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ereri-lost-and-found · 3 years

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Hi elf ! This has been so useful to me so thank you so much for working so hard. I really appreciate it :) .Do you have any fanfics where eren is actually a titan outside of the walls but kills other titans or he is a titan shifter that lives outside if the walls? I also prefer top/seme/dominate Levi and bottom/uke/submsive Eren.I have already read:Hunger,

Lazarus Phenomenon, Beyond the walls ,Who's A Good Killing Machine? :D , A Titan's Poisoned Chalice, Breaking the Walls, Outside The Walls, Inside My Heart, BFT (Big Friendly Titan),How to Train Your Titan, Lost in the woods, Breaking the Walls, Beyond the walls.

I read a lot if these and I couldn't find anymore so its okay if you can't either. And sorry for wasting your time. The reason I asked even though I read a lot is somehow you guys can find stuff that people have been searching for months. You guys really are amazing! :D but I know you guys are human too so don't work too hard👍...I think...haha. Thanks again!

One of the mods, Titanfever, was able to find you more fics~

The Hunter by Adishailan

(Rated T, 66,716 words, multichapter, complete)

The hunter is a monster, a titan, not a boy. This is a fact he has known for as long as he has lived in the forest, for as long he can remember. The forest is quiet but for the crooning of birds, the rush of misty water into the hidden valleys and the deep lumbering steps of his kin. That is until the day that changes everything. The day the humans came. The day he saw his human for the first time. One the hunter will never forget.

"The newest arrival was a 15 meter but quite unlike any Titan they had ever seen. It was thin and lean with muscles on its muscles. Sunken eyes sharp and glowing, really glowing, green over a hooked nose. Lipless serrated teeth formed a strange mocking Cheshire smile as it looked at them. It then fell to it's haunches and propelled itself forward with truly frightening speed. Cries of panic ran through the squadron as they attempted to spur the exhausted horses even faster. This panic gave way to shock however when the green eyed Titan pivoted, rapidly changing direction and barreling into the group of Titans, toppling them over like wooden bowl pins. There was a moment of silence in the squad then- "WHAAAAT?!" Exclaimed Hanji in extreme disbelief."

An Unexpected Ally by certifiedclown

(Rated M, 29,610 words, multichapter, incomplete, major character death)

He screamed with excitement as he flew through the trees gripping the silver sticks tightly in his hands. It had taken him a few months, but he'd done it. He was thrilled. Now he could be like his human. He could help rid the world of his brethren. He could finally see his human up close. With his new body no one would notice him. He would wait for his humans pack to venture outside of the safety of their walls. In the meantime he would make the world safer. He would kill all the titans he could. Every last one.

Part 1 of from titans to men (who are the real monsters?)

Ein Riese, der Fliegen Wollte by Closet_Cleaner

(Rated E, 113,752 words, multichapter, ongoing)

He needn't have worried. The small one was strong.

He sees the human many more times since then. It seems as if the herd doesn't venture out without it. He wonders if that one is the pack-leader. It seems logical, but humans are not always creatures of logic.

He forces back memories of that one, and continues to shadow the herd whenever it ventures out. He makes a habit of waiting in the small grouping of trees near the gate so as not to miss one of their outings. Eventually he learns to distinguish the small one from the others even before it takes to the air, and he feels proud of this accomplishment.

Months later, only hours after the humans had returned behind their walls, everything changes.

(In which Eren is not a human that can turn into a Titan, but a Titan that can turn into a human.)

The boy in the forest by JAKishu

(Rated M, 45,779 words, multichapter, complete)

Levi is saved by a titan and is taken care of in his forest. A strange titan that is also a child. Survival is the first thing in his mind, second is to teach that kid how to probably clean itself. Disgusting dirty hand it has.

The Difference Between You And Me by KrustyKruton

(Rated T, 69,473 words, multichapter, ongoing, major character death)

Eren has always been a titan, a titan that can shift into a human. With a dream to stand side by side with humans and the sudden opportunity of a short human showing up at his home, what will he do? Will he surrender to his titan instincts, or will he follow his human heart? (This is a total AU...kinda. Its also boy x boy, Levi x Eren, so be warned. Don't flame) R and R! This is my first time using AO3 so I'm sorry for any mistakes. please word corrections kindly!

I, Titan by Marie_Phantom

(Rated E, 23,349 words, multichapter, ongoing, Bottom!Levi)

One single mistake, and the world changes on it’s axis.

Levi is left stranded outside the Walls when he is injured, and is rescued by an unusual Titan. This meeting changes not just their lives, but the entire fate of the Walls.

Part 1 of The Scent of Blood and Pine

Legends by The_Silent_Assassin

(Not Rated, 28,198 words, multichapter, complete)

Whilst on a mission, Levi's squad see something strange. Starts just before the fall of Wall Maria.

Rogue by RedCoaster

(Rated T, 866,285 words, multichapter, ongoing)

A strange but intelligent titan lives deep within the forests of Wall Maria, right under the military's nose. What happens when the mysterious titan comes across two small children and the Scouts? Titan!Eren AU

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thedeviljudges · 3 years

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Do you think Yohan always planned to fake his death and join Elijah in Switzerland, or did he originally intend to really die with the rest of the 'villains'? Part of me thinks that would fit with his pre-Gaon conception of himself, as a monster, not deserving of love, not necessarily seeing a role for himself in Elijah's life beyond getting revenge for her/Isaac, and financing an opportunity to help her recovery. Or do you think regardless of that, he'd still never plan to leave her on her own?

i didn't mean to put off this ask for so long. i was busy, but i also wanted to wrap my thoughts around this before i tried answering. not bc i didn't have an answer to begin with but yohan and death is a subject i'd like to approach, but i'm not entirely sure how i'd like to make the analysis of it, and i'm not sure i ever will.

so that leaves me to answer it here in the best way i can because point blank: i do believe yohan intended to die by the end. i do think he had two plans in place since the beginning (dying or not dying and helping elijah), but of course, until that final moment, he wasn't ever going to know the truth. that end scene of him blowing up the court was a 50/50 shot. he had a plan to make it out, but it wasn't a guarantee.

but lets also back up a bit because before we get to that point, i think it's necessary to point out that the reason yohan gets away and does all of the shit that he does is because he knows that he might not make it out alive. it's why he's reckless. it's why he bends the law the way that he does. yohan's actions prove, over and over again, that he does not care for himself. he does not care to live except to protect elijah. there are so many small moments of this. we call yohan unhinged out of fun, but i think there is truth in it because i've mentioned this casually before (and part of my words above in terms of not necessarily knowing how to approach this just yet) is that yohan is almost...... suicidal himself.

he's reckless. he's said that he does not care about the actual law. his goal has always been getting revenge for his brother, especially for his niece who grew up without her parents. yohan never truly cared about the bigger picture until gaon came along. if we leave out gaon and think of the plot as such, yohan would've been able to prevail much quicker, i'd say. he had a plan and was going to follow through with it no matter what, regardless of the ending. and he knew going into it that there was a chance he wouldn't make it out alive.

which is why i think he partially also allowed elijah to blame him for her parent's death because if she hates him, it will be so much easier for her to forget him. she won't mourn him or miss him. she will be able to move on with her life and live it any which way she wants. but because yohan doesn't really understand kids, let alone elijah, what he fails to realize is that elijah doesn't actually hate her uncle. she's looking to get rid of all of the pent up hurt and frustration bc she never had an outlet to let all of that out. yohan fails to see that elijah cares for him and would miss him, to a degree, if he died.

so now, if we think of the plot with gaon, it twists everything on its head bc gaon has no need to be there within yohan's plans. yohan doesn't need gaon to do anything bc everything was already planned from the beginning. if anything, gaon came in and crashed some things, leaving yohan to pick up those pieces and continue pushing forward. biggest case in point, gaon's stubbornness and his arguments against yohan with the law and what he's doing.

see, gaon eventually comes to realize yohan's reasonings for doing what he's doing for his brother, but i feel like gaon thinks that even if that is part of yohan's plan involves revenge, how much does he think yohan is also doing this for the greater good and wanting to fix society? we know that yohan has no intention of that, but does gaon? and so no wonder gaon protests because if he thinks yohan is trying to fix a broken system (plus get revenge all in the same plot), no wonder gaon continues fighting yohan - he's under the belief that yohan is trying to make things better. but he's NOT.

which circles back to the idea that yohan had every intention of either making it out alive or dying. gaon opened his eyes that yes, maybe things could possibly be good. gaon made yohan question a lot of things along the way, especially his own humanness and realizing that he is worth something and not the monster he let himself believe he was, and what others told him he was. that wasn't part of the plan either, which is why it made it so much harder for yohan to go through with bombing the court because yohan's at a conflicting place of finally understanding gaon's hope but knowing that he only ever had revenge as an intent.

yohan's plan is derailed a bit by gaon being hope and introducing concepts yohan has lived without for so long. before then, yohan lived isolated with one clear goal in mind until gaon showed him he had a reason to live. i also said in another post that while gaon stopped yohan because he didn't want to see yohan going down a path he couldn't come back from, it was already too late at that point. yohan had already set his path long before gaon came into the picture and nothing he said or done would've changed that. but it DID given yohan more perspective and more heart, possibly being at peace even more so with dying knowing elijah would have gaon.

but instances within the show - of course, his two fake deaths. him steering gaon and himself off the road on the middle of the highway. him chasing after the minister's son. yohan asking soohyun to save gaon despite him literally bleeding out.

yohan does not care for himself. he does not care whether he lives or dies, as long as his plan is completed. we can talk til we're blue in the face about how yohan was wrong manipulating the law like he did and various other things, but the reason why? is because he did not care. and it wasn't because of him being a sociopath by any means. it was because he numbed his emotions, lied to himself, and used his love for his brother and elijah to propel him to a desired end with the possibility of his death involved. and quite frankly, that speaks volumes about who he is and just how much he actually cares, how much he actually has emotions.

yohan, to love his niece so much he decided to manipulate the law, to serve his own agenda and purposes for an outcome that wouldn't actually give them that much peace, but would at least position the country in a way they could grow and give elijah a life where she wouldn't have to grow up into that kind of destruction. this is why yohan "leaves" gaon behind and why gaon is the hope of the show because in going along with his plans, yohan realized that if gaon wasn't going to follow him through til the end, if he was going to do everything in his power to stop yohan, then the biggest apology yohan could give gaon was the world - the entire judicial system to make things right, to do better. that was yohan's gift to gaon and his apology because yohan had no intention of making it better. but maybe gaon could with him gone.

i've seen a few comments about how if yohan was someone in irl, we'd all steer clear of him, well, there's a lot of characters out there like that, but i wouldn't stay away from him for the reasons everyone typically lists (like the choking and manipulation) because they think he's that way just bc. yohan's actions mimic those of someone who simply doesn't care because they're depressed and not because they're psychotic. there is a DIFFERENCE. like yes, are some of his actions shitty? and his gaon right to mistrust the things he does sometimes, also yes.

but understand that there is a difference in people's behaviors depending on the underlying mental health issues involved. i don't fully believe yohan had any intent to hurt elijah or gaon maliciously. it's part of yohan being oblivious and not recognizing his own actions mixed with the entirety of his plans to be followed through til the very end. we've seen how oblivious yohan can be (the classroom bird story is a classic example; they all thought he was the devil when in reality, this kid only hurt the bird because it was scaring the girl he sat next to. logically, that mean eliminating the threat. he didn't purposefully kill the bird and enjoy it. it was a practical response within his own personal world).

i feel like i'm missing parts of this discussion, which is why i said this was a difficult topic for me to approach just to get all of my thoughts about it out there. and long story short to answer your question: i think yohan intended to die (just like he had a plan in case went to jail, for example). that possibility couldn't have been ruled out. but i think he had the plan to escape with elijah so that she could get better. either way, whatever happened happened, even if he died. elijah would be taken care of regardless.

gaon throws a wrench in his plans just a little bit, makes him realize his emotional capacities but gaon's not enough to stop yohan from seeing his plans out until the very end, even if that means losing gaon, too, because even if gaon has shown yohan that he is worthy of love and family and affection, it is not enough to forgive everything he's done, and he needs to make right what was wrong. yohan's death in that courtroom, if it had happened, wouldn't be the thing everyone needed to forgive him for his actions but it would be a start in eliminating himself as part of the problem.

another thing to keep in mind, is that we know yohan is not a sociopath, even if that's what everyone wanted us to believe. everyone thought he made sunah jump out the window, but what he was actually doing was protecting isaac and his mother's necklace. sunah made the choice all on her own, set up yohan and framed him despite yohan reaching out time and time again. isaac didn't even understand what had happened and focused on the fact that this girl jumped because of yohan without listening to the truth of it. yohan has always been shown to be fiercely loyal to the people he loves. he's never directly done anything bad (at least as a kid) unless he was provoked.

what people need to understand about yohan as a character is INTENTIONS. and i hope i'm making myself clear on this. everyone thinks he's born a devil, but that has never been the case. yohan's actions just come from a place from blind revenge. if he never needed to get revenge in the first place, if isaac was alive and well, would yohan make these same decisions? would he still be this kind of person who needed to use these methods to work around the law? i don't think so.

i think i remember getting an ask awhile back about whether yohan would eventually turn into who he is now had isaac lived because we see him livid and upset during that flashback to one of his earlier court cases (where we find he's ripping the paper with the pen) and whether or not isaac's death just fast forwarded the process. i don't feel like trying to go dig that post out, and i can't remember what i said on it either, but i feel yohan would have his family as a moral compass to keep him in line, and he wouldn't have succumbed to his present-day tactics. i think he could've worked his way up into the system and made real change. i think his heart could've been there all long, but again, was derailed by isaac's death and of course, plans changed.

this was a mouthful, and i hope what i'm saying makes sense because you can probably see what i mean about how difficult it is trying to organize my thoughts about this subject. but i am under the full belief that yohan had every intention of dying at the end or even before that. i think he's a depressed individual who learned to slowly open back up with gaon's help, but gaon is no doctor and no amount of his kindness would help someone that depressed either. it helped, certainly. but yohan saw himself as a monster/devil until the very end, and was more than willing to kill himself to make gaon and elijah's life so much easier. as penance. as justice. as love.

#x #the devil judge #the devil judge meta #this is a long one fjlaskdf oops #but YALL this is my last ask!!!!!!!!!! im finally caught up!!!!!!#holy shit thank you to anyone who has sent me asks the past 3 months while this show was airing too #i know ive been slow to answer but!! I DID IT!!!!!!!!#of course feel free to send more if you want but i feel so happy to have gotten to everyone #AND if you sent me an and you haven't seen it #it possibly didn't go through and i am so so so sorry #i haven't ignored anyone who has sent me anything so please send again if you want

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thatesqcrush · 3 years

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Christmas in The Heights

Nevada Ramirez x Reader. I haven’t written Nevada in a hot minute. This is for @madpanda75 who requested Nevada and lights for holiday bingo. I also had an anon from way back when request Nevada with the line: “You’re the only one who gets to call me that, you know.” from the grumpy prompt list.

CW: blowjobs, language, p in v sex.

WC: 1828

AN: Posting without editing. Sorry for typos. Also Spanish sprinkled throughout. Will post a key at the end.

***

Christmas in The Heights was a multi-sensory experience. Lights hung off the fire escapes of the apartment building. As temperatures begin to fall and the sun begins to set a bit earlier, corner fruit stands put away the limónes and naranjas and instead, put out peras, apples and uvas dangling from strings, a lot like seasonal baubles. Groups of family and friends, or Aguinaldos, would walk from house to house, singing with great cheer and as they made their way around the neighborhood, creating a spontaneous holiday street festival.

You looked down from your apartment window, smiling as you watched the Aguinaldo make its way around, with more and more people joining in. You danced around in just an oversized sweatshirt and a Santa hat as you strung up more and more lights around the apartment you shared with your boyfriend, Nevada.

You looked at the clock, after stringing up the last of the lights. Nevada was nowhere to be found. You let out an irritated sigh. Everyone would soon be arriving for Noche Buena and you told everyone during el Día de Acción de Gracias that you would happily host.

You check on the puerco asado, the delicious smell making your stomach rumble. Everything else was ready – the roast pork was the last thing to cook. You had ensalada rusa, pasteles and moro de gandules. You picked up fresh telera from the bakery along with dulce frio and spiced bread pudding. Not one to forget the little kids who would be coming – including Nevada’s nephew and niece, you picked up gomitas (and had some soaking in rum for the adults).

It was no surprise that Nevada had the apartment wired with cameras. When you’re the El Jefe, everyone wants to take a shot at you. You opened the app on your phone, scanning various rooms – no dice on Trujillo’s location. On a hunch, you decide to look in the underground garage and sure enough, he was there – working on his motorcycle.

You smile and slip on your chanclas and make way downstairs – but not before lowering the heat on the oven, lest you ruin the roast pork.

“Nevada, what are you doing?” You ask. “Everyone is going to be here soon – even your egotistical hermano.”

“Ya me voy.” Nevada grumbles, barely looking up at you as he works on the motorcycle. His hands are smeared with oil and he is wearing a black tanktop and worn jeans. They ride dangerously low on his hips and desire pools between your thighs. He stands up straight and comments how he’s hot, before whipping off his tank top, wiping his brow with it.

You swallow hard, your eyes raking over his lean, taut body, covered in thick dark chest hair. But the furrowed brows and scowl on his face brought you back to reality. He seemed on edge, and this was completely out of character for him.

“Oye papi, que pasas?” You ask softly, approaching him. Nevada looks at you, the frown deepening.

“Nada mami. Go back upstairs and finish getting ready – I’ll be up soon.”

You straighten to your full height and cross your arms. Your eyes narrow and your lips purse. “No me jodas. Dime la verdad mi osito.”

Nevada drops the wrench and in two wide steps, he’s in front of you, meeting you eye to eye. His normally jade eyes are dark and intense. You match his heated expression and arch a single brow.

Nevada met his match with you. You both stood there staring at each other, nostrils flaring and tempers rising. Finally Nevada backed down, taking a step back. He reached for the wrench and whipped it at the wall, the sound of the metal clattering echoing though the garage. “You’re the only one who gets to call me that, you know.” Nevada replies irritated.

“Nevada, por favor, talk to me.” You reply, your face softening. Never had you seen him keyed up like this.

Nevada hops onto a stool and rubs his hands over his face. “It’s my brother.”

“What about him?” You ask, walking over until you stood in front of him again. You leaned into him – he smelled like a mix of leather and sweat.

“Every time he comes home – to el barrio – he goes on and on about being some big shot abogado with los gringuitos. He’s a fucking sellout – even changing his last name to be one of them. And then all I hear is oye, why can’t you be more like Bryan – look what he’s made of his life and all you got is el club.” Nevada huffed.

You look at Nevada sadly. “Amor, who gives a shit. El es demasiado. You have so much to be proud of. So you amass your wealth differently, who cares? I don’t. I love you, for you. I wouldn’t be with you if you were like Bryan, so fucking uptight with his skinny bitch of a wife. I am surprised they are even coming at all.”

“They have the nanny with them and they are staying in the city – who, by the way, Bryan is fucking.” Nevada laughs coldly.

“Speaking of fucking….” Your eyes rake over Nevada’s bare chest once more. “Want to have some fun before everyone shows?”

A delicious grin spreads on Nevada’s face. “Damn mami, I like the way you think.”

Nevada hops off the stool and you wink before you remove your sweatshirt. You weren’t wearing a bra, so you were clad in just your panties. Your eyes land on the massive erection pressing against the front of his jeans.

Nevada unbuttons his jeans and it’s no surprise to you that he is commando. You take your sweatshirt and drop it in front of him, using it as a cushion as you fall to your knees, your pulse racing with excitement.

You nuzzles his warm flesh, your hands trailing up his muscled thighs. Your pussy aches as you take his cock into your hand. It’s huge and thick and you can feel every vein and ridge in your hand. It’s perfect. You lick your lips hungrily and take his cock in your mouth. His cock felt heavy in your mouth and you relished in the feeling. You look up at him, meeting his heated gaze as you bob on his erection. The salty taste of his pre-cum floods your mouth and you let out a muffled moan as his hands wrap into your hair.

“That’s it mami.” Nevada grunts. “Suck my cock.” Both hands grip the back of my head, guiding you on his length, silently encouraging you to take more and more until the head of his cock hits the back of your throat. You choke and sputter, saliva pooling down your chin and dripping. You briefly close your eyes and relax your throat and again begin working his length.

You flick your tongue against the underside of the head of his cock. “Love your cock papi. But I like it better in my pussy.” You spat into your hand and gave Nevada’s cock a few strokes before guiding him back into your mouth. You began to rhythmically bob once more, while using your hand to help jack him off.

Nevada hisses and tighten his grip on your hair, forcing you off him. Your lips are spit shiny and swollen, your mascara from earlier in the day runs down your cheeks. Nevada drops to a squat, so he is eye to eye with you. His hand grips the back of your neck. “Is that what you want? For me to fuck you?”

You nod. “Please papi. I need it.”

“Over the bike.” Nevada growls. You nod and stand on wobbly legs, bracing yourself over the seat of the bike, your ass presented to him.

There is no teasing, no playing with your pussy – Nevada wasn’t in the mood. Instead he smacks your ass hard, resulting in your eyes being pinpricked with tears and a reddened imprint on your ass.

Nevada stands behind you and runs his hand over his length. He pats your ass with his dick before he uses his fingers to push your panties to the side. He teasingly rubs it against your folds. You moaned and tried to press against him, desperate for his cock. “Don’t worry my beautiful puta. You’ll get papi’s cock.”

Nevada grips your hips tightly and slides his cock into you, letting out a deep satisfying grunt. He fucks you earnestly, each thrust propelling you forward.

“Oh yes, just like that!” You moan. “Fuck me papi, give it to me.”

Nevada grunts as he continues to pound into you. “Damn, mamí, your pussy is so fucking good.” He grips the fat of your ass and rolls it before delivering another spank. Nevada feels your walls flutter around his cock and he knows you are close.

“Cream all over that cock.” Nevada encourages. He reaches around and uses the rough pad of his thumb to rub circles on your swollen clitoris.

You wail his name as the coil in your belly explodes, like fireworks being set off.

“That’s it.” Nevada grunts. Just as you are coming down, he pulls out of you and turns you around. You squat and begin to suck his cock once more, tasting the combined mixture of your and his release on his cock.

“Oh, fuck Y/N, oh fuck.” Nevada groans, his cock twitching and pulsing in your mouth as he comes, unloading his seed into your warm mouth.

“Don’t swallow.” You hear him say and you look up at him once more and open your mouth, showing off his release on your tongue.

“Muy bien.” Nevada grunts. “Now swallow.” You do as told and then open your mouth once more, showing off that it is clean.

Nevada pulls you up and kisses you hard. He trails the outline of your face and for a brief moment, the ruthless blood hungry drug lord appears soft.

You press a kiss to the tip of his finger. “Now lets go back upstairs before dinner gets ruined.”

Nevada pulls on his jeans and you slip your sweatshirt on. Eventually you both clean up and head back upstairs where you finish dinner. Both of you clean up, no one is wise to the fact that you had both been fucking just an hour prior. You watch carefully as Nevada greets his brother and his sister-in-law. You hand some gomitas to the kids and they both run off to see the presents under the tree.

You hand out glasses filled with ponche de ron to Bryan and his wife, whatever ordinary name she has, and you plaster a smile on your face. Nevada whispers in your ear as you nod along, pretending to be interested in the latest legal win the attorney had.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” Nevada murmurs.

You cover mouth with your drink and turn slightly towards him. “Love you too papi.”

FIN.

Key:

Limónes: lemons

Naranjas: oranges

Peras: pears

Uvas: grapes

Noche Buena: Christmas Eve

Día de Acción de Gracias: Thanksgiving Day

Ponche de ron: Spiked eggnog like drink

Puerco asado: roast pork

Ensalada rusa: Russian salad

Pasteles: in some cultures, this means cake/pastries but for the purposes of this story, I use it as mashed plaintains stuffed with meat and its wrapped in banana leaves - these only come out during Christmas.

Moro de gandules/arroz con gandules: Rice with pigeon peas

Telera: Bread that only comes out during Christmas.

Gomitas: gummy bears

Oye papi, que pasas?: Hey daddy, what’s up?

Ya me voy: I’m leaving.

No me jodas. Dime la verdad mi osito: Don’t bullshit me, tell me the truth, little bear.

Tags: @madpanda75 @tropes-and-tales @delia26 @mgarner1227 @beardedmccoy @youreverycolor @neely1177 @the-baby-bookworm @mrsrafaelbarba @skittle479 @ottosuricato @sass-and-suspenders @mommakat32 @dreila03 @beccabarba @garturbo @lovebennycolonmiguelgalindo @imjustreallynosy @sweetsummertime99 @whyissvuruiningmylovelife @annabelleb49 @scarletsoldierrr @cesarofangirl78 @redlipstickandplaid @redlipstickandblacktea @zoeykaytesmom @differentshadesofgray @misssirenlove @esparza-army @bananas-pajamas @mishaissocoolike @thefanficfaerie @theenchantedgalleryofstories @catnip987 @choppedgalaxynerd @pieceofshittytitty @ktiz90 @evee87 @itsjustmyfantasyroom @detective-giggles @rampantmuses @jazzyjoi @caked-crusader @rachelxwayne @prurientpuddlejumper @lv7867 @permanentlydizzy @bisexual-dreamer02 @madamsnape921 @averyhotchner @teamsladsandgents @stardust-fray

#nevada ramirez #thatesqcrush holiday bingo #nevada ramirez smut #nevada ramirez x reader #nevada ramirez imagine

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ddarker-dreams · 4 years

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Trips. Yan Illumi x Reader [COMM]

Life brings with it new situations, impeding obstacles that need to be overcome.

Flexibility is the trait that allows such things to be navigated properly, to accept and work with the cards that you’ve been dealt. Unfortunately for you, this character trait has always seemed to be one of your greatest fallacies.

Why this incontestable fact wasn’t enough to deter Illumi, you would never know for certain. Determined is the word you found to fit his likeness the best. Illumi sought out on the long and cumbersome journey of sculpting you into his ideal masterpiece, chipping away at elements unfitting of his taste; while emphasizing any desirable traits.

Dehumanizing as it is, it’s your new reality. One that you never expected to be a chapter in the book of your life, if not the falling action and conclusion now all together. But, as inflexible as you are at times, you can still attempt to make the most of it in your own way.

Having already offered any serious forms of opposition, you quickly learned the petty endeavors would ultimately be pointless. Illumi never so much as blinked at any of your trite attempts at upsetting him, not taking the offenses as seriously as you hoped. Maybe that was for the best, as he’d still reprimand you despite seeming unaffected.

“Aina,” you invite over in a low tone. “Can you come here for a moment?”

There isn’t any reason to voice your desires in a polite manner, seeing as the Zoldyck butlers would carry out your every reasonable whim without complaint. Even if they held the key to freeing you from this grandiose prison, you still couldn’t find it within yourself to harbor any serious resentment against them.

Even if they did come to their senses, and ever tried to assist you, you didn’t want to imagine what the consequences would be for such an offense.

“Do you need something, Master [First]?”

Aina appears next to you faster than the human eye could comprehend, her serious gaze set wholly upon you. Aina was who Illumi assigned to be your personal butler during your first few days here, someone who has become a familiar face. You had asked her before for her age, only to learn she was only a year older than you.

Illumi most likely picked her out for that very reason, wanting to “ease” the transition into your new life.

Aina sports a well cared for bob, having light brunette hair and honey colored eyes. It seems you fell right into Illumi’s trap, feeling a kindling of friendship with her. Even if it wasn’t formed in a natural way, a friend is a friend.

Leaning back in the garden chair, a soft noise leaves your lips as you stretch your stiff muscles. The relaxing sounds of nature always felt like a welcome change of pace. You’ve always expressed your preference for the gardens in the Zoldyck estate, preferring them greatly over the Gothic style mansion.

The air out here feels lighter, the sun inviting as it gently kisses your skin. Different cries from exotic creatures you couldn’t even begin to name fill your ears, along with the sounds of running water from the fountains.

Aina waits by your side ever so patiently, while your mind is full of these thoughts.

Sheepishly looking up at her through your eyelashes, you smile. “I have a bit of a request, actually.”

She’s capable of picking up on every nuance to your words, of reading all the twitches of your muscles and knowing what emotions they indicate. In a way, it almost reminds you of Illumi. But whereas Illumi would exploit this telling information for his own gain, Aina uses it only to serve you better.

“If by chance I’m asking for too much, just let me know,” you request, a nervous laugh leaving your lips. At this you notice her jawline tightening, most likely anticipating the worst. “It’s been on my mind to get some new decorations to spruce up my room. Not to say I dislike the whole, vampires living in the 1800s look, but it’s a tad dreary.”

Aina’s lips quirk up, before she swiftly changes to a neutral look once more.

“Since I can’t really use the internet, it’s not like I can do online shopping. And I’d feel bad for someone having to deliver it on a mountain too. So how do I go about this? Is there like a special Zoldyck amazon that I can use, but no one has told me about yet?”

At any hints of humanity Aina offers, you find it easier to talk without holding yourself back. Being all doom and gloom nonstop is tiring after all, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches. Even if that phrase most likely is not intended for being forced into marriage with an assassin, it could still apply here, right?

“If I’m being honest with you, I’m not entirely sure,” Aina places a tentative hand to her chin, eyes narrowing in deep thought. “I’d need to contact Master Illumi for his instructions. Do you want me to do so now?”

At the mention of your husband’s name, you frown. Even if you were expecting your request to be run through multiple channels for permission to be granted, it doesn’t soothe the sting any less. Most things in your life, if not everything, are controlled entirely by Illumi.

Puffing your cheeks out in mild annoyance, you can’t help but sigh dejectedly. “Yeah, yeah. I guess I don’t have much of a choice if I want to get my pink sheets…”

Aina doesn’t so much as flinch at your thinly veiled sarcasm, instantly getting herself to work with the matter at hand. You find yourself watching her carefully as Aina reaches for the black phone in her pocket. If you remember correctly, Aina had informed you that Illumi is on his way back from a job that had him absent a week.

Seeing as he must be in transit, you assume Aina has the green light to contact him whenever necessary without the concern of impeding on his work.

With the press of a button, you hear a low dialing tone come from her phone. One ring later you hear him pick up, Aina’s posture straightening even more than it was before out of respect. Tilting your head at the half heard exchange before you, you’re unable to determine much from Aina’s stoic facade.

Eventually, she pulls the phone away from her head. Before you get the opportunity to ask if you’re in the clear, she holds the phone out in your direction.

“Master Illumi wishes to speak with you.”

At this instruction, you swallow thickly. Speaking to Illumi is always a tricky battle, his words blunt yet crafted all the same. Aina subtly nudges the phone forward once more, prompting you to gingerly pick it up. Placing it against your ear, you bite your lip before finally speaking. Not wanting to give off the impression of being frightened, you put your all into sounding casual.

“So uh, what’s up?” you inquire to him, looking down at your tea cup. By now it’s undoubtedly cold, the amber colored liquid held in a fine china worth more than you could imagine. The desire to fiddle with your hands overwhelms you, so you reach for the handle.

At your voice, Illumi responds immediately in his signature deadpan. “Aina mentioned you wanted to go shopping.”

‘Is this… newsworthy or something?’

“Yeah, I thought it could be a nice change of pace,” you let out an airy laugh, your grip on the handle growing tighter. Even when Illumi isn’t face to face with you, you still can’t help but feel nervous. “It’d make me happy. But I understand if it’s too unreasonable.”

You sit awaiting a response, hearing nothing but the propellers of the blimp Illumi must be travelling on. Does that mean he’s considering it? There’s always a chance he has already made up his mind, but wants to give the impression of taking your feelings into account. It’s a creepy tick you noticed he has, trying to act more human for your sake.

“Alright. We’ll go when I get back this evening,” Illumi eventually concludes, much to your surprise. “You can hand the phone back to Aina now.”

Nodding your head despite him not being able to see you, you give the dark phone back to Aina who stands in waiting. She takes it before confirming a few more minor details, and then ultimately ending the phone call. It’s strange, you believe, that such a mild request requires so many moving parts. Whether it be Illumi’s suffocatingly protective nature over you, or the cost of being a Zoldyck, you’re unsure.

Aina busies herself with contacting other butlers at your behest, most likely planning out in great length how everything will work. If it weren’t for being held here against your will, you might even feel bad for all the effort they’re putting in for your sake. But even if it’s a small one, this is a victory nonetheless!

Having been with Illumi for over a year now, you quickly picked up on what you should and shouldn’t do. Even when you’re upset with him, which you can’t help but be a majority of the time; it’s in your best interest to not show it. A few snarky quips here and there don’t do much damage, but anything other than that can place you in boiling hot water.

Illumi had expressed to you in the past a similar sentiment. That once you adjust to your new life, things will flow a lot smoother for you. Now the fruits of your labor are starting to show, you believe. If he’s placing enough trust in you to do this, then maybe, just maybe; you can have even more freedoms over time.

Once Aina looks to be free for a moment, you begin to speak to her again.

“You know, in the past when I wanted to go shopping I’d just get in my car, and head to the mall.” you recall over to her, wistfully sighing for extra effect. Aina never seems bothered by your musings, always indulging you without a hint of irritation.

“I’m sure things were simpler then. But now that you’re a Zoldyck, there are a lot of extra factors to account for,” Aina points out with a soft smile of her own. Whether it’s genuine or not, you’re unsure. “Master Illumi does the utmost to ensure your safety.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t wrapped me up in bubble wrap yet,” you snicker at the thought, before your eyes widen in realization. “Wait, I shouldn’t give him any ideas…”

“If it makes you feel any better, I doubt he’d do that.”

‘For some reason, that doesn’t make me feel much better.’

Shaking your head, you decide to curve the conversation away from your overprotective husband. “What time are we heading out? I have to wear my finest threads and all, since I’m representing the family.”

Pulling the cuff of her suit back, she looks down at her watch.

“Four hours, give or take. You still have some time.” Aina responds in haste, before covering her watch yet again.

Owlishly, you stare at her, finding her every move to be of interest. It further cements the feeling that you don’t fit in with this estate, despite Illumi’s attempts. The grace the family members have, and even their servants have, is still far from your grasp.

That still doesn’t stop him from trying though.

“In that case, I’ll return to my previous philosophical musings.” you respond while stroking your chin, stifling another laugh. If there’s anything that can bring you comfort in this foreign place, it’s your own stupid words.

Why you caught the interest of Illumi Zoldyck is still one of the world’s wonders, not to say you don’t have your own theories. Some ranging from being cursed as a baby, to having done something in your past life to deserve this.

‘How does the saying go again? Opposites attract, or something. Illumi is probably the opposite of me in every conceivable way, after all.’

“Would you like me to brew you some fresh tea?” Aina asks you, having taken notice of your cold beverage. You purse your lips, knowing that trying to understand Illumi is a lost cause.

“Yes please.”

---

When you used to watch events where celebrities would gather, one of the coolest aspects to you were the cars they’d emerge from. Sports cars, luxury vehicles, limousines. All of them filled you with awe and wonder, a class above what you could ever hope to afford.

Now you stand here, face to face with a limousine of your own, gaping at the tinted windows and expensive tires. Three vehicles just like it line up behind, most likely your other escorts.

Aina looks over at you once more, straightening her posture and then subtly motioning to you. It takes a moment for it to click, before realizing that your gawking isn’t as subtle as you thought it was. Following her example with less grace, you walk towards the car door.

Before you can continue to do so, you hear Aina speak up behind you.

“Do you recall everything I told you earlier?” she inquires, causing you to turn your head back to her. Humming lowly, you remember the myriad of boring guidelines you had to endure earlier. It all felt so dramatic, and if you’re being honest, you zoned out for a majority of it.

Scrunching up your nose, you place a finger to your cheek. “Don’t go around yelling ‘Help! I’ve been kidnapped!’ or something.”

Aina pinches her nose, before shaking her head. “Well, you’re not wrong per se…”

Giving her a cheeky smile, you go to reach for the door handle. But before you get the opportunity, another servant swiftly opens it for you.

“Please, allow me, Master [First].”

He opens it with a respectful bow, revealing a black leather interior. Letting out a small “oooh!”, you bite your lip upon noticing the other occupant of the limousine. Waving off the servant’s attempt to assist you into your seat, you hear Aina speak to you once more.

“I’ll be in the car behind you if you need anything.”

“I’ll yell out the window in that case.” you yell back, undoubtedly earning a reprimanding look from her. Plopping yourself down into your seat, your door is closed before you even get the chance to do it yourself.

“No greeting, huh?” Illumi tilts his head, blank eyes staring at you with an unreadable expression. Fiddling with your seat belt, you finally look over at him in acknowledgement. Managing to hear a click signifying your seat belt is locked in place, you give Illumi your full attention.

“Hey, didn’t see you there.” you greet Illumi who doesn’t so much as blink at your words.

“You looked at me when getting in,” he points out, any form of humor flying over his head. “Do we need to get your eyes checked?”

Throwing your hands up in defense, you swiftly shake your head at his offer. “I was just joking, Illumi.”

“Ah.”

Illumi’s tone is as flippant as ever, one of his signature trademarks. On the other side of the partition, you hear keys being flipped to turn the car on. With a soft hum, the car gains traction with remarkable ease. On such a rocky terrain, none of it is felt as the luxury vehicle glides across the ground.

Returning your attention to Illumi, you find him staring at you as well. For a while it gave you a jittery feeling, having those dark voids for eyes thoroughly observing your every move. While it certainly isn’t any less frightening, you suppose that all this time with Illumi has given you a sort of immunity to it.

“So… how did your job go?” you inquire in a soft voice, hands set in place on your lap. There isn’t much else to talk about, so might as well try your luck with this. Illumi would sit next to you in total silence if he so chose to, not being the type to entertain conversation himself without some kind of agenda.

“As well as expected,” Illumi responds earnestly, seemingly pleased that you’re taken interest in him. “The target was killed without a hitch.”

You let out a hesitant laugh. “Oh. That’s uh, that’s good I think...”

Trailing off your sentence, you find yourself scratching the back of your neck at the topic in progress. The thought of the person next to you having killed someone in the last twenty-four hours is dizzying, so you’re quick to move onto something new.

“So, where exactly are we going?” you ask, the question having been on your mind for the past few hours. The fact you were even leaving Kukuroo mountain in the first place is a surprising one, even your honeymoon took place here. Unless there’s some other Zoldyck owned establishment that happens to double as a mall, your mind is clueless to any possible destinations.

“I made arrangements to empty out a shopping center for a few hours. Aside from employees, that is,” Illumi explains, still not blinking. “Aina went over everything with you, right?”

‘She did, but it’s not like I was really paying attention.’

Clearing your throat, you quickly nod your head to deter any negative repercussions. “Yeah, I remember everything she said.”

He studies you once more, before leaning back into his seat. You feel a sudden urge to do the same, but find it difficult to ever fully relax when Illumi is present. Among other things, there’s still one damning question you still can’t fully understand.

Why Illumi is even allowing this in the first place, after all the insane precautions he’s taken to seal you off from the world. Maybe it’s best not to pry into your sudden good fortune? Since curiosity killed the cat, quelling this question will be in your best interest.

Leaning your head against your fist, your eyebrows furrow.

“You have more questions.” Illumi points out, alarming you. Of course he notices any change in your behavior, having spent hours studying every aspect about you. In his own words, there’s nothing you can hide from him. At every given opportunity he proves those words to be correct.

“W-well, yeah,” you admit out at the unexpected heckle. “If I’m being completely honest… I’m just a little taken aback that you’re actually allowing this. I guess.”

For a moment you wonder if your words were too blunt, as Illumi sits there in rigid silence.

“Think of it as a reward for your good behavior,” Illumi eventually concludes, lips curling into an unnatural, proud smile. “Even though you weren’t too compliant at first, you never made any escape attempts. I would’ve known had you tried. I was largely expecting the possibility, but you never made any serious offenses.”

‘I feel like this is how a judge talks to a defendant or something.’

“I suppose that’s true…” you consider, reflecting back to your time here. Although escaping had crossed your mind numerous times, you never had the guts to act on it. The odds were insourmantable against you. What with all the highly trained assassins and butlers running about, you’d have better luck at winning the lottery than pulling a successful escape.

“I’ve always liked outings like this. I would treat myself to a five dollar coffee and then immediately regret it when I got home,” you recall with a snicker. “There’s nothing quite like opening your bank account and wondering, ‘What was I thinking?’ when you’re out of the moment.”

Illumi nods his head. “That’s true. Your bank account wasn’t in the best shape.”

“How do you even-- whatever, I probably don’t want to know,” you murmur while rolling your eyes at his lack of tact. “The point being that the most fun part is all the little treats you buy yourself in between the stores. Sometimes I’d get those cups of small pretzel bites, then have to eat them really quick since you can’t bring them in the stores.”

“Ah! That explains all the small transactions I saw.” Illumi proclaims, eyes lighting up for a moment.

‘The art of being subtle is all but lost to my husband.’

“Have you ever had pretzel bites, Illumi? For some reason, I get the feeling you haven’t been to the mall that often.” you comment while giving him a once over, taking in his unique fashion that would certainly stand out. How he even goes in public without people badgering him is remarkable.

“Only once for shadowing on a job.” Illumi answers, piquing your inner curiosity.

“You were hired to assassinate someone who hung out around a mall? I thought you only went after politicians or important people.” you point out, tilting your head.

“There’s some variety. The client himself was a wealthy individual, who wanted his daughter’s boyfriend killed. She had been dating someone who worked at a clothing store, going against her father’s wishes.”

Frowning, you lean back into your seat. Some people will do anything for the sake of image, but the thought of doing something that would actively hurt a member of your family doesn’t make any sense to you. But the people that Illumi deal with are in a league of their own, taking part in a world you will never understand.

A somber atmosphere begins to set in, to which you attempt to alleviate with a joke. “Did you trail the guy in one of those mascot suits? Like the ones people give free samples in?”

For a moment, you swear you saw Illumi’s eyebrows knit together. He’s still getting used to unfiltered comments, even after all this time. You’ve been told your personality is a tad on the eccentric side in the past. It doesn’t help that Illumi is incapable of spotting humor even in others.

“No. That wouldn’t have been effective.” Illumi plainly states, unimpressed with your guess.

At his dismissal, you further explain your reasoning. “Think about it! It’s an efficient method. You’d blend right in with the atmosphere around you, and no one would be able to tell that you’re looking at your target because of the mask. I think this is genius, actually. Maybe I should patent it…”

Illumi purses his lips together at your further insistence. At the very least you know Illumi never tunes you out like most would be inclined to at this point. He soaks in every word, every movement of your lips.

“That’s certainly something you would say.” he ultimately decides, knowing your carefree nature and comments well.

‘Is that a good or bad thing? That’s probably a bad thing.’

Not giving too much thought to Illumi’s blunt comment, you content yourself by looking out your window. On the outside it’s impossible to see the interior of the car, but from this angle you’re able to see blurry scenery as it goes by. Having familiarized yourself with most of the Zoldyck estate, this felt like an entirely new world. A welcome one at that.

The temptation to lower the window for fresh air presses against you like a thorn, but you ultimately deny it. Who knows how Illumi would interpret the act, it’s better to not risk it. Instead your eyes go wide at the sights around you, seeing the outside world in what felt like forever.

You can still feel Illumi’s gaze boring into the back of your head, but you think nothing of it. He watches you enough as is, it’s not worth getting worked up about. Through winding roads, a hint of civilization finally makes itself known. Seeing people not donning the standard Zoldyck tuxedo fills your heart with nostalgia of a time before.

Eventually, the vehicle comes to a stop in an almost empty parking lot. Not wanting to make any wrong moves, you sit patiently for whatever security checks the butlers are most likely performing at the moment. Illumi gets out before you do, the chauffeur eventually coming to open the door for you just a minute later.

Taking in the fresh air, you appreciate the ability to stretch your legs while awaiting further instruction. Aina catches your eye for a brief moment, giving you a reassuring nod before returning her attention to looking at the premises. The butlers continue to speak among themselves, occasionally running a few words by Illumi who returns to your side.

Once everything seems to be in order, you’re prompted to walk towards the entrance. It reminds you of a scene from an apocalyptic movie, seeing how this large mall is almost entirely devoid of human life. It seems Illumi’s comment about only employees being present rings true, as you cheerfully enter into the grandiose mall.

Looking around at the interior, you come to the realization that this is an extremely high end mall.

‘So much for my pretzel bite dreams… Maybe they have caviar stands here instead.’

Pausing, you glance over at Illumi to make certain that you’re still in the clear. Not sensing any indication that you’ve done something wrong, you continue on your merry way. It’s an overwhelming selection before you, but you want to treasure this moment for as long as you can.

Anything that catches your eye you indulge, walking into the store while being surrounded by numerous butlers. The employees at the store seem understandably hesitant at your presence, so you make an effort to not disturb them more than necessary. The shops that catch your eye the most are clothing stores.

Eventually, you approach one with a variety of cute outfits. The collection of clothes you currently have is surprisingly tailored to your taste, Illumi most likely having studied that aspect about you. An overall outfit in particular stands out to you, causing you to walk over to it with urgency.

“Illumi! How do you think this would look on me?” you call over to him with a snicker, grabbing the hanger and holding it against your person. Illumi looks at you as if you have three heads, mind undoubtedly wracking to form a husband like answer.

“It would look acceptable.” he eventually responds, to which your shoulders slump. It’s not like your expectations are high, but Illumi’s lack of enthusiasm never fails to shine through. A mischievous thought passes through your mind, grin adorning your face before you can stop it. Placing the outfit back to its previous spot, your eyes roam over the selection.

Spotting a bright pink tuxedo, you pick it up before examining Illumi.

“I think you need a new outfit or two. How about this? It’d really bring out your eyes.” you beam, using all of your strength not to laugh. Illumi looks at the bright, hot pink tuxedo and then looks at you. In your peripheral vision you see Aina place her hand to her forehead. Shouldn’t she also be used to this by now?

“I’ll consider your input.” Illumi reaches for the tuxedo, much to your astonishment. Could it be? Is he actually going to purchase this in an attempt to further win you over? Victory is a fleeting emotion, as he stretches his arms to place the outfit back in record time.

“I don’t think that’s what I’d call considering,” you point out with a frown, Illumi seemingly content with the outfit being out of your hands. “You didn’t even give it a shot. At least try it on.”

At your additional pressure, Illumi offers a simple response. “I am considering it.’

Giving an over dramatic sigh, you nod before busying yourself with the other selections. Adding a few more odds and ends to your bag, it’s paid for by one of the butlers. Most likely to further limit any of your contact with the outside world. You get the feeling that if you even attempt to make conversation with them, they’d be too skittish to say anything in response. It doesn’t help that you have Illumi looming over you.

Humming to yourself, you move onto the next few stores. It’s impossible to curtail all of your old habits, still checking the price tag before remembering it doesn’t matter anymore. This part of being with Illumi isn’t all that bad, despite its shallowness. Guilt never comes to you, however, as you recall with ease all Illumi has taken from you.

The sun starts to set in the sky above you, the glass ceiling of the mall further showcasing the bold oranges and reds. All of the recent sunsets you’ve seen have been on Kukuroo Mountain, where you almost felt you could reach out and touch the clouds yourself. Stopping in your tracks, you gape at the nostalgic scene.

‘This is how it used to look like.’

The thought of never being able to see the sky from your own residence never occurred to you. Despite the undeniable beauty witnessing a sunset on a mountain brings, it’s too surreal. This is a familiar comfort, one that you’ve experienced your entire life before Illumi entered it.

“There aren’t any shops up there.” Illumi points out, his monotone returning you to reality. Jumping slightly at his sudden speech, you offer a small laugh. In a way, Illumi’s bluntness can be unintentionally humorous.

“Now that you mention it,” you begin, squinting and looking around. “You’re right. There aren’t any. Strange, I could’ve sworn I saw some.”

“Maybe you should see an ophthalmologist after all.”

“I’m still joking, Illumi.”

“Ah.”

A butler who you don’t recognize approaches Illumi carefully, whispering a few words into his ear. Illumi looks back towards you, his attention once again yours. Your stomach sinks before he even speaks, capable of guessing what he’s already going to say.

“We’ll be heading back home now,” Illumi states, leaving little room for debate. “Did you get everything you wanted?”

It’s a rhetorical question, you feel. At this point it’ll be best for you to offer your abundant gratitude, for him having allowed this entire trip to begin with. Giving one more glance to the sky, you can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever be able to look at it like this again.

Giving Illumi a bittersweet smile, you nod your head. “Yeah. Everything I wanted.”

#yandere illumi #illumi #illumi x reader #illumi imagine #yandere illumi x reader #yandere illumi zolydck #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere imagine #hxh #yandere hxh #hxh imagine #Hunter X Hunter #yandere hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter imagines #HunterXHunter #hunter x hunter imagine #my stuff #commissions

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fanfictionsrookie · 3 years

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Why Cinder Fall Carries The Thematic Message Of RWBY's Antagonists...

And What That Could Mean For Her Character.

...

Now, from an audience's perspective, I would say that the outcome of RWBY's villains carry the theme of, No matter your past or the moments that lead up to this point, one will eventually come at a crossroads where they decide what they want to be and what they want to do with their life, whether they want to be 'good' or 'bad'. And that, from what we've seen so far regarding our antagonists like Adam, Roman and Clover (more on him later) choosing the 'bad' whatever that might be in their situation, would have devastating consequences.

But first and foremost, they will and have to be given a choice.

Now admitedly these instances where characters are given these choices are either implicit, nuanced or are given in a second with minor characters which are in the majority and shall be addressed first.

...

Given Roman's last confrontation with Ruby, it can be said that he have long since chosen his path and that the consequences of that choice finally arrived. Although CRWBY not able to cast him for future volumes definitely plays a big part in this. So I don't want to place top my h weight on this charater, even if it's worth mentioning.

Of course we have Adam. Now his backstory definitely propels him down his path of spite and destruction, but one would be wrong by saying that other faunus, maybe even Ghira and especially Blake, have not tried their best to help him chose a better way to fight for his cause and work through his past by showing him the possibility of a better life. I mean isn't that part of the reason Blake stayed? Because of the hope that he could change and could be better, going so far as to try to tell herself that he isn't the monster he is becoming? Even Sienna, although her in own skewed way, tried to direct Adam's path. But Adam continuously chooses the path of spite and hate after every fight and altercation with Blake and Yang. Adam has had many chances, the fact that we didn't see what these different choices could amount to, is simply due to the fact that he has already made up his mind, and that, keep in mind, he was still a relatively minor charater compared to the rest. Adam's final crossroads with Blake and Yang approached, and he paid the consequences.

Now we Clover, and as an antagonist in his final scene the same would apply. He had the choice between capturing Qrow or Tyrian. Following orders or doing what is right. I bring this up to illustrate that even what seems to be a simple theme, there are still variations and exceptions, such as the gravity of the choices and consequences, that further reaffirms and explores the theme.

And I adress this theme through minor characters first, because if they are so clearly seen in them, then it's irrefutable that they are present in the main characters. But before we get to the main antagonists, because they do have a lot more complexities attached to them, let's look at the opposite end of the message to make sure it even holds up when explored.

If an antagonist continuously goes down the wrong path it will lead to negative consequences, then choosing the right path, will bring about a happier ending. And for a fandom that seems so caught up with the concept of 'redemption' (in quotation marks because I have a very different view on what that is and should look like, and I don't know if I'll be able to get to it in this post) one would think that RWBY would be rampant with 'redemption' arcs. But we've only seen one redemption throughout the whole show.

...

And that is Illia's arc.

She's interesting in that I see her as a foil to Adam (a post that I'm sure has already been made). Her change at deciding to change and lead a better life as well as the person to support her through this change, is also Blake. And when Illia does decide to do good, we are shown that she is not only happier, but she is working alongside Ghira to bring about the positive change within the White Fang, that she has sought to do for so long. Just like Adam, Illia has experienced incredible trauma because of the SDC, but she chose to not let it define her in the end.

...

Now, enough about these minor characters, let's look at team WTCH.

When we see Tyrian and Watts, and through the snippets of implicit backstory, that they have already chosen Salem against all else and that they are set in that choice. I've brought up antagonists who have already chosen their path like Roman, and they are important because since they are already solidified an antagonist who has no desite to change, they pose a much bigger threat and it adds variation to the theme in how it's presented.

Now Hazel interestingly has been the only one who understands the means of what they are doing and the negative consequences of their actions, but that for him, it is ultimately justified. Even so, Hazel does use force as a last resort. And what was more surprising, was the reveal that Hazel aligned himself with Salem, not because he necessarily believes in what she is doing, but that she is impossible to go against. This most likely makes him feel that there isn't any choice, not with an equal possibility of outcome at least. But Ozpin/Oscar challenges that notion. He tells Hazel that Salem can be fought and he gives him a choice, or at least an option to chose his role in this battle. Because of our track record of antagonists sticking to their initial role in the narrative, it would make sense to deviate from that and give us Hazel who has the possibility of turning to the good side. However, how this plays out has yet to be seen. I do think that he would die in the end. Why? Because the narrative has yet to show how a charater can enact positive change and be better, even if they might not get to see the full extent of their actions. In short, exploration of the theme. Because the theme does not equate choosing the path of 'good' with the promise of living, simply that there will be positive outcome of such a decision but what that looks like will be different depending on the charater. Of course this means that that choosing the path of 'bad' won't necessarily mean death. It could mean being imprisoned (Looking at Ironwood, possibly Mercury) or something lighter that simply means having to move locations often and be on guard (Looking at Neo). These outcomes still fall in line with the show's message regarding villans but because they lie on it's outskirts, I would expect them to be portrayed sparingly at best, as not to risk betraying what has already established but still maintain a sense of 'realism'.

...

Now, I've been talking about how the theme essentially brings about the 'good guys' winning and the 'bad guys' losing, but that could literally be any other piece of media. But like I said in the very beginning, it is only the outcome of the theme, not the theme itself. What makes RWBY's message regarding its antagonists so different, is its emphasis on choice.

And that brings us to the true message.

That bad people can and should be given a chance to be better, to become better people.

This doesn't mean that people would take that road, or that they would want to change, but that they should be given it nonetheless. Some people will get more than once chance, and some of those consequences will be more dire than others. Not everyone can easily become better, but for everyone there will be a possibility, no matter how small.

...

And this brings us to Cinder Fall.

Now, in light of the events in her backstory, some would consider Cinder killing Rhodes instead of surrendering to be her crossroads. After all it I'd what firmly set her in place to seek power in the name of freedom. And if this was shown to us sooner, if Cinder died in volume 3 or 5, I would have agreed… to an extent. If Cinder was a more minor charater, or died in volume 3 or 5, that scene would have been enough content to show and give us an explaination for her choice and it leading to her downfall. As for why only partly agree? Because it wasn't presented as a choice. Killing Rhodes and her abusers weren't a crossroad, but rather a threshold, even if it's one she chose to cross. Because the path presented to her was the only one Cinder believed is available to her. Remember, it's also important to think how these choices are presented to the characters and whether they see them as such. Of course, it's important to remember that Cinder is a main villain, our first villian and the only cillian we've seen struggling to this extent, it makes sense that her story is much more detailed and complex, but there is another reason I will get to later (she is also not the only one whose story has been treated as such, but more on that later.)

So Cinder has been shown to make choies that garders to her current goal of achieving power. But only because she is not presented with another path that gives her the freedom she wants (keep in mind that does does not exuse Cinder's actions or that she shouldn't face the consequences thereof, and trust me, she has faced many). Salem does not give her choices. She gives Cinder a path, a way forward, and consequences should she not take it.

Becoming part of Salem's ranks wasn't her crossroads either. Only, Cinder *thinks* it is. She thinks she has chosen the path to freedom, but she will eventually come to the realisation that this is not it. That there is another way. And the only thing that can show her this.

...

The Relic of Choice.

While Emerald and perhaps Neo will be the ones to support her if she chooses to become a better person, the person she wanted to be, no person could ever convince her that something like that exists. Not after what she has seen in humanity.

But the relic can.

It can show her a future where she does take a different path, and one where she doesn't.

This is Cinder's crossroads. Getting to the Relic is the end goal that has been unknownly set up for Cinder since the beginning. The Relic will most likely be the last thing that stands between humanity's destruction, it represents the height of the final conflict and ties into Cinder's charater specifically. For once it is not something she necessarily wants, but something that she needs. That is why Cinder carries the thematic message around RWBY's villains. Because if it were anyone else, any other relic, any other Maiden, the theme would not hold up. It would be something entirely else.

...

Cinder is at her crossroads.

She has been shown to where each path leads.

What will she choose?

The theme only says that one should be given the option to chose to be good, not that they will or should.

It could go either way.

But I believe Cinder will turn to walk down the path of good.

And here I can hear half of of you groaning. But before we go into why I think so, because again, everything at this point is simply my prediction, let's look at what will happen if Cinder choses power over true freedom.

She will most likely die, of that I have little doubt, or sentenced to life in prison or constant running at the very least. This all runs in accrodance to the theme. A main villian stays on the road of evil despite being shown a better way, and pays dearly for it. Only...RWBY has already done this…

...

With Salem!

As our big bad and one of the main villians and the pure epic that was 'The Lost' fable, we have seen all the prominent moments and choices who made Salem who she is. And at every turn, the death of Ozma, the death and rebirth of the world, Salem has chosen the path of Darkness and not just figuratively either. (And yet, they still managed to make her sympathetic at one point which is a commendable feat). The gods might have been cruel in their punishments, but all things considered, gracious inhow many times they have given her the option to change her ways. Of course Salem's final decision came with the death of Ozma and her children.

Salem might be the big bad, and defeating her is the end goal, her actions dive the basis of the plot and our heroes' actions. As these final moments of her story concedes with Cinder's story, I very much like the idea of the story ending with the defeat of the antagonist who chooses the path of darkness, while one of RWBY's main themes linger in its audience's mind as another antagonist chooses the path of good, a new life. Now I'm getting much to sappy and caught up in these satisfying nuances and touches.

But my main point has been made. Cinder will choose to change, but what could this new life look like? What are the consequences? After all, we've already established that the gravity of the outcome does not concede with the choice even if it it is presented as positive for good and negative for bad.

In short, could Cinder's change be an act of goodness that concedes with her death?

...

It could, but I don't think it will.

While it is true that the death of a charater could carry a positive outcome to others, it does not align with Cinder's goal of freedom, therefore death would be seen as a punishment and contradict the theme itself. And because Cinder is the charater who embodies it, it means that the end of her story should end on a positive note.

This doesn't mean Cinder becoming a better person will be easy, it doesn't mean that she should be forgiven, that she shouldn't face the consequences of her past.

But after everything she went through, after all her struggles and trauma, Cinder would have the life her younger self wanted. The freedom she wanted to choose for herself.

And I think that is a ending we can, and should hope for...

#rwby #cinder fall #rwby analysis #rwby8 spoilers #rwby8

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365days365movies · 3 years

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April 8, 2021: Swiss Army Man (2016) (Recap: Part One)

Don’t think about the Boy who Lived.

Daniel Radcliffe is a talented actor with a wider range than he’s given credit for. He’s been working since childhood, and has picked up quite a lot over time. While most famous for...a certain role that will go unnamed...he famously started his stage career in 2007 with the musical Equus, and that later progressed to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Endgame.

Meanwhile, he also made appearances of television in varied roles, live-action and animated. He started his career in an adaptation of David Copperfield in 1999, voiced a character on The Simpsons three separate times, hosted Saturday Night Live in 2012, and also currently has an excellent role in the anthology series Miracle Workers.

And MEANWHILE, he also had quite the robust film career, especially after...the role which shall not be named. There were a few films made during that time period, like December Boys and The Woman in Black, but most of his time was understandably taken up, as was his public image. That, of course, ends in 2011. The first time I saw him in a role outside he who shall not be named was in the film Kill Your Darlings, about the collegiate career and romance in the life of famous gay poet Allen Ginsburg. It was very good!

The same year, 2013, he starred in Horns, a unique fantasy film that I considered watching for Fantasy March. His film career would be full of ups (The F Word, Trainwreck, Lost in London) and downs (Victor Frankenstein, Now You See Me 2, Playmobil: the Movie oh God REALLY JESUS). And right in the middle of those came one of his most famous weird roles. And that’s today’s focus. And I’ve been wanting to watch it for YEARS. And while we’re talking about him, let’s talk about this film’s other star: Paul Dano.

Dano’s career also began young, and in the opposite way to Radcliffe’s: in theatre first. After a stint on Broadway at the age of 12 (GODDAMN) in Inherit the Wind, as well as several other productions, he transitioned to film in 2000, around the same time that Radcliffe started as well. Eventually, he gained acclaim with his role in Little Miss Sunshine, and then...anybody else in the mood for a milkshake right about now?

Yeah, I haven’t seen that movie, but I really should this year. Consider it on my list...at some point. I’ll figure it out. Anyway, Dano’s role in There Will Be Blood only increased his acclaim, and found him acting in a number of indie films. Dano’s definitely not a blockbuster guy, but that’s not to say that he completely avoids them either. He’s been in Knight and Day, Cowboys and Aliens, and Looper, which all fall under that category. And except for the last one...they aren’t especially good, either.

But again, he was also in 12 Years a Slave, Okja, Wildlife, Where the Wild Things Are, and Meek’s Cutoff, and all of those were critically acclaimed, and some almost reached blockbuster status themselves. So I don’t really know how to feel about his upcoming role as...the Riddler.

Yeah, we’ll see, but I’m holding my breath. Dano’s great, and I love the Riddler, but...I dunno. Like I said, we’ll see. But in the meantime, that’s enough navel-gazing. Let’s watch Swiss Army Man! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

We begin at sea. If you have thalassophobia, this is already terrifying for you. After seeing many plastics floating on the ocean, covered in written messages, we make our way to a deserted island, where Hank Thompson (Paul Dano) is committing suicide after being stranded there for so long.

However, as he does, he spies someone lying on the beach. The rope snaps, and Hank runs over to greet the body, hoping that he isn’t dead. Unfortunately, after a very loud burst of flatulence, it’s pretty damn clear that this is a dead body. And yes, this is Daniel Radcliffe, but I’ll introduce him formerly when the time comes.

Hank’s sad that the guy isn’t alive, but still speaks to him about his hopes and dreams in the past. He’d always wanted a life of parties and friends and love, and imagined that he’d see that kind of life in a flash before he died. Instead, he only saw the body, who responds with yet another fart. But with that, Hank goes back to trying to hang himself.

And as he does...the body keeps interrupting with its INSANE gas. Like, it’s so bad that the body keeps shaking as if it were alive. The body washes into the sea, and its flatulence begins to propel it away from the shore. Hank sees this, and he uses the humming he was doing to make the Intro Song, which is strangely mesmerizing? Like, literally soundtrack-worthy, I’m not kidding. He also grabs a piece of his noose, uses it to grab onto the body, and rides it as the farts propel them both far away from the beach. It’s absolutely absurd...and kind of great. And then the titles play.

Hank wakes up on the short of a different island, or possible a larger land mass, and is overjoyed by the change in scenery. He shouts his name to the world, and credits the body with his rescue. No longer stranded in the Pacific, as far as we know, he tries to use his phone, to no avail. He decides to head out and look for help, grabbing a bag of Cheetos that washed up alongside them, bids the body farewell...and then comes back for it.

Carrying the farting body on his back (and kind of treating him as if he’s alive), he wanders through the forest to find help. He wonders if the gas is the result of decomposition (likely, if excessive), or if its the body’s soul leaving it. Either way, the trudge forward. They settle in a cave for the night, as it rains heavily outside. As Hank is want to do, he hums to himself, and shares more of his personal life with the body, as he sings to it. And yeah, I’ve been linking to these songs, because the soundtrack is genuinely fascinating to me.

Morning comes, and Hank awakes to a raccoon prying at the body, which he subsequently chases for food. In his desperation for food and water, he’s once again about to leave the body in the cave, but notices it leaking copious amounts of water from its mouth, which it had collected from the cave walls overnight. And yes...he drinks it. Which is absolutely disgusting when you think about it, which I now choose NOT to.

In the process, Hank squeezes the body for more water, and air escapes his mouth in such a way that it sounds like it’s speaking a name: Manny (Daniel Radcliffe). From that, Hank gets the body to speak his name and a simple greeting, but grows frustrated from the inability of the body to speak properly. This leads to him being a bit abusive towards him, reminding him unfavorably of his own father. Ooh, character revelations, me like.

Anyway, he apologizes to Manny for treating him that way...and Manny responds. Which FREAKS HANK THE FUCK OUT, understandably, and he punches Manny and flees the cave. As he comes back, Manny is indeed speaking outright, which is either a miracle or Hank just straight-up hallucinating. Either way, Hank asks Manny to try and remember his past life, but all he can get is the vague recollection of the Jurassic Park theme song. But Manny can’t remember the movie itself, which is when Hank says the most correct line ever said in all of film.

You’re goddamn right. Anyway, from, there, Hank tries to teach Manny about the ways of the world, and the nature of life and death. And the resulting conversation is absolutely fuckin’ ridiculous, and I love it all. Through the process, Manny learns about the world, and Hank asks him to help get home.

In the process, Manny inadvertently insults Hank, causing to walk off and once again look for help, only to eat poison berries and throw up for a sec. The two reunite, and their conversation turns to the topic of sex. See, there are some magazines in the cave that they’re in, which prompts some questions about women, sex, and love. To both of their surprise, this conversation causes Manny’s heart to beat! Spurred on, Hank continues, and Manny’s heart appears to reawaken...as does his penis. That’s a link to the soundtrack, I promise.

Hank and Manny both freak out, as his little Manny seems to have a mind (and motility) of its own. But in the ever absurd nature of this movie’s premise, this too has a secondary function: it’s a compass. Yup. And that prompts the next step of their journey, which is full of a conversation about fetishes and masturbation. Yeah, Hank’s surprised about that, too.

This leads to a conversation about his parents, as well as somewhat traumatic parts of his childhood, including his mother’s premature death. This makes Hank upset, and he lashes out at Manny, who briefly returns to being dead until Hank apologizes. As they go on, however, they encounter another denizen of the forest: a bear. This causes the two to fall off a cliff, and causes Hank’s phone to fall out of his pocket and turn on, allowing Manny to see the picture of a girl on his background.

Manny’s enraptured by the picture, and constantly asks to see her again, as Hank continues to struggle for food. The problem is that Hank needs to conserve the power on the phone, but Manny asks if Hank can dress up as the girl in order to help him remember, and bring him back to life to help save them both. He does so reluctantly, but Manny calls him beautiful, to which Hank reacts positively. This not only helps Manny come to life a little more, but also leads Hank to shave to look more convincing for Manny...and possibly for Hank, too.

As these two engage on a fake date and create a fake bus (while Manny listens to a fake self-sung cover of Cotton Eye Joe that I’m putting on my playlist), this is a good time to mention the one thing I know about this movie...maybe. I don’t quite remember where I heard this, but I have heard that this film is possibly a commentary on the transgender experience, or at the very least that Hank is transgender, but hasn’t come to terms with that as of yet. Now, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I have heard that, and I’m definitely interested to see if that’s the direction this goes. This scene definitely seems to somewhat confirm this theory. Also, I will say (as I have said before when watching The Danish Girl), I’m a straight dude of the cissexual sort, so this is in NO WAY in my wheelhouse, but I still figured I’d mention it.

We’re also at the halfway point now, so this would seem like a good time to pause for Part 2! See you there!

#swiss army man #daniel scheinert #daniel kwan #daniel scheinert and daniel kwan #the daniels #daniel radcliffe #paul dano #mary elizabeth winstead #comedy april #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365days365movies #365 movies a year #moviegifs #tusernyx #userpayel #usermike

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snowdice · 4 years

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A Twist of Fate {Part 3} (Everything’s Fine Universe) [Dice Roll 13]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Remus & Janus & Patton, Remy & Patton

Characters: Janus, Patton, Remus, Remy

Summary: It wasn’t unheard of for people to gain soulmarks later in life, but it was quite rare. Usually fate was set in stone. Yet, when one’s fated death was prevented, fate had to make some adjustments.

As he fell, Patton may have felt a strange prickling feeling across his skin. He however, was not paying attention to that, far too distracted and confused. All he knew was that by the time he hit the ground, both of his hands were covered with marks. Later when he went home he’d notice even more in other places, but the ones he noticed when he hit the ground were the obvious ones on his hands.

Then, there was Janus. Janus had only one soulmark on his body. At least. He had only one soulmark that hadn’t been burnt off years ago. When he landed on top of Patton, he did not notice the marks that suddenly appeared on his arms and face. Patton did, however, notice two little designs appear on him: one along the side of his nose and the other right below the scaring on the left side of his face. The second was already colored in by the time they hit the ground.

Universe: Soulmate AU and Superhero AU

Genre: The Dice Roll said fluff and it is… but… it’s more fluff and angst, hurt/comfort-ish

Notes: Child abuse, homelessness, malnutrition, acid burns, platonic soulmates

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2

Janus had grown skilled over the last few years at shopping with the little money they were able to find. They’d found that finding lost money was less dangerous than begging as it didn’t draw as much attention to them or steeling which could put them at risk, but it was also based on luck therefore not as lucrative. With Remus’s abilities they could usually pull in at least $20 dollars a week which was enough, but not enough to spend carelessly.

They’d usually spend about $2 on bread from the bakery. Then, they’d spend about $10 on canned protein like beans and sometimes meat, $5 on vegetables and fruit, and save the rest for bad weeks. They’d managed to get enough for a big bag of rice a while back that also helped. The only problem was building a fire to boil the water, but they managed. They always managed.

Overall life could be a lot worse, which was something Janus always remembered when Remus steered them down a different path.

Remus was humming what Janus thought might be “Ring Around the Rosy,” as they walked back down the street towards the bakery. He’d been in a good mood ever since he’d gotten his cookie. Janus was also in a good mood, but that had less to do with the cookie and more to do with the fact that they’d had enough money to spare to buy a few potatoes. It would be nice to eat something hearty and fresh for a change. They’d have to wait to eat them until later in the week when they had more daylight left to cook them, but it was something to look forward to. Now it was beginning to get dark. Most of the stores were closing or closed and they needed to get back to their shed soon.

His mind was on dinner plans for the night when they came up on the bakery. Janus actually noticed Patton before Remus did, but he didn’t think anything of it. The man was locking up the store. He turned away from it and took a step towards the street, likely intending to cross to the parking lot on the other side of it. That’s when Remus’s humming stopped.

Remus’s hand came up to point at the man. “He’s going to get hit by a car,” Remus said, his tone matter of fact. He always spewed out his predictions calmly no matter how horrible. The screaming and crying would inevitably come later.

Janus wasn’t sure what compelled him that day. Perhaps he was used to taking action wherever Remus spat out a prediction. Perhaps he saw he was close enough and simply didn’t want to stand idly by and watch whatever Remus already saw in his head. Perhaps he just had the image of a freshly decorated cookie in his mind. No matter the reason, however, he found his hands dropping the bags of groceries they’d been holding and his legs propelling him forward and into the street just as a car turned a nearby corner going far too fast.

He felt himself shift a bit on instinct to make his legs spring just a bit more and make him run faster. The novel use of his powers sent a searing sensation through his muscles that would have hurt if he’d had time to think about it, but he did not slow. He rammed into Patton with enough force that they both went flying and tumbled towards the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road from the bakery.

Many things happened in that moment.

First, there was Patton. Patton had started working at the bakery when he’d moved back into his parents’ house after they’d passed. He’d known the owner for years and the idea had been that since she was getting older, she’d eventually let him buy it. Having no living relatives, she’d even written him into her will in case she passed before then not knowing that it was never meant to be, because he was fated to die years before she did. He was meant to die this day.

From the moment he’d been born, the car rocketing down the street right now had been moving towards him. Everything he’d ever done had brought him to that street at that time from his choice to make cupcakes all by himself for his father’s birthday when he was 8 to the decision to do the sweeping early so he could get home sooner today. He would have died before the ambulance got there.

It always had been strange to the people who knew him that Patton had so few soulmarks. He always seemed to have a lot of love to give. Yet, with that car always in the distance, there was no way he’d be around long enough for more people to etch such a mark into his skin.

Today, fate twisted. It wasn’t unheard of for people to gain soulmarks later in life, but it was quite rare, and then it was usually only one or two. In fact, in Patton’s lifetime there had only been one recorded case. Usually fate was set. It took a very strong power to make any large enough change in the world to alter soulmarks. Yet, in the face of a psychic like Remus whose predictions were some of the clearest and strongest in history, things could be changed. And, when a death so written into someone’s destiny was prevented, a lot of things changed.

As he fell, Patton may have felt a strange prickling feeling across his skin. He, however, was not paying attention to that, far too distracted and confused. All he knew was that by the time he hit the ground, both of his hands were covered with marks. Later, when he went home, he’d notice even more in other places, but the ones he’d noticed then were the obvious ones: the ones on his hands.

Then, there was Janus. Before he’d jumped, Janus had only one soulmark on his body when he hadn’t shifted more onto himself to blend in. At least, he had only one soulmark that hadn’t been burnt off years ago. Instead, the marks adorning the left side of his face were made by acid. They had once been soulmarks, but his parents had died when he was seven and he had been swooped up by Halo Mark before the normal channels or anyone else that may have wanted to take him realized what had happened. They had a policy with new kids to burn off soulmarks whether colored in already or otherwise.

For 3 years, he’d had no soulmarks. Then, one day, a smaller boy had shown up, only 7 at the time. He’d not gained a soulmark on that day, but Janus had been nice to the scared child with haunted eyes. More importantly, as he’d learned, he’d put the idea into the 7-year-olds head that he could lie. Up until then Remus had always reported exactly what he saw and how he saw it. He’d been very valuable in that way, but Janus had put the idea in his head to use his visions for himself instead of for others, especially others that hurt him. The next thing he knew, Janus was free. The second Remus had pulled him from the building they’d been held in and out onto the busy city street, new soulmarks had appeared on Janus’s wrist and on Remus’s arm. It was the first time Remus had ever changed fate with his predictions himself.

Today, Janus lost his shift somewhere midair. When he landed on top of Patton, he did not notice the marks that suddenly appeared on his arm and face. He assumed the weird tingle was from the way he’d recently extended his powers.

Patton did, however, notice two little designs fade in on the face of the boy on top of him: one along the side of his nose and the other right below the scaring on the left side of his face. The second was already colored in blue by the time they hit the ground.

And, they would learn later, the two in a tangle of limbs were not the only people affected by that change in fate that day. In fact, many people were, but only a few actually knew something had happened in that moment.

First, there was Remus of course. He felt the prickle of the newly drawn soulmarks that suddenly appeared on his face, hands, back, and chest. He looked away from the scene for a moment to blink down at the one on his pinkie in confusion and then looked back up.

Second, a man about to walk into his night class at the local community college froze halfway through his step, confused and concerned. His first thought was that he was having a stroke at 28, but the strange tingly feeling faded after a moment. When he caught sight of his hands, he turned and rushed off to the bathroom to see why the back of his neck had been tingling too.

Last, hundreds of miles away in a different city, a boy jerked up suddenly in his bed with a gasp. He shook the boy sleeping beside him awake. “Logan,” he said. “Something good just happened!”

As the last word left the boy’s lips, the car that had been meant to hit Patton disappeared around another turn, still going too fast. Patton looked up at the child who had fallen on top of him. He slowly reached up to gently touch the side of his face near the burns. The new yellow soulmark on the back of his hand was the same shape as the filled in one on the boy’s lower cheek. “Hi,” said Patton.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 4

#sanders sides #janus sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #platonic demus #remy sanders #adriana writes #everything's fine universe #roll the dice #roll the dice 13 #child abuse #homelessness #malnutrition #acid burns #soulmate au #superhero au #platonic intruality #platonic moceit #platonic mosleep

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choices-binglebonkus · 3 years

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Replaying TRR book 1 for the first time since it even came out (yes, I typically replay TRR from book 2 onward) and I know I said before that Maxwell REALLY changes after he becomes a love interest, but he’s not the only one. Drake feels a million times more different in book 1. The first thing I noticed is that he smiles a LOT more frequently. Second, he somehow feels less jaded and assholey than he does in book 3 forward. Maybe it’s just me.

And of course, Hana also went through a major metamorphosis. I think her character really changed for the better, unlike Drake and Maxwell. In book one, she’s really meek and is kind of avoidant at times, particularly when it comes to going out of her comfort zone. But she eventually grows more confident in herself and stands up to her parents. Overall, she still feels kind of the same throughout the TRR/TRH series, but in a better way.

Olivia, as many people in the fandom believe, seems to have the best change in the series. In book one, she’s rude, snarky, and sees the MC as a threat. Brought up as a Nevrakis with the checkered past of the Nevrakis house looming over her, as well as the deaths of her parents at the age of five, Olivia seemed to feel that hurting others to protect herself was the way to go. It was heavily implied that had Leo not abdicated, she and Liam would have married. With Leo’s abdication and the sudden pressure on Liam to choose a queen, Olivia probably felt very cheated and betrayed, propelling her more towards aggressive competition and rudeness, only changing when MC really got involved in her life. Seeing her in book one is really wild, as her metamorphosis is one of the best yet. She goes from an enemy, to a reluctant ally, to a blossoming friend, to one of the fiercest allies and protectors of MC. And yes, I DO think Olivia should have eventually become a love interest.

The only main character in the cast who didn’t really change at all was Liam. From the moment we met him, he was a caring, protective, polite, and down-to-earth individual who put others before himself. Throughout book one and two, he risks his reputation by sneaking around with MC, showing his adventurous, highly romantic personality. The only thing that really changed about Liam was his politeness. As polite as he is, Liam has gone from diplomatically telling antagonists off to brusquely shutting them down.

It really is wild how far the characters have come.

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fanwright · 3 years

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Gladiator: 200th Chapter Celebration

Tagging: @kigozula @seyaryminamoto

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Seyary, this is a great milestone for you. Just want to let you know that I’m happy for you and impressed by the work that you have done over the long years of writing this story. You’ve inspired others to get into Sokkla as well as to have fun with the ship. Its been a great pleasure!

When I first picked up this story, I was still in college and rediscovering ATLA. Gladiator, as well as your other stories (which I recommend that others read as well) really cemented my liking for this ship. Years later, I’m still here, though all the ups and downs.

Now, despite me liking Gladiator a whole lot, I’ve admittedly fallen behind on catching up with it, chapter by chapter. That said, I do want to read it at my own pace and as I read more I still find myself loving the story, as there is much to enjoy.

So, to that end, I’ll be commenting on the parts of the story I have been caught up with, Chapters 1 to 100. I hope that’s okay.

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1.) Favorite Character: Sokka

Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t like Azula. Of course not. And choosing one over the other is such a hard call to make that I would rather have them both occupy the same spot. But I decided Sokka in this case for a number of reasons. Others have commented on Azula in their own posts, so I thought giving my reasons for Sokka seemed only fair.

We’ve seen Sokka change a lot over the course of the story and I seeing him morph into the character he is now is such a stark contrast to the one we saw at the very beginning. He hated the Fire Nation and was unwilling to cooperate with Azula. And yet, after trial and error and harsh circumstance, we have seen become a great warrior in his own right and the closest companion Azula has ever had, being her secret lover. It has been such a treat seeing him change and adapt and grow in this story. And as someone who really does like him as much as Azula, it was (and still is) a thill to see him get an all-star treatment in a story.

And yet there are lingering complexities within him in this story, as far as I have gotten in it. There is still that awareness within him of who he serves and what he is doing, along with a nagging feeling of inadequacy that has hounded him at every turn. Bit by bit, either by his own efforts or with a little help, he is clawing his way forward internally to find some reconciliation. And I find that very compelling.

And also its fun to see him thrash gladiators.

2.) Least Favorite Most Dreaded Character: Ozai

Well, that’s not true really. I don’t dislike any of the reoccurring characters actually.

The best way to describe this particular choice is “Most Dreaded Character”. I chose Ozai for this one because I dread the moment in when he finds out Azula and Sokka’s little affair. Now, again, I’m only on Chapter 100, so things could have changed by now. Yet, I believe still that if Ozai finds about about all this... a lot is going to change for Azula, Sokka, and even the Fire Nation. He will be a consequential character in the chapters to come and dread to see the his wrath and what that will mean for everyone else. It will not be pretty.

3.) Favorite “Antagonist”: Toph

When I first picked up this story and saw Toph introduced as an adversary, I was hyped. Like, you have no idea how hyped and pumped up I was for them to brawl. And I was not disappointed.

See, for me, Toph represented more than just a metaphorical torn in both Sokka’s and Azula’s side for a good chunk of this story. She is at times a very compelling mini-villain, as if she is straight out of a Disney movie. She loves what she does and enjoys it, and knows just how powerful she is. And flaunts it in spectacular display. She has such a simple yet understandable motivation and was a very real threat to Sokka’s own life in the very first fight they were in. And despite both Sokka and Toph eventually learning to respect and even befriend each other, there was always the nagging thought that they would eventually fight again, and each one knew they wanted to win that rematch. Toph provided Sokka and Azula a reoccurring adversary to strive toward beating. Even as other gladiators came and went, they always knew Toph would be their biggest obstacle. So much build up was focused on training for that eventuality. And all of it was compelling enough to paint Toph as this great rival to them. Her being a part-time ally in some cases and even being a friend didn’t really change that until after they had fought a second time.

Its because of this that I now believe firmly that Toph should be used as an antagonist more, if a story needs one. She is just so fun and so good as villain that hope others come to use her as one in AUs.

As I read more, I’m sure this might change in time. But, even with all the fights Sokka has had, I firmly maintain that Toph was his greatest adversary on many levels.

4.) Favorite OC: Rui Shi

Honestly, I think this guy is a sprit animal to someone out there. He’s just a guard trying to do his job right and the person he protects consistently makes that job harder for him in the most ridiculous ways. “Oh great, my princess is in an affair with her Gladiator and that won’t stop fucking like rabbits. Joy.”

Honestly, this man needs a vacation. A long one. And Seyary hasn’t given it to him, because she likes to make his life hard. Rude.

For the longest time, I actually thought Rui Shi was much older than he actually is in the story. So until a picture of him was finally made, I pictured him as a 40 year old veteran with a graying mustache and beard. Even with how he actually looks, I wouldn’t be surprised if his job made him grow gray hair from all the stress.

Good OC, one of a few I like.

5.) Favorite Suitor: Zhao

Should probably be no surprise. Where I am at right now, he’s essentially the suitor to beat as well as having the ultimate Gladiator for Sokka and Azula to defeat. Azula even admired him at some point. Though that has changed, I feel that Zhao has his eyes set on courting Azula further. Its a move that Ozai would likely not object to, provided Zhao pulls off something grand to earn that honor. And although every suitor has made Sokka angry, I feel Zhao would anger him on a deeper level as his interest in Azula grows.

I look forward to seeing him more.

6.) Favorite Gladiator(s): Jet and Suki (For Chapters 1-100)

Jet being a brainwashed Gladiator highlighted a dark aspect to the games. He was also a brutal berserker when in the ring and one of Sokka’s most bitter adversaries. Suki to me was an interesting contrast to Sokka his situation with Azula. She was to me a kind of noble gladiator, an Amazon in the ring put gentle when out of it. Putting the canon characters in as Gladiators was always a treat for me and actually lends itself to some world-building.

7.) Favorite Gladiator-Canon Pairing: Sokka/Azula

This should not be a surprise :P

I could go on and on about it, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll keep things short. This should not be surprise because the driving force and the very soul of this entire story is about a warrior-princess falling in love with a tribal gladiator. Their differences and how they reconcile them, their fears and pain, their passion and drive, all propel this story forward. Things have changed in this story because of them and they themselves have changed because fate brought them together.

If that isn’t enough to make them my favorite, then I’m sorry I don’t know what else to say to convince you XD

8.) Favorite Arc(s): Rough Rhinos Arcs

Two arcs hit me hard on an emotional level - The end of the introductory arc and the Rough Rhino’s arc. They literally crawl out of quagmire, find a dragon in the process, and have one of the most touching and sincere heart-to-hearts in the story thus far. It was one of my favorite arcs to read and the emotional stakes were high. As I read more and continue, this might change, but for now I maintain this is one of my favorite arcs.

9.) Favorite Places/Locations: To Be Determine

This is the down side of having to catch up. There are a lot of locations in the story and in the ATLA universe that I like, and its always a hard choice for me to decide. I am a big fan of settings for a story and when I find a setting I like I usually latch onto it in all its locations. So for now, I will not decide on a solid choice.

... however, in any AU it might show up in, Bs Sing Se is my first choice by biased default. I just love that city and I always appreciate when a story fleshes it out in little ways. Gladiator being set for a fraction of its time in the city was great for me as I got to read more about the city I like so much.

10.) I wish to see Sokkla in...: More tender, couple-like moments

Surprising, I know. But I what I mean is this - moments where they refrain from arguing, don’t bicker, and just enjoy being around each other, doing small things together. And its hard for them, they have to train they, have to keep their relationship a secret, they can only be a true couple for fleeting moments because of how dangerous and vulnerable it will leave them. And it claws at my heart every time. So I cherish the moments they have when they can be themselves around one another, fleeting as they sometimes are.

11.) I believe Sokka and Azula’s relationship will be revealed when/like/because of...:

... when they get careless. When they feel that they are safe in their secrecy, complacaent in their routines for keeping their relationship hidden, that’s when it will be revealed. Its a kind of Hubris of sorts.

And when its revealed, it will lead to something bad and irreversible for the both of them. You can only hide something like this for so long. Even historical royal affairs were never as secret as theirs. And they have taken painful precautions to keep it all under wraps.

So when it finally does, it will change everything. And that’s going to be quite the wild ride.

12.) I believe at the end of Part 3...:

... that a sacrifice will be made. A death or a relinquishment of something. Sokka and Azula will be together, but something will have to be given up, and it will test them for the final time.

I can’t say what it will be, but I’m going to enjoy finding out.

#Sokkla #Sokka #Azula #Gladiator Chapter Celebration

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maxparkhurst · 4 years

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How did you create your characters? What was your process?

TMI Tuesday: How did you create your characters? What was your process?

// <offers out a chair> You’re going to want to sit for this. It’s going to be a LONG story. For those who’re looking for a short answer: I’m actually in the middle of creating these two. Edits and tweaks are always being made to make them appear real and true. And it’s thanks to everyone on here and in-game that they’ve progressed so much.

Now for the long version.

Evolving as an Author:

Maxinora and Augustine Parkhurst are a culmination of ideas inspired by a myriad of things. The process of creating them isn’t linear. It has a lot of pit falls, unexpected twists and turns, and a ton of hills. To understand how we got the current versions of these two, we need to go back a couple years ago.

It’s the summer of 2012. In efforts to get me off of his account, my Dad gifted me my own. This was when I made my first ever serious roleplay character- a hunter named Evelon Holmwood. Well, at the time I spelled it like Evavllyn but...Yeah. We’re going to gloss over that fact. Now, Eve was my pride and joy for the last several years. I played this character nonstop, refusing to play or write about anyone else. In retrospect, I used this character more as therapy than anything of creative merit.

Eve’s story was basic at best. But I got better with story-telling the older I got. Unfortunately, her story got so convoluted that I had hard time salvaging anything from it. Now, you’re probably asking: How does this relate to Max? Fear not. I’m getting there. It was around this existential crisis that a mutual friend of my boyfriend and I convinced us to leave WoW and hop on SWTOR. My boyfriend was more than eager to make the switch but I was skeptical. Leaving WoW meant leaving Eve. And was I ready for that?

He assured me I was and helped me make a character on SWTOR. This was the first iteration of Max. A bounty hunter from Nar’Shadda named Maxinora Fenrik. My intentions was to make her a lowkey copy of Eve. At this time, I wasn’t very confident in my writing abilities and liked to stay in my lane. But, the more I roleplayed this character the more she took on a life of her own. She evolved past Eve and exceeded my expectations. Playing a new character bolstered my confidence and while I no longer play SWTOR -due to OOC reasons- I still have fond memories with this character. I enjoyed this character so much that I reused several components of her design when making Max. Some which include her name and being blind in one eye.

I flipped between the MMOs when Legion dropped. Expenses started to pile up and between the two subscriptions I didn’t have the time to play both. In the end, WoW won my affection and I made a Blood Elf because I had friends on Horde Side. Rorien Hawkthorne was her name. A drunk artist and master assassin. She’d be the second iteration of Max. She had an older sister complex, an affinity for being melancholy, and it was my first experience with playing a character who could kept secrets- or tried to at least. Another new character under the belt and I was feeling a little more confident in my story telling abilities. I’d probably would’ve kept playing that character if not for OOC drama happening in a guild I was in. The fallout had me jump back to the Alliance where I indulged in creature comforts. It was back to Eve.

Tumblr made an entrance in my life around then as I ventured forth with a refreshed look on my hunter. I salvaged what I could and made a half-decent story. A lot of her misadventures are still posted up on her blog @evelonholmwood On the side I made the third iteration of Max. A fire mage and blacksmith combo by the name of Rowan Celwick with her younger brother Thomas Celwick. They were just two orphaned kids trying to make a life in Stormwind. Rowan was an arcane drop-out and blacksmith wannabe and Thomas...Was...Well? Thomas? A glorified side-piece? A way to garner pity for Rowan. I didn’t place a lot of emphasis on them or their characters. My main focus was Eve. But these two would be the underlying foundation of Max and Auggie’s characters.

I eventually took a hiatus from WoW and focused on more personal writing. The details are boring so I’ll gloss over it by saying that creating a character completely from scratch was the final push in the right direction for me. Fast forward several months to a year aaaaaand BOOM! Pandemic.

Writing is an escape for me. It’s one of my best coping mechanisms during trying times. And when nothing else works, I over indulge in some Warcraft. So, I resubbed. There was hesitance when re-entering the RP scene. I didn’t leave Eve’s story off on an convenient note. For lack of better phrasing, I wrote myself into a hole I couldn’t get out of. So, with the help of my boyfriend, I decided it was time to give Eve her happy ending and shelf her for good.

Which put me in a dilemma! Who was I going to RP? Well, you remember the Celwicks? They became my newest project.

The Creative Process:

I knew the Celwick story was weak and read much like a middle-school fanfiction. Revising was a must. But there were integral pieces to their story which I enjoyed:

Familial Sacrifice

Juxtaposing concepts

Intertwined Fates

These were themes I could work with and evolve. Keeping these in mind, I started to deconstruct the Celwick story line. They were no longer Gilnean but Kul’tiran. This prompted a name change from Celwick to Parkhurst. And I won’t lie, I like the sound of Parkhurst better than Celwick. Thomas became Augustine and Rowan became Maxinora (Mainly because I actually HAD the name Maxinora and not Rowan). The little changes got me hyped for the characters.

Next, I started to trim away the unnecessary details that bogged down the narrative. Things that either didn’t fit or made the timeline too convoluted were replaced. Pyromancy was a great example. The age I wanted Max to be wouldn’t yield to her understanding of Pyromancy. At least, not to the level I WANTED it to be. SO, I turned it into lament’s magic. Alchemy. (I also always wanted to play an alchemist since watching FMA)

A girl with two professions seemed excessive as well. I had to look at why I wanted her to be both an Alchemist and a Blacksmith. The answer was simple. I just liked the juxtaposition of an intelligent woman being rough and tumble. Which made me ask: Was Blacksmithing necessary to achieve that imagine? The answer was no. To pay respect to her previous iteration, I made their parents blacksmiths. It also let me keep themes of fire in her concept. The change in profession brought on a change in her appearance. I made her a little more slender to fit with the alchemist appeal.

Max’s aesthetic was brought on by my previous characters. Rorien inspired more internal facets of Max while Fenrik inspired outward appearances. Max’s auburn was strictly a decision made on the fact that I had one too many character’s with black hair. There wasn’t any other reason for it.

Designing Max was easy. The real challenge was with Augustine. Up until that point, all I had to go on for his character was Tommy Celwick and...Well. There wasn’t a lot there. He wasn’t much more than a poorly used trope and I considered doing away with him all together. But I realized that I REALLY liked the trope and I liked what he did for Max’s character. So, I buckled down and made myself think through all the reasons why Thomas Celwick -AKA Augustine Parkhust- needed to exist.

I decided that I needed him in order to present themes in Max’s story. He was the foil to her character. Cynic older sister? Meet optimistic brother. He also appealed to not only the three themes listed above, but also the newest one I wanted to explore: two sides of the same coin. Max and Augustine are simultaneously the same, having similar traumas, and yet different. If for nothing else, Augustine could help propel Max in the right direction. Be her moral compass, you know? With a bit of half-assing here and there, I managed to get a decent character out of Augustine. Took the cliche nerdy brother idea, physical design and all, and ran with it. Shortly after I made their Tumblr account. In no way did I expect this BOY to take on a life of his own. Like, Auggie knocked on my brain’s door and was like, “Yeah. No. I’m not a side character. Give me my own story...”

Which will bring me into my final point!

The Characters Write Their Own Story:

I’ve never been able to sit down and plan a story. My mind doesn’t work in such a structured fashion. It wanders and explores. When I’m creating, I’m watching. Watching the scenes play out before my eyes as these characters take what I’ve given them and grow into something almost independent of me. The basic pieces of Max and Auggie’s back story, along with character design, were purposeful. Yes. But everything that came after was THEM.

It’s cliche, I know, but I can’t describe this experience any other way. These two grew outside of my influence and now dominate a space in my brain. They talk, work, and interact without me. I mean...Not REALLY. But...It feels like that. It feels I’m watching through a keyhole and just recording what I see as their story plays out.

I guess a better analogy is me being the director. I’m watching the movie in the stands as two actors improv. On good days, I’m in control and rework scenes until I’m satisfied with the results. Try this. Move here. Say this. On bad days, I don’t see anything. My actors went home. The lights are off. Show’s cancelled for the day. These days make me sad...But they’re worth it because on the BEST days...The best days Max and Auggie run the whole show, and I am watching through the keyhole as their story unfolds little by little.

It’s truly magical.

The last part of their creation was the voice. Character voice, for me, is like building muscle. You need to work out. Start small and work your way up in weight. Every little piece I wrote made their voices stronger; and that’s including asks and threads. Interacting with other characters helped to flesh them out as people. And while it was hard and intimidating at first, it’s started to become easier.

Wrap-Up

My method is messy and untrained. I don’t claim to have any secrets. My knowledge of writing is mediocre at best. But I’m having fun. And that’s were the real magic of any character comes in. Fun. Because if you aren’t writing about something that sparks your soul- either with love, happiness, hatred, etc- then it’s nothing more than a forced, hollow husk. Writing is meant to evoke emotion. At least in mind. And want to express complex emotions and share them. In a perfect world? My characters -any of my characters- resonates with someone. They become the escape someone needed. That’s the ultimate goal.

It’s thanks to all of you that Max and Auggie have come this far. It’s from their interactions with others that they’ve managed to evolve into something incredible- especially Augustine. He just kept shining brighter and brighter until I felt obligated to make him an in-game character. So, you all are just as much a part in the creative process as me. Thank you!

And a special thanks to my boyfriend for always being a sound board for my rambling ass <3

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK, ANON! Sorry I posted an essay...<3

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dominiqueprovostchalkleynews · 4 years

Text

Out Is The New In

I think it’s fair to say that we are often scared to shine.

And when I say shine, all I really mean is the state we find ourselves in when we are truly happy.

When we’re happy, we shine.

At the ripe old age of 30, I have come to realize that the “journey to happiness” is in fact a lifelong balancing act. There is no perfect final destination, but a series of wonderful milestones we collect along the way.

For me, these milestones appear when I take the time to observe what does and does not bring me happiness, and then have the courage to make changes in my life to align that which isn’t working.

It takes a great deal of introspection, whilst staying open to evolution and change. I have to periodically check in with my values, my morals, my passions, my creativity and ultimately make sure that I’m living in alignment with my true authentic self.

It certainly isn’t a walk in the park…

But when I’ve had the fortune of meeting others who live from that place, I find they sparkle so very bright – like these shining stars, illuminating the way to a better, happier place and I’m drawn to join them.

I feel we’ve created a world that doesn’t encourage us to explore who we are; to experiment, look inwards, work out what shoes fit, and then express freely.

We have created a world that tells us we should be a certain way; that we must fit into categories and live under labels.

It seems to me that we live in judgement, in fear of judgement, from the collective mentality derived from the controlled and repressed systems we’ve created for ourselves.

It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, and yet we’re stuck in these backwards ways that no longer serve us.

Much of this “conventional wisdom” is revealing its cracks.

We are starting to wake up and see the truth.

We’ve been taught that having more stuff will make us happy.

That the climate crisis is less important than the economy.

That gaining likes on social platforms gives us value.

That money is power – creating a brutal hierarchy to humanity.

And that we are everything but equals.

That we are anything but ONE.

The world also teaches us that fluidity in gender and sexuality is in some way wrong.

As a queer woman that is a really heartbreaking and confusing “truth” to get my head around.

As soon as I became sexually aware, I was attracted to all shapes and genders.

But unfortunately, before long it became clear to me that my sexuality was viewed in a very complex and largely negative light.

I should add – I’m incredibly fortunate to come from two open-minded households, but nonetheless, the word on the street (and the world as a whole) clearly viewed this aspect of me as “different”.

That scared me.

I did NOT want to be different.

Because being different got judged, and standing out for being different, to me, was absolutely something to be feared.

So I suppressed it.

Wanting to be liked outweighed wanting to be being me.

Having no representation of bisexuality or pansexuality, I feared I must be gay.

I was attracted to girls… but I also liked boys?!

Well, confusion is an understatement – and confusion brought me right up into my head – to a voice that wasn’t always kind to me.

So I just focussed really hard on the “boy part”, hoping that the “other part of me” would eventually go away.

Imagine if we lived in a world where everything was accepted and met with love.

Even the hardest of things met with compassion.

Perhaps I wouldn’t have been scared to say, “I like girls, but I also like boys. Huh!? Is that different from you?”

Perhaps we’d use our differences to bring us closer, rather than separating and isolating us, and I wouldn’t have been scared to be me.

As I grew older, the fear of being me also grew.

I left the nest at 16 years old, having no idea who I was, and moved swiftly into an industry that I found to be particularly toxic for developing self-worth.

Naturally, I became more and more affected by these collective world views and though they didn’t make sense to me, I thought it would be best to just shut out my little queer voice, for in some ways it seemed easier.

But it wasn’t easy.

Hiding such an integral part of who you are causes incredible anxiety and fear.

Though I did a damn good job of masking my confusion to the world, over time it ate away at me through countless doubts and insecurities.

Then, cut to 2015 – Oh universe, you magically aligned, sneaky old bugger you!

I was propelled into a job that made me face my greatest fears.

Emily Andras took a chance on me and cast me as the beautifully positive bisexual representation that is Miss Waverly Earp.

Through this incredible, enlightening journey of playing a queer character and meeting the fans that are drawn to her, I guess I’ve reevaluated how I am to face this part of me.

Hanging out with the community over the past few years allowed me to see, time and time again, people achieving mini milestones and stepping into their light.

It has made me more certain than ever that I also have to at least try being brave and hopefully contribute to the positive ripple effect that is caused when we step up and live authentically.

All of these moments help change the way our world views sexuality.

For I believe we are each mini representations of the choices we make.

Simply put, I don’t want to be part of a world where we can’t be colourful.

Where we can’t shine bright and where we can’t love who we love, freely and confidently.

Though this is one of the scariest things life has challenged me with so far, I know now that by slowly speaking my truth and living in alignment with my morals and values, I will be happier.

And I will likely shine brighter.

Because being queer is a fucking colourful and magical journey and because I am happiest when I am my AUTHENTIC QUEER SELF.

And that’s okay.

In fact, it’s actually beautiful.

I truly believe from the bottom of my heart that the force of love can move mountains.

So without judging and perpetuating the problem, I meet those who think same-sex couples are in someway wrong with as much love and compassion as I am capable of mustering up.

We are in a system that tells us lies, developed over years, creating patterns that are challenging to break.

But nonetheless, I encourage you to take a second and really examine why you think the way you do.

You have an opportunity to do things differently.

And then, if this still doesn’t give you pause and nothing changes, I ask you to please at least leave others to choose the way they would like to live.

Each and every one of us should be allowed to work out what shoes fit, without unnecessary restrictions that no longer serve us.

It is a fundamental human right to be able to live life with love.

For Love is Life.

In this lifetime I choose to represent this incredible community and stand up for the things that I love.

I am one of the fortunate ones that can, hopefully without too many repercussions, which is sadly not true for everyone.

So I find the strength within myself to pave the way for others – as many have done before me.

And as I thank those who evolved humanity and got us where we are today, I take the baton and run forward fearlessly.

My ultimate wish is for all of us to be able to love freely, honestly, and boundlessly.

In a world that embraces our colours.

I guess in some way this is a call to all queer rainbows out there.

By coming together in pure abundant love, we can gently guide those who are not yet awakened to a healthier, happier, and safer way for all.

So, here goes…

I am queer.

I am into ALL humans.

I guess maybe I am just really into love?

Who knows?

But finally…

I am OUT.

#OutIsTheNewIn

#dominique provost chalkley #start the wave #out is the new in #i'm so proud of her #for everything #she is just...#*chefs kiss*#quote

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rosecorcoranwrites · 4 years

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Heroes and Villains are Not the Same

That's right, I hold the controversial opinion that heroes and villains are, in fact, not the same thing. Crazy, I know, but I stand by it. Let's step back a bit. Recently, I've come across a few writers and commentators saying something along the lines of "who the hero or villain is depends on who's telling the story". This sounds provocative, I guess, but it disregards a lot of standard terminology surrounding storytelling

Let’s talk about four types of character.

First, you have your protagonist and antagonist. The protagonist, obviously, is the main character. The antagonist is the character who works against the main character. Wikipedia puts it rather eloquently: "The protagonist is at the center of the story, makes the key decisions, and experiences the consequences of those decisions. The protagonist is the primary agent propelling the story forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles," while "an antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the chief foe of the protagonist".

It is true that who the protagonist and the antagonist are depends on who’s telling the story. If Les Miserables were from Javert's perspective, then Valjean and all the revolutionaries would be antagonists. If there were a book series starring Draco Malfoy and his two cronies, then Harry, Ron, and Hermione would be the antagonists. And, yes, in these two instances, I think you could call Javert and Draco heroes; the first has a classic Greek heroic flaw, while the second goes through a long redemption arc.

Let's look at another example. If L were telling the story of Death Note, he would be the protagonist. And yes, the hero. Unlike in the other examples, he already was the hero. If you're unfamiliar with Death Note, it features a high school student, Light Yagami, who obtains the book of a Grim Reaper. If you write the name of an individual in that notebook, that person will die. Light, deciding to rid the world of horrible criminals, goes to town with it. But lest the audience see him as some tragic hero who goes down a dark path, it's made clear early on that he has a god complex—assuming the name "Kira"/"Killer"—and is willing to murder anyone who gets in his way, including the famous detective, L, who has been brought on to catch Kira. L is the antagonist to Light's protagonist, specifically, his villain protagonist.

That's why the idea that the villain and the hero are just the same thing from different perspectives is so confusing to me. We have villain protagonists. That is the other perspective. Though I feel like the insistence on heroes and villains being the same stems from our relativist culture, I think it also comes from a misunderstanding of what "hero" and "villain" mean.

A hero is a character who, generally speaking, struggles with some flaw or conflict. Their main arc deals with either overcoming this conflict or eventually capitulating to it. Greek tragedies are built around a "heroic flaw" that undoes the hero no matter how much they struggle against it. Modern superhero stories do the opposite, where the hero fights against internal vices or external foes, eventually winning the day, proving that virtue wins out over vice.

And that is the important thing about heroes: virtue. Whether or not a hero follows the path of virtue to its conclusion or ends up failing and falling off it at the end, they are at least seeking it. They are trying to be good. This is why you can essentially say that a hero is the Good Guy. The Good Guy might fail at the end, but that doesn't mean he wasn't trying his hardest until that point.

What makes a hero different from a villain? Well, obviously, the villain is the Bad Guy. No, really. A villain is "a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot", “a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot". While a hero concerns himself with trying to lead a virtuous life, even if they fail, the villain doesn't. Maybe they actively pursue selfish and evil ends. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe they do think they're the hero (a popular idea in writing circles that will get its own blog post later), but are willing to do evil actions to achieve those good ends. The point is, while the hero pursues the good, a villain pursues evil.

So, with these as our criteria, let's look at a recent example: the 2019 film, Joker. Is this protagonist a hero or a villain?

I'll go ahead and say spoilers, but I actually don't think spoilers matter for this movie. I watched about two dozen reviews of the film before seeing it myself—to see if it would be too intense for me—so I knew every plot point going in. It was still amazing! The way those plot points were presented made them intriguing and fresh. Nevertheless, if you want no spoilers, I would bow out now.

Joker is the story of a man beaten down by society and circumstance. Arthur Fleck, as he is named at the beginning of the story, is a mentally ill man working a low-paying job at a clown-for-hire agency. His life is pretty awful: he gets beat up by teenagers, his coworkers don't respect him and even fear him due to his illness, he lives in a somewhat shabby apartment with his elderly mother, his therapist doesn't listen to him, and so on. All this pressure and anxiety finally come to a head when three jerk businessmen on a subway start assaulting Arthur while he is still in his clown costume. He shoots two of them in self-defense, then runs down the final one and shoots him in the heat of the moment.

Due to the swirling unrest in the city—there's a garbage strike going on, the social service budget has been cut, businesses are closing down, and so on—this nameless clown striking out against three rich men starts a movement. The unhappy masses don clown masks. Then they start protesting. Then they start rioting. While all this is happening, Arthur soaks it in. Though he states that he’s not political and doesn't believe in anything, he clearly likes seeing people imitate his look. He likes seeing the story of the killings in the news.

Eventually, through several more dark turns in the plot, he learns that his mother has lied to him about who his father is (maybe? The story kind of suggests that maybe his birth certificate is forged? And there's the writing on the back of that photograph? I don't know...), and that she allowed him to be mercilessly abused as a child. He makes a speech here, about how he has never in his life been happy, but that he realizes his life is not a tragedy, but a comedy. Then he smothers his mother with a pillow.

This is truly the moment he throws away "Arthur Fleck" and becomes the Joker, underlined by him dyeing his hair green and donning an orange and purple three-piece suit. He kills again, on television nonetheless, then basks in the rioting and burning he has caused. He thinks it's funny. Now, we not only have Arthur Fleck turned into the iconic Joker, but we have the city turned from an admittedly grimy and unjust place into the mask-clad-murderer infested burning hell hole that is the Gotham we know.

So, is the Joker a hero or a villain? Does it matter how you look at it?

One of the reasons this movie was so popular—aside from being about the most famous comic book villain ever—was that different sides could see what they wanted in it. Those in favor of movements like Antifa could point out the economic injustice that led to the riots; the movie makes no attempt to hide how unjust the society in Gotham is. People who see such movements as dangerous can say that, even if there were reasons for the protesting, at the end of the movie innocent people were murdered and the city is literally on fire, which the film also presents as a pretty bad thing. Maybe if Arthur was helped to get proper medication and counseling, he wouldn't have felt so hopeless, and thus wouldn't have become the Joker. True. Maybe if Thomas Wayne or child protective services had stepped in—since they both apparently knew Arthur was being abused as a child—and removed him from his mother, his life would have had a totally different trajectory. Yep.

No matter what particular political message you want to take from it, the fact is that Joker, the movie, is about the failure of society to address wrongs and about the chaos that comes when no one does anything about it. Remember, at this time in Gotham, there is no masked vigilante looking out for the little guy. Not yet, at least.

It's also a movie about one of the most iconic villains ever. The fact is, Arthur does not care about starting a movement. He likes that he did, because at least people are noticing him, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care that people are rioting and that the city is on fire, but he likes that the rioters look up to him. He doesn't care that he killed three businessmen on a train, or smothered his mother, or hacked up a colleague and got covered in the guy's blood, or that he shot a talk show host on live TV, or murdered his doctor at the end of the movie, because he liked doing it.

Yes, he does have a motive beyond that: revenge, for being lied to, or made to take the fall, or for being made fun of. As he says: What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a system that treats him like garbage? You get what you deserve. He has a point, and he's bitter, but he also really likes killing people. Throughout the movie, he laughs uncontrollably at inappropriate times— almost always when he is nervous or uncomfortable with the situation. But what does he do after he kills? He dances. Because he likes it. He may not be happy, but he still thinks he's in a comedy.

And that is why we can say that he is not the hero of his own story nor the hero of a Batman movie where it's told from the Joker's perspective. Because as sad as Arthur Fleck's story is, he's never trying to be virtuous, he's just trying to get by. In the end, the way he chooses to get by is through murder. It's tragic, but, as he himself says, it's not a tragedy. He's not a tragic hero. He's a comic villain. The only thing that depends on who’s telling the story is whether or not you get the joke.

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revisionaryhistory · 4 years

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Three Days ~ 5

Catch up here AO3

~*~Sebastian~*~

I make playlists for everything. I've talked several times about using music to get me into a character. I use music to regulate my mood too. I have ones for working out anger, songs to make me cry, things to meditate too, songs to help me sleep and give me good dreams, and good start to a morning songs. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that there's a sex playlist. There's really two. One is labeled romance though. Maybe it should be called “foreplay”. It's the glass of wine and quiet conversation playlist. The one called sex could also be rightfully called “fucking”. Every last one of those songs are for slamming balls deep into someone. That Puscifer song is on that playlist. I have a deserted island playlist too. That's where the question came from. I think you can learn a lot about people from what they choose to fill their brains with and why.

It would be an easy thing to reduce Emma's choices down to songs that make her feel. What I got from her list is she likes words. She gave me a line from every song she picked. She didn't even have to stop to think. The words just rolled off her tongue like they were waiting to be said. Again, it would be reductive to think that's all there is, but I bet words are what hook her. She listens. Most of my choices were tied to an activity. Air guitar, dancing, working out, sex. I watch. I notice how things happen. Process is more important to me. That's how I get into a character, the feel of things. Mannerisms. How they walk. How they talk. How they do things. Current example ~ I remember Emma asked if she could help me find the chocolate chips, but not the exact words. I can bring up the exact feel of her hand on my arm when she said it. When I put my hand on her back leaving her house I noticed she leaned back into the contact. Had she jumped, tensed, or leaned forward I would have know I was violating her personal space. But she didn't. She's given me her hand and didn't move away when I put my leg against hers while we ate. All of this is good because I just can't seem to not be touching her. I don't mean in a sexual way. I mean attraction. I like you and I want to feel your warmth. Accepting my hand on her back has absolutely nothing to do with accepting sex. Neither does kissing. Or touching. Hell, being naked in bed doesn't even equal consent for sex.

Wow, I've drifted way off topic. Maybe not. Back to the music thing. Her liking words and me liking activity. Neither is the superior way, just differences. I'm curious about books and movies, but another night. I have no doubts there will be other nights.

As planned, deserted island playlist propelled us into more music. Eventually we're rattling off songs and giving them thumbs up or thumbs down. It was really good. We laughed and told stories, sharing memories. She hit upon one of those songs that you think no one else ever heard of, but was really pretty popular. Usually it’s a breakup song that you get so lost in the rest of the world didn’t exist. This was one of those. I immediately threw up the thumbs down, then up, then down again.

She grimaced, “Break up song.”

She’d shared hers. I didn’t mind sharing mine, but this was my least favorite. “Sort of. It was later. I had a hard time getting over her. We’d been together awhile. Things were good until they weren’t. First she started saying she didn’t know who she was apart from me. Then it was she didn’t know what she wanted. Then it was she knew and it wasn’t me. I’d been doing the things she wanted, making changes, and it turned out she was making them up. I didn’t handle myself so well. I was hurt because I felt like she’d used my better qualities against me. She’d manipulated me into making changes, doing things, that meant nothing. It was like she was playing with me and she knew me well enough to know better. I really internalize that shit. In the end I’m the one who looked like the asshole. I wasn’t perfect, but I kept trying.” After dropping the lyric that had hooked me, I stopped for a second and focused on our hands. God, I was young back then. Both of us and we’d fought with secrets to hurt each other most. I just had more to work with. Emma’s nail tickling my palm brought my attention back to her and I smiled. “I was pretty pitiful for awhile. I couldn’t get past it, past her. That song got me in touch with how angry I was. Not just at her, but myself for getting so stuck in being victim and feeling guilty for mean things I’d said. So, I raged for a while. Took it out on my liver and my lungs . . . mostly. Then I was better.” The smirk on her face let me know she understood my particular healing methods. I wasn’t very original. Sometimes you have to get high, drunk, and fuck someone out of your system.

Emma excused herself to the bathroom. I leaned back and finished off my beer. I looked out at the dark water letting everything sink in. Not thinking, just letting the good time feel good. Even telling the ex story felt good. Well, her reaction to me getting a little lost in. Another round of beers showed up a little before Emma. As she sat down she knocked hers over.

She jumped out of the way as it poured onto the deck beside her, “Fuck!”

I grabbed the bottle before it could empty and Emma stemmed the flow with extra napkins. “Easy clean up with the deck.”

She laughed, but her cheeks were red. Our server showed up to take away the napkins, wipe up the remnants, and bring Emma another beer. She shook her head, “I have an unfortunate habit of knocking over drinks. Even sober.”

“It’s good to have a hobby.” We laughed again and got back to talking.

I was so wrapped up in conversation I didn't notice a group of three guys approach our table. I jumped a little when one of them spoke. They had beers in hand and introduced themselves after one apologized for startling me. I wanted to tell them it was really uncool to interrupt my date. They seemed like the kind of guys who would understand. I stood up because I don't like talking up to people towering over me. Gives me a little more control over the situation too. Most people will read the social cue of me sitting down again as ending the conversation. They were nice enough and the short interaction ended with a picture so they could post “beers with The Winter Soldier” on Instagram.

Emma was smiling when I sat down, “Happen a lot?”

“Um, depends where I am. Sometimes one turns into many. Fingers crossed.” I patted my chest without pockets. “I don't have a pen.”

She chuckled, “I've always thought autographs were the excuse to approach someone when all someone really wants is a minute of your time. Or your phone number.”

There's my opening. “Can I have your phone?”

She gave me a strange look, but still pulled her phone out of her purse and unlocked it before handing it over. Luckily she's got an iPhone and I know how to navigate those. I get that people like the customization you can do on an Android, but for barely tech literate people like me I find comfort in the limitations of ways I can fuck up my iPhone. Also makes it easier when I'm trying to sneak my number in someone's phone. I'm not very sneaky. I put my number in her contacts, saved, and handed her phone back. “Now you don't have to ask.”

She was doing something and a second later my text notification went off. “You don't either.

I put in her name and was reaching for her hand when our server walked up, “I'm sorry, Mr. Stan, but we'll be closing soon.” She laid the black folio containing our bill on the table.

What the hell? It couldn't be after eight o'clock. I glanced down at my phone. It's 2:45. “Oh shit!” I showed the time to Emma who looked as shocked as I did. I looked up to our server. “I'm sorry. Shit. We've fucked you out of half a dozen table turnovers. I'll take care of you.”

“Don't worry about it. I'm glad you had a good night.”

I quickly pulled out my credit card and tucked it in the plastic sleeve. She walked off and I turned to Emma, “I'll be right back. Gonna get some cash for her tip.” Since Emma had worked in a restaurant I knew she'd understand. Even if they cashed her out they might withhold some of a tip to cover the card fees or make her wait for the full amount. I had some cash, but not enough to cover shorting her all the turnover while I sat my ass here talking. By the time I got back from the ATM she was back with the receipt. I asked her to wait while I quickly scribbled my name. I tucked the cash in the folio and handed it back to her. “Have a good night.” She thanked me and was off. I downed the rest of my beer and reached a hand out for Emma, “Ready to go?”

Emma took my hand. As we walked I twined my fingers with hers. I wanted to walk like this for hours. The simplicity of holding hands is something not be overlooked. Fingers laced, palms pressed together, and the necessity of walking a little bit closer. This feeling. The newness. The thrill. The anticipation. I love them all.

The sky lit up with a streak of lightning in the distance. I looked around, unsure of my bearings. “Is that coming or going?”

“We'll be driving toward it.”

The next flash was closer and the thunder rolled loud. Walking hand in hand by the river was out. “Better get you home.”

In the SUV I waited for my phone to hook into the entertainment center before handing it off to Emma with Spotify open. “Play me your five songs.”

After listening to her five songs I had her search for mine. She did like the Puscifer song. She thought it sounded like stripper music. She's not wrong.

I can not believe it's three in the morning. We talked for nine hours. This has to be the longest first date ever. Unless you count the one's that go overnight, but that's different. This is the longest date I've even been on that hasn't included sex. Or a two and a half hour movie. Nine hours sitting with one person talking about family, friends, and music. How in the fuck did we fill up nine hours? I don't feel like I've even scratched the surface of knowing her or showing her who I am. With the exception of a couple of times it was nine hours of nothing conversation. I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm not bothered. I'm amazed.

Now I'm faced with what next? Imminently, not existentially. Realistically most of my dates end up in bed. Usually I go out with someone I've met on set, an event, or a party. We've got on well enough to ask her out. We go to dinner, back to one of our places to get to know each other. Conversation pauses, there's a kiss, and boom we're in bed. Sometimes there's not a real date before the sex. Hit it off when we meet and go home together. Nothing wrong there. Sex is what you do while you're getting to know each other.

Or what you do so you don't have to.

None of this means I don't want to go to bed with Emma. Not even close. How do you go from nine hours of talking with nothing more than holding hands to naked and sweaty? Well, I know how you get there, but I'm not sure I should. Even more amazing. I'm not sure I want to. Evans would give me such shit about what I'm thinking. It's been a sweet first date and maybe it's better to leave it that way. If sex is what you do to get to know someone, but we're doing fine doing, why not wait. Show a little restraint. I could ask her what she thinks. Nope. Awkward, presumptuous, and weird. Somebody once told me if you can't talk about sex you shouldn't be doing it. I thought it was bullshit. Now, I'm thinking they might have a point.

All this could change with a kiss. Just one kiss.

The storm was almost on us by the time we got to her place. I ran around to her side of the SUV and walked her to the door. Holding hands like two teenagers. I do not know what to do next. I'm anxious and afraid my hand is turning into a sweaty mess. She unlocked the door and I leaned against the wall. “I had a really good time tonight. I can't remember last time I talked so much. It was a lot fun. Thank you.”

“I had a great time too. Thank you for dinner.”

Emma turned back to face me and stepped closer. This is closer than we've been all night and I have never wanted to stay in a moment so much in my life.

I reached to put my hand on her face. Her eyes fluttered closed when my fingers skated across her cheek. I start to lean in, to close the distance. I closed my eyes. Suddenly a huge crack filled the air and both of us jumped. I yelled, “Fuck” and put my hand over my heart. It's beating out of my chest for more than one reason now.

Emma jumped too and we both started laughing.

The moment I wanted was gone. Dammit. I grabbed her into a hug, “Scared the fuck out of me.” Another crack of thunder and the rain started. I stepped back, “I'll give you a call tomorrow.”

The deluge started after I shut the SUV door. That's lucky. I guess mother nature didn't want me to kiss the girl tonight. No problem.

I'll probably get in the pool at mom's and wait for lightning to strike me.

**tell me something good, fun, full of anxiety. This lock down is starting to bore me**

#Sebastian Stan #fanfiction #fanfic #sebastian stan fanfiction

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kayteewritessteve · 5 years

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If Only You Knew - 12/19

Description: You arrive home one day to find a wedding invite for two of your best friends from high school. You knew this day was going to come eventually, but even with that said, you weren’t prepared to return home. At least not after 7 years of avoiding Buckhannon, West Virginia. Or rather, avoiding him; your ex-best friend and the secret love of your life. But maybe it was finally time to face your past, to face him, and everything else that happened on that horrible night. Who would have knew that your prom would end up being a total disaster, and the very last night you’d spend in Buckhannon for the next 7 years? you certainly didn’t. That’s for sure.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 3,170 ish.

Pairing: Modern!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Violence. Drinking. Bad and offensive jokes. Possible triggering thoughts, feelings and emotions. Moments of bullying and harsh name calling. Lots of curse words. And a very sloooow burn.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

July 2018 - Present.

“Where are the girls today?” Steve asked as he flopped down between Bucky and Sam on the couch, handing them each one of the beers he’d just gone to grab. Then he leaned forward and handed a beer to Clint, who was spread out across the love seat. The three guys murmuring their thanks as they accepted the beverages.

“Dress fitting,” Bucky mumbled, clearly zoned out on the baseball game he had playing on the TV, the game was between the NY Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. The Yankees being the four guys favourite team for years. And normally Steve would have been just as zoned out on the game as the others, had it not been for his mind being totally preoccupied by other things—Those ‘other things’ being Y/N.

The lake day had been wonderful, the more time he spent with Y/N, the more his mind reminded him just how much he’d missed her. How much of a hole she’d left behind in his life when she took off. Not just his life, but also his heart. He was taking baby steps with her, because he was so afraid that if he pushed too hard, or too fast, she might bolt again. And that was not an option now. He couldn’t live without her again, that much he knew. And so he had to tread lightly, had to ease back in slowly. He was going to keep her in his life this time, there was no other way around it.

“Ah, gotcha. And the rehearsal dinner is tonight?”

“Yup,” Bucky nodded and then Steve went quiet, not wanting to interrupt the game anymore then he already had.

After a few moments the game went to a commercial break, so both Sam and Clint got up to use the bathroom and grab more snacks. Once they were out of the room, Steve instantly felt his best friends eyes on him, and turned to see just that. Except it wasn’t just knowing eyes he was met with, his best friend was also sporting a shit eating grin to go along with them. “You two were pretty cuddly yesterday at the lake,” Bucky said while wiggling his eyebrows and bringing the beer to his lips.

Steve rolled his eyes, “it’s not like that, Barnes.”

“It should be,” Bucky laughed then shook his head, “it could be,” he corrected.

“I’m fine with just friends for now. 7 years is a long fucking time,” he paused to take a sip of his beer. “I don’t want to go any longer without her in my life.”

“7 years is a long time,” Bucky agreed. “How you feeling about all this?” He gestured around the room then dropped his hands and clarified, “I mean, like having her back again?”

Steve thought about it for a second then responded truthfully, “it’s surreal. I knew I missed her over the years, but tried not to think about it too much. It wasn’t till she was back in my life that it actually hit me just how much I’d missed her. And just how much I don’t want to lose her again.” He took another sip of his beer and shrugged, “but that’s probably why they say ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. Or whatever.”

“I don’t think she is going anywhere this time. I think we’re stuck with her for life,” Bucky chuckled then took another sip of his beer, as Sam and Clint re-entered the room and both sat back down in their spots. Before Steve could respond the commercial break ended and the game started to play again, but he still couldn’t focus on it.

Before the 7 years there was only one other time he’d had to go without her in his life. Well, since he’d met her that is. And that was over the summer between grade 11 and 12.

He had thought those two months were hard, if only he could have told his younger self to suck it the fuck up. Because those 2 months would be nothing in comparison to the 7 years that was coming his way. That just 10 short months from that summer he’d lose his best friend, and the love of his life, in the blink of an eye…

September 2010 - 8 years ago.

Steve’s alarm went off, and where he’d normally hit snooze at least once, this morning was totally different. He was up and out of bed before he’d even had a chance to turn the alarm off. He quickly shut it off then went to jump in the shower, even though that was the last thing he’d wanted to do. Every one of his morning rituals or steps had now become a burden, all of them getting in his way, and preventing him from the one morning ritual he wanted to get to the most. Which was getting to Y/N’s house to pick her up and drive her to school.

The last 2 months had been miserable without her, the only thing getting him through was her messages and phone calls. He’d never spent that much time on his phone before in his entire life. But he just couldn’t put it down. Howard had started to get kinda pissed off with him, as he wasn’t very present on their adventures, and would groan and bitch if he’d find himself in a no signal zone. He knew his phone bill was going to be ridiculously expensive, but he’d happily pay whatever cost he had to, to be able to keep in constant contact with her.

Tony and Peter had teased him relentlessly for being ‘wiped’ or a ‘lovesick puppy’, and even worse was the fact he was like this for a girl he wasn’t even dating—A fact Tony made sure to point out, often. But Steve honestly didn’t give two shits what his brothers said, he missed Y/N and he’d gladly take the ridicule if it meant he could talk to her daily.

They had planned to be home 2 days before school started, as was normally what they’d do. But Howard’s negotiations hadn’t gone to plan, and they ended up having to stay a little longer then expected so he could finalize everything. That was not a happy moment for Steve, here he figured he’d get 2 full days with her before school started, but now they’d be arriving in late the night before classes started, and even though all he wanted to do was head straight to her house, he was exhausted and knew he needed some semblance of sleep before his first day of school.

So here he was, waking up extra early for the day so he could get ready, pick up breakfast for himself and Y/N, then drive her to school. It wasn’t 2 days worth of hanging out together, but he’d take what he could get. He was finally all ready to go and ran downstairs to head out to his jeep, yelling goodbye at his parents as he did. Not really paying attention to what they were yelling in return, his mind was on autopilot and he was desperate to get to his destination.

He picked up breakfast from Huddle House and then made a mad dash towards her place. After what felt like the longest drive ever, he pulled up to the curb outside her house, put the jeep in park and got out to head up to the door. But before he even made it halfway there, the front door swung open with a bang and she came barreling out. Jumping down the stairs and making a mad dash for him, he spread his arms out to catch her incoming leap. He’d figured this was going to happen, so luckily he’d left the food in the car so that his hands would be free and empty.

“Stevie!” She squealed as she propelled herself at him, he caught her by the waist and spun her around in her front lawn. “Oh my god! I missed you!” She giggled as she squeezed him tightly around his neck.

“I missed you too,” he said as he tightened his grip on her and slowed down the spinning to plant her feet back on the ground.

“Welcome home,” she mumbled into his chest, as her arms came down to wrap about his waist, refusing to break the hug just yet. But he didn’t mind one bit as he didn’t want it to end just yet either. He laughed then leaned down to kiss the top of her head, which had sort of become one of their ‘things’. You know, those little moments or gestures that two friends only do with each other. Yeah, those ‘things’.

“Thank you,” he said into her hair, then took a deep breath, inhaling the scent he had missed so much over these past 2 months. The scent that was just her. Entirely. “I got you breakfast,” he mumbled and smirked, knowing full well what those words would do to her.

Her head snapped back, but her arms stayed wrapped around him. “Really?!” She asked excitedly then she bounced in place a little, causing his body to jiggle from her movements. “Whatcha get me? Whatcha get me?” She questioned and her tone made him instantly picture a small child being excited to learn what their parents had brought them home.

He laughed, “your favourite.”

“Have I told you yet today how amazing you are?!” She said in a sing song voice. Food was always the way to her heart, he’d figured that out pretty early on.

“No. Not even once,” he pouted, “I was actually starting to forget.”

She gasped loudly, “well we can’t have that!” She shook her head, “because no joke, you are seriously so amazing.”

“Thanks,” he laughed again.

“Okay, all this breakfast talk is making me super hungry,” she laughed then released him from the hug.

And he instantly wanted to pull her back in, already missing having her in his arms even if it was just for a hug. And even if she didn’t notice, he was acutely aware of just how well she fit against him. He’d noticed that right away, ever since the first time they’d ever hugged, it had always felt like she was just made to mould perfectly into him. Like two halves of a whole coming together, and fitting just right. Or like those weird friendship necklaces girls always wore, the heart ones where each friend had half the heart and when put together they made up the whole heart. Yeah, like that. That was them.

“Me too,” he nodded and she put up one finger to signal she needed a minute, then she spun around, ran back up to her house, and disappeared into it. Only to reemerge shortly after as she closed the door and locked it, returning to him with her school backpack now flung over her shoulder. “Okay, all set,” she said as she smiled up at him.

“No,” he shook his head as he reached out and took her backpack, slinging it over his shoulder now, then offering her his free hand. “Now we’re all set,” he smiled and she rolled her eyes but took his offered hand.

“Some things never change,” she mumbled and he nodded, agreeing with her, then walked her to the car. Opening the door for her once they got to it then closing it again and walking around the hood of the jeep so he could climb in himself.

He reached back and put her bag in the backseat before grabbing the food and handing it to her. Knowing she’d want to eat on the drive to school. Now normally, he didn’t let anyone eat in his jeep, but she was the one exception. Mainly because it was her, but also because she was always careful not to spill or leave her garbage behind, and she’d always ask if it was okay before hand. So she got a free pass, every time.

He heard the sound of the brown bag opening. “Oh gosh,” she sighed happily, “this smells divine.”

He glanced over to see the giant dopey smile on her face before he turned back to the road and smirked. “You say that every time.”

“That’s because it smells divine every time, Steve,” she scoffed, acting as if he didn’t know this already. Then she giggled, “that should be their motto.” She put a hand up as if to show the words up in lights as she spoke, “Smell Divine. Every Time.”

She burst out laughing at herself and he just stifled his laugh and shook his head, “you’re so weird.”

“And don’t I know it,” she smirked then gestured to the bag, “is it okay if?”

He glanced over at her again, though he already knew what she was asking, “I wouldn’t have handed it to you if it wasn’t.”

She nodded then pulled out the to go container and dug for a fork at the bottom of the bag. Finding it after a moment and holding it up in front of herself proudly. Like she had just found the greatest long lost treasure in the world, “there you are!” Then she placed the bag down at her feet and popped open the container, “oh god, it looks even better then it smelled.”

“You also always say that,” he pointed out.

“Shhh!” She hissed and pointed her fork at him, threateningly. “Don’t ruin this beautiful moment between me and my breakfast!”

“Okay, okay. Shit,” he put one hand up in surrender then laughed.

She nodded her approval of his surrender then happily dug into her food, each bite prompting some variation of an ‘mmm’ or an ‘ooo’ from her. Clearly she was enjoying her breakfast, as per usual.

The rest of the drive they just chatted about the summer and what they were most excited about for the upcoming school year. Falling right back into step with each other like no time had passed at all. Steve had worried things might be strange between them at first, or that maybe they had shifted apart over the 2 months he was away. But after spending the morning drive with her he quickly kicked those worries out of his head. Nothing had changed between them, at all.

They hung out as much as they could during the school day, when they weren’t in class. At the end of the day Steve drove her home, and they spent a few hours just sitting in his jeep, outside her house, talking. That is till they both reluctantly had to part ways for dinner. Though he promised he’d be back once her dad went to bed. And he kept that promise, when he climbed in her window later that evening. This would be one of those nights that he passed out on her floor, unwilling to leave her that night. Not after only just getting her back.

The next morning was also one of the times her father caught him passed out on the floor, both of them completely forgetting to set earlier alarms to avoid her dad finding out. After her father had shown him out he headed home to change, then went right back to her place to pick her up for their drive to school. Receiving a head shake and a slight smirk from Y/N’s dad when he opened the door to find Steve standing on the other side, only 30 minutes after he’d walked him out. But this was just how things were between Steve and Y/N, they were almost always together. It was the way they both liked it. And how they both always thought it would stay.

If only they knew what was coming. If only they could have had a heads up about what was in store. Then maybe things could have been different. Maybe things could have turned out different.

July 2018 - Present.

Steve came out of this reverie just as the baseball game was ending. Being brought back to the present by the guys hoots and hollers of victory. He took a quick glance at the TV to see that the Yankees had won the game 7 - 4. He quickly threw a fist up in triumphant excitement, even though he hadn’t been totally present for the game, they were still his team and their win still meant something to him.

“That was a great game,” Bucky nodded beside him.

“It was a fucking amazing game,” Sam corrected as a giant smile broke out on his face.

“Gardner and Judge really brought it home,” Clint said as he pumped his fists in the air.

Bucky turned to Steve and give him a knowing stare, “what was your favourite part of the game, Stevie?”

“Ah,” Steve scratched the back of his neck, trying to remember any part of the match. “All of it?” He hesitantly said. It wasn’t meant to be a question, but definitely came out sounding that way.

“You asking or telling?” Clint questioned as he sat up on the love seat.

“Both?” He scrunched up his nose.

“Dude,” Sam sighed dramatically, “were you even watching?!”

“Yeah. Here and there–” Steve started but Bucky cut him off.

“No, he wasn’t. He was too caught up in his own mind,” Bucky said as a sly smirk appeared on his lips, and one of his brows raised. “So, what were you actually thinking about, pal?”

Steve just shook his head then finished off his drink. “When does the rehearsal dinner start?” He asked as he stood up from the couch to stretch.

“Nice change of subject,” Bucky shook his head and laughed, “and 5.”

“At 88 Restaurant, yeah?” He asked as he headed to the kitchen to put his bottle in the recycling bin.

“Yep,” Bucky said as he joined him in the kitchen, Sam and Clint right behind him.

“Alright, well I’m gonna head out. I’ll see you guys there,” he said then they all said their goodbyes, and then Steve headed home.

Once he got home, he relaxed for a few hours, then quickly got dressed into a light blue fitted dress shirt and tan khakis. Giving himself a once over in the mirror, before going out to his truck to head for the rehearsal dinner. It would be a lie if he said he wasn’t excited to see Y/N again—It would also be a large understatement if he left that statement at just ‘excited’. It was much more than that, and he was fully aware of it. But he just simply didn’t care.

He was hooked on her again, and that didn’t bother him one bit. She was, and clearly still is, the one true love of his life. And he’d be a fool if he didn’t at least acknowledge that. He was wrapped around her finger all over again, and she still had no fucking clue about it.

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

@hopefulmoonobject @harlequinash @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @tessvillegas @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @imdiegohargreeves @zombiepotterfour @mu-mu-rs @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @badassbeckettswan @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers

#au fanfiction #fanfiction #long post #long read #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #modern!steve rogers x reader #modern!steve #modern!steve rogers #modern au #alternate universe #if only you knew #chapter 12 #steve rogers au #no super powers here

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tartareus · 4 years

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the way fiona is painfully touch starved and it not only shows but also affects her dynamics with the people in her life is just </3 i’m cry, here’s a little something that has been on my mind for a while....

for starters, in all her independence and selfishness, fiona is - deep ( and when i say deep i’m talking about centre of the earth kind of deep here folks), deep down - lonely and scared. now, different people react in different ways when in fear - some cower, others run; fiona is like a wounded beast, baring her teeth to anyone who gets too close when she’s licking her wounds.

her fear ( of aging, of dying, of losing cordelia, of losing her title, of never being respected nor loved again, it’s a long list even though she will never admit it ) does not incapacitate her, quite the opposite really. fiona's fear propels her to do something, forces to move forward even when against the tide.

i have yet to finish off my hcs about her parents but one thing i can point out now is that fiona did not get enough love growing up, much less displays of affection from her parents. while her mother was never an ounce as horrible as fiona herself was to cordelia, she certainly lacked at comforting fiona and making her feel safe. as to her father, always too busy at the hawthorne school to spare much of his attention on her, spoiled her rotten with gifts.

the family’s calico cat was probably the only companion for a long while - that is, in her early childhood before joining the academy - it’s not surprising that she grew up to be an individual who has one hell of a hard time showing affections; after her death of her mother, when she was taken to the academy to start her training and pretty much ever since that the only one she could truly trust and count on was herself and in her growing powers.

this is one of the many reasons why she does not like to be seen or touched ( no matter how kindly ) as if she were weak. it’s a big deal of pride mixed with uncertainty - of not being able to put her own safety at the hands of another, even if the other ( and, in this case, marie - who is pretty much the only one who even offers her any form of comfort/steady safe embrace even if only to keep her from collapsing ) is trying to help her.

she grew so used to using her looks, and touches as a way to seduce people to get what she wants that, when it comes to something honest fiona finds herself at loss of how to go from there. take for instance the touches she exchanges with the axeman. they are sexual because obviously she is in a sexual relationship with him for a time.

while it is nothing rooted in love or genuinely romantic ( she fell in love with the idea of being in love and being, truly, loved in return; she likes the axeman, but she loves how he makes her feel more than she could ever care for him. it’s the adoration he gave her when she was at her lowest, the distraction from all the troubles and fears and, of course, the orgasms, she loved those too but we’re not going to hold that against her - considering she might have had those with only few of her partners in life, specially when one notes that she has majoritarily been with men. ) she still clinges to him,

as she clinges to all others she tries to connect with - regardless the way she wants to do it, if it’s friendly, familial or romantic - in a way betraying her own mask of indiference to the ones around her for she doesn’t want them to leave her, dreads at the thought of being alone, even when she treats them badly - and she does, awfully a lot.

the fact that she constantly has a secret agenda alligned to touching is also something to note, it blurs even more the lines and ends up making whatever attempt to do so honestly fall flat. amongst other things, frustration comes to her often and then, of course, there’s aggresion ( not only in her own self destructive path of booze and drugs, even when she’s ill and fragile) also turned to others.

worst of all when it’s turned to her daughter, who shares a complicated bond with her. she loves her child, truly does so, but hates being a mother - always has. it never sat right with her and it never felt like these shoes belonged to her, like she deserved this. not to mention that, after delia’s birth it felt as if a part of fiona had just died, which pushed her even closed to the postpartum depression phase she went through, perhaps there was a plausible reason to why supremes usually never had kids, or perhaps it’s fiona’s fucked up ways that drove her to be such awful mother, whatever it is has left a mark not only on cordelia but on herself too.

when cordelia comes back from the hospital - after she and fiona had been trying to reconnect over drinks - fiona is seen clutching one of cordelia’s clothes, visibly anguished and, to her own surprise, in pain. it’s a similar pain she felt in the hospital, hours after hours in that uncomfortable chair waiting for delia return. it’s not just the physical pain of her disease eating her away that drives her to steal some painkillers, it’s the emotional pain of almost losing a child, part of herself in a way, that she never thought she loved that much - her mental state is alluded by the erratic flickering lights and her encounter with the young mother whose baby died shortly after the birth.

the pain she feels for her daughter is something secretive and reserved to moments of weakness where nobody is around to witness and she can convince herself that they were nothing but her illness making her soft. a passing thing. still, she tries approaching her daughter - even more so after the truth about hank’s cheating is revealed - only to find out that by doing so she just might get her ass on the line. she recoils slightly, frowning and instantly regretting her moment of weakness and decides to avoid touching cordelia for her own self preservation within the coven.

fiona eventually leaves her, gingerly saying she’ll get delphine to help her daughter. her own words about cordelia ring on her ears: delia is a survivor. we later see that fiona does not seem to be able to detach herself from the situation as much as she wanted to - if anything, the way she brought back that baby to life in the hospital and how she aids marie to keep the baby that was meant to papa ( of course with her own hidden agenda of wanting to offer a soul to him to get on his good side ), fiona’s own lack of touch when it comes to maternal matters does not stop her from wanting to avoid other kids from being abandoned. in both cases, by giving the change to keep the kids, fiona is giving another shot a motherhood - not directly, obviously, but it’s as close as it will ever get.

we eventually see that fiona begins to wear gloves to avoid unnecessary drama ( aka delia finding out even more of the dark shit she's been up to both lately and in the past ) and is visibly relieved once she finds cordelia’s sight restored - even if it had been myrtle, back from the stake no less, who had done it. in that fickle moment we can see the softness in her eyes and demeanour, as if she can breath again.

obviously, realising that she truly does care for her own child is nothing that redeems fiona, but it’s an interesting layer to her character - how conflicted she is with her own feelings. we get a slight glimpse that perhaps things were not so different with fiona and her own mother. later, when fiona finds out in horror what cordelia has done to herself to get her second sight back, the two share another heart to heart moment, but that obviously ends up going downhill (and fiona does note how odd her daughter acts at the time) when the sight is not only restored but shows glimpses of a possible future, one where fiona has killed them all.

including cordelia.

now, i do think part of the vision was reflecting cordelia’s own fear of her mother manifesting itself - zoe did end up dying in the very same way she did in the vision, but fiona had little to do with it. queenie herself, after fiona had just killed madison and beheaded the bastien/the minotaur, had her life saved by fiona.

even though fiona was under the impression that the next supreme was gone, using the vitalum vitalis to get queenie's soul back before it went to the afterlife was a risky move, considering that this wonder, unlike resurgence, uses the witch's very own life force. normally a supreme would not faint afterwards, but being with her own health and powers beginning wane, fiona feels the harsh effect of it a couple of minutes later, when she’s in her room and sends delphine away. she held herself against the wall to get there when she could have asked cordelia to help her or even delphine, and the way i see it that she didn’t ask for help for the very same reason why she declined marie’s steady embrace at first some time later: fiona hates to be weak, to feel useless and powerless and, worst of all, to be seen in a weakened, fragile state. she wants to keep the image she has painted of herself ever since she rose to the throne: of being invincible and in control of everything and everyone.

by being the biggest source of danger they have to worry about, she finds a way to protect them, or at least distract them, from the real danger that lies just outside their doors, a danger that only few of them would be able to handle: witch hunters. because, let’s be honest even though fiona was a hazard in high heels to the coven, they were slightly safer with her on their side than against her.

while i honestly don’t think fiona was really up to kill all of them witches when she sent the axeman there to be killed there, i cannot claim she did it with pure intentions. sure, she did it to find the next supreme while she gathered strength to face her, whoever she might have been, but having a secret agenda doesn’t exclude the real thing here. she wanted out. out of the coven’s responsability of finding her replacement ( to her, it felt as if they were burying her before she had even died ) and out of the potentially dangerous relationship she had with the man.

which eventually proved to be a smart move (well, not for long though lmao) considering how the touches they exchanged were either sexual or violent, even though the little spit trick she did on him was nothing but false memories, there’s no denying that she knew his violent nature could get to her one day. she knew he was just as awful as she was.

perhaps worse than fiona, if that little hint of her knotty pine hell was anything to go by, she was going to spend the rest of eternity not in hellfire and damnation but with a former lover’s hands on her as she’s at the mercy of all his violence and lechery. while there’s something incredibly ironic about this awful situation. her hell seems, at first, his paradise but, the longer they stay like this, with her forgetting the previous days and only having him and dull aches on her body to warn her of whatever the hell has happened in the previous day, the faster he will realise she never loved him, and never will. he will be stuck with someone he loves but that could not love him back for the life of her.

before all that happens though, we get to see fiona and cordelia meet one last time. even though it would never explain how awful she was, we get to see that to a big extent what fiona had wanted was to protect cordelia, keep her safe but, above anything else she wanted cordelia to be strong enough to stand on her own, to survive and bite back. which cordelia did, on her own and beautifully so. when she does grow a backbone, as she ascends as supreme that is, is when fiona feels at ease, as if her job ( the most important one, and the one she has forsaken for years ) is complete. cordelia no longer needs her, or myrtle or whatever maternal figure she can find. this time she hugs cordelia, clutches to her not as if her lie depended on it, but as if cordelia’s did. with her out of the picture, her daughter’s powers would fully bloom into what they should be once for all && fiona’s sorry for whoever dares to touch this coven again.

she’s not longer the scared little girl fiona dropped off at the academy decades ago, she’s the fucking supreme now.

she can handle it.

#hey look at what i did instead of writing :D #this got longer than i expected but oh well #m; f. goode \ hcs #m; f. goode \ relationships: cordelia #m; f. goode \ relationships: the coven #m; f. goode \ relationships: axeman #m; f. goode \ relationships: marie #tw; death #tw; violence #tw; abuse #tw; terminal illness mention #tldr; fiona is messed up and touch starved; she loves her family more than she lets it show

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