call in these situations. He doesn’t sound as worried. He knows Yoongi a bit better than I. Maybe I should be less worried too. “Mhm, he’s not here. I’ll give him a call, but maybe he just left and is on his way home. Maybe his phone died.” Namjoon’s explanations were perfectly rational. But that didn’t change the fact that I was worried. 

“Okay…” I tried to hide my tone, “I’ll let you know when he gets home.”

“Yup, and I’ll let you know if I hear from him before that.”

I sighed, “Thank you.” We said our goodbyes and hung up. Now all that was left to do was wait. But each moment was an itch in the back of my head. Something must have happened. Why else would he not respond? Why would he just disappear like that? What if there had been an accident? What if he got into an accident on the way home. There were so many possibilities. What if he got mugged. Oh god, I was starting to sound ridiculous. But maybe there had been a car accident… no. 

Not allowing myself to continue thinking like that I packed up the food into containers. He can take it tomorrow for lunch. I’m not hungry anymore anyway. After I packed up the food I tidied up around the house, distracting myself with anything. The house was already clean but double-cleaning isn’t bad. He still wasn’t home after everything was cleaned up. I took to the couch, watching the door with a frown. No texts from him, and no texts from Joon. 

Constant fidgeting. What was I supposed to do? Glancing at the phone, I see that it’s now ten pm. Something was not right. With nothing else to do. I called his number again. 

It rang, no answer. It went to voicemail. “Yoongi where are you?” It was only the same exact thing I had been leaving in his messages before. It’s just that I knew he was having a rough time and I didn’t want to guilt-trip him. At this point though… “You’re worrying me and the others. Please just let us know you’re okay.” 

I hung up, wondering if he was even receiving them. Damnit. I threw my phone over on the side, it was only making it worse. Maybe I could just go to sleep? But then if something was really wrong… What if I wasn’t there when he needed me? What if...

With the click of the door opening and closing slowly I flipped my head down the hall. I swallowed, stunned at the sight of Yoongi. Who else would it be?

He was hunched over, hood over his head. A shadowed form in the single yellow light of the hall. My body found itself immediately at his side, scanning over him for any sign of injuries. What had happened? Why was he gone so long? Except I didn’t really know how to start the conversation with him. He just stood there, dropping his bag off by the door, sliding off his shoes. Silent. 

“Yoongi…” There was something. Something keeping him from talking to me. Something keeping me from really talking to him. It just felt wrong to ask. Because I already knew. Knew that he was struggling. I often tried to get him to open up to me. But he always did it in his own time. Over the course of our relationship, I had learned to let him come to me when he was ready. 

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, and I barely heard him, his face hidden away under a cap. 

I shook my head trying to lift his chin to me, but he didn’t budge. “Yoongi why didn’t you answer my calls?” I bit my lip, obviously, he didn’t want to talk that’s why.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice trembling. “I…” his hands clenched at the zipper of his coat. My mind was spinning. I didn’t know what to say to him. I wanted to be careful. I didn’t know where to start. 

“It’s okay…” I hummed, thinking. “What happened?” 

He swallowed, still not looking up at me, head hanging low. His thumb traced over the corner of the zipper sow. No response. Okay. That’s okay. My hand reached, outstretched, and offered for him to take it. 

His hand trembling, tentatively took hold of it. It was cold. It was cold outside after all. “Are you hurt?” Internally I rolled my eyes. Of course, he was hurt. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a physical injury. He shook his head. “Okay.” I smiled a little, squeezing his hand softly. 

“Kei…” He sighed, unable to say anything more than my name. 

Although he wasn’t giving me much to respond to I wanted to assure him that it would all be okay. That he would be okay. “It’s okay…” I repeated, pulling him by his hand into an embrace. He didn’t put up any fight, his weight falling over my shoulders as I pulled him close. “You can…” My sentence was immediately cut short by the muffled sound of his sobs into the fabric at my collarbone. My heart instantly broke. His soft sobs heightening to weeping, his arms squeezing me closer and closer. His fingers clung to my back, my shirt soon soaked. 

I too held him closer, rubbing softly at his nape. He didn’t let up, it was likely that he needed it. It had been coming a long time. But I wish he knew that it was okay to have come to me before. I was always here for him, and so were the others. 

Something had released in him, and even after the sobs turned into lone tears he hadn’t moved from my shoulder. And although my feet were beginning to ache from standing there for so long, I didn’t mind staying there for him. 

“Kei I’m so sorry.” He eventually whispered, his breaths still evening out. 

“Yoongi it’s okay.” I pressed against his cheek to lift his face up to where I could see. “What happened?” My eyes stayed softened, hoping that he knew I wasn’t mad. Why would I be? I was just worried. So I told him just that. “I was just worried about you, but you’re safe here.”

He sniffled, rubbing his fingers against his dampened eyes, lashes clinging together. “I just…” His face contorted once more and he shook his head. I remained, holding his hand and soothing the words out. “I had an awful day.” He shrugged, almost giving a halfhearted laugh. “I thought maybe because it was my birthday I could ignore the pent-up shit.” He shook his head clearing his throat. 

I nodded to show I was listening. He continued, “I thought that vlive would help.” He frowned, “and it did, but I was so busy I couldn’t stay on long, and…” he was starting to ramble. “And then after work, I just wanted to think for a little bit I had my phone shut off and it only made it worse. And then I realized that you were waiting for me and I felt like such a dick.” For the first time that night, he made eye contact, tears dripping down his cheeks. “And I really was a dick.” He cried, pulling me back into his arms. 

“Yoongi…” “I love you.” He squeezed tighter. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yoongi babe, seriously I know.” I kissed his neck where I was able to reach. “You don’t have to apologize. I just want you to tell me these things before you disappear. Yeah?” He nodded. “I want you to be safe…” it sounded silly, after all, he wasn’t a child. But bad things can happen to anyone. 

He hummed in response keeping me in his clutches, “Can we stay like this?” He asked quietly, and I nodded, taking a deep breath. 

“You must be tired though Yoons,” I pushed him off softly, “Why don’t we go to bed?” He took a shaky breath and nodded in agreement. He slid his jacket off and set it aside. I wanted to ask him more questions but I didn't want to pry. But had he cried while he was driving? I hoped not, hoped he hadn’t been alone either. 

We walked back together, me picking up my phone on the way back. I texted Joon, knowing that by now he’d probably be worried too. Yoongi looks around, “You didn’t do anything for me right?” He seemed to be more worried that he had missed it rather than him not wanting anything. 

I shrugged, “Dinner, but you can have it tomorrow.” He frowned as we left the living room and into the bedroom. “Do you want to open your gift now?” I whisper, looking at the box wrapped up. There were oil paints and special brushes. I remembered he wanted to experiment with them. 

“Mhm, yeah.” He sits on the edge of the bed, taking off his cap, hair falling over his forehead. His eyes were swollen, maybe I could get him a cold spoon. 

He took the box gently, sliding the silver ribbon away, and picking up the lid. I couldn’t help but smile, as he looked down on the tubes. 

His lip twitched, and he set the box to the side, holding out his hand to mine. He kept his eyes on the ground as he pulled me in by my hand, hugging me close all over again. “Thank you.” 

I pet the top of his head, with a soft smile, “Do you like them?” 

He shook his head into my neck. “Of course I do.” His breath was hot on my skin, and his body shook into another bout of tears. Pursing my lips, I leaned into him. 

Lightly teasing, “Well who would have thought paint could move you to tears.” I kissed the top of his head, and he continued crying. I knew he didn’t let it all out by the door. I was stuck standing again, caressing his back, soothing him until he calmed once more. 

“I love you.” He sighed, burying his face into his hands. 

My fingers brushed his hair back. “I love you too.” I finally sat down next to him, both of us lying back onto the bed. My eyes found his and my thumb brushed his cheek. “You can tell me all about it.” I wipe away a stray tear, “Or not, whatever you feel comfortable.” 

He let out a hum, pulling me into his chest, much warmer now after all the previous embraces. “Okay.”

Like this? This is a drabble from my A Year of Fics with Han series found here

#Min Yoongi #Yoongi #Suga #Agust D #AgustD #Yoongi smut #Bts #bts fanfiction #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #bts angst #bangtan seonyeondan #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #my writing #authors #romance #bts drabble #one shot #bts smut #theres no smut haha I just want attention.

[glitxhwayventeen]

Lonely Together

Jihoon: Chapter 2 (Dark Side)

Characters: Jihoon x female reader

Genre/Warnings: multi-member au (different scenarios), werewolf au, fantasy, angst, fluff, potential blood mentions, genocide, runaways, health issue mentions, weapon mentions, panic attack description? (Though honestly it’s more of an anxiety attack), death mentions, child abandonment mentions. Any others will be put as warnings when future chapters are thought up/written.

Author’s Note: I recommend listening to Dark Side by R5. I thought the actual lyrics to the song gave off a solid vibe that I wanted to transfer to the start of this particular chapter.

Please remember that all of these chapters and the content within them are a work of fiction! They’re just for fun/entertainment!

Bold= Dialogue Italics= Thoughts

🥀 & ☁️

Lonely Together Master List

Chapter 2: Dark Side

When you woke up this morning, you had the sweet scent of Vanilla and honey hit your nose. It was warm and inviting and made you feel safe. You were glad, normally you’d never feel safe in the wild. The pack helped a lot with that issue. But when you woke up today, you noticed that you had woken up to a quiet house. Which was… strange to say the least. There was always some sort of ruckus going on downstairs in the early hours. So you figured you’d go investigate cautiously, in case something had happened. You grabbed your thigh garter belt with your knives attached before you quietly made your way down the stairs. You saw and heard no one. Nothing was wrong or out of place. Everyone was just… gone. But why?

“Boy, you come prepared don’t you?” A male voice said from the stairs, causing you to jolt back in surprise, automatically drawing your knife from its holster on sheer instinct, ready to release it at any given moment.

You relaxed and placed it back to your thigh as you realized it was just Jihoon, one of the less spoken wolves of the pack.

He was only a few inches taller than you, but you were still incredibly intimidated by him. You weren’t sure why all the others were terrified to piss him off, even the alphas, but you were never worried he’d get mad at you. Which was weird, you were always skeptical of everyone, it was just in your nature as a rogue wolf.

However, with him, it wasn’t horror that overtook your veins, it was nervousness. Like you had some sort of school girl crush on him and you were worried you’d mess something up in front of him and die from the embarrassment of it. But why? Why would you care what some rando wolf would think of you when you’d probably be leaving in a bit when your wounds were healed better?

“Jesus Jihoon! You know I could’ve killed you right? Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to fuck with a bitch with knives?” You huffed out in annoyance while slapping you hands over your face, praying that he hadn’t seen your cherry red cheeks yet.

Of course he had though. He never took his eyes off of you whenever you were in a room. You were just too zoned off to notice

“Uh no… Not really. Never had them so they didn’t teach me shit. Not that any of that matters. We both know you’d never hurt anyone if you could help it.” He shrugged, nudging past you to make his way to the fridge for a bite to eat with a small smile pasted on his glorious lips. God he annoyed you.

“You don’t know that. I always come prepared, I could be a serial killer for all any of you know” you cooly threw his way as you let your guard down slightly, for some reason trusting him enough to have a semi civilized conversation alone.

“Yeah yeah you’re a little vicious killer. Whatever you say kid” He laughed out, trying to keep his amusement in check at your quick replies.

You gritted your teeth, “Hey I am not a kid! I’m centuries old! MUCH older than you.” You smugly responded to his bitch ass nickname for you.

Jihoon looked you up and down for a second, making you a bit self conscious and spreading a heat down to your lower belly, “You don’t look older than me. Matter of fact, you look like the youngest one here. So I’m gonna keep calling you kid, kid.” He leaned in close to you and whispered seductively in your ear.

“Where- where is everyone?” You stuttered out, trying your best not to focus on the minimal contact Jihoon had made with your shoulder while brushing past you moments ago. Curse your dumb instincts. Why did you have to find him attractive? Couldn’t your wolf side ever just stay in check?

“The market? No, to Taeyong’s? Maybe it was to the river? I dont know by the time they left it didn’t seem like they even knew where they were going so I stopped listening.” He answered while taking a bit of an apple he had snagged from the fruit basket on the counter.

“W-why didn’t you go with them?” You questioned him as you tried your best to avoid his piercing gaze.

“Didn’t feel like third wheeling a bunch of mated coupled wolves.” He shrugged once more while sitting himself on the kitchen table you were next to, “Plus, someone needed to stay here and keep an eye on the house.”

“I would’ve been here.” You chimed in, as if he would’ve ever seriously left you alone.

Whether you were a Werewolf or not, he was NOT gonna leave you without some sort of safety net if he could help it. If he had it his way, you wouldn’t even go down to the market with the other mates when supplies were needed. He knew you could handle yourself as a fellow wolf, and he knew you were the best to go because you weren’t marked yet, but he was worried for you.

You definitely had people looking at you because of your different appearance. You were drop dead gorgeous to anyone with eyes, and that greatly concerned him every-time you went out shopping. He may have been more of a lone wolf, but he wanted to protect you at all cost, even if you didn’t realize that’s what he was doing yet.

“Doesn’t count. You’re a FANCY werewolf, remember?” He emphasized the word fancy in a condescending way that irked your nerves all the way to your core.

“We don’t know what you can do yet. Besides, you act like I’d actually want to go watch them make goo goo eyes at each other all day long. Seeing them cuddle and dry hump the whole time we’re doing something isn’t my idea of fun. I’d rather be here and enjoy the peace and quiet while I can.” He said as he tossed the remains of his apple in the garbage can in one swift motion.

“I can do everything you guys can and more!” You defended yourself, getting a bit frustrated at the younger wolf for doubting your abilities.

“Then prove it. Do something… super wolfy” he chuckled out, half jokingly and half seriously in what a normal person would recognize as a flirty manner.

He hadn’t had too many girlfriends. His experience with girls was limited compared to his brothers. So sticking to his sarcastic edgy tone was the only way he knew how to engage with you.

He was curious as to what your powers entailed anyways. They all were, none of them had met a wolf like you before. All the wolves they knew were modern, and the only seriously powerful wolf they knew was from a Chinese pack that had fled to their area who could communicate with heaven, hell, and the nether realms. They had heard stories that had been passed down for some generations about what wolves were like long ago, but none of it was confirmed because nearly all had been killed or died off. So they wanted to see if you could actually do all the things from the legends they heard about your people. For all they knew, you could fly.

You hesitated for a moment, trying your best to think of something, anything that you could do that would shut him up and prove your point. But everything you thought of required you to be much stronger than you currently were. None of the visible powers you had were working right now due to the small amount of silver still running through your system. Even if you were working at full strength and weren’t hurt, you had never been able to use your powers to their full extent do to something having been wrong with you since birth.

“… I- I cant.” You sighed in defeat while bringing your head down to look at your hands.

“Why not?” He wondered aloud, not even really meaning to tease you, he just let the innocent question slip from his lips without thinking.

“Because I got hurt and I have no way to get better! My entire pack is dead! Everyone I love is dead! I don’t have a mate! I need some sort of connection to the people around me to heal faster and I don’t have one anymore! I need one or the other to have my powers come back this quickly after such a traumatic incident and I have neither! I’m fucked up and I’ve been fucked up for a long time okay!” You snapped, your eyes now bleeding and turning emerald green from anger as you yelled at him.

Once you saw his confused and remorseful expression, you quickly closed your eyes and turned around to try and calm down. You didn’t mean to go after him like that, but you were already very worried about your own health not coming back and the taunting tone in his voice just made you break. You could feel the hurt in his heart. It made you want to cry, you didn’t mean to yell at him. You were just a very touchy person who had been asked about a very touchy subject.

“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset. I just- I’m concerned for myself and this conversation… well it made the concerns I already had skyrocket. But that’s not your fault. You would’ve had no way of knowing that. I apologize for getting mad at you over something so childish.” You earnestly said, trying your best to look him in the eyes without blushing from embarrassment.

He quickly moved his head down to look at his lap. He understood your pain. He could feel it everyday. You were his mate, he already did have a connection to you. He knew when you were sad or hurt or worried. He knew that you weren’t just in physical pain, but emotional pain as well. He wished he could take it all away from you so you never felt a negative feeling again. But he just couldn’t. Though, he was upset at himself for making it worse for you. Why did he always have to try and stir the pot? Couldn’t he just leave well enough alone? Couldn’t he just be cool around you and know when to stop?

“It’s okay. I… I understand what it’s like. To not have anyone I mean. I didn’t realize that you actually had to have those things in order to heal better though. With wolves now, we don’t necessarily have to have those things. I mean having them helps, but we get better eventually anyways as long as we get the wound cleaned properly. I didn’t know it was different for you...” He bit his lip as he continued, “But you know, our pack can be your pack, if you want anyway. There’s an opening for another ticking time bomb now that Chan’s found a mate. You’d be perfect for the job” he joked, though you could tell he was serious at the offer for you to join the pack.

“Yeah… how much does it pay an hour?” You played along, trying to lighten the mood from the tension you had made appear due to your little anger outburst.

You hurriedly propped yourself up on the table next to Jihoon, who gave you a small smile in return. It gave you goosebumps all over your skin. So you were thankful you had grabbed a large sweater the pack had given you before you went downstairs this morning.

You were given a bunch of them. They made you feel safe, and you loved the way they smelt. So when the other mates apologized and said they didn’t have many ‘girly clothing items’ to give you as getting clothing was sparse at the moment, you didn’t complain. You were perfectly content with your bigger clothing.

When you sat up on the table, you smelt the same scent of vanilla and honeysuckle that you nostrils had been absorbing from the clothing given to you…

“Not a lot.” Jihoon confessed, “we only offer housing, protection, and being around people who would do anything for you. But honestly, you could do a lot worse in terms of a career.” He bit his lip once more, the action drawing a small pur from your chest, which you tried to cover with a small cough. Of course he still caught the sound though. You weren’t even sure why looking at him made you that happy. The sound made Jihoon swoon, he loved that he already had such an impact on you.

“Of course there’s also some downside like with all jobs… like having to constantly break up fights, having a complete jackass for a mate, and well… you know… sharing bathrooms…” he trailed on, rubbing his neck while he attempted to make it seem like the middle part was casual.

“Wait! A complete WHAT for a WHO and WHERE was I???” You all but yell out in shock, making Jihoon wince.

He couldn’t tell if you were upset that he’d just burst it out like that. He honestly couldn’t even tell if you knew you were his mate or not. He didn’t know if you WANTED a mate or not. From what he knew of you, you usually stayed away from people unless you had to be around them. You told the others that staying alone is how you’d survived all these centuries. But Would you make an exception to your rules for survival to stay with him?

“Uh… yeah. A mate. That would- that would be me. I’m your mate…” He whispered, attempting as best as he could to regain control of his heartbeat that was now almost pounding out of his chest.

That’s when it all clicked in your head. Why they let you eat first with the mates, with the OTHER mates. You were one of them. It’s why they found you when you needed help, he must’ve felt you were in danger. It’s why you didn’t die that day even though your wounds would’ve been normally fatal even to you, because he was near you and never left your side. It’s why you weren’t scared of him like everyone else, you knew he’d never hurt you because he loved you. It’s why the pack always giggled anytime you and Jihoon would get near each other. It’s why the smell on your sweaters and his smell were so familiar, he gave them to you because you were his. You two were mates. It all made sense.

“We’re- we’re mates?” You reaffirmed out loud, but you started to feel dizzy. You weren’t sure what was happening.

Everything was going too fast, it felt like you were moving in slow motion but the entire world was spinning as fast as it could around you. The edges of your vision started becoming fuzzy and dark. You started to feel like you were going to pass out, but before you could fall flat on your face to the floor, Jihoon caught your fragile body in his arms.

“Yes. We are. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I wanted to give you some time to adjust to being around normal people before I told you.” He assured you as he started moving towards the stairs, bringing you to his room and setting you down on his bed. He was incredibly worried for you, he could hear your heart rate slowing by the second.

“You might need to lay down. You don’t look well” he spoke softly as he held the back of one of his larger hands to your clammy forehead.

“Yeah… okay… rest… that makes sense… I’m sorry I- I just wasn’t expecting-” You tried to say as you start to give into the panicking darkness, not wanting to fight the urge to black out anymore.

“It’s okay. It’s a lot to take in. Just try and sleep okay?” He shushed you as he moved his blankets over your petite form, hesitant to touch you as he didn’t want to make matters worse. But his inner wolf was screaming at him to hold you and rock you to help you.

Everything you had heard about Jihoon told you he wasn’t someone who could have a relationship. All the others always talked about him wanting no one around him ever. They called him a grumpy old rogue wolf who miraculously got stuck in their pack. They said that He did things his own way. He did things alone. So did you.

“Jihoon, how the hell are we supposed to be together when we’re both lone wolves?” You whimpered out to him before everything went dark.

Another Author’s Note: alright so you guys know the drill. I wrote this close to midnight and I’m too tired to care about revising rn. So i shall look at it and fix any mistakes tomorrow when I get the time. Tomorrow I don’t think I’ll be praying more than once. Sorry, I’m working a doubt shift. But Wednesday I’m hoping to post three times! Here’s to hoping!

(Updated 9/6)

#seventeen #seventeen angst #seventeen au #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut #svt au #seventeen x reader #jihoon #seventeen woozi #woozi fluff #svt woozi #woozi drabble #woozi angst #woozi x reader

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 1, chapter 8

Masterlist | Previous | Next

Content warnings: death mention, possible minor body horror with regards to injury

It had been a fortnight since Andariel. Morgan was adjusting to his new reality, one where speaking much louder than a whisper for more than a few sentences made it feel like he'd been screaming his throat raw. Where pain was out of proportion to the damage that caused it. Where his left arm was all but useless. Although he felt well enough to get up and move around, the wound on his arm showed no signs of closing. An inky colouration had spread out from the puncture, extending up above his elbow and down to his wrist. It turned his stomach to look at it. Any remaining strength in the limb was negated by the pain that shot through it at the slightest jostle or pull. Akara's expertise in the healing arts was not sufficient to handle a wound like this, caused by a demon queen and determined to linger. She had offered her sympathies and a supply of bandages, which at least allowed him to bind the damned thing so he didn't have to see it. His own limited knowledge of medicine did not extend to this manner of injury either, so simply keeping it covered and clean seemed like the best option available.

Morgan had been spending most of his time and energy on meditation and geomancy. Physical pursuits were not very attractive at the moment, so instead he focused on improving his magic. He would need it more than ever now, given the state of his arm. Eventually he would return to the graveyard he'd marked, to check on the restless spirits there, but he wasn't yet well enough for that journey.

The ground around the encampment was largely untended, but the soil was good. Morgan had been using it to flex his magical abilities cautiously, not wanting them to suffer from disuse. He turned small patches at a time, shuffling the richer earth up toward the surface bit by bit, until eventually there was a respectable area prepared. Nobody had asked him to install a garden, but it felt like it might be a useful contribution. It also helped to ground him. He had often tended the gardens back home, and found now that he was missing that work.

Short forays into the surrounding fields were still within the scope of Morgan's ability. Over the course of about a week, he'd managed to successfully transplant a reasonable variety of usable plants. Comfrey, feverfew, yarrow, and chamomile had all been easy enough to spot, and each had at least one medicinal use. They also had the benefit of being reasonably hardy, taking root well in the freshly turned earth. He had also experimented a little with some preparations of other plants he'd found - an outcrop of sway grass by a small lake, some sage nestled in among a patch of bright trefoil, a little bark from the willow just outside the encampment - but despite following standard procedures for preparation, none of the resultant concoctions did anything to relieve the pain of his injury. He took some fruits from what looked like an oleaster, intending to dry them for another attempt in the future, but he kept his expectations low. If the wound wasn't going to heal properly, it stood to reason that the other effects would also linger.

Cain had been good company, stopping by often. He inquired about the garden as it was talking shape and seemed legitimately interested in the various applications of the plants filling it. Morgan took care not to speak at too much length on any one topic, endlessly interesting though they were. Equally fascinating were the tales Cain had to share in exchange. The story of Tristram had been a sobering one, between the king's corruption by Diablo and the destruction it had wrought. And it seemed that it was not yet concluded, given the hero-turned-dark-wanderer who had fled. It would be worth pursuing that tale to its conclusion; Morgan's original request had been duly fulfilled, but the evident threat to the Balance was more pressing than returning to the Necropolis.

He'd also been alternating between meditating on ways to improve his clay golems and creating small versions to test the changes he'd thought of. So far he had come up with a lot of failed designs, going too far to the extremes to test the boundaries. A build with above average mobility that would crumble in combat, a strong and sturdy make that could absorb a great deal of punishment but would be too slow to hit anything that wasn't standing still. Now it was time to rein it in, to tinker with proportions and the flow of magic through the construct until something better emerged. Morgan slipped easily into the in-between state, retreating into his mind while his body rested in a comfortable cross-legged position. A pleasant breeze ruffled the leaves of the tree he was leaning against. Today would be good for focusing on the smaller details. He lost himself for a time in the contemplation of his designs.

A crawling, prickling discomfort pulled him back into reality. The sun was getting low in the sky. Someone had put their hand on his shoulder, and they were speaking to him.

"- word I've said, have you?" It was Blaise, looking annoyed.

Morgan shifted away from her, and she let her hand fall. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't hear you. I was meditating." The rough sound of his voice was another thing he was still getting used to. He rubbed his throat gingerly. Should have thought to keep some water nearby.

"Of course you were. I said, I talked to Kashya and she's agreed to give you some training. If you're going to keep fighting monsters and demons, you'll need some help. With your swordplay. It's not very good."

She was right, of course. Now that he could no longer hold a shield, his sword would have to be defensive as well - and magic had always been his strength, not actual physical strength or coordination. He'd been planning to refocus himself entirely on the magical side of things, but this was undeniably a good idea even if he didn't relish the prospect of physical training. Any formal instruction in the use of a sword would be useful.

"When?"

"You're welcome. Whenever you're ready. As soon as tomorrow." Instead of turning to go, she sat next to him. He expected her to keep talking, but she didn't. Maybe she was working up to something. The silence stretched uncomfortably. She didn't like him, she'd often said as much - so why was she staying so near? He'd been doing his best to be avoidable, true to his word. She hadn't been taking advantage of it, instead crossing his path at least once a day. Probably some sort of sense of obligation. The Sisterhood had been treating him with a cautious, grudging respect since Andariel's defeat. It was... strange.

That reminded him of a question he'd been meaning to ask. Now seemed as good a time as any, so he turned to study her. "Blaise. Why did you tell everyone I killed Andariel?"

She startled visibly and raised a hand to shush him. "What the hell, Morgan," she hissed, "you can't just say-" she cut herself off, looking around furtively. Apparently satisfied that nobody was eavesdropping, she continued in hushed tones. "Look, if Akara and Kashya knew I killed that big ugly bitch, they'd never let me get away from this backwater. It's different for you. They're expecting you to go. And when you leave, I'm going with you. At least until I'm well away from here. This place... I'm not really cut out to be part of something like this."

"Ah." That explanation made enough sense. He hadn't realized she wanted to leave, but then he often didn't realize things about other people. Perhaps he'd misinterpreted her loyalty as fondness. There wasn't always a correlation there. She hadn't exactly been talkative during their time together - not to him, not about personal wishes and desires. It also explained the closeness; by spending time around him, she was putting on a front, laying the groundwork that would justify her departure. Satisfied, he turned away to look at the sky. It was starting to be tinged with pink, and it was lovely to see.

"How do you do it?" Now it was her turn to scrutinize him. She was staring intently at his face as though it was going to hold anything other than confusion. Do what? Had he slipped back into his thoughts and missed part of the conversation? "I mean, doesn't it bother you?" That clarified nothing. He stared blankly, and she huffed. "People don't like you. As a necromancer. I mean, we didn't exactly give you a warm welcome. But there's no way it's just us. Your kind are... well, hated."

Oh, that. It was just a fact. He'd come to accept it easily enough. People didn't usually take kindly to him even before they knew his particular area of specialization. He shrugged, wondering idly what had lead to the question. She didn't seem to like that response.

"It's normal," he offered.

"It's not normal! How could you think that's normal? How do you... live with it?" She gesticulated, as though the waving of her hands might clarify her meaning. It did not. How else would he live? He took a moment to search for the words to frame it.

"As followers of Rathma, we are driven by pursuit of the Balance. What others think of us is not important."

"Not im- Morgan, of course it's important! The way people treat you matters. You have to rely on other people all the time."

"I try not to."

Blaise pinched the bridge of her nose as though the conversation was giving her a headache. "Yeah, I know you do. But sometimes you don't have a choice. Like - there's no way you could have gone up against Andariel alone, she would have killed you in a second."

"Mm." While certainly true, it didn't change much. Alone, he would have been more cautious, planned better. Probably died anyway. Others would have come to take his place. His individual life only held value in the contribution it could make toward the Balance. Death came inevitably to all things; to die in service was at least honourable.

Blaise seemed agitated. "I don't think you understand - this is life and death stuff. For fuck's sake, you nearly did die! When-" she lowered her voice, which had risen in frustration. It shook a little. "When I brought you to Akara, she argued with me. She didn't want to waste her supplies on you. She was just going to let you die on her doorstep, because she doesn't like you. That's not normal. You can't just think that's okay."

It certainly wasn't extraordinary. That was why necromancers generally brewed their own potions, not that he'd had either the time or the forethought to reach for his own during the encounter. He started to shrug again. Akara had been pleasant enough since - oh. All the pieces came together suddenly, but the picture they formed didn't quite make sense. Blaise had lied to save him. She'd decided, probably on an impulse, out of desperation, to frame him as the hero because the healer wasn't going to touch him otherwise. She had wanted him to live, and had sacrificed her own part in the story to ensure his survival.

Of course, that type of instinctively selfless behaviour was part of the reason he'd decided she was a genuinely good person. But having that kindness extended to him - that was new. He didn't quite know what to make of it. People weren't kind to him, as a rule. That was familiar, at least, predictable. It didn't feel like he'd done anything to earn this special treatment. He'd have to tread carefully.

"It's what I'm used to," he said quietly. "Death comes to all things. We do not expect others to delay it for us. But you... are extraordinary." It didn't really feel adequate, but he would need some time to process this new information, and the moment would be long past by then. "Thank you," he added. That also felt shallow. He had no reference to draw from - what was the appropriate way to convey this tangle of feelings? Indebtedness, surprise, gratitude, admiration, and those were just the aspects he had names for. He purposely held her gaze for a moment, hoping she would be able to glean something from that since his words weren't doing the job.

Blaise opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Instead, she stood and stretched. "I bet you haven't even eaten today. Come on, Charsi made these beautiful rabbit pies. You have to try them." She extended her hand toward him. He didn't especially want to join a communal meal, but it would be rude to refuse such a rare offer. And he had, in fact, neglected to eat. He took her hand to pull himself up. Tomorrow he would attempt to train with Kashya, but right now he wouldn't worry about it.

#my writing #story: unbidden #death mention tw #body horror tw

[alexmercer2424]

Hello I would like to request headcanons for the main 6 characters, with a femle reader who is a hyena, and is living in the hotel, along with all of the other hyenas in her pack, which there is no leader of, and if they are given meat they will do anything. Want us to rob a bank? Sure! Now give us steaks. Want us to overthrow Charlie's parents? Sure, as long as you can supply us with endless meat. And the only thing the reader won't do for food is... literally anything angel asks for. thanks!

Ignore my afk new quarter started for school and I do be busy :) also reminder, I do do Helluva Boss

HH w/ a F!Hyena & her Pack

Charlie Magne

Sees this as an absolute win!

Thinks as long as she keeps you and your pack fed, there shouldn’t be an issue!

Right!

Right???!

She doesn’t mind the laughing or the loudness

If anything it makes her feel as if the hotel is alive and buzzing and absolutely loves it!

And the potential of a whole family/friends group being redeem fills her heart with all that fuzziness she tried to portray in her interview

But once she realizes anyone can manipulate this group of hyenas she becomes panicked

Tries to talk to you given as you’re a lady

And what little she knows about earth hyenas is the ladies are the leaders

But you’re no leader, no one is!

Your just a chaos group of family/friends!

So a little light in Charlie dies

But she has hope and determination as we’ve seen

So she will try to make the best out of the situation at hand!

Vaggie

It’s Vaggie, she has her doubts about all y’all

Not so much you as demons, she’s seen nearly everything, but rather your intentions on being here

You or your pack have made no mention about redemption and the such, if anything you’re like Angel

Free room and board…

But so far you or you pack haven’t done anything permanently damaging

If anything you’re better project pieces than Angel…

She makes sure the lot of you are fed so no one else can manipulate you

But damn that’s a lot of meat to go find!

Luckily Alastor seems to know a guy or two

And as much as she hates admitting needing his help

She’ll do nearly anything for Charlie’s dream to come true

Angel Dust

Is half disappointed half enjoying this whole ordeal

It’s fun because imagine the amount of trouble you, or your pack, can cause with him and Cherri

Better yet, it’ll be a good way for him to check on Cherri when Charlie Vaggie make him go on lockdown in the hotel for bad behavior

But it’s not all that fun when he’s so limited with options

Alastor and Husk aren’t all that fun, they’re not into him

And he can’t just go to randos on the street, and working at the porn studio is worse than this no bad behavior deal

Whenever he wants to let off steam, no matter how flirty he is and no matter how much steak he’s got he’s gotta do this all by his lonesome

So like, what’s the point of all y’all being here it’s not like you’re into this idea of redemption either

You can argue the same about him, but this is him, everyone loves him

And there’s only one of him and he’s got enough curtesy to be quiet after hours…

He has to listen to you and your pack laughing all night!

Granted he’s awake most the night busy with other things, but it’s so hard to relax with the constant laughter

And he hates the way you look at his baby Fat Nuggets!

Alastor

Sees it as easy business

He feeds you you do his work, a deals a deal

What that business is exactly? We have no idea nor will we likely

But he does take joy taking you and your pack our shopping to the butchers

Yes it’s hectic and yes it’s hard to control the lot of you in the shop

But that’s not his issue

If anything, he just stands by and watches entertained beyond belief

But he’s still a reasonable demon, he’ll have some sort of pay for the destruction you may have caused in the shop

May even snap it clean

But if anything, he could care less about you or your pack

You’re just another source of entertainment in this hell

After all, not many are stupid enough to try and rival him

And it does get quiet when everyone is too busy being afraid of you

Besides, chucking a steak in the middle of you all and watching you fight for it?

Easy entertainment

Easy to pick the weak from the strong

Husk

Really could care less

Is kinda annoyed when Alastor sends him out to get steaks for you but it’s not like he can complain

Well he can complain, he just can’t exactly deny the request

But hey, doesn’t mind when you show gratitude

How you do that? Whenever he gets back you always manage to sneak him a box of fancy booze

Where you or your pack get it exactly he doesn’t care

He definitely doesn’t tell Charlie or Vaggie

Not like he talks to them all that much

So as long as you keep rewarding him with booze he’ll keep grabbing you your steaks

Also enjoys playing poker with the lot of you

It’s not easy getting a group going in this hotel

So it’s definitely a breath of refreshment, going back to what he knows and actually cares about

Nifty

As long as you clean up after yourselves doesn’t mind

Doesn’t even ask you to clean up extra, won’t try to bribe you or your pack

May or may not have a crush on one of the males in your pack

Definitely does…

So may linger around more and more

May try to bribe said member of the pack with a steak knowing it’s your guys’ weakness

Please don’t get too hostile towards her she means well

She’s just a bit… odd

Has a few… loose screws…

But at least you can bribe her in return if you want!

Get her to do all your literal dirty work as long as you let her spend time with that member of the pack

And if anything, she brings better cuts of meat for the lot of you

Well for her beloved but she doesn’t want any of you knowing about her crush

Even tho everyone knows

We let her live in her fantasy…

Feel free to join!

https://discord.gg/Xr6V4znGXN

#Hazbin hotel #Hazbin hotel Charlie #Hazbin hote Charlie magne #Hazbin hotel vaggie #Hazbin hotel angel dust #Hazbin hotel angel #Hazbin hotel Alastor #Hazbin hotel husk #Hazbin hotel nifty #Charlie magne #Vaggie #angel dust #Alastor #husk #nifty #Hazbin hotel imagine #Hazbin hotel headcanons #hh imagine #hh headcanons #Charlie magne imagine #Charlie magne headcanons #Vaggie imagine #Vaggie headcanons #angel dust imagine #angel dust headcanons #Alastor imagine #Alastor headcanons #husk imagine #nifty imagine #helluva boss

[arianaderalte]

The New Mandalorian question

Up until I watched the Clone Wars NM eps my only knowledge of the New Mandalorians was from fanfic. Fanfic which tended to portray them in a good light, but also had some criticisms. I thought that was a pretty balanced pov these fic writers were presenting until I actually watched Clone Wars and realized that they were ignoring whole swaths of NM canon in favor of their own interpretation. This is a perfectly valid thing to do, but unfortunately, those fanon views are obscuring how... problematic the New Mandalorians, as they are portrayed in the Clone Wars, really are.

So let’s go over what Disney canon actually shows us about the New Mandalorians. The first New Mandalorian we meet is Prime Minister Almec who seems to be in charge of a ruling council of New Mandalorians while Duchess Satine is like a second ruler? Satine seems to have the power to run her own investigations, and the NM council meets in the palace where she seems to live, but the Prime Minister and the NM council apparently don’t need to follow Satine’s direct orders so I’m not sure what is going on there. She leads the Council of Neutral Systems which makes her regent to 1000 systems, but this seems to have limited her control on Mandalore. The NM ruling council asks for Jedi protection for Satine when she travels to Coruscant against her wishes. She does shut them down when they argue too much, but they also seem free to ignore her wishes (they also were uninterested in their children being poisoned and declined to investigate). Satine doesn’t trust anyone on the council to help her investigate problems with their food supply. Satin appears to have only a single trusted advisor left by the time Death Watch invades. They also have an actual Prince serving as their senator, but he still ranks below the Duchess somehow. It’s very confusing.

Almec, as we discover throughout these eps, is extremely corrupt and amoral. He denies that Jango Fett is a Mandalorian, says he thinks all the ‘violent’ Mandalorians have died, doesn’t care that children are being poisoned, runs a secret police who kill and torture people on his command, plans to torture and kill Satine and NM teenagers who discover he’s controlling the city’s black market so he can make money, and allies with Darth Maul. The NM council members are also unconcerned with poisoned children, and not trusted by Satine. The only lines they have are discussing how they are having to pay smugglers to get food during the war, and that one of them is in league with the Trade Federation and is profiting from their trade. Other people in power we see are a superintendent of one of the schools who is breaking the law in order to make more money selling drinks to kids, and customs officials accepting bribes, though their captain is unaware of this.

We are told that no Mandalorian would ever consider using violence, and that all the ‘violent’ Mandalorians were exiled (somehow... no explanation of how a bunch of pacifists kicked a bunch of warriors off their home planet) to Concordia when the New Mandalorians took power, presumably at the end of the clan wars/civil war. We know from Jango Fett and Sabine Wren and her family that POC Mandalorians exist. We know from other Disney and Legends canon that non-human Mandalorians exist, and that you simply need to accept the Mandalorian creed (or resol’nare) to become Mandalorian. So where are these non-humans and non-white Mandalorians amongst the New Mandalorians? (Did the writers intend to make this look as racist and xenophobic as it does? I don’t think so, but this is the way it comes off.) The natural conclusion of the viewer is that the non-human and non-white POC were the ‘violent’ Mandalorians who have been exiled. Any violence that happens in their society is blamed on ‘offworlders’ by Satine and non-Mandalorians by Almec. NM teenagers immediately call aliens they see ‘offworlders’ and are unshocked that they are involved in the black market, but are that the NM police are involved.

So let’s look at what we see of NM culture and how it compares to actual Mandalorian culture. Satine does speak a bit of Mando’a in the show to soothe a dying Death Watch member, but was it out of compassion, or was it because it’s her culture too? She says that Concordia is New Mandalorian, but also calls them Concordians once they commit violence rather than New Mandalorians. There is no other Mando’a spoken by New Mandalorians in the show, and I’m told the written Mandalorian script we see is just transcribed standard. New Mandalorian architecture incorporates a long, outlined hexagon which is also found in Jango’s armor, as do the school uniforms of the Royal academy. No other Mandalorian symbols are to be found, yet we see other Mandalorians in canon using them constantly. Satine wears elaborate clothing and headdresses which may be Kalevalan, but certainly don’t appear Mandalorian. The same goes for the armor and costume of her personal guards. Satine calls a bunch of people cheering ‘a traditional Mandalorian welcome’ for Padme. They believe in educating children, but their Council at least, don’t care that the children are being poisoned and dying which is very against the Mandalorian love of children. Their police wear un-personalized Mandalorian style armor (but don’t use jetpacks, blasters or armor modifications). Nor is that armor made out of beskar considering blasters seem to go right through it. Some of the clans still exist under the NM system. Clan Vizsla and Wren, two of the most prominent, have allied themselves with Death Watch.

History wise, the New Mandalorians do have some vague knowledge of Mandalorian history - they have exactly one mural which depicts ancient Mandalorians in one of their grand plazas, know they  used to be warriors, and Almec at least knows the ancient laws of Mandalore allow you to take over someone’s soldiers after winning in single combat against them. On the other hand, Satine calls Death Watch hooligans who do simple anti-government graffiti, despite the fact that Death Watch were part of the civil war which put the New Mandalorians in power, plus their war with the True Mandalorians ran for over a decade. They deny Jango Fett was Mandalorian, even though he was Mand’alor. And none of them recognize that the Death Watch ‘symbol’ is the Clan Vizsla sigil despite Clan Vizsla being a key player in Mandalorian history for the past 1000 years. Some of the NM’s most educated teenagers are not aware that corruption exists in governments, so I can only conclude that their education on history is extremely sparse in general, and not just on their own.

That’s all the information we’re given about them in Clone Wars: their leaders are corrupt or misinformed (and don’t care about the well-being of their children baring Satine), they have a massive rebellion going on against them which seems to include all the POC and non-humans they exiled from their planet, they are xenophobic on some level, and they don’t follow most of the Mandalorian creed, or show many links to Mandalorian culture and history.

#new mandalorians #new mandalorians ugh #star wars meta #disney canon #clone wars discourse #clone wars spoilers

[mittensmorgul]

Hi, I have a question, and I hope it would be interesting for you too... Could we talk about angel's wings and feathers?..

I always thought that angel's wings were a part of their true form, a kind of energy which we can only see as a shadows or electric sparks or ash or something like this.

And I didn't think that it could be a real wings with feathers as bird's. Until, while rewatch, I've noticed that angel's feather were mentioned in SPN at least twice (maybe you've noticed more?):

1) In 8.12 when Henry Winchester time travels he uses an angel feather in spell. And then Dean tells that Henry stole an angel feather from the trunk of the Impala. So feathers are reall??? Why did the Winchestets keep the feather in the trunk of the Impala and where they get it? (ok, maybe they found it in the bunker)

2) In 12.13 Sam uses a white feather in spell returning Gavin back in time (we know this spell needs an angel feather)

So now we can see how the real angel feather looks like???

Does that mean that the angel's wings can be presented in physical world like a real wings with feathers and this is not fanfiction? I like this idea so much.

I think that the creators of the show didn't let us to see it, as many other great things, that is sad...

I would really like to know your thoughts about this.

(Sorry for my bad english, it is not my native language...)

Hi there! First off, your English is fine! (lol it’s my native language, and I just typed it “Inglish” by accident, so you’re already doing better than I am :’D)

ETA: DON’T REBLOGGY THIS YET. I forgotted something that @thayerkerbasy just reminded me of, and I’m editing this post... brb... okay NOW YOU CAN REBLOGGY!)

As far as I know, those are the only times in canon we ever see or hear mention of an angel feather, and both times it’s for the same exact spell. They reference that it’s Henry’s spell when they use it again in 12.13, but make no mention in dialogue of it being an angel feather. Yet Sam had a whole jar of fluffy little pin feathers, so the assumption is that they’d been collecting them for a while (unless those were either found in the Men of Letters’ spell ingredient stockpile when they moved into the bunker, or otherwise given to them by Cas at some point).

It’s weird, because they seem like a very limited commodity, especially after the angels fell and their wings all burned up. Even after Cas got his original grace back, his wings never seemingly recovered. When we did finally see his wing prints in 12.23, they were still... not healthy... So my thinking is that any spell that would require them will become impossible to cast when their current supply runs out. All the other angels-- at the end of the series-- were either dead or locked in Heaven with their broken wings. We never learned any of their fates. Maybe they were all rendered obsolete under the Heaven Remodel?

A little behind the scenes from the early days of SPN as a bonus, since it’s tangentially relevant:

When they were filming the very early episodes of SPN, they had a lot of choices to make about what to show us based on what their budget would allow them to portray. Think of an episode like Wendigo, 1.02. One thing I see people say often was that it was a shame we didn’t see more of the monster, but only saw like... bushes shaking, or a vague form moving through the underbrush, or a blur. They made a stylistic choice right there to keep it within budget.

The options they faced were showing us a “dude in a rubber mask” type monster and showing it more, versus one really terrifying shot of a Proper Monster™ dying in spectacular fashion. Rather than go full-on cheesemonster, they chose to leave most of it up to our imaginations, giving us glimpses or hints of the monster.

They went back and forth on this a bit over the years, attempting to show us more on occasion, but most of those times the audience reaction has been varying degrees of wtf... Think about some of the scenes where they attempted to give us more than a glimpse at the supernatural, or a blood splatter, or whatever. It didn’t always work well. Think: the wire fight from 13.23...

I mean, it took us until 11.14 to ever see an angel “flap away,” when we saw Casifer zap Dean off the exploding submarine.

For the most part, I appreciate the fact that they understood the limitations of their own budget and didn’t give angels cheap little wings just to be able to show them on camera. Over time, only being able to see them as shadows, or as char after the angel died, became part of the lore of the show.

I blame Adam Glass for writing that spell, because he probably thought it sounded cool or whatever, that it was effectively a throwaway line because no other spell they’ve ever used has required an angel feather as an ingredient, and in story it was only linked into this larger Men of Letters Legacy plot that in retrospect feels like Chuck tying up loose ends and putting previously “deactivated” plotlines back into play.

I do find it kind of interesting that both iterations of this spell (the second resurrected by Bucklemming) were both tied to Abaddon. Henry’s spell in 8.12 brought her into the story from the past, she eventually travelled to the much further distant past to bring Gavin into the present (presumably with her own power alone, no angel feather required), and then after she was killed, they used the spell to return Gavin to his own time. So in a a way, the spell was part of a closed narrative loop, never to be referred to again.

Kinda wild that we’d never heard of angel feathers being a thing for spells until we learn that Dean apparently had some just stashed in the trunk, though... :’D

As for how corporeal angel feathers are/were, they exist in the earthly plane enough to leave char marks when they burn, when an angel is killed, so they must always have had the potential to manifest physically. I can’t imagine they ever would’ve had a budget to show us anything more than what we usually saw, though. It did give them a LOT of flexibility over how exactly they presented them to us when they DID show us. And I can’t even imagine the suffering Misha would’ve endured as an actor spending all those years wearing some weird wing harness rig. It would’ve been... impractical. And the CGI the show could’ve afforded-- especially in earlier days-- would’ve been... bad...

But what they were able to show us? Was often awesome. Remember when Raphael showed off his wings in 5.03? LIGHTNING!

And when we finally did see actual corporeal-appearing wings in 8.23... it was Dramatique™

And for More CGI Is Sometimes A Bad Thing Science, please have the attempt at Michael’s “true form” from 14.01:

It’s kinda a super-letdown after AU!Michael’s previous shadow wing displays from 13.01, but more specifically from 13.22:

those... were... badass... 

Even the pre-wire-fight wing shadows on Dean were badass:

But if they’d tried to show us more of them, to make them move through action scenes for example, it would’ve been... bad...

So what we’re left with is the knowledge that there is some sort of corporeal element to wings that we simply can’t see most of the time, but clearly angels have the ability to show or hide them at will, even from other angels. Could it be an act of will on the part of the angel that manifests a bit of their grace in the form of a physical feather? Honestly, that’s the theory I’ve personally adopted toward canon. In fanfic, I’ve read tons of various headcanons about what angel wings are and how they function-- everything from “a manifestation of their true form” to “angels share a lot of traits with birds” to “an extension of their grace,” and everything in between.

I personally, in canon, like to think of it as akin to how they’ve used angel grace for other spells. I mean, when we recall that angels haven’t been on Earth much for the last few thousand years (aside from at least a couple of known incidents where angels interfered with humanity, like Ishim and Company in 12.10, for example, and the presumptive extension that the Men of Letters knew of the existence of angels and likely summoned one up a time or two the same way Lily Sunder had, giving one explanation for how Henry Winchester knew of this spell and had an angel feather to use for it, but also recontextualized when Lily Sunder taught us that humans can use their own souls to power spells in the same way angels used their grace... which sort of makes the notion of needing an angel feather AND his own soul to charge that particular spell in 8.12 a bit redundant unless Lily’s knowledge of angelic magic was more advanced than Henry’s... hrmpf.... so much tangent... back to the point)...

We did eventually learn of other spells that required an angel’s actual grace, not concentrated in the form of a feather. The Angel Fall Spell in 8.23 being the prime example. Metatron took ALL of Cas’s grace for that one, even if he didn’t use all of it for the spell and left a “fragment” (Metatron described it as “not a lot, but enough.”). 

ETA: HECK. I have 9.03 on the tv right now and it’s distractedly made me disgusted enough to have forgotten something that Thayer just reminded me of: Lucifer’s “fossilized feather” in 12.07. It held enough grace to restore and heal him after Rowena’s spell in 12.03 had degraded him. Which really only adds to the theory that “feathers” are simply bits of grace that have been rendered solid somehow, but that can be transformed back into grace as needed.

And then there was the Rift Spell for travelling to alternate universes that required archangel grace, as well as the time travel/ward breaking spell that Sam found in 11.14 that ALSO required archangel grace specifically. Would these spells have worked with an archangel “feather?” Possibly, if material feathers are somehow just crystalized bits of grace, but since we never got a full explanation in canon, and never even really saw corporeal feathery wings that dropped feathers or could be plucked, and never even had mention of corporeal feathers outside of their use in this single spell, it’s really up to our own interpretation. And I kind of like it that way, because that way we get to have fun little discussions like this one. :D

I know this isn’t a definitive answer, but it’s how it all makes sense to me, in the hand-wavey sort of way that all of canon works. :’D

#spn 8.12 #spn 12.13 #spn 8.23 #on the nature of angel grace #angels and souls #sigils and symbols #heck i know i used to have a spells tag... #spn 11.14 #spn 5.03 #spn 12.10 #spn 13.23 #spn 13.22 #spn 13.01 #spn 14.01 #Anonymous #spn 12.07

[doe-eyed-and-angel-kissed]

1️⃣ The One Where Shikaku Invites Trouble

Really. Whatever Inoichi says, this is not Shikaku's fault. Shikaku is a good shinobi. The Hokage clearly instructed them to build goodwill within the Daimyo's court. It's just a bonus that one of the highest ranking nobles approached him and introduced him to his latest conundrum.

That's Shikaku's story and he's sticking to it. Stop laughing Inoichi!

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Sarutobi Hiruzen stared at the two of his most promising shinobi. Namikaze Minato stood impassively before him and Nara Shikaku is on a slouch that was seemingly perfected by his clan.

"The second eldest son of the Daimyo was found dead yesterday at one of the Daimyo's residences. The period of mourning will start tomorrow for the family." The Hokage let his two ninjas digest the information. The family's period of mourning will last 5 days and then the public mourning will happen for another 5 days. The last day will include the funeral where the second son will be entombed on the family catacomb.

"That would mean that you would be expected to attend the 5-day mourning period in the capital."

"Yes Shikaku-kun. I want you and Minato-kun to be part of my contingent."

Minato nodded. "Was there a suspicion of foul play?"

"There's always a suspicion of foul play in these cases Minato." Shikaku is the one who answered. "Nobles may not have the same tutelage as us but they're sometimes more creative at making murder to look like a suicide or an accident."

The Hokage did not dispute the Nara heir. The Daimyo sometimes asks the Hokage to look at suspicious deaths in his court. But this time it is not the Daimyo but his heir, Hirohito-sama, who sent a second missive.

He relayed the information to Minato and Shikaku. Judging by their eyes  they got his underlying message. Building amity between the next generation ninjas and nobles is the main reason for asking the two of them instead of one of the older ninjas.

It is never too late to foster bonds that will help their village. Aiding the heir of the Daimyo is a definite way to do it. It may seem crass to capitalize on their grief but Sarutobi Hiruzen is the Hokage of their village and a ninja. As ninjas, they always need to know how to turn the tides in their favor, exploit every opportunity, and aid their village in whatever way necessary

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Shikaku went to apprise his father of the situation.

His father only gave him one piece of advice. "Try to figure out who would stand as the General for the heir when he ascends. I know that the current general hailed from a known samurai lineage."

Shikaku hates it whenever his father starts his advice with 'try to' because it actually means he better do it. He could also bet his napping hours that his father knows more than what he said about the samurai general. By his father's grin, whatever Shikaku will find out will be a huge headache for him and entertaining for his father.

Shikaku thought of the likelihood of the Hokage agreeing to just switch him out with Inoichi, since the Yamanaka would definitely get a kick out of the mind games of the court. Or maybe one of the Hyuuga twins or Fugaku since their clans are crazy with politics.

"Oh! That's the scheming face!" Inoichi's gleeful voice greeted him when he arrived at Chouza's. He spent the whole way there designing scenarios and then immediately shutting them down because he knows the Hokage will never go for them.

"Now that's the resigned face. What are you thinking about Shikaku?" It's really good Chouza is there to balance out Inoichi's exuberance.

Shikaku ignored Inoichi and turned to Chouza towards the low table in the living room. "Just a new mission. It's politically inclined and you know how I feel about that."

At their looks, he elaborated. "The second son of the Daimyo died. It was suspicious. The kicker was that the heir is the one who sent the missive."

"Meaning, there is a divide within the court, more pronounced than usual. The Daimyo may be appeasing both sides and ordered his son to intercede on his behalf or the heir is going rogue and acting on his own suspicions." Inoichi immediately supplied.

"What did Shikatsu-oji say?"

Chouza took one look at Shikaku and snorted, "Oji-san gave one of his try to do this or that advice, huh?"

Shikaku didn't even bother to answer. He just plopped his head on the table and proceeded to ignore his two snickering best friends.

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The palace at the Capitol is as opulent as Minato imagined. Uniformed guards lined up along the wall that sequesters the palace in the middle of the Fire Capitol.

Rumors that the circular base of the palace is due to a fuuinjutsu-added security by one of the successful Uzushio refugees may not be so baseless. Kushina hounded Minato, before he met with the other contingents, about that rumor.

Twelve years after—what the Shinobi nations refer to as the Collapse of the Whirlpool—Konoha's staunchest regret and there is still no concrete evidence about any Uzumaki other than Kushina. If this trip to the Capitol can give Kushina some resolution about what happened to her nation and meet a fellow then all the more reason for him and Shikaku to create a more permanent rapport with the ruling family. Even if the formal garb is itching on Minato and he can clearly see Shikaku and other members of the contingent to be fidgeting as subtly as they can.

With the Hokage up front and his two guards, greeting the Daimyo and his family, Minato and Shikaku are left to their unspoken side-mission.

"I don't see the heir," Minato observed. All of them familiarized themselves with the whole family of the Daimyo. It is a breach of protocol to not be present at the arrival of the Hokage.

Shikaku muttered a low, "Troublesome." Shikaku catalogued everybody and found out that the current General is indeed a samurai. He is standing at the Daimyo's right, two steps behind the ruler. His stance is impeccable, the alertness is clear, and it is fairly obvious that the General is someone to be reckoned with. Shikaku can undeniably see the usefulness of such person.

Shikaku felt a pointed stare from his left and saw the missing heir clearly motioning for him to follow.

Shikaku signalled Minato and it didn't take him long to trail after the heir. He found Hirohito-dono at the end of the corridor clearly waiting for him.

The smile he got, when the heir spotted him, is pained and obviously forced. Shikaku guessed that only the long-ingrained social etiquette allowed the heir to graciously greet him.

"Nara-sama, I hope your journey was well."

"It was, Hirohito-dono. The Hokage and the whole of Konoha express their condolences."

The smile got even more pained, "Thank you. Please send my acknowledgement to the Hokage and to your village. Konohagakure has always been good to the family and supportive of the current regime."

Oh. Shikaku finally got it. The reason he's so restless about the mission. And the constant thought of, what's so different about this suspicious death?

My acknowledgment. Not my family's acknowledgement.

Good to the family. Not my family. Distancing himself from the current regime.

Oh. This is. Oh, so troublesome.

Although slim, Shikaku knows there may be a slight chance he might be reading too much into the heir's words. But the heir's words and actions point to a planned usurpation.

His Hokage needed to be informed right away. Shikaku and Minato are given a great leeway but it does not take a lot of thinking to know that a takeover by the heir against the Daimyo during this time with, what looked like, help with Konohagakure elite ninja is not on either of their purview.

They were walking for about 5 minutes—the heir was prattling about the structure of the palace and the famous arts that surround the hallways—when Shikaku noticed the circuitous way the heir is taking. At Shikaku's askance, Hirohito just gave a shrug and a wink. The move appeared more natural.

Shikaku is even more baffled by the shrug and wink than the plan of usurpation. Was the pained smile and grimace the sham or was it the easygoing attitude?

The layers and level of deception Shikaku is being privy to makes him think that the heir is quite confident the Hokage will back the play that the royal have for the Daimyo's place.

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The Nara heir briefly thought that he was being herded towards the office of the royal. The polished hallways giving into cobbled stone made him think otherwise.

They stopped at the archways that lead towards the palace armory. The heir stepping sideways and urging Shikaku to enter first with a telling grin does not inspire any sort of positive feeling to the jounin. Given the current circumstance though, Shikaku is confident that no permanent harm will happen to him.

Five steps in and Shikaku is ready to just blab to the Daimyo and let the heir get executed.

One second he saw a black-haired person, wearing a funeral garb, tending to a very sharp-looking sword,then in a blink he had the said sword right at his throat.

The woman—because with that face, it is clearly a woman—moved alarmingly fast from being cross-legged on the table in the middle of the armory towards him. It is all that Shikaku can do to snag the woman's shadow to stop her movement. She still managed to poise her sword on his neck.

Everybody is frozen, with Shikaku's hands in the air and the Heir looking thoroughly amused.

"Hirohito-sama, how many times do I have to tell you? The armory is off-limits to visitors and you should not startle me."

The heir stepped forward and gestured her sword down, "He's suitably cowed, my lady."

The said lady gave Shikaku a considering look. She gave a challenging smile. "Desist your shadows, Nara-sama."

Shikaku nudged his chin towards the sword. "At the same time, hime-sama?" At her nod, the shadow receded while Juko lowered her sword.

If Shikaku is only a split second slower to connect their shadow his throat would have had a gash. As it stands, Shikaku's throat would no doubt have an angry red line. Her sword felt so cold it burned even if it barely touched him. That is no ordinary sword and he'll label her a ninja if not for her obvious samurai stance.

The blue of her eyes really lent well in throwing icy glares to the two of them. And while Hirohito looked to be somewhat immune, Shikaku is not lowering his guard.

"Minamoto Juko," the heir presented grandly, "Meet Nara Shikaku-sama, the heir of the Nara clan and Konoha jounin."

"Shikaku-sama, meet Juko-chan. She's my carer, sentinel, and the brains and brawn of the operation."

#the fic that itches my brain #their first meeting #numero uno #intro #shikaku nara #shikaku x oc #nara shikaku #naruto #pre series #shikaku nara x oc #original female character #musings #finally put it into words #minamoto juko #timeline is skewed #bear with me #Nara Shikaku & Original Female Character #that fic that itches my brain