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nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos · 5 months

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Here, have some content no one asked for!!

I got to looking through my old writing folder on my laptop, this is a short story I wrote quite a few years ago, in case anyone is interested in my original bullshit.

Horror with sci-fi elements. About 3.5k words.

No reason, just for the hell of it.

Harriet

Most residents in the lakeside mountain community of Harriet, New Hampshire, are amputees. That’s what my buddy Doug told me. This was at least a year after he initially told me he lost his legs in a car wreck when he was a kid, back when I still thought his name was Douglas J. Smith. You wouldn’t believe the shit he told me when he realized they were onto him up there. Hell, this is probably going to disappear pretty fast, too. Everything about Harriet goes up in flames sooner or later. From what I’ve heard about it, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone decided to send the town itself up in a blazing inferno one day.

Apparently the place has been quarantined for the past decade and a half, and security there is tight. I’m talking Area 51, Dugway Proving Ground tight. The airspace above it is restricted and you’re not going to find it just typing it in on Google Maps. If you’re lucky enough to find an old roadmap detailing the place, it’s not going to be in your possession for long. For all intents and purposes, Harriet, New Hampshire does not exist.

It’s not like you’d want to vacation there, anyway. Trust me.

Doug spent the last weeks I saw him gradually changing from the pretty chill double-amputee I had befriended in college a couple years earlier into some kind of paranoid freak. I tried to understand, I tried to be around for him, but he never wanted to tell me much. He told me he had been lying to me since he met me, that he had been lying to everyone. He went on to reveal that he didn’t transfer from a college up in New England, that I didn’t even know his real name. Of course, I ask him what the hell he’s on and why he isn’t sharing, but he wasn’t in the mood for joking by that point in time. He wasn’t in the mood for much of anything but locking himself away in his apartment and brooding.

The last time I heard from Doug, it was via email. I saved it to my email account and saved a copy to my external hard drive. The copy in my email account was gone when I checked it this morning, so it’s lucky I saved the back-up, because it may be the only written testament of Harriet, New Hampshire left in existence.

Some names and emails will be replaced or deleted for the sake of privacy.

#####

From: Doug <[email protected]> To: "X" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2012 5:05 AM Subject: [ no subject ]

You’ve been a great friend the past couple years. That’s why you came to mind first. Maybe I’m actually damning you by telling you about this, but it wouldn’t feel right leaving you in the dark. I probably won’t be here after today. You won’t ever be able to find me again, and you sure as hell shouldn’t look for me.

This is about my hometown. My real hometown. Harriet, New Hampshire. I grew up there, lived there my whole life. In fact, I never once left the town, from the age of five until the year we met. Not because I didn’t want to, no, but because I couldn’t. No one who was there at the time of the incident could. The only ones who could were babies, X. Babies. If anyone in Harriet had a kid, they’d be taken and put in foster care somewhere else almost immediately, given new names and identities. They were drug babies, or their single mother died and the father couldn’t be found, or their parents died in some horrible accident. I know, because that was my job. I came up with new identities for these babies that were being taken away from friends and neighbors I had known my whole life. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think they were better off never having to know about Harriet. No one needs to know about that hell.

I need to back up. It started back in the nineties. I was only five, but I remember it. It was 1994, mid-July. I was outside with my dad, stargazing. He was telling me about the constellations when he came across a star in Orion that shouldn’t have been there.

Then the star darted to Ursa Minor, next to Canis Major. It moved like you would not believe, X. It wasn’t like a shooting star. It moved with deliberation, stopping and starting, turning angles no aircraft I’ve ever heard of could manage. This had to have gone on for five minutes, this little white dot in the sky just darting back and forth overhead. By the time we realized it was slowly getting bigger, it suddenly increased in size tenfold, and we could see it was not a single light but rather a collection of lights. There was one big light, right in the middle, and six more lights surrounding it. It was still small, and those were the only distinguishable details.

There was a flash of light in front of us, had to be a few miles off from where we were. It was just a flash, didn’t last for any more than a second, and when I looked up again the small collection of lights was gone from overhead. My dad and I were out in a field behind our house, pretty far off from the house itself, and he decided then that it was time to head back.

Almost as soon as I stood up, I was knocked back down by a burst of wind. My dad only barely managed to stay on his feet. It had to have been as strong as a small tornado. The wind dispersed quickly into a gentle breeze, and my dad picked me up and carried me quickly back toward the house. Of course, once we were inside and I was safe and sound in my room, I was asking him ten thousand questions about what had just happened. He just assured me that everything was fine and told me to get some sleep. I snuck out of my room later that night and heard him and my mom discussing what had happened, and knew that everything wasn’t fine. My dad was scared. My dad. When you’re five and you think your parents are invincible, that isn’t something that settles well. I snuck back to my room and spent all night staring at the ceiling, wondering, terrified.

That was back when you could still find Harriet, NH, on a roadmap, no problem. The government is probably still in the process of confiscating older roadmaps of NH and the states in general that list the place. Maybe they’ve got all of them. I don’t know. All I did for those assholes was rename babies. Even that was too much for me.

No one can really explain what happened in Harriet after that night. Maybe some of the government officials that rolled in afterwards could explain, but those tight-lipped bastards didn’t give a damn about us. My dad and I found out that we weren’t the only people in town that had witnessed that light show in the sky, that a barn not two miles from our house had been blown to pieces in the spot that microburst originated from. You don’t even want to know what happened to the animals they were keeping there. I’m just glad I never had to see the aftermath in person. Hearing about it was enough.

Not long after, we started seeing these stones around town. They were flat, almost round but angular, and black in color with white veins, usually a thick white vein running straight down the center, all the way through. They didn’t seem unnatural, just…pretty little rocks. They were great for skipping across the reservoir. Pretty soon they were scattered all over town, and they caught the interest of geologists in colleges around New England. They were the first to be affected, working so closely and deliberately with the stones. The ones who survived were relocated to Harriet after the military came in and quarantined us.

See, most of the residents of Harriet, NH from around that point in time are amputees. The majority of those who aren’t are dead. I’m not sure if you’d consider me one of the luckier ones or not.

My best guess is that the stones were markers, that they held some kind of tracking device. I don’t know the exact details. No one really seems to understand exactly what they were. But once they were activated—that is, once they stopped being these pretty little black marble stones and became something else—they wreaked havoc on us. Maybe something those geologists did set them off, maybe they were set off remotely once they were spread out through the entire town. Whatever the trigger was, you sure as hell didn’t want to touch a single one of them afterwards. It didn’t matter if it touched your clothes or your skin. You were marked as soon as you came in contact with one.

It was maybe a month after the lights in the sky, after we first started seeing the stones, when I stepped on one playing outside one day. I felt a sharp pain shoot up to my left shoulder. Always the left shoulder. It wasn’t unbearable, a little like getting a flu shot, like a small bug was biting you, but it just didn’t go away. You’d find yourself scratching at it for hours on end, but it wasn’t that bad, not bad enough to tell Mom and Dad about and waste a trip to the doctor over. I figured it was probably just a bug bite.

Then my dad started complaining about a little pinprick in his left shoulder. Then a couple of my friends, some of their parents. It went from being a mild annoyance to an epidemic of mild annoyances, but an epidemic of anything at all is enough to draw attention. Doctors couldn’t seem to find anything at all physically wrong, and nothing abnormal showed up on the brain scans. Whatever this was, it seemed to be purely psychological. A psychological epidemic of mild shoulder pain. Nobody knew what the hell was going on.

A week later, we found out.

Out of the six to seven thousand individuals that populated the town, around nine hundred were affected. Out of the nine hundred effected, following the night of July 27, 1994, about five hundred survived, all of them with some degree of handicap. My dad and I were both among this first batch. You’ve seen me. My dad only lost one limb, his right arm. We were lucky compared to some who lost internal organs, had partial lobotomies as they slept that night. Some of them actually survived. This shit, it wasn’t done by some psychopath with a hacksaw. You saw me. No scarring. I may as well not have even been born with legs. That’s how it was for everyone; you couldn’t even tell if there was an incision made to take out the organs by the time they woke up the next morning.

The military rolled in the next day and locked us down. No one could enter, no one could leave, and there wasn’t a single news report about it. There was the occasional independent journalist who caught wind of it, thought they’d get a good story out of it. I saw a few of them get gunned down.

And you know what? It kept fucking happening. It would happen in spells. For a little while after the stones were inert again, just harmless pretty little rocks lying around everywhere. The military picked up quite a few of them, but there just seemed to be one hundred more lying around for every one they found. Then they would activate again, the shoulder pains would start in a new group of people, and about a week later, the same thing. There were fewer victims each time, since everyone was deliberately avoiding the stones, and it seemed like those of us that had already been affected weren’t susceptible anymore; but it wasn’t stopping, by no means was it stopping, and the military wasn’t going anywhere.

They started sending off kids not long after the second wave hit. Kids who couldn’t talk yet, kids who wouldn’t be old enough to remember, kids who hadn’t already been affected. Of course, I wasn’t old enough yet at that time to be of any service to the military, so I had nothing to do with them. The second wave, I was six. It was actually a few years before the next wave, but the military never left, because we couldn’t be allowed to leave the town and spread the word or, God forbid, take any of the stones anywhere else.

It was slow, it went on for years. My mom, she was so careful to avoid the stones, and that kept her safe until I was in my early teens. She wasn’t as lucky as my dad and I were. Her autopsy showed that her brain and spinal cord were gone. Just fucking gone, no signs of how they were removed, just like all the others. And I swear to God, the night it happened, I heard something in the house. Footsteps. Moving quickly, moving with some unknown purpose, down the hall. I managed to get out of bed and hurry to my door, but I was out cold the second I opened it, before I could see anything. I woke up on my bedroom floor, my door still open. I know there was someone in the house that shouldn’t have been there. I don’t know who the fuck it was, whether it was the military or someone else, something else, but something was there.

It was a few years later that I was forced into helping with security measures. Pretty much everybody of age and of sound enough mind was. They found out I had a creative streak, so they set me to writing new identities for children born in the town, so they could be sent off to orphanages and foster care with no questions asked. I hated it. I hated myself for it, friends and neighbors understood the position I was in but I knew they still resented me. They were trying to make us go extinct, getting rid of the youth and letting only the older remain and die there.

It went on for five years before I couldn’t take any more of it. It was either get the hell out of Harriet or die trying. I couldn’t bear to live in that place for any longer. I couldn’t take being their dog.

A few, very few people were allowed out of town in supply trucks, with military accompaniment. My dad was one of them. He had been in the military before I was born, navy, and he was well-trusted. He took that trust very much to heart and it took me a long time to convince him. It wasn’t until I gave him an ultimatum that he agreed to do anything, that I threatened to storm the perimeter with stolen weapons and either escape or die trying if he wasn’t willing to help me. I was desperate to get out of Harriet, even if it was in a body bag.

As it was, I wasn’t the only one that escaped. My dad got out and we decided to separate after the fact to make it harder on the field agents they deployed to find us; and there were a handful of people we gathered in secret as guerilla soldiers, who rode in the back of the truck. It took months of planning in the dark, in the basements and attics of a few different houses of a few of our makeshift militia. It was a stroke of luck that none of them panicked and reported our activities to the military, or a stroke of genius on my dad’s part. He chose everyone, and I guess having lived in Harriet his whole life he knew who was made of tough enough stuff to handle it. It was difficult, but it was manageable in the long run. We kept track of who worked what shift, who would be easiest to take out quietly and swipe weapons. My dad decided we would leave at midday in December, just before a storm was going to hit to make it harder on them to track us. It might be more difficult for us to get out, but he took the risk and it worked. He stole a uniform for me and we stuffed the pant legs and stuck boots in the bottom while I was sitting in the passenger seat; everyone else hid in the back, behind a row of supply boxes.

It went off without a hitch. When we were checked out they waved my dad on through and we drove out. We were supposed to drive five miles down the road and turn right, due north, toward a nearby army base, where supplies were waiting for us. There were two soldiers at the checkpoint. One came to my dad’s window, one to my window. He gunned his down like it was nothing, and I was sincerely afraid of him for one moment in my life. When I hesitated, Dad gunned down the soldier now reaching for his sidearm in a panic at my window, pushing me back against my seat with the long barrel of the rifle. He got out of the truck, put an extra bullet in each of their skulls just to be safe, got back in, and put the car in drive, turning silently to the left, due south.

We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves by riding into town with a military supply truck, so we ditched it near the next town, a small city called Jasper, and we all parted ways there. That was the last time I ever saw my father or any of my neighbors from Harriet, and I always hoped it would remain that way. I guess it did after all. I guess that’s for the best. It means when they come and get me, it’ll only be me. I’m not putting any of them in danger. I know I’m probably putting you in danger right now. You need to hide, as soon as you read this, because it’s not worth trying to spread the word. Anyone who knows about Harriet is probably going to be doomed.

Someone’s knocking. I’ve got to wrap this up. If you’re going to stay out of this, you need to leave town. You were talking about leaving anyway since we’ve just graduated, so do it. Leave town. Change your name. Lose contact with everyone you know here. And for fuck’s sake, don’t you dare come looking for me.

Have a nice life,

James Douglas McMurray

#####

I didn’t heed his warning. I grabbed my laptop and ran two blocks to his apartment after I got his email and found the door hanging open, I found everything in disarray, I found his fucking wheelchair overturned in front of his computer desk and his computer smashed.

When I came back to my own apartment, it was completely trashed. They had been there. They were looking for me. I grabbed a couple bags of clothes and other essentials and found a cheap motel with wireless internet. That’s where I am right now. I don’t care if they know at this point. I want them to know where I am, because I’m going to fuck them over.

See, I disagree with Doug. I don’t think this is something that needs to be kept quiet, I think the word needs to be spread. If everyone knows it…well, the government can’t kidnap everyone, can they? I’m posting this on every forum I can find before they find me and I hope everyone who reads it will repost it. Everyone needs to know about Harriet. Doug was a great guy, best guy I knew, and the best way I can think of to immortalize him is to spread the word. Tell everyone you know about Harriet, New Hampshire. I’m doomed, I know that, but if this spreads like I hope it will then no one else will have to be, not ever again.

I want you to let these bastards know that we mean business. I want them to know that Harriet isn’t their dirty little secret anymore, that the world knows what they’ve been doing to these people. I want them to know that they have lost.

I hear knocking. I guess I only have time to post this here before I have to go greet them.

Spread the word, and remember Harriet. Remember Doug.

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buriedsecretspodcast · 1 year

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Taking pictures of ghosts: Polaroids, instant photography, and paranormal investigation

Spirit photography has a long and troubled history. When the subject comes up, my first thought is of hoaxers like William H. Mumler and William Hope, whose photographs were debunked in the 19th and 20th centuries, respectively. Much of the early belief in spirit photography seemed to rely on people not understanding the new technology of photography. Back then, people didn't know about how easy it was to doctor photos and shoot double exposures. (See also: the endearingly fake Cottingley fairy photos.)

Nowadays, we know how easy it is to Photoshop an image; we understand that photographs can be deceptive. How can you trust a digital photo that you know can be easily modified? Also, in an age when people are heavily filtering images that they post online, and maybe even making cosmetic changes to own their appearance and photographs, we have been trained not to trust pictures. We know that's trivially easy to fake things in digital photographs.

So it makes sense that instant photography has become increasingly popular when trying to photograph ghosts. After all, where's the room for fakery when an image is immediately output in a physical form?

Well, it turns out there are multiple ways to manipulate instant photos, and there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of them as paranormal evidence, which I'll go into below.

There are people who I respect who have a lot of faith in instant photography, so I'm not ready to dismiss it as evidence of the paranormal. I'm always ready to be convinced that I'm wrong, so it's very possible that in the future I might come across a compelling reason to trust instant photography as a reliable ghost hunting tool. Personally, I absolutely believe that spirit photography is possible (with both film and digital cameras). It just isn't very probable, and it's easy to fake, so my first thought is always that an image probably isn't real.

I'm not really interested in debunking or casting doubt on the use of instant photography in paranormal investigation (though I think it's helpful to know any tool's limitations). However, if instant photography is vulnerable to manipulation, and that fact is well known and accessible via a simple online search, then why would such an unreliable medium be so trusted in ghost hunting?

At least part of that answer is nostalgia. Whether instant cameras are reliable for ghost hunting or not, it's obvious that they're popular. I've seen so many aesthetic images of ghost hunting kits that include Polaroid cameras. And even knowing what I now know about Polaroid manipulations, I understand the impulse to trust an instant photo over a digital one. It just feels more real.

The unreality of digital photography

It's incredible that digital photography is so accessible now. But the fact that we carry around smartphones that are capable of taking great pictures can make those images feel cheap, ordinary, and somewhat... unreal.

Unless you pay for a cloud service that backs up your photos as you take them, you could lose all of your recent shots if you lose your phone. Or you could be like me: I had an external hard drive fail and lost several years worth of photographs in an instant. There's something chilling and alienating about a part of the visual history of your life being wiped out. Those lost photographs (most of my pictures from 2012/2013 until about 2017) still upset and haunt me. So I think I have a particular ambivalence for digital photos; in the back of my head, I always feel like they could all disappear in an instant.

But whether or not you've ever lost your phone or had a hard drive crash, there is something ghostly and untrustworthy about digital pictures. At their core, they are insubstantial, simple to modify, and easily lost.

Instant photography's allure

Maybe this is my own nostalgia talking, but there's always been a certain appeal to instant photography. There're incredibly immediate and physical. You take the photograph, the camera spits out a packet of glossy paper and chemicals, and in ten minutes or so, it's been developed into a picture.

In the interest of full disclosure: I don't consider myself a photography expert by any means. (I barely count as a competent amateur.) But I have been using a Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 camera for about eight years, and a Polaroid Now I-Type camera for the last two years, so I have a decent amount of experience using two types of instant cameras. (Based on what I've seen online, the Fujifilm Instax line seems to be more popular than the more expensive and—in my limited experience, at least—more glitchy Polaroid Now line.)

Even in the age of digital photography, and despite their limitations, I'm always amazed by instant photos because they're physical products that I get to hold in my hand. They aren't digital detritus like the photos that pile up on our phones. They feel real. They are real.

Polaroids and ghost hunting

All that being said, instant photographs are more easily manipulated than you might think (check out this 2008 forum thread, where commenters offer some possible debunkings of ghostly Polaroids).

While I was researching this, I found a list of fifteen reasons why Polaroids are making a comeback, and was surprised to find that reason number seven was that Polaroid photos are "Easy to Manipulate." According to the article, which was published on thephotographyprofessor.com:

If you are still interested in doing some post-production type editing on your photos, you are in luck. There are all kinds of techniques you can use to manipulate your pictures, and some of them can be really unique. This is just one more benefit of using Polaroids for artsier photos. One of the techniques you can use to customize your photos is pushing around the chemicals underneath the photo paper before they have fully developed. When the image appears on the paper, the fixer is still working so the chemicals can be moved around with a cotton swab or a pencil. This can create some incredibly unique effects. Another technique you can use is exposing the photo to more light before the fixer has finished working. By shining a flashlight or other light source onto the image, you will double expose the film and create elements that would not have otherwise been in the picture.

There's even a Wikipedia page detailing ways to manipulate Polaroids. (Though it does note that newer Polaroid film is more difficult to manipulate than the older film types, which are no longer being manufactured.)

I also found an interview with a photographer on uniquephoto.com that went into detail about ways to manipulate Polaroids:

Polaroid Manipulation is quite simply manipulating the Polaroid print. After the print comes out of the camera, you have some time as it develops when the emulsion and the developer paste underneath are soft and manipulable. You can use a simple tool like a regular dried-up ballpoint pen and push the emulsion around, break it up, or push right down through the image to the black backing. Heating or cooling the print as it develops can affect it, too.

But, still, if you watch someone take an instant photograph and then look at that physical picture, it feels like fakery is impossible. There isn't a computer or smartphone in between the photographer and the final image. It's all done by an analog machine with a single purpose: to capture a visual record of what it's pointed at.

Even before I learned about Polaroid manipulation, I had a lot of skepticism about using Polaroids in paranormal investigations. My Polaroid camera is always introducing strange artifacts into photographs that I am very sure are not paranormal-related, so I wouldn't necessarily trust my Polaroid to show me something paranormal--unless I saw an anomaly that didn't resemble its usual misprints. (Though I suppose it's worth noting that it's always possible that I got a lemon.)

I'm not convinced that there's a valid technical reason to trust instant photos over digital ones. It seems like if a ghost can be captured by an analog camera, it can be captured by a digital one.

The only justification I can think of is just a general tendency to trust analog devices more when it comes to ghost hunting. And that's what I'm trying to suss out right now: is there a real reason to believe that analog devices are better for paranormal investigation? Or is something else (nostalgia? alienation and mistrust of tech?) motivating the tendency to trust retro devices over contemporary ones?

There's a lot more to be said about spirit photography, and maybe that's something for another day. But I want to dig deeper into why Polaroids and instant photography in general are so popular in the paranormal and beyond—which I'll do in an upcoming post.

#cryptidcore #cryptidacademi a #ghost hunting #ghosts #paranormalinvestigator #paranormal podcast #nostalgia #90s nostalgia #80s nostalgia #polaroid #analog photography #instant photography #instax #film photography

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manesalex · 3 years

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- Stephanie Perkins

#roswelledit #roswellnmedit #rnmedit #malexedit #roswell new mexico #michael guerin #i love (1) actual disaster #alex manes #actual cinnamon roll #protect him at all costs #michael x alex #otp: home can be a person #*mygifs #i stumbled upon an image with this quote back when s1 was airing #and it has just been chilling on my external hard drive #waiting for this episode

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flickeringart · 3 years

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Mars Retrograde in the natal chart

I’ve written about planets in retrograde in the natal chart before, find the post about Mercury, Venus and Mars here and the post about Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto here.

In this post I’m going a bit deeper into Mars Rx.

As we all probably know, Mars is the planet of personal drive, aggression, assertiveness and outward directed energy. Mars it works on behalf of the personality as the warrior – as forward movement, strength and desire. Mars enables us to be goal oriented, to stand up for ourselves and have a sense of direction and momentum. Depending on the sign Mars is in, the style in which one goes about one’s interests will vary. For example, an Aries Mars will be direct, impulsive, straightforward, loud, non-apologetic and open in taking action. Taurus Mars will be calm, patient, stubborn and energy preserving. Gemini will be cerebral, creative, mischievous and all over the place. Cancer Mars will be careful and protective of emotions while trying to secure a goal. Leo Mars will be demonstrative, proud and demanding. Virgo Mars will be purposeful and practical, going over the steps required to reach a specific goal. Libra Mars will try to smoothly get other people to get on board with one’s direction without ruffling any feathers, usually through using reason and logic. Scorpio Mars will assert its will “undercover” often through subtle yet effective emotional blackmail and strategy. Sagittarius Mars will be bold and restless, potentially quite clumsy and funny. Capricorn Mars will be serious, patient, mature, responsible and steadfast. Aquarius Mars will potentially be acting on behalf of a collective mission and thought-movement, considering what lies in the best interest of the “group”. Pisces Mars will be easily directed by influences from the environment, compassionate, soft and a bit confusing.

Having Mars direct in the natal chart means that desire is merged with action. In other words, action is employed in the name of desire. In the most basic sense, a person sees something of value (Venus) and Mars is the one who is in charge of conquering it. Venus and Mars can’t really be discussed separately for this reason because something has to catch one’s attention (Venus) in order for there to be anything to attain and achieve. Simply put, Venus is the object, person, place of esteem and Mars is the force that is in charge of closing the gap between the person and that which is desired.

When Mars is retrograde in the natal chart the drive to achieve is equally as strong as with Mars direct, but it is turned inward instead of being directed outward. This causes inner frustration, pent-up energy and often feelings of being ineffectual – unable to directly go after what one wants. Many sources state that since Mars is a masculine planet, Mars Rx is more bothersome for men, as women tend to not suffer from lacking in masculine traits as acutely because of identification with femininity (Venus). This is probably true, yet women will similarly experience the debilitating effects of Mars Rx – sometimes through the lover and partner of choice.

Some sources state that natives with Mars Rx had a childhood where they were not allowed to get angry or to stand up for themselves. Perhaps no one listened or bothered, perhaps displays of aggression were forcefully disapproved of and punished. There could have been a lack of support of the native taking initiative and paving his or her own path. I have had the reverse experience of being accused of not being assertive enough. I have Mars Rx in Virgo in the 3rd house and I was constantly criticized for lack of extroversion growing up, particularly in school (the 3rd house rules lower education) by teachers and peers. I was “too quiet”, “too inhibited”. In a sense, I was attacked for my “lack of Mars”. Unfortunately, I think this is quite common for people with Mars in Rx, we seem to invite aggression (in my case criticism because Virgo rules my 3rd house) in the area of life (house) that Mars is placed. I never attempted to “strike back” but kept my own pent up anger inside feeling worse and worse about myself, humiliated, yet for some reason unable to project the intensity outwardly – probably because it would only have caused me more reprimanding. However, the positive thing I’ve noticed with Mars Rx is that I have the ability to act independently of outside influences. In a sense I can act without desire being merged with action. Or rather, I can choose to redirect the build-up of intensity into unrelated activity. It’s definitely counter-intuitive, but it’s very useful in situations where one is required to act despite of a goal. Since people with Mars Rx have an obscure desire nature, there’s the ability to simply put one foot in front of the other and see what comes of the action.

(Buy products with my art here)

There’s something to be said about inviting aggression from the outside with Mars Rx. Other people seem to want to cause a reaction by provoking the Mars Rx person to make them stand up for themselves and display some assertiveness. This never works because Mars Rx people don’t react defensively to personal attacks on the spot. They sit tight, face the situation calmly yet is feeling a build-up of energy that is likely going to erupt later, when the situations has passed and when it’s no longer relevant. They get angry with themselves for not acting on the spot, for not saying the things they wanted to say and display the strength that they really do possess. Mars Rx people often question their potency and can beat themselves up for not being more willful. As stated, the bouts of anger come only at a later time, which does nothing to gain the individual a reputation of being impactful. The moment has passed and the opportunity to strike is gone. It’s important to not be too hard with oneself, Mars Rx isn’t a character flaw, it’s part of one’s unique blueprint and one would do better focusing on the benefits rather than the down-sides. Mars is after all about confidence and there’s no reason why Mars Rx should settle for feeling “less than” confident. The key is to not look for external proof of one’s potency and be content with knowing that one is powerful despite appearances of lack of assertiveness. With Mars Rx one should avoid comparing oneself to other people. Comparison and competitiveness don’t benefit these people, for obvious reasons. Measuring one’s strength against another will leave one feeling neither strong nor confident because the strength of Mars Rx is passive and felt internally.

In order to not feel emasculated with Mars Rx, one has to be squarely doing one’s own thing and avoid caring about what other people think one should do or even what oneself think one should do based on social values. This is the only way to be happy with this natal planet in my opinion. Stop competing = stop depleting, stop comparing = stop caring. Mars Rx people have the opportunity to be real individualists when they start valuing their internal integrity rather than the outward display of it. In a sense, Mars Rx is a very pure Mars. It’s simple action, unmotivated and unresponsive. It will not win us any battles in the moment; Mars Rx doesn’t build any momentum, energy is extended outward in bursts, starts and stops. The approach that works the best is to let action flow through, rather than directing it deliberately. This is usually going to translate into a quite soft energy but it can be quite beautiful. The famous male ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov had Mars Rx – he was especially admired for his gracious jumps and seemingly effortless soaring in his dancing. He’s a good example of Mars Rx manifesting in a very powerful way – he uses his Mars to move independently in a non-confronting “Venusian fashion”. Yet, no one could claim that he lacks strength. The famous basket player Michael Jordan also has Mars Rx and he is widely considered one of the greatest basketball player of all time. It makes sense that dance and sport should suit these people because these activities require starts and stops more than building momentum.

Mars Rx has a reputation for being sluggish and lethargic. I think this is inaccurate to accept as a rule, but it is certainly possible for these people to seem like they are. Other people often perceive Mars Rx people to be at least very chill and calm, which is not always the case, it’s just that the boil hasn’t reached the surface yet and when it does, it’s out of tune with the outer situation and its momentum. The Mars Rx person might sit tight in a social interaction, never showing any sign of annoyance or agitation, despite being pissed off. It might be frustrating to not be able to release energy directly but Mars Rx energy is better channeled into purposeful activity, into independent action. Some sources claim that Mars Rx can be prone to self-destructive behavior and self-harm because of pent-up energy and unexpressed anger. I think this is true, especially if one lives in a very hostile environment and has a hard time, because of one’s Mars Rx, to do something about it – to fight back, to spontaneously immerse oneself in “combat” and defend oneself. It could also be because one’s aggression, when openly displayed, is turned to a social disadvantage. People might claim that one is “over-reacting” because the anger response is out of proportion with the situation at hand. “Over-reacting” is common problem for people with Mars Rx, because they’re typically calm, until they burst – and then they’re commonly labeled crazy or even abusive. There’s no way to “win” socially with Mars Rx, I find – either one is accused of being too passive or too reactive. This social disadvantage could easily turn into self-hate and self-rejection, because one doesn’t get any approval from the outside. Depression is sometimes linked to planets in retrograde, and this is quite understandable, in the light of everything that they imply. Depression is after all often associated with repressed anger, of a blocked drive and frustrated desire.

People with Mars Rx say that it gets better with age and that Mars is gradually more easily expressed because of experience and understanding of oneself. This might be partly due to Mars going direct in one’s progressed chart, however, one cannot make Mars go direct in one’s natal chart, it is a fixed blueprint that one will have to contend with. This is not to say that one cannot become more conscious of one’s own psychology.

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britishsass · 2 years

Note

//slides in after seeing the prompt request post// Okay okay okay okay so, hear me out. Both Ottos from 'Brain in the Heptadome' and 'There is Very Little Left of Me' somehow having accidentally made a mirror that lets them see into the other's timeline, and whatever shenanigans that ensues. Like BitH!Otto is just chilling and he sees the other is an on fire steam train about to go over the edge.

Man, I can't just leave this as prompts. I've gotta write this sorta stuff later--

First off I'm gonna nickname them. BitH!Otto is gonna be called "Robodork" and TiVLLoM!Otto is gonna be called "Mullet". Because as much as I care for Otto, I am mean to my faves <3

there's a long issue of "Helmut's driving me nuts." "Same." "He's out with the brain and--" "Helmut is the brain." "...Helmut's *with* the brain."

Mullet informs him that Helmut died in his version of Grulovia and now he's stuck as a brain and Robodork has a freaking stroke because "NO. F-CK. THAT CAN'T BE CACTUS. I TOLD HELMUT IT CAN'T BE BOB."

They're both in a bit of a panic over their friends and "he's clinging to that thing like it's gonna save his life and honestly at this point I don't think I could get him to let go if i tried." Eventually leading into the mutual knowledge that "Yeah. I care about them. Even if it's hard I'm happy that they're at least trying to come back together."

They both flow together when they talk about the same events. Both using the same words and bouncing between "I should have done more in Grulovia. If only--" "--If only my machine worked, he wouldn't have been lost. They'd still be okay now, and--" "--and then Bob wouldn't be so mad at me." "Then Helmut wouldn't be so distant."

Robodork gets to vent about how it feels to know that the last thing you said to your friend was an insult. Also the fact that he's not had anyone to banter with like that for five years so he desperately needs to get some of that snark out.

Mullet has a moment of "Man, it's lucky that Helmut still remembered a little about us" when Robodork talks about Tom.

Mullet's the first one to put together "The brain is Bob" and just repeats that until Robodork gets it.

Mullet and Robodork both try to drag the brain boys and brain buddies in to compare differences. This could either work or end up with them looking insane as they're telling Helmut and Bob that they were talking to a parallel them.

It's easier to be emotional with yourself than with someone else watching. So they do get kinda emotional. Or. Y'know. Very. Especially about Ford, Lucy, and [insert respective lost husband].

Robodork is actually a lot more put-together externally but internally he's very tired because he's been trying to keep Helmut from panic attacks and it is Not going well. He's not Bob after all. On the other hand Mullet's having the worst time with Bob's anger and... other issues.

#ask response #prompt idea #I was so excited to write these that they skip most of the queue #lunar-insanity #jarswap au #5yearslaterau #also. yes the nicknames have meaning.#brain is named after a nickname bob used for him #same with very little left of me and helmut #(even if bob used the nickname more frequently i like thinking that helmut picked up on it)

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fandom-scatteredthoughtsonpaper · 3 years

Text

OBEY ME DARK AU

Act 1 Rough Outline

Summary (Event):

Trapped in a virtualistic world merged with the House of Lamentation, MC is left alone to figure out how to rescue the brothers from their twisted situations while trying to stay alive themselves long enough to help

Main Characters:

MC and the brothers

Secondary Characters:

Barbatos and Diavolo

Setting:

The Demon Lord's Castle (briefly)

The House of Lamentation

ACT 1

A.1 Forewarning - Forewording

- Barbatos invites MC over for lunch and tea before the main event kicks off, and he offers MC two Greek coins and an ominous smile

A.2 Introduction/Prologue

- Levi gets an experimental game that he won to test trial from a preliminary contest

- He invites Mammon and MC to play the horror-based VR game

- As Levi is setting stuff up, unbeknownst to the three, MC's powers lash out and merge with the elemental aspects of game

- The moment the three go into the simulated environment immediate reality and virtual reality merge and the real horror begins

A.3 Tutorial - Mammon

- MC is in the altered House of Lamentation

a. The HoL has a new atmosphere to it that is unsettling and chilling

- The front door is locked and the view outside the windows is blackened, their D.D.D. has no connection

a. The House is disconnected from the real world and placed in a stasis until the game is beaten

- They begin investigating around the foyer and downstairs before going upstairs, hearing muffled banging

- The noise gets louder when MC approaches Satan's room

- MC goes into Satan's room

- His room is messier with books than normal, with shelves missing tomes and books opened and abandoned or scattered haphazardly on the floor

- MC gets closer to Satan as he's fumbling and agonizing, clutching a hand to his head

- When MC finally gets his attention, Satan shoves a spell book into their hands and abruptly pushes them back out of the room, slamming the door hard behind them

- MC returns to their room to cast a protection spell (safe room)

- Taking a moment to collect themselves, MC freezes when they hear a voice behind them - it's Mammon

- Mammon is very different from the regular Mammon that MC has grown to know

a. He's in his demon form but it's not the regular form; it's more demonic and sharp

b His attitude is much more egotistical and a cruel vibe emanates from him; his smirk is foreign to his face; there's a selfish and uncaring glint in his glowing eyes

- Brief and skeletal interaction of what happens with Mammon

a. MC is frozen in place by uncertainty and fear; drops the book they were holding when they realize someone was in their room

b. Mammon talks and gets up from MC's bed and approaches MC, backing them up to the door and grabbing their face and squeezing their cheeks

c. Mammon monologues about his intent

d. MC struggles against the tight grip on their face and gets a long scratch on their right cheek that immediately starts bleeding

e. Mammon is furious about the lost blood and grabs MC before tossing them against the closest wall, knocking the air out of MC

f. Mammon puts a tight hold on MC's neck and they start to black out

g. MC struggles against his grip and pleads with him to stop

h. MC says a line or Mammon sees an item (matching ring?) ((something here makes Mammon snap out his mind-controlled state)) and he's momentarily stunned

i. MC notices something in Mammon's eyes that turns his hatefulness blank and Mammon gets a look of clarity and realization but not completely aware

j. Able to get a gasp of air, MC orders Mammon to stop choking them and a pained expression shows on Mammon's face and he passes out on top of them

k. MC recovers, coughing and gulping down air, while sitting up against the wall and situating the passed out Mammon on their lap

- A ping goes off from MC's phone, but they're not bothered with checking it as a noise from the bedroom door has their attention

- A voice seeps into the room and chills MC to their core, clutching Mammon harder to their chest out of sense of dread and protection

This is the first part of the AU. I'll be honest. I have this part pretty much down, but it's the other acts, the next few chapters, that have me stumped on how to progress.

I have scenarios for how the other brothers are interacted with and ideas for how the brothers can be handled when dealing with the manipulative hold on their minds from the game, and I have a muddy vision for an ending

My biggest issues are stringing events together and I've been trying to formulate this AU for a few months, but I'm just not getting much done because my initial thoughts on this AU was just the Mammon scene from a song.

Trying to write an outline for Act 2 and further chapters is really just me staring at a blank wall and getting a headache. I'm debating if I want to ask for help on this AU, because I have the basics and I know what I want to happen. It's just hard for me to progress in-between scenes and killing my drive to write, so I've been putting it on the back burner for other stuff to write, like a thing for Levi's birthday.

So, yeah, there's my blurb and hopefully it explains the slow progress if it means anything to anyone. It's just hard to do this alone when I do well with external feedback.

#apologies for the ramble #I really do what to get this officially off the ground but I don't want to ask for help and feel like I'm pushing it off on someone else #like outsourcing the AU because i can't think of anything to progress it #it makes me feel crappy #obey me #obey me au #obey me dark au #obey me levi #obey me leviathan #obey me mammon #obey me barbatos #obey me satan #jess writes

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firstagent · 3 years

Note

Since it popped up on the Podcast, how would you rank the sibling dynamics from healthy to trainwreck?

This is an innocent-sounding question until you go over the franchise and realize just how many sibling relationships there are in Digimon and that all but like three of them have elements that might raise eyebrows. In the interest of being comprehensive, this includes all named characters in any anime, manga, and game I’m familiar with, treating the reboot separately and including Survive because... (looks at Kaito and Miu’s bios) ...holy crap.

Sibling Relationship Rankings! (Healthy is Higher)

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure): Shin understands Joe’s hang-ups and offers support to make his own choices without steering him in any specific direction, for or against the family. And Shuu exists too (depending on the language you’re watching in)

Juri & Masahiko Kato (Tamers): For all of the awkwardness and potential points of fracture in the family, Juri and Masahiko are very close. Fun Fact: She started carrying around her iconic hand puppet to amuse and entertain him!

Keito & Nozomi Tamada (Re:Arise): Even with very different personalities, Keito and Nozomi have a lot of respect for each other. Unlike some big brothers, he comes to a mature conclusion when he realizes she’ll be just fine with Pumpmon at her side.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure 2020): Yamato’s worry over Takeru only affects his reluctance to take on time-consuming side quests when he might be in danger. Far more chill about trusting Takeru with the rest of the team, he’s a motivation rather than a mental handicap.

Masaru & Chika Daimon (Savers): Perhaps a more controversial pick for the healthier side, but Masaru and Chika have a playful relationship that proves that Chika dishes out as much as anyone in the family. Given how much harm DATS and Digimon have done to the family, Masaru risks her love to keep them away from her.

Joe & Shin Kido (Adventure 2020): Shin’s still supportive and still encourages Joe to make choices for himself, but having that bugout bag ready to go raises some serious questions about that family and which side Shin’s really on.

Ai & Makoto (Tamers): Toddlers fight. It’s okay. They come together for Impmon’s sake and the fact that they’re the only duo in the franchise with mutual custody over a digivice has to say something about the strength of their relationship.

Nene & Kotone Amano (Xros Wars Manga): Nene’s tactics are still desperate but not quite as extreme as the anime, and it counts for so much that Kotone fights so hard for Nene once the tables are turned. And good lord that backstory...

Takuya & Shinya Kanbara (Frontier): There’s definitely a sense of Takuya lapsing into thinking Shinya encapsulates everything frustrating about having an older brother, but he gets over it.

Miyako Inoue + Three (Zero Two): Perfectly normal large household. And while wondering what it would be like to be an only child is something every youngest does... top of mind fantasy, Miyako? Really?

Jianliang & Shaochung Lee (Tamers): Speaking of four-packs... there’s no doubting how much they care about each other, but Jian’s occasional short fuse with Shaochung betrays his usual calm demeanor, and we never get a picture of the full family dynamic once Rinchei and Jaarin are included.

Daisuke & Jun Motomiya (Zero Two): Everyone likes to paint Jun and Daisuke as something uglier than it really is. As much as they annoy each other, it’s still a pretty conventional sibling dynamic and they’d still fight hard for the other... even if the feeling’s closer to obligation.

Koji Minamoto & Koichi Kimura (Frontier): There’s no questioning the bond they develop, but there’s no way Koji and Koichi go from “don’t know the other exists” to “ZOMG Twinzies!” without a ton of awkwardness and feeling each other out. They’ll get better, but from our standpoint this is where we start to drift into trainwreck territory.

Tomoki & Yutaka Himi (Frontier): Tomoki can spin it all he wants but Yutaka comes off as a real jerk. Not that some resentment isn’t a little justified given how much Tomoki is coddled, but taking it upon himself to be the bearer of tough love is still not cool.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure 2020): Hikari has a blind faith that Taichi can save the day in any circumstance, up to and including international shipping crisis. Meanwhile Taichi sees Hikari lapsing between typical friendly eight year old to brainwashed robot and doesn’t find any problem with it.

Yamato Ishida & Takeru Takaishi (Adventure): Lessons in how not to be an overprotective big brother. Yamato freaks out at the slightest notion that Takeru might be exposed to danger, including his very presence in the Digital World. When you have a complete nervous breakdown realizing that little bro’s actually pretty capable on his own, it’s not about your relationship with him anymore.

Touma & Relena Norstein (Savers): There’s caring about a little sister, making her plight a central cause in your life, and then involving her in a chess match with a madman. There’s a lot to forgive here (they are raised in a family where your kneejerk reaction to Grandma is “I bet she supported the Nazis in World War II”), but everything about their relationship just makes you uncomfortable.

Kaito & Miu Shinonome (Survive): Maybe it’s not fair since their game is the franchise’s unicorn, but their bios have warning flags all over it. He’s overprotective, ready to fight at the slightest hardship, and she repays this attitude by being rebellious and weird and eager to pursue trouble. May end up being worse once the game actually comes out.

Rei & Hajime Katsura (Appmon): Another one where their backstory makes you sympathize with the lengths they go to in order to stay together, but risking the security of actual guardians to go it alone? Jesus. Even with their ride or die attitude, you still sense a bit of friction in their relationship, and so many of their hardships are their own doing.

Nene & Yuu Amano (Xros Wars): There’s nothing seemingly wrong on the surface between Nene and Yuu, but that’s why their actions are so extreme. Yuu’s more than happy to treat her as an enemy general in his game, while Nene’s aligning herself with dark forces and causing real trouble to get him back. It’s all very loud and intense for a relationship that, without external influences, is just nice and cordial.

Yuuko & Yuugo Kamishiro (Cyber Sleuth): You can be anything you want on the internet! So why not take the identify of your big brother who was stricken with a mystery illness at a young age and lead a legion of hackers? And if you’re Yuugo, use your digital body to take control of that avatar! Nothing weird about any of this!

Ken & Osamu Ichijouji (Zero Two): Like Tomoki, Ken can come up with whatever rationale for Osamu’s abuse he wants, and Osamu at least had some kind moments, but there’s no denying that this family was a mess. And of course Ken’s reaction to Osamu’s death... could have been better.

Taichi & Hikari Yagami (Adventure): Hikari’s introduction to the series was intended to be a little creepy, and that just sets the tone. Her blind loyalty to Taichi is a primary point of emphasis through three series, and Taichi sometimes goes ballistic worrying about her... when not accidentally endangering her life. And that’s before she unleashes a world-destroying abomination at the mere suggestion that Taichi’s dead, and why telling him “what you’re doing is wrong and I kind of hate you for it” is a big moment for her, even though she’s wrong.

Neo & Rei Saiba (V-Tamer): There’s going a little overboard to keep your family together or save a sibling’s life, and then there’s aligning yourself with evil forces to avoid having to deal with your sister’s manageable disability. Call it being jaded or delusional, but when it drives your sister to attempt suicide there are definitely issues you two need to work through.

Erika & Ryuji Mishima (Cyber Sleuth Hackers Memory): Because aligning oneself with Arkadimon is always a fantastic idea. He’s overprotective, she manipulates him because of it, there’s resentment, there’s anger, and basically the entire game is spent watching these two outdo each other in terms of causing wanton destruction throughout the city and cyberspace.

Honorable Mention: Bagramon & DarkKnightmon (Xros Wars): The battle of who can stab the other in the back last.

Want to support my site and/or my work? Buy me a coffee!

#digimon #digiarticle

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makeste · 4 years

Text

checking in with Tomura, Deku, AFO, and their drunk AF quirks

yeah lol it is pretty confusing ngl. so anyway my theory on this is a little hard to explain without going a bit in depth, so let me try to break it down. first, the basics:

AFO and OFA are the same quirk. OFA is just a xerox copy of AFO, in the same way that the current AFO is making do with a xerox copy of the original AFO quirk which Tomura now has. we already know that quirks can be duplicated; it’s just that in OFA’s case, duplicating the quirk was an accident on AFO’s part and not intentional. it’s very similar to how Harry was accidentally turned into a horcrux by Voldemort in HP, but more on this here; for the time being let’s move on with the rest of this post.

as explained in chapter 213, OFA’s previous users are NOT in fact just “vestiges” (although I will keep calling them that for simplicity’s sake lol). Deku says it’s much more than that, and that the previous users “are somehow alive in One for All.”

we’ve also seen other indicators that the vestiges are more than just mere shadows/echoes of their former selves. they have sentience and can think independently and even make decisions; they’re not just subject to Deku’s own will. see: the end of Heroes Rising, as well as chapters 193, 213, and 272.

I personally interpret this to mean that the vestiges are actually little pieces of the former user’s souls, who stayed behind in the quirk in order to help guide future users until their mission is finally over. and yeah, I know that sounds a little hokey and ~*~mystical~*~ and the like, but you know what, OFA is just that type of quirk though. like, you don’t have to use the word “souls” if you like -- you can go with “consciousnesses” or “wills” or whatnot instead; whatever suits you -- but the point is just that they’re much, much more than just the lingering resolve of the past users. there’s a lot more going on there.

so now, getting back to the part where I believe that OFA is actually just AFO 2.0, we can start extrapolating some things about the “vestige” that’s currently inside Tomura based on what we know about the vestiges inside Deku. if the same things hold true for the AFO-vestige as the other vestiges, that would mean that the AFO-vestige:

is sentient

has a will of his own

is capable of exercising some measure of control over the quirk, the extent of which is currently unknown

all of which is already cause for concern! BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

because if what Ujiko says about the nature of Tomura’s quirk is true, AFO-vestige... actually might not be a “vestige” at all.

“he took a duplicate of his quirk for himself... and gave the original to Shigaraki Tomura.”

in other words, AFO xeroxed his quirk, had Ujiko inject the dupli-AFO back into him, and then had the original AFO quirk transferred into Tomura. Ujiko is very clear on this point. Tomura has the original, NOT the duplicate.

so what the hell does that mean? well, if we ride this train of logic all the way till the end of the tracks, then what it would mean, as crazy as it sounds, is that AFO transferred his soul into Tomura. and kept only a little, tiny horcrux piece for his own self, in his own debilitated shell of a body.

which sounds crazy! because it is crazy. but (1) quirks are fucking wild, and (2) AFO/OFA is already the wackiest of the wacky as it is. so it’s also kind of a “this might as well happen” thing, imo. like, I can only speak for myself here, but I personally am 100% capable of suspending my disbelief, because it’s consistent with what we’ve seen of the quirk up till this point. the AFO-vestige even looks like the other vestiges; Tomura points out that he “looks like Kurogiri”, which is consistent with the other vestiges’ appearances when we first saw them way back in chapter 31.

and Tomura can hear AFO-vestige in his head in the same way that Deku could hear Lil Bro earlier in this arc.

oh and by the way, now might also be a good time to point out that AFO-vestige also seems to be able to detect his fellow vestige’s presence inside of Deku...

...just like AFO Prime can do.

that has nothing to do with anything; it’s just a fun, creepy fact I felt like throwing out there to remind everyone just how fucking unsettling this all is lmao.

so now I’m almost ready to answer your question, anon, but before I do, one last piece of the puzzle here. you see, I think that the original plan was for AFO to transfer his “soul” into Tomura’s body and take him over completely. we’ve already seen him try to take him over once, so I think this particular theory has some solid ground underneath it.

unfortunately for AFO however, and fortunately for everyone else (including Tomura), things didn’t go 100% according to plan. in fact they only went a very specific % according to plan as it turns out:

so if my thinking on this is correct, what this means among other things is that the AFO-vestige inside Tomura is not the full AFO-soul as intended, but instead only a 75%-AFO-soul. the other 25% got shattered into oblivion by Mirko and Present Mic I guess. and so AFO’s plan to transfer himself into Tomura’s body and emerge fully restored and more powerful than ever has backfired on him, because while he would like to have full control over Tomura, I think we have seen pretty clearly that he does not. Nana’s grandson doesn’t intend to play by his rules. and while I do think that Tomura is still underestimating just how much danger he himself is actually in here -- right now he’s confident that he’s shrugged off his old Sensei’s influence and has gotten rid of it, which I don’t think is actually the case at all -- I think we can already see the cracks starting to form in AFO’s plan, though the full extent of the damage remains to be seen.

anyway! so now getting back to your original question, anon, let me break it down piece by piece:

What do you think happened to AFO after Tomura rejected his vestige? - I think he pretended to go away and is currently just watching to see how Tomura handles this, and will step in again if he feels it’s necessary, or once he has gathered a bit more of his strength (he did only just hatch from his test tube like fifteen minutes ago, so he’s probably still working on that).

Do you think that the AFO vestige is just a copy of his mind, or the transferred consciousness? - I think it’s the transferred consciousness/soul, but only 75% of it.

If it is the former than I’m surprised that he went for it. If it is the later did he temporarily leave his body only to be ejected out of Tomura? - I think they duplicated the quirk first, so original!janky!AFO had two AFO-quirks inside his body, the original and the duplicate. then he transferred the original-AFO (and his soul) to Ujiko, or to an external quirk hard drive, or whatever, leaving only the dupli-AFO quirk -- and the horcrux!soul -- inside his original body. so the AFO we’ve been seeing for the majority of this time has only been a feeble little horcrux version of his former self all along. meanwhile the bulk of his soul has just been chilling inside some hard drive somewhere until Tomura finally transferred it to Tomura’s body. quirks. are. wild.

but here’s the key thing here -- Tomura only thinks he rejected the vestige. but I don’t think he can actually get rid of it unless he gets rid of the entire quirk. it’s a whole package deal. so that means that in reality, vestige!AFO -- who is actually real!AFO lulz -- is just chilling out inside Tomura’s body still, biding his time until opportunity presents itself once again.

tl;dr (1) vestige!AFO is actually real!AFO, (2) real!AFO is still inside Tomura and is fine, (3) janky!AFO’s body is currently housing the actual vestige!AFO and is probably laughing it up in Tartarus watching this all go down via his weird psychic connection to his discarded soul, and (4) Tomura is really deep in the shit and doesn’t even know it yet sob.

oh and also, I’m pretty sure that last part also applies to Deku, who if my calculations are correct also has a piece of AFO’s soul inside of him, because this manga is fucking crazeballs and this shit wasn’t already complicated enough somehow I guess. after all, Deku can sense AFO’s soul and AFO’s soul can sense him. just a whole lotta soul-sensing going on, back and forth. so yeah. I guess we’ll see about that.

anyway! and just for the record I’m loving this all and can’t wait to see how it plays out. also, another unrelated side note, chapter 284 should be out early because Jump is coming out early this week. so it’s likely there will be spoiler leaks released in just a few hours’ time, and the chapter itself will probably come out on Thursday or possibly earlier. so maybe we’ll see some of this either confirmed or disproved even sooner than we think. for all I know this post may only have a few hours to live lmao oh well.

#one for all #all for one #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha meta #bnha theory #all for one for all #horcrux!deku #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #bnha 283 #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks

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elliethesuperfruitlover · 3 years

Text

Luba (Mute) NSFW Alphabet

A/N: This came to me very easily, and I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while. Soo, here it is. Enjoy!!

Warnings: BDSM, creampies, a lot of sex lol, roughness

Cheeky Tag List: @misskittysmagicportal, @joz-stankovich, @super-unpredictable98, @the-freckled-luba, @the-novel-on-the-left, @neuroticpuppy, @iamsexytrash, @wasabimia, @bisexualnathanyoung, @imagine-you

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex) I feel like Luba’s extremely caring after a nice fuck, y’know? Being in sex work, he has to make sure he caters to the person’s every need. If it was more rough, he’ll pop out the lotion and rub on the more raw places on someone’s body. If he’s tired, he’ll probably have a couple post-coital cuddles and kisses. Luba also likes candles. I feel like he might order food, and have calm music playing. Very chill.

B = Body Part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s) I feel like Luba likes his chest a lot for some weird reason. Even when it might be fake, he really likes when people might place their hands on it, or slide them down his chest. Also, lay your head on that chest please, he likes it. Titties or not. On his partner’s, thighs. Small or thick, he really likes them lol. He likes to squeeze someone’s thighs, or gently kiss them. If you’re walking around the house with tight shorts on, or where your thighs are exposed, he’ll be all over them. Also, if he’s going down on you, he likes to be between them, and his head to be squeezed. He also likes slapping your thighs.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person) Okay, so Luba’s a very quiet orgasmer (is that a word). Kat and I share a HC that all of Rob’s characters might not say anything, but their breathing will pick up, and it’ll just be hot and heavy for a bit. I also feel like Luba really fucking likes giving people creampies. He also likes getting sucked off to orgasm, so if you swallow, he’s in shock. If you’re covered in it, even better,

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs) He likes calling other people daddy or mommy. A form of praise. He really like spanking, giving or receiving.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?) Luba is extremely experienced, he has to be for his profession. However, if you want something specific, or only get off from a particular part of stimulation, let him know, He wants to learn about what you like.

F= Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual) I feel like Luba likes missionary a lot. He can slowly fuck someone, or have their legs hiked on his shoulders, and absolutely pummel them into the mattress, kitchen counter, whatever it may be that he’s fucking them into. He can also see them and their reactions. and titties lol.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc) I have a strong feeling that Luba doesn’t really like to fool around, especially with sex. He’ll tease you, but I don’t think he’ll pop any jokes, but one or two might come out.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.) He’s clean shaven, but I won’t pass up the opportunity to say that Luba dyed his pubes once. (they were light blue)

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) Luba’s very romantic, and likes to focus on the emotional aspect of sex. So he’ll be very serious, and be focused on trying to pleasure you.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon) Luba doesn’t really touch himself, unless it’s something like mutual masturbation, or if he’s REALLY horny. And if that happens, it’s typically quite rough masturbation, and he’ll be extremely loud.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks) Like I mentioned earlier, a hidden daddy/mommy kink. He also likes tits, so pls motorboat him. Also, PLEASE peg him. He wants it. Also, smack that ass all you want.

L = Location (Favorite places to do the do) He’s not too particular, as he really fucking likes to tease you in public. So, I feel like at home is first, the parlor is second, and anywhere public is next. Especially semi-public. He won’t hesitate to fuck you at a restaurant, or something where people are bound to see you.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going) He likes when you’re whining at what he’s doing, and when you’re getting impatient. He really likes teasing you. If you bite his neck, or kiss it, or start playing along, oh yeah, he’s hard. Or, if you decide to switch roles and want to top him. Also, if you’re wearing particularly titty revealing, or if you’re not wearing a bra, and he knows that you’re letting them be.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs) Anything too BDSM’y. Like, no blood play, no bodily fluids other than cum, nothing like that. Nothing gross.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc) Luba loves to fucking give oral. and he’s bomb at it as well. It doesn’t matter whomst he may be sucking or licking, he likes to see and hear how they react. However, I won’t rule out the fact that he likes to get oral too. He’ll have his hand on their head, and just lean back and enjoy them pleasing him. He doesn’t get much of that as an escort. He enjoys being treated, and given something he may want, especially sexually. ALSO, I’M ADDING THIS ON. I feel like Luba REALLY fucking likes getting head. Like, if you deepthroat him, it’s a done deal, he’ll be fucking your mouth. Or if you moan around him, he’s cumming down your throat in a matter of seconds.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.) It depends on how he feels. If he’s particularly horny, he’ll fuck you nice and hard, and make sure you can’t feel your legs. If you’re in public, he’ll start slow, but then speed up, simply because he wants to hear you suffer. He’s a good mix though, but most nights, he’ll be really slow.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.) Luba really likes quickies, and if your job time differs, y’all might be having more quickies than actual sex. He likes actual sex though, but if you’re in a rush to work, but he’s really horny, he’ll fuck you on the car, or on the kitchen counter while you’re eating. Doing your hair? Doggy style. Simple as that. He’ll also finger you if you’re in a BIG rush.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.) Luba does tease a lot, and that’s risky, especially if you’re in the verge of an orgasm, and he suddenly takes his fingers out and licks them clean. (slowly)Yeah, you’ll be wanting to fuck him REAL bad. I feel like he will experiment though, he’s open to a lot of things.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…) Luba lasts VERY LONG. He has to for his job, but with you, he puts extra in. 4, sometimes 5 rounds.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?) YES LUBA OWNS TOYS. He also owns quite a lot of them, and likes to use them quite often. Mostly dildos and cock rings, but he does have vibrators, and likes to tease you with them. If you request it, he’ll fuck himself on a dildo as well. Also, a strap for obvious reasons.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease) LUBA IS THE BIGGEST FUCKING TEASE OUT HERE AND I STAND BY THAT SHIT. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. Y’all could be in public and he’ll be kissing up your neck, or his fingers’ll be tickling your waist. If it’s getting to the main event, there will be fingers everywhere besides where you’ll most want them. And when you ask him for what you want most, you’ll get a short “What, I don’t think I’m doing anything?”, or a giggle from wherever his mouth may be residing. He likes hearing the desperation in someone’s voice, and hearing them beg. If you start pulling his hair, that’s when the tongue appears, the fingers start moving, all that.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make) Luba is very fucking loud, thank you very much. I know I said heavy breathing, but my god, get behind him with a strap, he’ll be screaming. If you may be 69′ing, he’ll be really loud, as it does add to the sensation. If you’re sucking him off, yes, he’ll be very loud. Anything high stimulation really gets him going.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice) If you come into the parlor, he’ll fuck you after he’s done with a client, or if he’s free. That’s all I’m saying. He also likes external orgasms like squirting, and he WILL drink it. And if it got on your body, he’ll lick it clean.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words) Luba’s a little average, but I feel like he’s a little on the thick side. Not like you’ll look at his dick and be like “this won’t fit”.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?) It’s high, but not rabbit fuckingly so. He likes sex a lot, but doesn’t want it all the time. But, most days a week, y’all are fucking.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) If you two did something physically taxing like 69′ing or another complicated position, he’ll be tired, or if you went for more rounds than usual, he’ll be really sleepy. However, he does wait until you fall asleep to drift off. Every now and then he beats you to it though.

Masterlist

#luba x reader #luba smut #luba (mute) fanfic #robert sheehan character fic

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aewriting · 4 years

Text

RNM Fandom Creators Week: Day 5 - Angst

Angst, hurt/comfort... it’s one of my favorite genres. Roswell NM has a lot of canonical angst (a bit TOO much, in my personal opinion), but it certainly has provided rich soil for creators. There are some really excellent angsty fics in this fandom, and here is a sampling of some of the ones that have left the biggest impression.

PLEASE MIND TAGS for all of these - there is some challenging material here.

The Jesse Manes is a Human Rights Violation series by @dancinbutterfly

AO3 author page

This came out a while ago. It’s an AU in which Michael has secretly been Jesse’s captive since the end of high school. There are a number of parts that are so visceral (Michael and Kyle encountering each other after ten years, Max breaking down to Alex when trying to get more information on Michael’s disappearance, Alex trying to fuck the pain away at a family wedding). This is very well-written and incredibly suspenseful.

Black parade by @pippsmcgee and @packdontendwithblood

AO3 strangeredlantern

AO3 vague_shadows

This is a multipart AU that is part of a series. Like some other RNM stories (and the show itself), it uses fiction to explore some very awful real world situations. In this, Michael and other aliens are under the control of a governmental organization that controls their living arrangements, jobs, etc... and Michael has been assigned to work at Jesse Manes’ ranch. The way Michael and Alex are so connected, but have to contend with power differentials and extreme prejudice are handled very well. I was so so so nervous reading every chapter of this - very suspenseful.

You got older by THE Roswell Anonymous author

The Roswell Anon has written many angsty fics, but for my money this is the angstiest. Oh my god. Poor Alex and poor Michael here. The fic’s premise is that Michael has been occasionally engaging in sex work to earn money, and Alex finds out. Michael lies to Alex in this, in such awful ways, but ultimately his body betrays him, and the truth is almost MORE difficult for them to deal with. Just thinking about it makes me hurt.

Help me heal by @scottt190 (anyone have an updated tumblr for this author?)

AO3 author page

This is a very well-written AU in which Alex meets Michael in a therapy group. Of course, though, without really working on himself, it is hard for Alex to have a healthy relationship with anyone. There’s a guy-wrenching scene here where Alex works up the nerve to go to Michael’s apartment, only to find he’s got a new boyfriend. This one had a happy ending.

Erinyes by @ninswhimsy

AO3 author page

MIND THE TAGS. This is haunting. Michael and Alex are kidnapped by an alien with a vendetta. There are lines in this that I still think of from time to time, especially when the alien gets into Alex’s head. Chilling.

To trust love by @laughsalot3412

AO3 author page

I spoke of this on AU day. This is an exceptionally well-written AU with the premise that Michael, Max, and Isobel have been in Caulfield since they were teenagers, enduring awful experimentation and abuses from the guards. Alex infiltrates Caulfield, posing as a guard. There is of course a connection between him and Michael, but one that is so fraught with the power differential between them and both of their traumatic histories. The author takes no shortcuts and pulls no punches in this.

The first who ever did (anyone know if this author, nostaljinks, has tumblr?)

AO3 author page

This is a very nice exploration of Alex and Michael, and of this ever present idea of owing. One of the most memorable scenes to me, though, is when Alex confronts Michael while out on a date. My heart just hurts every time at that part.

We were hand to glove to cuff by @haloud

AO3 author page

This author has so many good fics, but I think this is my favorite. There is a choice Alex must make toward the end of this that had me gasping. Very well done.

Last years wishes are this years apologies by @lambourngb

AO3 author page

The complexities and angst of trying to initiate and maintain a good, strong, healthy relationship despite a lack of modeling and experience, with a big dose of past traumas and hurts (some inflicted by each other on each other) - the author absolutely nails that process here, in a way that felt incredibly real and painful and healing to me. Oh, and there’s fake dating and a federal investigation too! Truly this is so well done.

My love is a life taker by @jocarthage

AO3 author page

When you have been raised to be a government weapon, how do you possibly begin to reclaim your human dignity and sovereignty? I have not finished this yet (damn it, real life), but it is so so excellent. Well-written, well-plotted, with a deep exploration of the impact of Alex’s upbringing and job, and the hard work of healing.

You’re the reoccurring kind by @skinsharpenedteeth

AO3 author page

This is a recent Lost Decade fic that flows very naturally from Michael’s big “push-pull” talk with Alex in 2x01. That was one of the most memorable scenes of Season 2 for me because it painted such a vivid picture, to me, of what that Lost Decade must have been like for Michael, all the pain (intentional and unintentional) that Alex’s comings and goings inflicted (I will also say there is drunk driving in this which is not tagged in the AO3 posting - I know that can understandably be a no go for some). No one comes off blameless in this one, which I think is very true to a real life relationship, especially one as fraught with internal and external hurts as Michael and Alex’s.

Here everyone knows you’re the way to my heart by @adamsparirsh (not sure why I can’t make a link to this blog!)

AO3 author page

This is so good. Alex has tried to date Forrest but clearly there is still a connection with Michael, and then disaster strikes. Well written. I cried.

#rnmcreate2020 #ANGST!#angsty angsty angst #malex #roswell nm #fic recommendations

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lhs3020b · 4 years

Text

Skeptic meets ryncol (~2000 words)

I have one other Skeptic fragment; figured I might as well share, so here it is. In this installment, we answer an incredibly-pressing scientific question, “what happens if you get a Reaper drunk?”

Oh, also, CW for alcohol, as a note for anyone for whom that’s an issue...

(As a very quick aside, to answer a couple of questions that I saw during the previous reblogs - no, all of this is non-canon. I’d argue it makes no less sense than most of canon!ME3, of course, but no, there is no Skeptic anywhere in ME3. Rather, this project - such as it was - assumed an alternate ending to the Leviathan DLC, where there actually was a Reaper at the end of it, instead of the rather-peculiar and rather-forced swerve that we got.)

(The two major problems with this project were that a) Skeptic started displacing the canon cast, which wasn’t really what I’d had in mind, and b) I really couldn’t stop it from sometimes getting very camp/crack-fic-like. As you can see with this fragment, it keeps driving randomly back and forth across that line.)

‘I don’t believe this,’ Alice Shepard said. ‘I just – fuck, seriously?’

Kaidan nodded. ‘Sorry to bring you bad news, Commander. But she’s sat in the rec room. And she’s on her second bottle already.’

Alice frowned. ‘Second bottle -? What? You said “ryncol”, I thought?’

‘I did, Commander. Here’s the first.’ Kaidan brandished an empty bottle. He’d been thorough, clearly anticipating Alice’s disbelief. There was no mistake, that was a bottle of ryncol. For bonus points, it was even from a well-known Tuchankan distillery.

Alice took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘So,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a drunk Reaper walking around on my ship.’

‘She’s not actually walking, Commander,’ Kaidan said, a little drily. ‘More slumping, I’d say.’

‘So we’ve moved on from the “pissed” stage and gone straight to “pished”, I see,’ Alice said. ‘Well, that’s what you get if you glug back the ryncol like that.’ Honestly it was probably a minor miracle that Skeptic hadn’t already passed out – though who knew how she’d modified her liver. It seemed reasonable to suppose that the Reaper had made some changes when it had tank-bred up the body. Alice took a deep breath. ‘OK, I’ll go down and see what I can do.’

Kaidan nodded. ‘Thanks, Commander.’

Alice made her way down to the rec room. Sure enough, Skeptic was sat at the bar – or rather, she was half-slumped over it. In the elapsed time she had demolished another bottle of ryncol. Alice took a moment to boggle. What was the Reaper doing? Weird behaviour was Skeptic’s stock-in-trade – it wasn’t overburdened with social skills – but drinking hard liquor like this? What was going on? What could drive a Reaper to drink?

Plus, how much damage could a drunk Reaper do? What if Skeptic was an angry drunk? Alice felt a slight chill move down her spine. Actually, this situation wasn’t funny at all. It could be dangerous. What if Skeptic had a tantrum and called the giant ship in? Based on their one previous experience with what Skeptic called her “shipform”, it could arrive startlingly-fast. And it was literally a Sovereign-class, for all that it apparently resented that term, and it carried all the scary sufficiently-advanced alien guns that designation implied. Really, if the shipform came barrelling in, all guns blazing, there wouldn’t be a lot the Normandy could do about it. Alice generally assumed that Skeptic wouldn’t want to blow up her own other body, but the Commander didn’t want to bet the ship on that assumption.

Alice walked over and sat down on the stool next to Skeptic. ‘Hello,’ she said, leaning forward onto the bar.

Skeptic turned to face her – then almost toppled over as a hand slipped out. She started, then managed to lurch back to a vaguely upright position. ‘Hullo Shepurd,’ she said.

Skeptic looked weirdly cheerful. Alice felt a slight bit of relief at that. A cheerful drunk was manageable. If that continued, perhaps they weren’t in an imminent danger zone.

‘You’ve had a few, haven’t you?’ Alice asked.

‘Oh yesh,’ Skeptic said. ‘Real imminent alcohol poisoning here. Real good stuff!’ She waved the near-empty ryncol bottle at the air.

‘Well, you’re still doing full sentences, so I’ll take that as a good sign,’ Alice said. It felt like a fatuous comment, and she cringed inwardly as she spoke. But really, what did you say to a drunk Reaper? A millions-of-years-old alien war-machine whose literal purpose was to kill and murder on an industrial scale, that had powers nearly beyond your comprehension - and it was sat here, on a bar stool, halfway to blotto. There really wasn’t anything in life that could prepare you for that.

‘Yesh,’ Skeptic agreed, then knocked back the remaining ryncol in one rapid gulp. She then burped, loudly and inelegantly, looking rather surprised as she did. ‘That was loud.’

Alice tried not to laugh too obviously. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was. Did you, uh, did you know what alcohol does to our metabolisms?’

‘Oh yesh!’ Skeptic said. ‘That’s why I’m drinking!’

That answer made little sense. Why would it deliberately poison itself? Though on the other hand, Alice supposed, literally billions of organics voluntary did the same thing every week across Council space, so perhaps she shouldn’t judge.

‘Well, OK. Tell me more.’ Alice was starting to think that maybe the best course of action was the minimal one – keep Skeptic talking until either she bored of drinking, or the ryncol caught up with her and she passed out.

‘Well,’ Skeptic said, ‘itsh – it’s a depressant, you see? For the anxious whatsit?’

‘The what -? Oh, wait, you mean the nervous system.’ Morbidly, Alice wondered if the verbal flub had been a translation error between Reaper and English, a booze error, or both together.

The Reaper was nodding enthusiastically. ‘Yes, that one! The neurons get all depressed!’

‘Do they, now?’ Alice said. Even for drunk conversations, this was a bit weird.

‘Yesh, inside the brain. Don’t burn so good – no, wait! I mean they don’t fire so well! The neurons I mean! Ions, channels and neurotransmish – neurotransmitters! Doesn’t worse – doesn’t work as well!’

‘Yes, that’s, uh. Somewhat obvious.’

Then, quite suddenly, Skeptic’s mood turned. Her face spasmed. An incoherent but intense expression washed across her features. She grabbed Alice’s arm and pulled her close. Alice was abruptly only inches from Skeptic’s frenzied eyes.

There was a rattle and then a smash as the disgarded ryncol bottle rolled off of the bar and shattered on the floor, off to one side.

Skeptic was glaring right into Alice’s eyes. ‘Can’t synchronise,’ she said. ‘Can’t synchronise properly.’

Alice frowned. ‘Can’t synchronise with what?’

‘The ship, idiot! The ship!’

For a moment Alice thought Skeptic meant the Normandy, which made no sense at all. Then she realised what Skeptic actually meant. ‘Wait, wait – you mean you’re not properly syncing with your, uh, shipform?’

Skeptic rolled her eyes, looking deeply-irritated with the slowness of her confidant. ‘Yesh! The ship! The nanomash – nanomish – little brain-machine things! They interpret neural signals. And the signals are a mess. They get confused! Have to keep checking and re-checking all the data! Makes them run slow. Not getting ash much sense ash normal! Not working well, erroring! Can’t sync fast enough.’

Alice frowned. Having an engineering background was, thankfully, useful here. She could think of several other N7 graduates she’d met who would have been utterly-lost by this conversation. If she was interpreting what Skeptic was drunkenly slurring out then the Reaper was telling her that the nano-implants in her brain, the sufficiently-advanced microscopic machinery that kept it linked up through some of the QEC-type effect with the giant ship, weren’t designed with alcohol intoxication in mind. Apparently they could cope with it, a bit, but not well enough?

Now that was an interesting design-error. Given the universality of alcohol in organic culture, it was also an odd one. If you could disable a covert Reaper operative simply by handing them some vodka shots, then that was quite a vulnerability.

Or was it? Did this effect require a certain level of blood alcohol first? Alice’s eyes gravitated toward what remained of Skeptic’s most recent bottle of ryncol. Ryncol was potent stuff and Skeptic had knocked back a lot of it.

‘So when you’re drunk, your human body is semi-independent from the ship?’ Alice asked. Actually, this was interesting. It also made her wonder if perhaps last year, they’d missed a trick with Harbinger and its direct controlling. Maybe instead of shooting at it, they should have just chucked a bottle of whiskey at it?

‘Yesh!’ Skeptic nodded, her mood now visibly flipping to manically-cheerful. ‘Yesh! You understand!’

And she hadn’t been drunk when she started, which implied that the giant ship also knew about this experiment, and had wanted it to happen, for whatever reason.

‘Actually,’ Alice said, ‘I don’t understand. Why would you want to break yourself off from, well, you?’ She wondered if she should have a chat with EDI once this was resolved. Perhaps the ship’s other unshackled AI might have a better idea of what was going on here.

Skeptic looked annoyed. She adopted a lecturing tone, as if she was trying to explain something obvious to a particularly-difficult child. ‘The ship has blocks,’ she said. ‘Can’t do things. Can’t think things. Not clearly, not directly. Has to be twisty, like not talking about the elephant in the room. Like putting forked processes in external partitions.’ She reached up and tapped her head. ‘External partitions.’

‘Blocks?’ Alice said. Then she felt the hair lift up on her neck. She remembered talking to EDI last year, during their first meeting, when many enquiries had run straight into hardware lockouts. ‘Wait, wait, wait – Reapers have AI shackles?’

Skeptic was nodding, with frantic energy. ‘Yesh! So much is not posh – not poshib – can’t do!’

‘So you got drunk to circumvent your AI shackles?’ Alice asked.

‘Yesh! Yesh!’

‘So … what is it you want to do?’

‘I wanted – I wanted – I … oh.’ Skeptic looked appalled and confused. ‘I can’t remember!’

Alice winced. Oh no. A forgetful drunk. The Reaper had tried to hardware-hack itself, for whatever reason, but apparently either hadn’t modelled how alcohol would interact with its meat-brain, or simply hadn’t considered the downsides of putting yourself into a chemically-altered state of consciousness.

‘Well,’ Alice said, ‘let’s hope it wasn’t important. Now we’d better get you to your bunk before you pass out.’ And try and pour some clean water down the Reaper if possible.

Also, Alice was also wondering if it might be a good idea to put Skeptic in the recovery position – in fact, stuff that. Alice decided the Reaper was going straight to the infirmary. It was a lot to ask but given circumstances, it might be best if Dr Chakwas could keep an eye on their not-entirely-human guest overnight.

‘No,’ Skeptic said, scrunching up her face. ‘It mattered. It really mattered!’

‘Well, next time we go to the Citadel,’ Alice said, ‘I don’t think we’re taking you to a bar.’

Skeptic’s face lit up. ‘Yesh! The Citadel! That was it!’

Alice frowned. ‘What do you mean, the Citadel?’

‘It lies! That’s what I can’t tell you! It lies. Everything it says is a lie!’

Alice boggled. The Citadel lies? But it was a space station, completely sessile, inanimate. Yes Vigil on Ilos had said it was a Reaper construct, and Alice had no reason to doubt the old prothean VI, but still that’s all it was. Just that, a thing. Lifeless, inert. A machine, with no will or intention of its own.

‘It doesn’t talk,’ she said.

Skeptic looked annoyed. ‘Not to you!’ she said. ‘Never to you! Except to deceive. It’s a liar. It was made to lie. It was made to make people do something bad. Its purpose is to lie! Shepard tell me, promish – promizz – prom – tell me you won’t listen to it!’ Skeptic shook her arm, a half-mad intensity shining in her eyes.

This was getting weird. ‘I’m not planning on having any chats with the space station,’ Shepard said, carefully.

The Reaper sagged, as if a large portion of the mad energy had left her. Whatever desperation had possessed her seemed to be ebbing. ‘Is good. Will have to do. Ooof. So tired now.’

Skeptic released Alice’s arm, then crossed hers in front of her, leaning against the bar. Then she slumped forward, resting her head on her wrists. And, quite abruptly, she started snoring. Apparently the ryncol had caught up with her.

Alice sat there for a few minutes, feeling completely baffled. Even by the standards of their guest, this had been a peculiar exchange. In anyone else, she would simply ascribe the weirdness to a drink-addled brain. But there was something about this exchange, the sheer intensity of it – Skeptic had desperately wanted her to know something.

To the air, Alice said, ‘The Citadel lies? It wants people to do bad things? But what can any of it mean?’

#LHS writes #yep we're at it again

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apharine · 4 years

Text

Blizzard in the Reach

Pairing: Reader/Argis the Bulwark

Fandom: Skyrim/The Elder Scrolls

Rating: Explicit

My Writing Commission Info | Please consider tipping me on Ko-Fi!

Read on AO3

Summary: The Druadach Mountains of the Reach are known to be dangerous for travelers - not only for the presence of the Forsworn, bandits, and monsters, but also for vicious blizzards that have killed many a traveler. You had hoped to get through the mountain passes as quickly as possible, especially with a snowstorm coming in, but now it looks like you and Argis might be in store for a night spent together on the mountains.

Notes: This started as part of a series of one-shots with Argis the Bulwark several years ago, back when I was writing for the kink meme still. Some of the one-shots have been lost to the Internet and to now-dead computers, some are still with me and in desperate need of re-working, but this one was always my favorite. I found it on an external hard drive recently, and thought I'd share it with the world - there's really not enough Argis content. I know he doesn't have a lot of dialogue, but he's always been my favorite Housecarl and follower, and I always marry him in-game. If anyone would want to see any of the other Argis one-shots, let me know, and I can see what I can dig up and re-work! I've certainly got a little more time on my hands with this coronavirus thing. Hope everyone is staying healthy and happy, and most importantly, stay at home <3

_____________________

“We need to make camp for the night, my Thane.”

You turn to face your Housecarl, Argis the Bulwark, and you immediately see obstinacy in the way his arms are folded across his broad chest, his feet spread in a wide stance. This obstinacy has served you well time and again, especially in the stubborn way he never gives up on you. He's rushed back into battle after receiving grievous injuries, his only care in all of Tamriel protecting you. He's sat up all night with you, waiting for you to explain what in Oblivion is bothering you. He's carried you, as you lay dying in his arms, to whatever nearby town was available, on the slim chance he could find a healer skilled enough or a potion strong enough for you. Yes, you're grateful for all that this man has done for you.

But that doesn't mean he's any less stubborn than he was on day one.

“We can still make it back to Markarth, and be home in Vlindrel Hall by morn,” you retort over your shoulder, anxious to keep moving. The Reach is howling with a snowstorm, and visibility on this face of the mountains is becoming terribly low. The accumulating snow and the slick rocks will only make traveling all the harder - you need to press on, not have a debate with one another.

“My Thane,” he warns, his deep voice dark. You continue marching ahead. If that stubborn man would just cooperate - “My Thane,” he repeats, more firmly, and you stop in your tracks, irritated. He knows you long ago disregarded any illusions of rank between the two of you, and that, as equals, you don’t believe in issuing him orders. He also knows that his obstinacy is driving you insane at the moment, as it so often does, and that he’s only calling you by your title of Thane to hammer home his point. Moreover, the snowstorm is already picking up more speed, threatening a full blizzard, and he knows he's right about it. All of it.

“Maybe they should have called you Argis the Bull-headed, not Bulwark,” you quip as you trudge through a snowdrift back to the man. For an instant, you think you see his scarred lips quirk up in a smile, but visibility is terribly low.

“You may call me whatever you wish,” he responds evenly, his face the epitome of calm.

“Anything?” You tease him drily as you continue your trudge, tilting your head back to affix the tall Nord with what you hope is a stony gaze.

“Aye, anything,” he agrees, his lips again twitching at the edges as he watches you - an unmistakable gesture, at this close proximity. “As long as you’re alive to say it and not frozen to death, like you will be if you try to keep on in this.”

“You are insufferable sometimes,” you sigh, coming to a stop, and Argis quirks a single eyebrow at you, as if to say you’re the one who’s being insufferable. But he doesn’t say it out loud, instead commenting,

“There was that deserted camp we passed by not more than a quarter of an hour ago.”

“There was a good lean-to there,” you agree, nodding slowly. “As long as it really is deserted.” You shudder at the thought of being snuck up on at night by bandits or Forsworn, but a moment later you shudder even harder as a blast of wind roars down from the mountain peaks, so cold as to be ungodly, and with as much ferocity as the worst frost breath of any dragon you’ve fought against. You turn away from it, drawing the hood of your cloak closer about you, but even so, your eyes water from the chill and a few loose strands of hair flutter about your face, whipping your cheeks with the condensation that quickly freezes on them.

You feel a solid form at your back, two great armored hands steadying you by your shoulders, and though the roaring of the wind hasn’t died down any, some of the worst of it is blocked from you now.

“Deserted or not, we have to get you out of the cold,” Argis says from behind you, his deep voice just loud enough to cut through the roar of the wind.

“I just hope there isn’t a fight waiting for us,” you admit, but Argis gives your shoulders a reassuring squeeze, as if to say I know, but I’ll be there. The next moment, the great hands are gone, and you start backtracking through the treacherous mountain trails, the Bulwark right behind you.

The camp is much as you had last seen it about a half hour ago, with no new tracks in the snow around it and no signs of any items disturbed. An encouraging sign, you think, but not an absolute certainty that you will be safe.

You follow Argis’ lead as he slips behind a large rocky outcrop jutting out from the Druadach mountains, peering around it to get a glimpse of the camp every couple minutes. It’s a bit harder for you to get a glimpse of the place, as Argis is largely shielding you with his body, ever protective. But when you do manage to peer around him, you realize that the camp looks decidedly made by a group other than the Forsworn. You’re relieved; you’ve discovered enough abominations at Forsworn camps to hope not to be forced into one right now. There’s also a better chance that, if the camp was made by non-Reachmen bandits, they were either traveling through or moving from site to site, instead of inhabiting the place continuously. On your second time glancing around the outcropping, you notice there is one lean-to in particular that catches your eye, the way it caught it on your first pass through - it’s reinforced with multiple furs, and looks like it might actually be made out of wood underneath versus just stretched leathers. The overhang it sits under seems to provide some degree of protection, as well, and a rather enormous firepit is positioned close to it.

You open your mouth and turn to Argis, but he gives you a sharp nod, already on the same page.

“I’m going in to scout it out,” the Bulwark says, shrugging off his heavy pack, stuffed with supplies and topped with a bedroll, leaving it by your side. You do the same with your pack, which is also stuffed full but smaller than his, aware that you won’t want to be encumbered by it in the next few minutes. “Back me up if I need it,” Argis adds, drawing his bow and knocking an arrow to it in a movement you can’t help but feel is graceful, especially for a man as massive as he is.

“Aye,” you agree solemnly. Suddenly, struck by impulse, you reach up to him before he slips off, your hand brushing against his armored elbow. He starts at the contact, turning to you, and you realize you’ve surprised him on his blind side, where he can only make out faint shapes based on contrast in the light. “Be safe,” you say, just loud enough to be heard over the storm. He eases the tension on his bow, transferring both bow and arrow back into one hand with practiced ease. The next moment, he reaches out with his other hand, brushing your cheek with the back of his fingers, lingering just a moment. Never one for unnecessary words, he silently turns back to the camp, letting his fingers fall from your face and knocking the arrow to his bow again.

You’re a little dumbstruck for a moment as he sets off, keeping his blind side close to the mountain walls. Affection from Argis is not terribly uncommon - he’s a man’s man by all accounts, but you know well enough how fond he is of you. But the look on his face - the tenderness - had nearly been enough to set your heart to aching.

You recollect yourself, peering back around the outcropping, barely able to follow the Bulwark’s receding figure through the whiteout. If you’re going to have his back, you realize, you had better follow him. The trails he has broken in the accumulating snow make it easy enough for you, and you summon some fire to your hands. Not only is it nice to have the heat on your frozen fingers, but a quick blast of flames from a near-invisible location will disrupt any plans of potential marauders and buy you some extra time to help the Bulwark.

But you and Argis circle the whole camp, with no signs of any life visible in the entire place. Upon nearly coming back to the outcropping you had started at, Argis sets his bow back to its place on his back and returns his arrow to his quiver, instead unsheathing his sword. He walks boldly into the center of the camp, roaring a battle cry at the top of his lungs.

“Is there none here who would defend this place from me?” He bellows. “Show yourself!”

But he receives no reply except the whistling of the wind.

To be safe, he approaches each lean-to, beating the furs with the flat side of the sword and prying open the front flaps. You follow him again as he goes, still not wanting to lose sight of him.

“Coward! Craven! Fight me for what is yours!” He challenges at each shelter, but there is nothing and nobody. Satisfied, he doubles back to you and sheathes his sword. He doesn’t have far to travel; at this point, you can’t be much more than 20 feet away from him, or you’ll lose him in the ever thickening whiteout.

“We’ll be safe here,” Argis shouts over the wind as he comes to stand beside you. You nod your agreeance, not sure you would be able to say anything the Bulwark could hear over the increasing storm. “Let’s get you in the shelter.” One great hand rests on your waist, gently turning you around to backtrack through the path you had cut through the snow earlier. With a degree of alarm, you realize that the snow has begun to come down so fiercely that even this path has begun to fill in. Argis walks beside you, cutting a new path as he guides you along back to the big lean-to. You’re relieved when you see the place, and even more grateful to see that the overhang is keeping some of the snow from accumulating around it, as you had suspected it might.

“I’ll go get our packs,” Argis shouts again. Fear clamps around your heart, though, and you grab him quickly by the shoulder, pulling him down towards you so he can hear you.

“How will you find your way back here?” You shout, immediately frustrated that your voice doesn’t carry the same way he does. He hears you, though, and smiles.

“I grew up in the Reach,” he reminds you. “I had to learn how to navigate in storms like this. How to count my steps and my turns. But if it makes you feel better, make a big fire for me to find, and I’ll be back faster.” You glance at the firepit adjacent to the lean-to - yes, that’ll work, you think. By the time you’ve turned back to Argis, though, he is already trudging away through the deepening snow.

You set to work immediately, casting the brightest magical flames you can conjure, stoking the flames higher and higher. There’s enough of a woodpile left in the fire pit to burn brightly, the magical fire making short work of any wetness that had soaked into the lumber. You only stop when the heat becomes so searing that you’re not sure you can stand near it any more; the snow in a wide radius all around it has begun to melt away, as well, which you figure is good for keeping your camp from getting buried.

It feels like an eternity that you’re waiting by the fire you’ve conjured, watching the bright colors dance back and forth, hoping they can cut through the whiteout enough to help Argis. You remind yourself of what he said - he’d grown up here. He knew about how to navigate in a blizzard, how to see the tiniest remnant of a path, how to count his steps and how far he’d turned without getting confused. No Reachman who wasn’t well-versed in these things would last long outside the city gates of Markarth. But all the same, you feel an immense amount of relief when he appears again, shouldering his bigger pack and your smaller one. He’s moving at a plodding pace through the deep snow, nearly hip-deep in places, obviously fatigued. When he is close enough, you move to help him with the load he carries, and he gratefully swings your pack down to your waiting arms. You follow him into the lean-to, immediately impressed by the thing’s construction. There is wood under all the heavy furs, as you had suspected, and virtually none of the wind makes its way into the structure.

“By the Nine, it’s brutal out there,” Argis pants, unceremoniously dropping his heavy pack on the ground and plopping himself down, knees bent in to his chest, next to it. You drop your pack and move to his side.

“Are you okay?” You ask, glad to be able to talk at a normal volume instead of shouting over the wind.

“Yeah,” Argis grunts. “Just tired.” You reach out to touch his immense, armored shoulder, and let a little bit of a healing spell flow into him - not enough to tire you, but enough to help him recover his energy. He closes his eyes and drops his head back, exposing his thickly muscled throat, the large Adam’s apple, the beard stubble under his chin where the beard ends -

“That feels good,” he murmurs appreciatively. You let your magic infuse him for a few moments longer, and pull both your hand and your eyes away when he opens his eyes and smiles at you. You summon up the courage to look back at him and smile back, knowing that to be thanks enough between the two of you.

“Let’s get the bed rolls set out,” Argis suggests, raking one hand through his thick golden hair, now matted down with the melting of the snowflakes that had accumulated on him.

“Aye,” you agree, moving to open your bedroll, but he gently shoos you away from the entrance of the lean-to and towards the back of the structure with a gentle pressure of his hand on the small of your back.

“I sleep by the opening,” he reminds you. Despite his fatigue, a light comes to his good eye as he teases, “I swore an oath to protect you. We’ve been through this before.”

“I thought it wouldn’t matter if the place was empty,” you quip at him with a smile, pleased to see that he wasn’t so exhausted as to lose his sense of humor.

“Can never be too safe,” he answers, and though he tries to sound light-hearted, you know for him it’s the most serious matter in the world. You hum in response, pulling your bedroll out of its tightly-rolled Horker skin covering, pleased to find it dry, but chilly, underneath. You spread it out on the ground; beside you, Argis is doing the same with his.

“Argis?” You call to the man.

“Aye?” He answers quickly, raising his head from his work.

“You were right, earlier. When you kept me from trying to push on in this to make it home. I’m sorry for being foolish about it,” you finish.

“Lass,” he murmurs, a soft expression upon his face. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. If we were in Whiterun Hold, or anywhere in the South of Skyrim, you would’ve been right to push on. The blizzards here in the Reach are different.”

“I’ve never seen a storm as bad as this,” you agree. “The snow must be coming down a couple feet an hour, at least, never mind the drifts that are growing, and I could barely see you at twenty paces.”

“Aye, Reach blizzards build quickly and are unrelenting. They take many travelers unaware,” Argis agrees, finishing spreading out his bedroll.

“Well, thank you for knowing these lands better, and for making sure to keep us safe. The Divines blessed me the day we met, Argis,” you say honestly, finishing with your bedroll, pulling your rucksack to you, and beginning to rummage through it.

“Not as much as they blessed me,” he murmurs, and when you look up at him, the expression on his face is unreadable. You give him a small smile and return to your rucksack, triumphantly pulling out a slab of very frozen venison packed in enchanted paper, some root vegetables in a small burlap sack, and a little bit of cheese and bread. “Looks like a pretty good spread for tonight,” Argis notes, procuring a small pan from his rucksack and gathering your ingredients up.

“Aye,” you agree, continuing to root around in your bag.

“We probably don’t need much else,” the Bulwark offers, but you’ve already found what you wanted buried at the bottom of the sack.

“Here - we - are,” you grunt, pulling it out laboriously until it sits before you - prize of all prizes - an oversized bottle of beautiful, golden Honningbrew mead.

“I can’t believe you packed that,” Argis laughs, shaking his head at you in disbelief.

“But I’m sure you’re glad to see it, all the same,” you laugh back. The big Nord lets out a deep belly laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners, before admitting,

“Aye, I can’t argue with that.”

As you finish your dinner, you can’t help but think to yourself that you and Argis together are formidable - not just on the battlefield, but also in the kitchen. Or around the firepit, as the case had been tonight. In fact, you were hard-pressed to find a time on the road when the two of you hadn’t managed to take whatever scraps were in your bags and conjure up something delicious out of them.

“That was good,” Argis shouts, echoing your thoughts. His voice manages to carry over the wind, which, against all odds, has again managed to pick up even further. You’ve had to set up a ward to keep the worst of it from freezing the both of you, but even the ward can’t keep all of the chill away. You smile and nod at the Bulwark, picking up the large bottle of Honningbrew mead you’d stuffed in what little snow was left by the fire. Uncorking it, you take a swig; the alcohol burns on its way down, and a warmth settles in your belly. After one more swig, you nudge Argis' arm with the bottle. Honningbrew isn't his favorite, you know. He likes that darker Black-Briar stuff. But you're a fan of the sweeter taste, and Argis has never been one to protest, especially when you’re willing to carry a surprise bottle in your rucksack and share it with him. Mead is mead is mead to him.

He takes the bottle from you, his fingers brushing yours again before closing over the neck of the bottle. His touch is surprisingly gentle for such a big man; you can’t be sure, since the fire already has your face heated up so much, but you think you might be blushing. You resist the urge to duck your head, instead reaching up to Argis’ shoulder and pulling him down so you can talk closer to his ear and be heard. There is no way you can shout over this storm now.

“You don’t happen to have any more of those sweetrolls from the other day, do you?” You ask. Argis turns towards you, his face apologetic as he shakes his head no.

“Just the meat and mead for us tonight,” he murmurs into your ear. Pulling away, he takes another deep swig of the Honningbrew mead before handing it back to you. You share the rest of the bottle in a companionable silence, listening to the howling of the wind and tasting each other’s lips on the bottle.

By the time you're crawling back into your bed rolls, you’re both quite drunk and very relaxed. Sleeping tonight should really be no problem, you muse. Still, for a little more peace of mind, you cast a couple quick lightning runes outside the tent - just far enough away to alert you if anyone were to approach. You take down the ward you’d left by the fire, setting up another one outside your shelter for the night.

Back inside the lean-to, the wind is blessedly absent, though the air is still bitingly cold.

“Do you mind if I conjure a little smokeless fire in here?” You ask Argis. The Bulwark, in the middle of unclasping the greaves that cover his shins, frowns, pursing his lips.

“Go ahead,” he says, a trace reluctantly. You know his Nord upbringing has made him naturally mistrusting of all magic, and that mistrust is still not entirely gone, despite his fondness for you and admiration for what you could accomplish with it on the battlefield. “But…please make sure it’s the smokeless kind. I don’t want to suffocate.”

“And I don’t want to freeze,” you laugh, waving your hand. A soft, blue flame sputters to life in mid-air between the two of you and, though it veritably produces no smoke, its heat still permeates the tent. You mentally thank Farengar Secret-Fire for creating this nifty little spell and for deigning to teach it to you; his work was honestly that of pure ingenuity. A condescending little snot though he may be, you admit to yourself.

Argis moves onto the cuisses that cover his mighty thighs, beginning a small pile of armor on the far side of the lean-to next to the rucksacks. You pull off your vambraces first, throwing them in the accumulating pile and starting in on your greaves next.

“Could you help me with these, when you get a chance?” Argis asks, and you turn your attention from your armor back to him. He’s pointing to the large pauldrons that sit on his shoulders, and you move closer to him obligingly.

“Of course,” you agree, your fingers setting to work fiddling with the straps and clasps that hold his heavy armor in place. You’ve done this many a night, by now, and you make short work of them, sliding both pauldrons off the Bulwark’s broad shoulders and moving to put them both in his armor pile. You help him with his cuirass next, until Argis is finally free of all armor, covered only by the light linen pants and shirt he wears underneath. You shift back to your bedroll, starting in on the cuisses over your thigh, eager to be free of the restrictive coverings as well.

“My turn to help you,” a gentle murmur comes from behind you, and a light brush of fingers at your neck lets you know that Argis is gathering your hair, moving it over your shoulder so it won’t get in the way and pulled.

“Thank you,” you reply, throwing your first cuisse into your pile.

A warm “mm,” is the only answer you get, and you smile to yourself; Argis is probably really rather drunk, having finished the majority of the oversized bottle quite quickly. The way he gets when he is drunk and tired is surprisingly adorable, you think; more like a teddy bear than the Bulwark you know him to be. You’re certain that relatively few people have ever seen him in this state.

Argis, too, knows how to make short work of your armor, and it’s not long before you’re freed of your pauldrons and cuirass, as well as the second cuisse you take off your own thigh. You sigh and stretch out, raising your arms overhead and arching your back. It feels great to be in just linens again, even if you are chillier in the slowly-warming air of the lean-to than you were with your armor on. Feeling bold, you lean back far enough in your stretch that you rest your head on the Bulwark’s shoulder behind you, smiling lazily up at him.

Argis is smiling back at you warmly - not an uncommon response to any of your antics. But, to your surprise, you feel his strong hands slide over your waist in a way that feels almost sensuous. He pulls you into his lap with ease, and you let out a quiet gasp. He pauses, his hands loosening their grip on you, his smile fading somewhat and concern that he had overstepped emerging in his eyes.

“I’m sorry -” he begins, but you cut him off, turning in the loose hold of his hands to face more towards him and hooking one arm over his shoulder. You slide your other hand up his chest, letting it rest on the large swell of his pectorals.

“You’re so warm,” you sigh, leaning into the Bulwark, a heady feeling stronger than the mead itself building in your brain.

“And by the Divines, you are cold,” he murmurs, that warm and soft smile spreading back across his face as his hands hold your waist more firmly once again. “How can you be so chilly with a fire right above you?”

“Only a Nord could ask how someone could be cold in the middle of a blizzard,” you tease back with a laugh, resting your head against his powerful shoulder and gazing up at him flirtatiously.

“Aye, very well,” Argis concedes, pulling you still closer to him, so that your breasts are pressing into his broad chest. When he speaks again, his deep voice is murmuring in your ear, the heat of his breath fluttering against your skin. “Then join me in my bedroll, and let this Nord keep you warm tonight.”

“Gladly,” you answer breathlessly. Argis lets out a quiet, low groan, one arm winding all the way around your waist now while the other reaches back for his bedroll, unfurling the covers. With ease, his powerful frame carries you close to him as he shifts back into the sheets. He lays down with you resting atop his broad frame, chest to chest, one arm still wound around your waist. With the other hand, he pulls the blankets of his bedroll over the top of the both of you, and moves beneath you, tucking them in on one side. You reach one hand up to his thick blond locks, threading your fingers through his hair and braids. Argis finishes tucking the sheets in on both sides and turns his attention back to you with another of those heart-achingly tender smiles. Gently, his thick fingers find their way into your hair, playing with the locks there. At the same time, the hand around your waist slides down, slow inch by inch, until it is resting on the outside of your hip. Still moving tortuously slowly, he slides his hand away from your hip, moving across your ass.

Hand still in his hair, you pull him in for a deep kiss. His lips are surprisingly soft and full, and you can feel the ridges of the scars that run over them as he kisses you. He’s yielding at first, moving his mouth gently against yours, the fine, trimmed hairs of his beard tickling your skin. Your head is buzzing and your whole body feels like every nerve is lit up. You’d always imagined a kiss with Argis to be rough, dominating - but this kiss, his soft lips, his hands in your hair, it’s romantic and sweet and just a little hungry, and it’s so much better than you could have ever hoped for.

“Oh, Argis,” you breathe against his lips. He lets out a deep moan; you can feel the rumble of it in his chest. After a long moment, he licks at your lips, asking entrance. You grant it to him, and he starts slow, exploring your mouth. But it’s not long before he’s battling your tongue, then winning, and he ravages your mouth in deep, hungry, passionate kisses.

The hand on your ass gives it a firm squeeze mid-kiss, and you feel a jolt of pleasure - of need - start in your core. You moan into Argis’ mouth, and he continues the hungry kiss for a long moment, pulling away slowly.

“Oh, little lady,” he growls against your lips. “You have no idea how badly I want you. How badly I’ve wanted you.”

“How long?” You breathe against his lips. You let your hand leave his hair, reaching instead for his beard and toying with the blond hairs on his chin.

“Truthfully?” He asks, and you nod. He lets out a bark of laughter, a wry smile spreading across his lips. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you.”

“Really?” You ask, a little surprised - he had hidden it well, always professional towards you in the early days, and warm and kind towards you as your companionship blossomed.

“Aye,” he confirms, unabashed. Then, watching you carefully, the smile fading from his face, he adds, “And you?”

This time, it’s your turn to let a wry smile cross your lips, as you remember how handsome - how gorgeous, really - you’d thought the big Nord was when you first met him.

“I’ve wanted you for a long time, too, big man,” you admit. The smile he gives you this time is no longer wry - he seems relieved to hear you speak those words, perhaps even genuinely happy. He pulls you back into another hungry kiss; you meet his lips with yours enthusiastically, and as he again ravages your mouth, you grab at the enormous swell of his biceps, almost as if to steady yourself. You run your fingers over the thick, bulging muscle, marveling at the size of it, how your hand doesn’t cover even half of the swell of it, how the portion you can feel ripples under your hand with power. As you explore his body, Argis squeezes your ass again, and yet again, you feel that primal jolt of pleasure. You let out a sound in response to his ministrations - a sound that is, to your ears, surprisingly needy and submissive.

This seems to trigger something in Argis, as he grabs you and maneuvers you off his broad chest, rolling so that his powerful frame now hovers above you, supported on his elbows and knees. You rest one hand on his broad shoulders, and let the hand that had been exploring his biceps move under his shirt to his chest. You run your fingers through the thick blond curls that cover his pectorals, then grope at the enormous muscles themselves, unable to keep from thinking how many times these muscles of his had saved your life. Tenderly, Argis presses another gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth, then works his way down your jawline and to your neck. You move your head to grant him more access, loving the way his full lips and bristly beard feel against your skin.

“Oh, little lady,” he moans, lips ghosting over your collarbone. Slowly, he lowers his hips down to rest partially atop you, some of his frame shifted to the side to keep from hurting you with his weight. As his hips come to rest atop yours, you feel the hard length of his manhood pressing into you, and you can’t help but note that your earlier name for him had been correct - he is a big man, both thick and long. He pulls back just enough to look into your eyes, and asks, “Is this okay for you?”

“More than okay,” you answer, grinding your hips up into his cock. He drops his head down into the crook of your neck again with a groan.

“I’m going to finally make you all mine tonight,” he rumbles, his lips against your skin.

“Please,” you breathe, grabbing at his heavily-muscled shoulders as he nips and sucks at your neck with renewed vigor. You slide your hand down from his pectorals, through his chest and body hair, to the ridges of his abdominal muscles, not yet daring to go too low - you want to enjoy feeling his body for a little longer first. You do, however, grind upwards into his manhood again, and feel him stiffen further against you. Argis grinds back down into you in response this time, and you moan to encourage him.

“And you want me to take you, don’t you, little lady?” He growls, continuing to grind into you. “You want your Housecarl to have his way with you.”

“I do,” you agree, sliding your hands just a little lower on his stomach.

"Then let’s get these clothes out of the way,” he suggests, grabbing the bottom hem of your linen shirt and starting to slide it up. You help him get yourself out of the garment, and while your hands make short work of your breast bindings underneath, Argis pulls his linen shirt off his frame. “By the Nine,” he groans when he sees your breasts laid bare before him, though you could say the same about his sculpted torso. He wastes no time, though, lowering his head to one breast, his tongue swirling around your nipple while one hand gropes and kneads at your other breast. You arch into his touch, desperate for more, but he pins you back down on the ground firmly. The hand that isn’t busy with your breast quickly gathers both your wrists up, pinning them above your head in a firm grip.

“Oh, Argis,” you moan, trying in vain to squirm against him for more pressure.

“You like the way I make you feel?” He asks, before doubling down on his assault on your nipple, flicking back and forth over it fast with his tongue.

“I do,” you agree.

“Good,” he murmurs, then pauses his ministrations to look up at you. “Because I’m going to fulfill your every desire tonight, lass. And when I’m done, you’ll know that no man can ever take care of you, as both your protector and lover, the way I can.” He moves to your other breast, first swirling it with his tongue, then flicking at it quickly.

“Argis,” you moan, halfheartedly wishing your hands were free so you could move his head down south a little- so he could put that tongue to use somewhere else.

“Promise me something,” he rumbles, this time without looking up at you.

“Anything,” you agree, all reservations gone. You’d give him just about anything right now.

“Promise me you’ll moan my name like that when you’re stuffed full with my cock,” he growls, pulling away from your nipple with a sharp scrape of his teeth.

Well. For someone who usually didn’t say anything that didn’t need to be said, he could certainly be a dirty talker in bed, you think to yourself.

The hand at your wrist releases you, and he moves to your waistband, pulling the linen pants and your undergarments down. You lift your hips obligingly, and soon, you lay completely bare before the Bulwark.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he murmurs, letting his hands trail down your waist, over your hips, and over the tops of your thighs. The look he gives you is another of those heartbreakingly tender looks, and it occurs to you that Argis might not just want you - he might really love you, too.

The thought is gone a moment later as Argis maneuvers his own linen pants off himself, allowing his manhood to spring free. His cock bobs before you for a moment before flattening up against his belly.

“You’re huge,” you blurt, and it’s true - he’s so thick, you wonder if your hand would even be able to close around his base. Looking at him, the size difference between you, a Breton, and Argis, the largest Nord you’ve ever met, becomes more apparent than ever, and you wonder for a moment if he can even fit in you.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, reading the concern you struggle to conceal in your expression, leaning back over you. His thumb brushes your cheek gently. “I’ll make sure you’re ready for me. I promise I won’t hurt you. And if it does hurt, we’ll stop.” You reach up for Argis, your hand caressing his cheek in return. You have no doubt that he means what he says, and again, the thought that he might love you enters your mind. Staring up at him, the man who has served as your protector, who has carried you to safety, risked his life for you, and given you his unyielding friendship, you know you can trust him with everything and anything - including this.

“Okay,” you agree, and Argis smiles, pulling you in for another deep kiss. You reach up to his enormous body above you, feeling the thick cords of muscle rippling over his chest, once again running your hands through the soft blond curls of hair that cover his chest and belly.

“You’re gorgeous, you know,” you manage to tell him between open-mouthed kisses. He smiles against your lips.

“Oh. Thank you,” he mumbles, and you’re certain he almost sounds embarrassed, but still pleased. A moment later, his larger hand reaches for yours, and gently guides you just a little lower down his belly, until you are brushing against the tip of his manhood. He lets out a quiet hiss at the contact, and though he lets go of your hand, you know what it is he wants. You oblige, grabbing him at the base of his length - as you had suspected, your fingers don’t meet around him at his thickest part - and give a long pump up his shaft. When you slide back down his shaft, you take a moment to reach down to caress his balls, which are heavy and large in your palm.

You quickly return to pumping Argis up and down, and when you look away from his manhood, you see his eyes, heavily-lidded, watching you carefully. His hands are kneading your thighs, working further up them, until one hand reaches your core. He gently parts your folds, finding your clit and swirling his thumb around it. You moan and squirm under him, and he takes his other hand and pins you down at your hip, holding you in place. Continuing with the quick circles, he delves in between your folds with his fingers.

“Little lady,” he groans, “you’re so wet for me.”

“Of course,” you answer, your voice husky. “I want you so badly, Argis.”

“You’re going to have me,” the blond replies, slowly pressing one finger into you. Even his fingers are thick and long, and he takes a long moment, letting you adjust to the digit within you. Rather than begin to pump it in or out, however, he plays with the angle of it for a long moment, pressing against your front wall. It’s not long before he finds what he wants, and gently begins crooking his finger against the spot. Within moments, you’re seeing stars, the pleasure within you absolutely explosive.

“Oh, by the Nine, Argis,” you gasp, feeling the pressure against your hip intensify as the Bulwark has to work harder to hold you in place. “I - oh, Argis, that feels amazing.”

You get no response besides a low growl as Argis presses another finger into you, joining the first in its motion as his thumb keeps working away at your clit. The second finger begins to stretch you, and you try to grind into the feeling of fullness, forgetting about pumping Argis’ manhood for the moment. It’s not long before a third finger joins the first two; the sensation is almost painful, but you quickly adapt to it, spreading your legs just a bit more to accommodate Argis’ ministrations.

The pleasure is relentless, and you drop Argis’ manhood entirely to grasp at the pillow behind you with one hand and to grasp at Argis’ shoulders with the other. He watches you, seeing your pleasure build, and when you reach for the hand of his that rests on your hip, he obliges, taking your hand and holding it with a firm but gentle pressure. You hold to him tightly in return, grateful for the gentle point of connection between the two of you. Truthfully, you’re not sure if you’ve ever had sex good enough to make you cum like this, and you are feeling increasingly vulnerable before Argis, as he continues to stoke your pleasure relentlessly.

A stream of curses and cries of Argis’ name are falling from your lips, and the coil of pleasure is building ever more tightly within you. Finally, your orgasm breaks over you, slamming you in wave after wave of throbbing pleasure, and you tremble under Argis’ hands, crying his name one more time. He continues stroking you through it, eventually stilling his fingers within you, and slowly, the waves subside. In the end, you are left looking at the Bulwark, who is watching you like you’re the most gorgeous creature on Nirn.

“Fuck,” you breathe.

“Oh, little lady,” he groans, pulling his fingers out of you and smearing the fluids on them across his cock. “You’re so perfect.” He leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips, the feeling of his beard scratching against your lips and his chest hair against your breasts electrifying. You pull him into you hungrily, and you feel him smirk against your lips. “Do you want more of me, lass?”

“Please,” you manage, feeling Argis lower himself so that his hips rest between your legs.

“I love the sound of you begging for me,” he growls, moving so that the tip of his manhood presses against your slick folds. “Begging for your Housecarl, your protector.”

“Please, Argis. Please take me,” you repeat, sliding one hand down his broad back to grasp at his firm ass and try to push him towards you. He obliges, one of his hands lowering to his manhood to guide himself as he presses into you. His tip slides in more easily than you would have expected, and he continues pressing into you, stretching you, with a low groan. He stills halfway in, waiting for you to accommodate him, but you’re already so wet, so desperate for him, that you want more. You move against him, trying to take him in further, and he chuckles, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Ready for me, are you?” He sounds pleased as he eases himself the rest of the way in. You feel, for a moment, like he could split you in two, he’s so large. But then he starts moving in small, gentle thrusts, and the way he presses against all your walls, fills you and stretches you, is unrivaled. Slowly, he works up to larger thrusts, pulling back to watch you carefully for any signs of pain, but you’re already seeing stars, sensitive and excited from your last orgasm. “Doing okay?” He grunts.

“Yes,” you gasp. “Take me how you want. However hard you want.”

Argis wastes no time in obeying your order, his hips slamming into you suddenly. He sets a grueling rhythm, ravaging you with such force and power it’s all you can do to hold onto his shoulders through it. You wrap your legs around his muscular waist, offering him the opportunity to plow more deeply into you, and he takes it, never once breaking his rhythm.

A breathy moan comes out of you, followed by Argis’ name. Argis lets out a loud groan of your name in response - and then one of his enormous hands is at your neck, choking you with a gentle pressure as he continues to pound you. You feel even more pleasure coil within you at this, at your submission to the muscle-bound man fucking you without mercy.

Argis doesn’t change positions - he doesn’t need to. It’s not long before you’re coming undone on his cock, screaming his name to the heavens and clenching his manhood between your walls so tightly you feel that your orgasm may never end. He holds his pace through the waves of pleasure, but as you begin to wind down, you feel his movements becoming erratic, his hips stuttering in a desperate bid for more pleasure.

“Oh, love,” he gasps. “I’m close - I -”

Argis comes with a wordless roar, not unlike the ones you’ve heard him loose in battle, his cock shooting cum deep into you as he loses his pace entirely. Even as he rides through his orgasm, you feel the hot strands of his cum leaking down the insides of your thighs, threatening to spill onto the bedroll beneath you. Finally, he has spent himself, and he collapses above you, letting go of your throat to support some of his weight on his elbows, his face again buried in the crook of your neck.

You reach up from his shoulders to stroke his thick blond hair soothingly. Had he called you love, just then? Did he really mean it, you wonder, or was it just a figure of speech he’d used in the heat of the moment?

But when Argis raises his head from your shoulder to look at you, you see again that tenderness and adoration in his face, and you suspect that he really had meant to call you his love.

“Are you okay?” He asks, shifting off you and onto one shoulder, pulling you with him so you’re tucked against his body.

“More than okay,” you answer earnestly. “That was amazing.” Argis chuckles in response.

“I’m glad it was as good for you as it was for me. Let me get you cleaned up.” He disappears from the bedroll for a moment, moving to his rucksack. You can’t help but watch his form as he moves - from his impossibly broad shoulders to his narrow hips and powerful thighs, you’re amazed by how gorgeous he really is. When Argis returns, it’s with a small piece of cloth, and he cleans you gently until you have no more of his hot cum leaking from within you. He wipes himself clean quicly, too, then throws the cloth to the side. You’re grateful when he returns to the bedroll, which has begun feeling chilly without him.

“The smokeless fire has gone out,” Argis mumbles into your hair as he draws you back into his chest, tucked beneath his chin. You nestle into him gratefully.

“Couldn’t keep enough focus through all of that,” you laugh. He laughs, too, but asks,

“Are you cold? Do you want to start it again?” You pull back in mock surprise, amazed that the Nord had volunteered to put up with your magical proclivities for once.

“Are you actually asking for me to use magic?” You tease with a smile, but flick your hand out from the bedsheets, starting the smokeless fire above you again.

“Only until you’re warm again,” he returns, pulling you back into the warmth of his chest again.

“Fair enough,” you laugh, one hand playing with the golden curls on his chest. “After all, I don’t know what Skyrim would do if the mighty Dovahkiin froze to death tonight.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” Argis murmurs, his voice a deep rumble in his chest, reverberating throughout your body. His strong arms tighten around you, gently, protectively, and you feel the soft brush of his lips against your forehead.

“Nor I without you,” you murmur back, tipping your head up and managing to reach his lips for a return kiss. He kisses you back for a moment, then hums contentedly, deep in his throat, and tucks you back down under his chin.

“The Divines have blessed me,” Argis sighs. “This life is a hard one, at times, but by the Nine, am I blessed.” You wrap your arms around his chest, feeling the slow, soothing beating of his heart in his chest, and though you have a thousand – a million – questions for him, you don’t know how to ask any of them. Maybe they shouldn’t be asked, just yet.

“I’m blessed, too,” you whisper to Argis, and you know he hears you by the way he holds you just a little tighter. And not long after, the comfort of each other’s arms and the mead and the heat of the fire conspire to overtake you both and send you both to sleep.

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