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kijosakka · 2 months

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Thoughts. okay so the total drama drama drama drama island special is interesting mainly bc of team e-scope but im going to take a moment here to ramble about his dynamic with other people here,,

(oh and i didn't have anywhere really to slot it into the other post or segue into it here but dodgebrawl as a Moment demonstrates how [this AU] noah can play the social game, just in a very very different way than how it's normally seen.

he knows what he's doing is going to bother his team and incentivize them to vote, i'd say in this au he even plays up the cockiness and makes veiled personal slights against specific people

(mainly those who would be annoyed enough to vote him off, see: heather, justin, leshawna, cody/trent to some extent if he said smth about gwen? < and gwen herself in that scenario. and to another extent beth, since hes playing up his outright mean traits, which would make lindsay vote with her. i dont think he would do anything specific to/with owen or izzy, since he may see izzy as too volatile and owen too genuine)

in the opposite way of whats expected, sure, but it is a social play. he can pick apart what these people are and what they show and push at it to achieve his own ends (and maybe its even some sort of way for him to regain control in this fundamentally uncontrollable situation he's found himself in; he can be the punishment in foucalt's imagining, to a much smaller degree))

so his teammates,,, do not like him tbh. his flagrant display during dodgeball and everyone being pissed at him after the fact is true in this AU, just coming with different motivations. even after the fact when the frustration of everyone fizzles out, hes still majorly offputting because of his detachedness, and deliberately makes his shown traits very unpalatable to experience in person combined with that.

the only two exceptions are izzy and owen respectively: owens mostly coming from a place of genuineness and im going to say while he wouldnt be able to verbalize it, in some manner owen would clock noahs behavior as a defense mechanism. maybe in the sense of 'hes just scared to open up to people!!' or something similar, but he definitely has a lot more faith that noah really isnt that cold and flat.

[*]izzy feels much the same -- except maybe it comes off more to her as strategic. izzy can act, and might recognize that in noah. if you wanted to you could write this in as to why she was eager to swap teams in the first episode, but it wouldnt change that he does get eliminated and thats all she sees of him until the special -- which, her intrigue in his lacking and the fact that it apparently wasnt strategic to get him further in the game, could help explain why she picks him in the team-up.

[*i have soooo much to say about izzy in this au actually. but ill save it for a diff post]

and speaking of the team-up: team e-scope!!!! :0

my au my rules eva and izzy became really good friends on the playa; izzy isn't afraid of eva (and curbing her anger before it reaches a boiling point) and eva is physically adept enough to restrain izzy from Shenanigans that might be a little Much. but eva doesnt really?? know anything about noah?? but izzy insists on teaming with him for the special (and unbeknownst to her noah wasnt even planning to participate initially) so he must be some level of Not Too Bad if izzy wants anything to do with him that doesnt seem to be related to tormenting the guy

and she thinks hes Fine. apathetic and detached and unpalatable (but then again, everyone in their little trio really is to some degree), but can kind of understand izzys intrigue: hes still A Guy, hes just hidden behind 20 layers of non-substance that are so offputting from the first meeting it makes people steer clear of him.

now with tddddi comes two other pertinent details: the justin line, and the Thing With Duncan.

i personally thing noahs 'he's the anti-me' line is really funny in the context of canon but if you squint it kinda works here? wherein justin is non-speaking yet flaunts himself to be the center of attention and clearly shows intent and capacity to scheme (underdeveloped or no, see: awakeathon), whereas noah speaks a lot yet lets himself fade into the background, showing vague hints of the capacity to scheme but no intention or palpable ambition behind it.

^ am i reaching? maybe. the other option here is noah somehow has seen him in-person before on a modeling or red carpet kind of gig and dislikes him on principle because of it/its a jab at it (smth smth they are both opposite ends of the same industry? justin is the face of it in a manner where noah stays behind the scenes and out of sight)

and the thing with duncan,, hear me out here okay noah does his whole song and dance, goes up to him and patronizes him, and duncan retaliates. however, he curses like a sailor and in noah's head has ruined the footage, therefore instead of further retaliating and potentially invoking actual physical harm he just. doesnt react. at all. duncan looks up at him and hes just dead-eyed staring down at him -- and then he leaves.

^ the scene has been ruined, and everyone else is doing so much that theres no reason to play it up any more. duncan and him arent plot important like how heather and lindsay were, theres no reason for the crew to painstakingly edit his swearing out. they just wont let it reach the final cut. duncan is understandably very confused by this, but at that point noah was already gone to find eva and izzy again (< this is when the cast having a running bet that noahs and android becomes Not a Joke)

but life goes on!!! and in the worlds worst comedy of errors (for noah), izzy ends up dragging him along into the lake, thereby leaving him as a confirmed member of the next season.

^ noah is so angry at this. popping blood vessels. he argues with chris endlessly, straight frothing at the mouth at only having two days of real reprieve before he has to deal with the Same Shit again. and chris gets this, to some degree, but also knows that if theres no explanation for noahs non-appearance to hand the producers, theyll be pissed (since all things considered, noahs pretty damn popular among the fans)

luckily for him, courtney just filed a lawsuit against the show!! and since chris is busy running said show, the producers do not want to deal with it and are willing to hand off the case to anyone else -- hence, chris officially signs noah on as his PA, and noah takes over the court settlements and whatnot.

< though i do imagine the producers would see it as a 'get out of the show' scheme, and thereby push way harder for his involvement in WT as a result

but noah does get a break!!! for now, at least.

#formal thanks to ophe for the cast having a running joke about him being an android #that was Not my idea #before-bed rambling. again #wrote this post eating a sleeve of saltines it was an Experience #soooooo much to say about izzy and her dynamic with noah. sososososo much #is the justin thing reaching? yeah probably idc #character analysis #total drama #td noah #dramaturgyAU #if someone wants to takw this idea and run go ahead im begging someone to share my fascination for the concept of panopticon

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disfrutalakia · 7 months

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Biter anon back! For the last time of the week! Yes, it is Sunday, it is the curse of ao3 authors and I didn't even post shit.

Anyway, I bring today not dark 4halo, but 4ever stonkcraft trivia and themes because I somehow watched all the two seasons between the kia post about it and now! And gods... now I understand him more somehow??? Even if his character isn't directly tied to that one but still make my brain worms wiggle.

Because! 4ever themes in both seasons is fucking, rats. He literally picked the focus on the rat mod in the second one lmao, but also funny thing, he calls it rat, but he had a pet Tasmanian devil!(can you imagine him saying that he already dealt with demons before to bad and he gets his rackles raised because what the hell no you deal only with mE-) he also tried to make it the mayor. It did not work but it was funny to watch.

He did at one time sell everything he owned including the love pairing shirt which fuck God he has a historic with messy breakups. Including bribing the guy, brumin didn't accept of course but like... God's the precedent setting.

Surprisingly for me, but forever is as much as bird coded as grian in the first stonkcraft! With the flying around, nesting, attracting macaws and whatnot, makes my brain wiggles and think about griffs and whatnot kk.

Talking about hermitcraft. My dude really gone to doc build with cyborg mods, which I'm now headcannoing that he covered the scars of that adventure with tattoos on his arm and should and belly and gut, what is the themes of the tattoos? I'll get to you if my brain isn't mush.

Also fun fact, he also had an history of fucking hidden warpstones in loved one bases, brummin is suffering the first season with that and the motorcycle kkkk

Also fucking, head in HANDS both seasons 4ever involved himself so much with elections and who is in charge, he also made a voting system in first season... it didn't cause one discord and you could walk back the votes you got, how this is better than that time in qsmp. HOW-

And it is in season two that he goes deeper into character things, and God's the choice of making his character have so many anger issues is mwau! Adore it I want more more more, my guy literally sold his body and blood to brummin to get stronger for a fight over stealing things kkkkkkkkk

And his fucking determination and Lazer focus to get stronger, to get back, to bite back onto the hand that hits, adore it adore it, he is such a fucking fucked up guy, his home was destroyed and he decided to never be normal about anything again.

Also the fucking kidnapping is much more fucked up than I thought???? 4ever pretended to be afk for a whole irl day, can you imagine that in minecraft realism terms. 4ever playing statue as a revolution mocked him and brummin biting him until agony was what his blood was, and doing all of that knowing he was "standing sleeping"? Sooooo fucked my cubito must have the most twisted sense of boundaries ever kkk.

Also yeah, 4ever planted bombs all over the server and made it a bit to threaten people with nuclear fallout, no biggy and all, and his ending did show him going to the moon to save his first pet rat, I choose to believe he did activate all of them in canon and taking that qsmp is mostly directly after stonkscraft that is part his whole complex of seeing himself as a monster and better be shot down and binded than be let rampage free <3333

Thanks for hearing my 4ever ramblings, goodnight until the next week!

Biter Anon!!!

If I tell you that to this day I haven't watched stonkscraft would you believe me? Would I be a fake Forever fan lmao

But also, I'm almost sure he confirmed that his character backstory is tied to both stonkscraft and Forever mapa. So you can get so so much stuff to analyze his character from there.

God maybe that's what I should do on this one month he will be away, binge watch stonks craft so I can truly study him with a microscope.

I love all the trivia you got from it, and yeah his past experiece in there with politics, revolution and violence defintely explains A LOT of his qsmp character.

Biter anon you remain the best one out of all of us. Have a goodnight see you next week <3

#asks #qsmp forever #not directly but LIKE #I think it give very interesting things for his character so like #Also this will help me find this post later thank you <3

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truckreincarnation · 7 months

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It is what it is | Harriet | 2.4 | Re: Vee, Avery

It wasn't an accident. There was no way. That's what Harriet believed, and what she continued to believe as Shin and Esmée picked up the slack. Despite Theophania's counterargument, Harriet wouldn't back down on this. She couldn't. So she stayed silent and watched and listened to the arguments and the theorycrafting and the fingerpointing and all the yelling. All the while, she waited for someone to finally dig out the definitive proof they needed to identify Perry's murderer. It was only a matter of time before she was proven right. And yet... And yet when Vee spoke up after what felt like an eternity, she felt her conviction waver. The person she trusted the most, the one who knew Perry the best of any of them, believed that it was an accident. Then Meili tearfully chimed in in agreement, and Harriet began to doubt herself. What was she holding onto all this anger for, if all it was doing was making the people she liked upset? And then Avery carefully explained his reasoning as to why Perry's death being accidental made the most sense, and she couldn't hold on to her stubborn reasoning any longer.

"The way Perry died is so fucked up and horrible. And I want- no, I need someone to be pissed at for it. Someone to blame. Because that's the whole point of this fucking ritual, isn't it? For us to kill each other? So the idea that she did this to herself accidentally is... it doesn't make any sense."

"But sometimes things don't make sense. Sometimes awful shit happens for no reason, and you wind up dead because of it. Life can be so fucking cruel like that. Something most of us know already, probably."

Harriet glances to her roommate. For a brief second she considers reaching a hand out to him, despite the distance between their desks, but she's unable to work up the resolve to remove her hands from her pockets. Maybe after this was all over.

"Vee, I... I'm sorry. Nobody should have to go through this twice. I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now. But if after all of this, you can still believe it was an accident, then... I'm going to believe in you."

She then looks across the summoning circle to Avery.

"You too, Avery. Everything you said makes sense to me. There's a reason you got voted the smartest one here at the picnic."

Nothing left to do now but cast her vote. Harriet flips her journal open to the last page, jots down a name in blood-red ink, and slams it back shut. With that done, she leans back in her seat and lets out a deep sigh. She's cast her lot, and now all she can do is wait and see how it turns out.

#Harriet #ch2 #trial2 #submission

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theshelbyclan · 4 years

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Brotherly Discomfort

Summary: After ‘the talk’, your brothers are adamant to protect you, but you throw yet another curveball their way. Part 2 to Growing Pains

(Gif by @nofckingfighting) A/N: This is part 2 to my most popular fic Growing Pains and I used anon’s request: Could you do a Shelby sis story where she’s a lesbian and in love with a woman and her family doesn’t know. The family is trying to get her into an arranged marriage with a man and she can’t figure out how to tell them she’s a lesbian cause she feels they won’t except her? Sorry if that’s too much. Love your writing so much btw!! Thanks for this request babes, hope I did it justice :) Words: 2387

*** “Right, Y/N, sit down,” Tommy sighed deeply and pointed at a single chair by the kitchen table, “We need to talk.” As you sat down, three brothers loomed over you. Tommy lit a cigarette like his life depended on it, Arthur couldn’t stand still if his life depended on it and John seemed to have forgotten what his life actually depended on, so he just stood there, unsure of everything. “We’re having another talk,” you stated. The last one, only a few days ago, was still fresh in your mind.

“We are,” you brother confirmed. Arthur took off his cap like he was attending a funeral and stumbled, “We, uhm… We’ve had an idea.” “Christ,” Polly mumbled from behind her newspaper and you couldn’t agree more. “The thing is,” John finally spoke, “We’ve been worried after we… talked.” “Right,” you nodded, “Because of he subject of our conversation?” “It’s not just that!” your brother continued, with a slight frantic edge to his voice, “You’re growing up, but you’re still running around with the dogs at all hours. You won’t listen to anyone, do whatever you please…” Tommy continued where John faltered, “The truth is, Y/N, you’re getting to be too wild.” “Oh, fuck off, Tom,” and you got up with every intention to leave the room. “Sit down,” he said sternly, “We can’t have another Ada situation.” “Situation?” your eyebrows shot up, “What do you fucking mean by a fucking situation?” “The baby, Y/N,” Arthur explained. “I’m sorry,” you were boiling inside now, “but please explain: was the baby the problem or the man she had the baby with the problem? Or possibly, maybe, the fact that you three had no say in the matter?!” “That’s not the point,” John could feel this conversation wasn’t going as planned, “The thing is we couldn’t stop it!” Polly scoffed behind you, so at least you felt like someone was on your side. After a few moments of silence, your anger got the better of you and you slammed a hand down on the table in a very Tommy manner, “So what did you three fucking geniuses come up with?” Tommy pointed at you menacingly, “You fucking watch your mouth. You may be sixteen but I will still wash your mouth out with soap if you don’t mind that tongue…” “Minding my tongue…” you repeated, rolling your eyes, “Fine. So, what’s the plan? Arthur? John? Are we going back to the old ways and am I being married off to some good gypsy boy?” You turned around at Polly and laughed at your own joke, but when the room fell silent once again, you realised you’d hit the jackpot. Arthur had known you since the day you were born. He’d been twelve at the time and he could recognise every little expression on your face. Like when you were little, you used to scrunch up your nose just before you were about to cry for hunger. Or when you were sad, a small wobble in your chin just before the tears. Or when you were angry, a wrinkle in your forehead gave away the tantrum that was about to follow. This was happening right now. So he held up both hands and said, “Y/N, he’s from a good family…” “Nope,” you said, adamantly. “He is,” John confirmed gently, “and he has horses.” “Fucking no,” you shook your head. Tommy sighed, “We already made the deal.” “You promised your sister, just like that. That’s low, even coming from you, Thomas,” Polly’s cold voice sounded. If there was one person who could break his tough exterior, it was his aunt, “Well, what the fuck should we have done, Pol? Let her run wild, like you, eh?” But you stood up and walked over to Tommy. This was the man who had raised you, cared for you and disciplined you most of all, but right now, none of it mattered. So you slapped him hard, once. “Undo it Tommy,” you hissed, “Undo it or I’ll fucking cut you.” In the background you could hear Arthur mumble at once, “Okay, we’ll undo it…” “Give me one good reason,” your brother’s face, now only inches away, remained emotionless. You sighed and decided to throw all caution to the wind. “Anna,” you said, calmly. “What?” John asked immediately. So you repeated, voice raised, “Anna!” Three frowning brother stared at you, not understanding at all. “Remember when you asked me what hisname was, last week?” you called out exasperated. “’John’, wasn’t it?” Arthur looked at you. “No, it wasn’t fucking ‘John’, Arthur, she just said so,” John explained to his oldest brother. Tommy lit another cigarette, “What’s your point, Y/N?” You pointed at your neck where the nearly faded hickey could still be seen if you knew, “The name of the girl who gave me this is Anna.” “That would be bloody fantastic actually, because we wouldn’t have to worry anymore about a baby situation…” John squinted, “I think she’s serious…” “Oooooh fuck…” Arthur sighed, suddenly connecting the dots; “We’ve been keeping an eye on the wrong fucking people, John.” But John burst out laughing, “Didn’t see that one coming, did you, Tommy?” Slowly, your brother sat down and started smoking his second cigarette, “Pol, contact Madame Ross, tell her the wedding is off.” But Aunt Polly was having none of it, “You got us into this mess, you can fix it.” And then fear settled suddenly into the pit of your stomach. You looked at Tommy and asked softly, “Are you mad?” “Nope,” he said, head dropped down into his hands. “Disappointed?” “No, I’m not disappointed. But you should’ve told us, eh?” You shrugged, “Didn’t think you’d… approve.” “Why?” John asked, “We don’t care that you like women.” And all the love you had in you went out to your brother in that very moment. “Y/N,” Arthur started and he looked so angry that uncertainty took over again, “Why the fuck did you not tell us before we… explained?” “Because it was hilarious,” Polly commented unhelpfully. John started giggling again, “Fucking unnecessary is what it was.” “Arthur?” you asked, fear seeping into your voice. He sighed deeply, fidgeting with his hat, “It’s not the women, Y/N, I don’t care about that. It’s you and… anyone really. I don’t like the idea of you with anyone. Remember when she used to play with the coals, remember John?” “Yeah, I remember,” John smiled. “Black like the night she’d be!” Arthur remembered out loud, “Sweet and innocent.” “Well, she’s not anymore,” Polly sipped her tea. “I fucking see that and I don’t like it,” you eldest brother’s smile faded quickly. “Right,” Tommy raised his head again, “Guess we need to change our approach.” “There really no need…” you started. But he continued, ignoring you, “So you like girls, eh?” “Yep,” you confirmed meekly. “Only girls?” You nodded, “Well, one in particular.” Arthur looked at Tommy like he would have all the answers, “Now what, Tom?” You could now start to see the humour in all of it. Your brothers’ faces were an absolute picture! John could hardly contain his laughter, Tommy looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and Arthur was filled with the absolute dread at another conversation like the one you had last week. “Oh, come on!” John called out, “I’m sure we could offer some advice!” He winked at you and a smile spread across your face. “Yeah!” you said, “I mean you all like women, right? This should be even easier!” “It’s not,” Arthur muttered. “I like women,” John said to no one in particular. “What about you, Tommy?” you asked your brother sweetly. But he just rolled his eyes and continued smoking. A part of you wanted to joke about him and Alfie, but you decided against it at the last second. “Horses?” you ventured, “Tommy, any advice on this with the famous analogy of horses? “Horses don’t really…” he waved a hand, coughed and stopped talking all together. “Well, at least you don’t have to be afraid of her getting pregnant,” John said to Arthur, who was as white as a sheet now. “That’s right,” he replied in a low voice, “but that’s my entire speech out the window, because there’s no waiting ‘till bloody marriage either…” “Well,” you tried to comfort your older brother, “You did offer me some good advice the last time, Arthur. You said there was no hurry and to not do it unless I wanted to?” “Right! I did say that. That, yes, it still stands!” Arthur looked around the kitchen triumphantly. “And John,” you continued, “you said to not put anything in my mouth unless I wanted to. Sound advice that was, now more than ever!” “Fucking hell,” Arthur crumbled again, “I can’t do this again. Tom, say something.” “Women….” Tommy started off vaguely waving his cigarette around, “they want love.” “We do.” “And they always want to take things slow.” “Can you imagine?” John interrupted, “Two women together? Must take ages…” “You’d be surprised…” you started, but when you saw your other brothers’ faces, you shut your mouth quickly. Tommy glared daggers at his brother and then turned to you, “How did you become an expert all of a sudden, eh?” “Talked to Ada,” you shrugged. “You talked to Ada…” he repeated lowly and threw his head back. “Wait,” John said suddenly, “Is this why you hate wearing dresses?” “Or why you drink whiskey like a man?” Arthur added, carefully. “That’s just because she’s a Shelby,” Polly explained matter-of-factly. “Or why you never sit on chairs?” John continued, “Or hang out at the factory all the time! Or why you always talk about votes for women…” You held up a hand to stop your brother, “None of that has anything to do with me liking women, John. That’s just… me.” “So what does have to do with you liking women?” your other brother asked in his typical low voice. “Me liking women…?” “So how does it work exactly?” John furrowed his brows, “Like, without… a man there?” “John,” Arthur warned him with a grumble. “Well, both people are enjoying themselves, for starters…” you replied in earnest. “Fucking hell,” the eldest interrupted, “She’s turning into Ada, she bloody is.” “Have you never seen two women together, Arthur?” you asked innocently, “Not even in London?” “They’re all mad bastards down in London, Y/N, the things I’ve seen there…” “Well, imagine me now.” Tommy had just taken a sip of his whiskey and practically choked on the spot, “That’s fucking it. You’re not to go near the BSA again!” “Why?” you called out, “It’s not like all the women in the world are gathered at the BSA!” “I will not have you behaving,” he struggled to find the words but finally spit, “like those fucking women in London!” “Don’t worry, Tommy,” you tried to comfort him, “I’m still… we haven’t actually…” “Oh, thank God,” Arthur sank down in his chair. “Well, when you do, just be gentle, alright?” John offered some advice, “And light a candle! Women love candles.” “Candles, check,” you noted. Tommy downed his whiskey, recomposed himself and added, “And make sure they’re in the mood first…” “To get ‘happy’,” you said, “like Arthur said last time,” “Yes,” he sighed deeply.

“Cut your nails,” John said out of the blue, “Esme told me.”

Arthur turned to his brother, “What the bloody hell do nails have to do with anything?”

“Well, it’s for when you…”

But Tommy silenced you with a gesture, “Please, Y/N, don’t.”

“Right,” and the quiet returned in the small kitchen. Well, at least now they knew, so that terrifying bit was out of the way. Apart from that, you weren’t quite sure if this was going great, because your brothers seemed absolutely petrified and slightly annoyed at your sudden revelation. Maybe it would’ve been better if you hadn’t told them. Then again, marrying a ‘good gypsy boy’ was the last thing you wanted in life. So maybe you could lighten the mood just a little.

“I have a better idea,” a sudden glint came into your eyes, “How about I offer all of you some advice!” The tables had turned already and this couldn’t possibly get any more awkward.

“Nope,” Arthur stood up and promptly marched out of the kitchen, talking to himself, “I can’t. That’s my baby sister and I just fucking can’t...”

“Arthur, where are you going?” Polly called after him, mirth clearly audible in her voice. And he replied, “I’m going to find this Anna, make sure she’s from a good family…” And then he was gone.

Tommy looked from you to Polly for a few seconds before he cleared his throat and mumbled something about business. Polly smirked at you and his face was full of annoyance at it all, “I need to get back to Dangerous. The horse. Tell me some other time, eh?”

“Tommy,” you asked carefully, “Are you sure you’re not mad about me liking women?”

“Princess, I honestly don’t give a fuck who you like,” he said, while putting on his coat and hat, “I just want to meet this Anna and if she hurts you, I’ll still kill her. None of that has changed, eh?”

This was strangely comforting to you.

And just as you were about to offer some unwanted advice, he left the kitchen in a hurry and called over his shoulder, “If you have any questions, Ada apparently has all the fucking answers!”

So you turned to your aunt, “That went well, didn’t it?”

“At least the wedding’s off.”

“Thank fuck,” you smirked and Polly smiled at you encouragingly, “You don’t mind, Aunt Pol, do you?”

“I’m with Tommy,” she said returning to her stern voice, “The fact that it’s a woman won’t make me hesitate.”

“Right,” you nodded, “She makes me happy, though.”

“Good,” Aunt Polly continued to read the newspaper, “Bring her over for tea. Let’s make the boys really uncomfortable, shall we?”

Still laughing, you stood up with the intention of getting on with your homework, when you suddenly noticed John was still sitting on the chair in the back of the kitchen.

“What do you want?” you asked him bluntly.

“I’m waiting,” he said, hands upturned, “You promised me some advice, remember?”

***

Masterlist

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lindstromm · 3 years

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I was raised by a Conspiracy Theorist. In the years since I broke out of my family, I’ve tried to find the right label for my father. Narcissistic Personality Disorder seemed close, but it didn’t include the depths of hatred that my father was capable of. He wasn’t depressed. His paranoia was kind of low grade. None of those labels totally encompass my father.

But after four years of Trump, I’ve decided that Conspiracy Theorist should be considered its own disorder. The irrationality and hatred are what distinguish it from narcissism. My dad speaks in the same word salad that Trump speaks in. He makes crazy jumps of reasoning that only make sense to him. He can’t fathom that there should ever be consequences for his behavior. Anyone who disagrees with him is evil and must be destroyed. He blames entire groups of people for anything/everything. My father has a real talent for hatred. It’s like this floating cloud of hatred that seizes on a group and imbues that group with every evil motive my father can imagine. The target of the hatred changes sometimes, but the hatred is the same. Conspiracy theories, at their heart, are just manufactured reasons to hate and blame a group of people.

What really messes with your head is how normal a Conspiracy Theorist is in the other areas of his life. My dad was a good employee and a helpful neighbor. He came to all our school stuff. He fixed cars and enjoyed woodworking. He hugged us and told us he loved us. We went on family vacations, had family game night, did work projects together, went to church every week. What a great guy.

Except if you disagreed with something that mattered to him. He wasn’t a total control freak. In areas where Dad didn’t have an opinion, I was free to think for myself. Like, I could choose which books to read and which classes to take in school. But there were areas of life in which Dad was king because to cross him was unthinkable. Anything about politics, laws, medicine, education, the entire mental health profession, history, the local city council, science, that guy at work, the economy, religion, vaccines, plastic, that guy at church, clothes, gender roles, and whatever else Dad decided to have an opinion on belonged solely to Dad. We just avoided those topics in our family. Conversation was full of gossip and anecdotes because telling a story was the only thing we could talk about without Dad taking over. I remember the total shock I felt when a friend of mine said she talked politics with her dad. “He listens to you?” I asked in disbelief.

The thing is, we (siblings and Mom) knew there was something wrong with Dad. We rolled our eyes at his rants. Everyone knew not to take him seriously, not to argue, not to set him off. Everyone KNEW he was whacko. But we all worked to shield him from our opinion of him. We said we were protecting him, but really we were protecting ourselves. With a Conspiracy Theorist, there is no genuine love in the family, just approval. If you let Dad live in his fantasy world, he approved of you. That’s the closest my family got to love. The alternative was Dad’s utter hatred of you, and we all knew just how good Dad was at hatred.

You know how Trump immediately turned on anyone who was disloyal to him? The contempt, the anger, the smears? Yeah, my Dad’s like that too. Twelve years ago, I finally told him what I thought of him. My Dad briefly tried to fix me - he told me I was under the influence of Satan and I should repent. I didn’t. You know how Trump treated Romney? I’m my dad’s Mitt Romney. My mom is Mitch McConnell and my siblings are the other suckup Republican leadership - you saw how they treated Romney after he voted to impeach Trump (the first time). My family knows I’m right about Dad, but they hate me for saying it. And because my family has been trained in hatred by a grand master, that’s really saying something.

Those Conspiracy Theorists who rioted in the U.S. Capitol the other day - many of them have families. Trump has a family. Most of those families will be loyal to their Conspiracy Theorist.

I’m writing this because I’m hoping there are some other people who have been able to break away from Conspiracy Theorist parents. It’s traumatic. You can’t do a ‘soft departure’ or ‘agree to disagree.’ It’s all or nothing. If you disagree with a Conspiracy Theorist, he will try to destroy you and the rest of the family either joins him, or lets it happen. Parents shape your worldview, and that shatters completely when you leave. I’ve had to rebuild everything I think and feel from scratch - alone.

Anyway. Just. Yeah. I want a support group for children of Conspiracy Theorists. Reply to this post if you were raised by a Conspiracy Theorist and you’ve rejected that worldview. If there’s enough response, maybe I’ll start a sideblog.

Reblogs are appreciated.

#personal #lindstrom2020 #conspiracy theorists #parenting #family #dysfunctional families

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firstfullmoon · 4 years

Note

what are some quotes that are so visceral they feel like a gut punch to you?

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”

— Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

— Ilya Kaminsky, “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck”

“I want someone to tell me what to wear in the morning. I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, and who to love, and how to tell them. I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.”

— Phoebe Waller-Bridge, from Fleabag

“Les femmes de notre famille, nous sommes engluées dans la colère J’ai été en colère contre ma mère Tout comme tu es en colère contre moi Et tout comme ma mère fut en colère contre sa mère Il faut casser le fil.”

(The women in our family are all stuck in anger I have been angry at my mother As you are angry with me And as my mother was angry at her mother The thread must be broken.)

— Wajdi Mouawad, Incendies

“I know what I want: an ugly, clean woman with large breasts, who tells me: what’s all this about making things up? I won’t have any dramas, come here immediately!—And she gives me a warm bath, dresses me in a white linen nightdress, braids my hair and puts me to bed, very cross, saying: well what do you want? you run wild, eating at odd times, you could get sick, stop making up tragedies, you think you’re such a big deal, drink this mug of hot broth. She lifts my head up with her hand, covers me with a big sheet, brushes a few strands of hair off my forehead, already white and fresh, and tells me before I fall asleep warmly: you’ll see how in no time your face is going to fill out, forget those harebrained ideas and be a good girl. Someone who takes me in like a humble dog, who opens the door for me, brushes me, feeds me, loves me severely like a dog, that’s all I want, like a dog, a child.”

“I can feel myself holding a child, thought Joana. Sleep, my child, sleep, I tell you. The child is warm and I am sad. But it is the sadness of happiness, this appeasement and sufficiency that leave the face placid, faraway. And when my child touches me he doesn’t rob me of my thoughts as others do. But later, when I give him milk with these fragile, beautiful breasts, my child will grow from my force and crush me with his life. He will distance himself from me and I will be the useless old mother. I won’t feel cheated. But defeated merely and I will say: I don’t know a thing, I am able to give birth to a child and I don’t know a thing. God will receive my humility and will say: I was able to give birth to the universe and I don’t know a thing.”

— Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart

“I know that my phrases are crude, I write them with too much love, and that love makes up for their faults, but too much love is bad for the work.”

“I’m restless and harsh and despairing. Although I do have love inside me. I just don’t know how to use love. Sometimes it tears at my flesh.”

“But when winter comes I give and give and give. The excess of me starts to hurt and when I’m excessive I have to give of myself.”

— Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

“And that was what I felt when reading your book: that solitude.” “Imagine the solitude of the person who wrote it.”

— Clarice Lispector, from an interview

“suppose the body did this to us, made us afraid of love—”

— Louise Glück, “Crater Lake”

“When I put my hands on your body, on your flesh, I feel the history of that body. Not just the beginning of its forming in that distant lake, but all the way beyond its ending. I feel the warmth and texture and simultaneously I see the flesh unwrap from the layers of fat and disappear. I see the fat disappear from the muscle. I see the muscle disappearing from around the organs and detaching itself from the bones. I see the organs gradually fade into transparency, leaving a gleaming skeleton, gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust. I am consumed in the sense of your weight, the way your flesh occupies momentary space, the fullness of it beneath my palms. I am amazed at how perfectly your body fits to the curves of my hands. If I could attach our blood vessels so we could become each other I would. If I could attach our blood vessels in order to anchor you to the earth, to this present time, I would. If I could open up your body and slip inside your skin and look out your eyes and forever have my lips fused with yours, I would. It makes me weep to feel the history of your flesh beneath my hands in a time of so much loss. It makes me weep to feel the movement of your flesh beneath my palms as you twist and turn over to one side to create a series of gestures, to reach up around my neck, to draw me nearer. All these memories will be lost in time like tears in the rain.”

— David Wojnarowicz, from The Half-Life

“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”

— Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“and cain said, There’s an idea I can’t get out of my head, What’s that, said abraham, There must have been innocent people in sodom and in the other cities that were burned, If so, the lord would have kept the promise he made to make to save their lives, What about the children, said cain, surely the children were innocent, Oh my god, murmured abraham and his voice was like a groan, Yes, your god perhaps, but not theirs.”

— José Saramago, Cain

“I’d like to jet-ski / straight out of this life because right now I am / way attached to real things like for instance / people how they are all so tender how they / love to just go walk around and someof them are / wearing pink now and it hurts me and they / bathe their dogs”

— Heather Christle, “This Is Not The Body I Asked For”

“The idea of deserving love. And then watching love being given to people who did nothing to deserve it.”

— Anaïs Nin, from her journal

“And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child’s whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven, for the luxury of tendernesses, of fondnesses, of being served a meal and being made to eat it, for the ability, at last, at last, of believing a parent’s reassurances, of believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.”

— Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“The veals are the children of cows, are calves. They are locked in boxes the size of themselves. A body-box, like a coffin, but alive, like a home. The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends of how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones.”

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”

— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“I know we’ve just met but I feel like maybe / you’d feed me and tuck me into your big bed / and only touch me as you covered me with the comforter.”

— Kim Addonizio, “Party”

“The body has no thoughts. The body soaks up love like a paper towel

and is still dry.”

— Kim Addonizio, “Body And Soul”

“I don’t know how God can bear / seeing everything at once: the falling bodies, the monuments and burnings, / the lovers pacing the floors of how many locked hearts.”

— Kim Addonizio, “The Numbers”

“I keep wishing for you, keep shutting up my eyes and looking toward the sky, asking with all my might for you, and yet you do not come. I thought of you, until the world grew rounder than it sometimes is, and I broke several dishes.”

— Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Minnie Holland

“The unknowness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

“I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution. I think of love as a force of nature - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.”

“As for myself, I am splintered by great waves. I am coloured glass from a church window long since shattered. I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED GENOCIDE TO STOP I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND REACTION I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC OUT THE WINDOWS I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY NOBODY COLD I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE”

— June Jordan, “Intifada Incantation: Poem 38 for b.b.L.”

“Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night I should go downstairs dump the refrigerator contents on the floor and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet writing poems writing poems maybe I just need to love myself myself and anyway I’m working on it”

— June Jordan, “Free Flight”

“It’s not that I gave away my keys. / The problem is nobody wants to steal me or my / house.”

— June Jordan, “Onesided Dialog”

“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.”

— John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos

“I wept and wept. I had come to believe that if I really wanted something badly enough, the very act of my wanting it was an assurance that I would not get it.”

— Audre Lorde, from “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name”

“You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. / Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.”

— Shauna Barbosa, “GPS”

“It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way. (...) To make up for it. To make up for the fact that it’s me.”

— Suzanne Rivecca

“I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard to make it love. I said no more severity. I said it severely and slept through all my appointments. I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary. I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad.”

— Richard Siken, Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper

“We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.”

— Richard Siken, “Snow And Dirty Rain”

“Love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's / terrifying. No one / will ever want to sleep with you.”

— Richard Siken, “Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

“The hardest thing still remains. It remains the hardest, to bear all the tenderness and only to gaze on.”

— Ilse Achinger, “Mirrorstory”

“i killed a plant once because i gave it too much water. lord, i worry that love is violence.”

— José Olivarez, “Getting Ready to Say I Love You to My Dad, It Rains”

“Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes the men - they come with keys, and sometimes, the men - they come with hammers.”

— Warsan Shire, “The House”

“I’ll take care of you. / It’s rotten work. / Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

— Euripides, Orestes, tr. Anne Carson

“We have this deep sadness between us and it spells so habitual I can’t tell it from love.”

— Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband

“There is no question I am someone starving. There is no question I am making this journey to find out what that appetite is.”

— Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays

“I wish I could peel all my sadness in one long strip off my skin & toss it in a bucket. No one would have to carry it. It would just sit there & be punished. It would just sit there & think about everything it’s done.”

— Chen Chen, “Elegy For My Sadness”

“There is too much or not enough room in my stomach for everything we will do to each other.“

— Adriana Cloud, “Bento Body”

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letters-to-lgbt-kids · 4 years

Text

My dear lgbt+ kid,

Trump didn’t win! I am literally crying right now because I feel so relieved.

I am not from the US - in fact, I’ve never even been there. But I was so worried for not only the lgbt+ community there but for everyone who has been negatively impacted by those last four years. I thought about all the young people who had to watch their parents vote for Trump and deal with the knowledge that their very own family voted against their human rights. And now I’m just so, so happy that he didn’t win.

Maybe you feel that way, too. If you feel like celebrating, I celebrate with you in spirit and send you a lot of happy hugs (or excited jumping up and down if you don’t want a hug!).

But maybe the relief is mixed (or even overshadowed) by worry, anger, pain... Those feelings are normal and okay, too. Half of the country did vote for a racist, homophobic, sexist, facist man. He didn’t win but those problems won’t just disappear. And if those people who vote for someone like that are not nameless strangers for you but people you’re close with, even people you may depend on... I can only imagine how painful that must be.

I send a lot of hugs to you, too. You don’t need to feel like jumping up and down now - your feelings are valid.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

#lgbt #lgbt+

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holylulusworld · 4 years

Text

Her decision

Summary: Consequences are something the mobsters never experienced. Bucky and Steve will learn they will get more than they bargained for...

Pairing: Mobster!Bucky x Reader x Mobster!Steve

Characters: Peter Parker, Dr. Helen Cho

Warnings: angst, pregnant reader, threats, mentions of violence, angry reader, I use the word rape & non-consensual (nothing happens but I mention it just in case), mentions of groping, bratty reader

Ours to keep masterlist

Divider by @firefly-graphics

“How did it go?” Bucky smirks, watching his friend press a hand against his bleeding forehead. “Great I assume,” the lamp hitting the closed-door answers the mobsters’ question.

“She’s angry, pissed, and demanding,” Steve huffs, looking at the door. “I will not enter that room again. Not today or like ever.”

“Let me tame this wild little kitten,” self-confident Bucky opens the door to poke his head in. “Look at her, Steve. She sleeps peacefully.”

“I wouldn’t count on her being calm and nice. I can tell, she’s ready to murder you, me, and the whole organization. If not for Peter, I bet she would get a gun to shoot us all,” Steve winces feeling blood run down his neck.

“What did you do, Rogers?” Bucky blinks seeing Steve’s cheeks flush pink. “You couldn’t keep your dirty hands to yourself. No wonder she wanted to kill you with a lamp.”

“A Tiffany lamp, the one my mother gifted to me,” grumbling Steve points toward you on the bed. “Y/N Y/L/N is an angry mother bear, ready to attack when you get to close.”

“Rather when you try to touch her goods,” pissed Steve storms off, not caring if you kill his friend and partner in crime.

“Doll?” sneaking toward the bed, eying the lamp on the bed warily Bucky calls your name. “Y/N, darling I need to talk to you about a few rules. Can you not throw a lamp at me?”

“He deserved getting hurt!” You grumble, hiding underneath the blanket. “Bastard tried to touch my private parts,” snickering Bucky crawls onto the bed, aware you grasp for the lamp.

“He tried to touch our girl, doll. Don’t be such a prude. We both know you came so hard on our cocks that night,” Bucky purrs, glancing at your ass sticking out of the blanket. “I could fill you so good.”

“Is that what you want? Coming to this room to rape me?” Dumbfounded Bucky gasps when you wield the lamp in front of his face. “I agreed to come here to save Peter’s life, not to let you touch me.”

“I thought you know we want our girl back, including nakedness,” not giving in the mobster moves closer to touch your cheek but the lamp hitting his shoulder is not what he imagined would happen. “Doll, we just want you to be ours.”

“I don’t care,” you poke Bucky’s chest with the lamp, angrily clenching your jaw. “I wanted to give my innocence to someone loving and adoring me. Not to two guys who used me, took turns only to kick me out of their house like a random whore they can use. The only thing you forgot to do was paying me for my service.”

“We never pay for sex but you’ve got a point there, doll,” Bucky admits. “Listen, we are bad guys, okay. Bad attitude. Bad reputation. Rotten to the core.”

“You could’ve just left me alone. I had a nice life, you know. No one was paying attention to me but that was fine. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone,” you sniff, hiding your face in the cushions.

“Doll, I must admit at first, we liked the chase. But after the first rush subsided, I didn’t feel good for the first time. I kinda missed you,” you snort, closing your eyes. “We didn’t send Peter to have an eye on you for no reason. We wanted to know how you are doing and if he can find a weak spot to make you fall for us again.”

“Fuck off, Barnes,” you want to hit him with the lamp again, but Bucky is faster. Taking it out of your hand he throws it over his shoulder. “That was granny Roger's second Tiffany lamp.”

“I’ll take the blame,” Bucky smirks when you nod eagerly. “I know you do not have any reason to believe me, us, but we tried to win you over by using Peter.”

“…that’s the reason you wanted to fuck my colleagues. This must be the stupidest and lamest lie I ever heard. Call my parents, they can give you advice on how to lie to me,” voice thin now you sit on the bed, covering your bump.

“I heard about your parents, doll,” the mobster sits next to you, glancing at the bump you try to hide. “I promise, none one will touch you against your will. Steve and I are bastards, but we are not the kind of guys forcing ourselves on a girl.”

“What do you want from me? I’m no one special to you or anyone else. Can’t you just let me go back to my apartment?” Pleadingly looking at Bucky you sigh deeply. “Please?”

“We got a deal, doll,” Steve clears his throat, warily watching your hands ball into fists. “I’m sorry for touching you but the babies, they are ours, just like you. If one of our enemies gets to know you are our girl, they will hurt you.”

“I hate you,” a huff later Steve sits onto the bed, handing you a manila folder. “What’s that?”

“Pictures of Peter and his treatment. He’s doing better, his arm is fine,” you don’t like the way Steve looks at the pictures. “For now.”

“Can you for once not threaten someone? I like Peter, stop hurting him to get to me,” sniffling you close the folder, clutching it to your chest. “He’s a nice guy.”

“Did you fuck him?” Bucky’s voice raises when he must watch you hold the pictures to your chest. “The boy is dead.”

“Unlike you, I do not fuck anyone coming to my path. Peter is a friend and a boy. Jesus, I don’t think he’s at age. The boy is like my broth…,” your eyes water at the memory of your little brother.

Steve nods at his friend, not missing the way you cling to the pictures. “You miss your little brother.”

“I guess I like Peter as I imagined my little brother would be like him one day. A bit shy, but smart. Strong if he needs to and protective. He tries to make the best out of a bad situation,” Bucky nods, understanding how you feel.

“I had a younger sister,” the mobster moves closer to place one hand onto your belly, slowly rubbing it. “Rebecca, but everyone called her Becca.”

Bucky’s eyes sadden when you try to shove his hands off your baby bump. “Where is she?”

“Died years ago. It’s been ages since I talked about her,” you can see tears form in Bucky’s eyes and for the first time, you wonder if he can love someone. “My father, he was a notorious mobster, hard, unforgiving. When he crossed another line, my mother and sister paid the price.”

You gasp, clasping one hand over your mouth. Suddenly too aware of what could happen to your babies you look at Steve. “He’s telling the truth, Y/N. One day after his mother and Becca left church on Sunday they got shot. A drive-by.”

“That’s awful. Did they ever find the murderer?” Bucky nods, giving your thigh a tight squeeze. “Your father, he killed them.”

“It was a massacre. People still talk about it behind closed doors. After my father was done, Steve’s father, Joseph had to stop him. This is how we ended up uniting the empires our grandfathers founded.”

“Bucky’s father, he didn’t stop until his bloodthirst was satisfied. My father stepped in as George, Bucky’s dad was close to starting another killing spree,” you're horrified at Steve’s explanations. Your hands tremble and you feel like you are going to pass out any minute.

“Doll you need to take deep breaths,” Bucky brings you into his arms before you can fall out of the bed. “No more horror stories, Steven. Our girl just passed out,” Steve hums, moving his hand to your belly. “No touching without her consent.”

“I wanted to feel my baby…”

“Prenatal what?” Steve looks at the brochure the doctor hands to him. “I got no clue about this stuff, Dr. Cho. Can you explain it to us?”

“It means we will find out who the father is before Y/N gives birth,” Helen Cho, explains. “I can explain the whole procedure if you want me to.”

“Is it dangerous?” Bucky looks at your belly, not wanting anything to happen to his heir. “We will not risk anything. Y/N must agree too.”

“There is no risk, Mr. Barnes,” you chuckle, watching Steve turn pale when the doctor gets a syringe out.

“You will not put that into my girl,” protesting Steve tries to grasp for the syringe. “I will not allow you to poke her,” Peter snickers silently glancing at you now and then, or rather anytime none of the mobsters is paying attention to him.

“Mr. Rogers, I need to collect DNA from the mother with a simple blood draw. Later we will gather you and Mr. Barnes DNA using a cheek swab. I will not hurt Y/N or her babies,” the mobster eyes Dr. Cho warily, not trusting her with his baby.

“Gosh, don’t get your panties in a twist, Rogers. Months ago, you treated me like trash, tossed me onto the street, and never looked back. Do not act as if I mean anything to you. I’m a breeder to you and your friend, nothing else,” you don’t hide your anger, even purse your lips when Steve tries to argue.

“She could hurt you with that syringe or the babies. What if she tries to kill you?” you roll your eyes in an attempt to stop Steve from saying more stupid things in front of your doctor.

“I’m the mother ans got three votes, you only got one. I have the saying,” looking at Dr. Cho you nod. “Do it doctor. I trust you.”

“I have a vote too,” Bucky grumbles, stepping closer to you. “This makes two against three.”

“Yeah, I’m glad you can count, Barnes but I’m still the mother and got three votes. Now shush and let me handle this,” the mobsters do not like you start acting like a brat, but you are determined to show them you are in charge.

“How long will you keep it to yourself? I want to know about the results too,” Steve grasps for the envelope but you slap his hand away. “Doll, let me have a look.”

“I want to talk about a few rules,” Bucky grunts, tugging at the envelope you hold in your hands. “Y/N, give me the goddamn envelope.”

“First, Peter will be my personal bodyguard. No more threats or I’ll be gone, just like my babies,” jaw tense Steve looks at you, close to just taking the envelope out of your hands.

“Fine. One false step and he’s dead,” you narrow your eyes, at Bucky who suddenly starts to sweat. “No more threats got it.”

“Next, no touching or groping. I’m not your toy,” Steve sighs, ogling your growing cleavage longingly. “I would kill to suckle at those tits.”

“I don’t care and …gross,” you slowly open the envelope, checking on the results. “So, if you want to know who will become a father in five months you’ll give me your word that I will be safe here, just like my kids.”

“Promised, no tricks,” Bucky points toward the piece of paper in your hands, licking his lips. “Tell us now doll.”

“I’m not done,” grinning you stuff the letter into your bra, not caring Steve starts to growl. “You will not play your sick games with any girl again. You are mine now, which means no sex with other women.”

“Wait…you don’t want us to touch you,” Steve points out, hating you grin devilish. “You can’t be serious!”

“No sex for you at all,” both mobsters do not like your conditions but threatening a pregnant girl is not their style. “I want enough money for me and my children. Peter will not do anything illegal again. You will not go out with other chicks, this includes sex.”

Whilst both men crowd you like lions ready to pounce on their prey you hold their gaze. “We have a few rules too.” Steve purrs, dipping one knee into the mattress.

“You will stay here. We will sleep in the bedroom we prepared, together. No other guys, no sex with other guys. The babies are ours, just like you. No leaving us,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, a frown on your face.

“No sex,” you cross your arms over your chest. “I mean it…”

“Negotiable, doll,” Bucky joins his friend onto the bed, looking at you hungrily. “Now be good and give me the letter.”

“I don’t think so, Barnes,” you scramble away, squealing when Bucky flips your over, covering your body to slip his hand into your bra.

“Where is the letter?” Bucky grunts. “Doll, I’m losing my patience here.”

“I will tell you the results if you sign the contract Peter prepared for me,” you smirk at Steve. “I told you he’s shy but smart. Now be good little daddies and sign it. If you do so, I’ll stay and tell you about the results…”

“I fucking hate you,” Bucky mutters, pacing around the new bedroom. You are unimpressed. Legs crossed you relax on the soft mattress a smug grin on your lips. “You’ll get half of my money if I dare to cheat on you?”

“Correct.”

“Same goes for me, Buck,” Steve is still fuming. He had to sign a contract handing you his balls on a silver plate.

“As you were such good daddies,” you coo, lips curved into a grin. “I’ll tell you about the results.” Both men sit onto the bed, leaning closer to glance at your belly.

“Tell us…” Bucky places one hand onto your belly, rubbing it slowly. “Please, doll. Stop torturing us.”

“According to Doctor Cho I’m going to be a mother,” you snicker, turning around to close your eyes. “I’m too tired now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you more. Now be good and stop moping. You’ll learn your place…”

“Learn our place?” Bucky chokes out, looking at Steve. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh-pretty mobster,” you open your eyes, grinning wickedly. “Did no one ever tell you to never underestimate a pregnant girl? You’ll do anything I want you to do when I want you to do so…”

>> Part 3

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@that-place-called-middle-earth

@trumpettay

@zxph-yr

@belovedcherry

@matsumama

@rynabarnesrogers-reading

@emoryhemsworth

@buckybarnesplumwhore

@wonderlandfandomkingdom

@kitkatd7

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

Marvel Tags

@stuckys-whore

@notyourtypicalrose

@voltage-my2dlove

@officialmarvelwhore

@randomgirlkensy

@juniorhuntersam

@lumar014

@doctorswife221b

@sister-winchesters99

@sweetkingdomstarlight-blog

@the-soulofdevil

@dayasvalkyrie

@redroomproperty

@natura1phenomenon

@chaoticfiretaconerd

@heartislubbingdubbing

@hhiggs

@sea040561

@midnightsilver16830

@rvgrsbrns

@fandom-princess-forevermore

@amandamdiehl

@grincheveryday

@thelostallycat

@lunaticgurly

@xxlikeheavenxx

@supernaturalwintersoldier

@jumpingmanatee

@mrsdeanwinchester19

@fanatic343

@pandaxnienke

@just-a-littlebit-of-everything

@tdbooth

@iloveshawnieboi

@vicmc624

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

Steve Rogers/Chris Evans Tags

@roonyxx

@stylesismyhubs

@multisuperfandom

@mrspeacem1nusone

@fallenoutofrose

@rynabarnesrogers

@denisemarieangelina

@gabifernandessn

@heyiamthatbitch

@rosalynshields

@void-hoechlin

@patzammit

@donutloverxo

@saiyanprincessswanie

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

Bucky Barnes/Sebastian Stan Tags

@rynabarnesrogers

@marshyrebelcloud

@buchanan-lover

@rosalynshields

@neii3n

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

Stucky Masterlist

@marshyrebelcloud

@animegirlgeeky

#Her decision #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #mobster au #MOBSTER!AU #mobster!bucky #mobster!Bucky x Reader #mobster!bucky x mobster!reader #mobster!steve #mobster!steve x reader #sequel to ours to keep

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arcticdementor · 3 years

Link

In a democracy, every vote is supposed to be equal. If about half the country supports one side and half the country supports another, you may expect major institutions to either be equally divided, or to try to stay politically neutral.

This is not what we find. If it takes a position on the hot button social issues around which our politics revolve, almost every major institution in America that is not explicitly conservative leans left. In a country where Republicans get around half the votes or something close to that in every election, why should this be the case?

This post started as an investigation into Woke Capital, one of the most important developments in the last decade or so of American politics. Although big business pressuring politicians is not new (the NFL moved the Super Bowl from Arizona over MLK day), the scope of the issues on which corporations feel the need to weigh in is certainly expanding, now including LGBT issues, abortion laws, voting rights, kneeling during the national anthem, and gun control.

…

As I started to research the topic, however, I realized there wasn’t much to explain. Asking why corporations are woke is like asking why Hispanics tend to have two arms, or why the Houston Rockets have increased their number of 3-point shots taken over the last few decades. All humans tend to have two arms, and all NBA teams shoot more 3-pointers than in the past, so focusing on one subset of the population that has the same characteristics as all others in the group misses the point.

I think one reason Woke Capital is getting so much attention is because we expect business to be more right-leaning, and corporations throwing in with the party of more taxes and regulation strikes us as odd. We are used to schools, non-profits, mainline religions, etc. taking liberal positions and feel like business should be different. But business is just being assimilated into a larger trend.

Corporations are woke, meaning left wing on social issues relative to the general population, because institutions are woke. So the question becomes why are institutions woke?

…

Through the lens of ordinal utility, in which people simply rank what they want to happen, we are about equal. I prefer Republicans to Democrats, while you have the opposite preference. But when we think in terms of cardinal utility – in layman’s terms, how bad people want something to happen – it’s no contest. You are going to be much more influential than me. Most people are relatively indifferent to politics and see it as a small part of their lives, yet a small percentage of the population takes it very seriously and makes it part of its identity. Those people will tend to punch above their weight in influence, and institutions will be more responsive to them.

Elections are a measure of ordinal preferences. As long as you care enough to vote, it doesn’t matter how much you care about the election outcome, as everyone’s voice is the same. But for everything else – who speaks up in a board meeting about whether a corporation should take a political position, who protests against a company taking a position one side or the other finds offensive, etc. – cardinal utility maters a lot. Only a small minority of the public ever bothers to try to influence a corporation, school, or non-profit to reflect certain values, whether from the inside or out.

In an evenly divided country, if one side simply cares more, it’s going to exert a disproportionate influence on all institutions, and be more likely to see its preferences enacted in the time between elections when most people aren’t paying much attention.

…

Here are two graphs that have been getting a lot of attention

What jumps out to me in these figures is not only how left leaning large institutions are, but how the same is true for most professions. Whether you are looking by institution or by individuals, there are more donations to Biden than Trump. Yet Republicans get close to half the votes! Where are the Trump supporters? What these graphs reveal is a larger story, in which more people give to liberal causes and candidates than to conservative ones, even if Americans are about equally divided in which party they support (and no, this isn’t the result of liberals being wealthier, the connections between income and ideology or party are pretty weak). Here are some graphs from late October showing Biden having more individual donors than Trump in every battleground state.

…

In the 2012 election, Obama raised $234 million from small individual contributors, compared to $80 million for Romney, while also winning among large contributors.

…

In September 2009, at the height of the Tea Party movement, conservatives held the “Taxpayer March on Washington,” which drew something like 60,000-70,000 people, leading one newspaper to call it “the largest conservative protest ever to storm the Capitol.” Since that time, the annual anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington has drawn massive crowds, with estimates for some years ranging widely from low six figures to mid-to-high six figures. March for Life is not to be confused with “March for Our Lives,” a pro-gun control rally that activists claim saw 800,000 people turn out in 2018. All these events were dwarfed by the Women’s March in opposition to Trump, which drew by one estimate “between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people in the United States (our best guess is 4,157,894). That translates into 1 percent to 1.6 percent of the U.S. population of 318,900,000 people (our best guess is 1.3 percent).” Even if the two left-wing academics who did this research are letting their bias infuse their work, there is no question that protesting is generally a left-wing activity, as conservatives themselves realize.

People who engage in protesting care more about politics than people who donate money, and people who donate money care more than people who simply vote. Imagine a pyramid with voters at the bottom and full-time activists on top, and as you move up the pyramid it gets much narrower and more left-wing. Multiple strands of evidence indicate this would basically be an accurate representation of society.

Another line of evidence showing that the left simply cares more about politics comes from Noah Carl, who has put together data showing liberals are in their personal lives more intolerant of conservatives than vice versa across numerous dimensions in the US and the UK. Those on the left are more likely to block someone on social media over their views, be upset if their child marries someone from the other side, and find it hard to be friends with or date someone they disagree with politically. Here are two graphs demonstrating the general point.

…

There’s a great irony here. Conservatives tend to be more skeptical of pure democracy, and believe in individuals coming together and forming civil society organizations away from government. Yet conservatives are extremely bad at gaining or maintaining control of institutions relative to liberals. It’s not because they are poorer or the party of the working class – again, I can’t stress enough how little economics predicts people’s political preferences – but because they are the party of those who simply care less about the future of their country.

Debates over voting rights make the opposite assumption, as conservatives tend to want more restrictions on voting, and liberals fewer, with National Review explicitly arguing against a purer form of democracy. Conservatives may be right that liberals are less likely to care enough to do basic things like bring a photo ID and correctly fill out a ballot. If this is true, Republicans are the party of people who care enough to vote when doing so is made slightly more difficult but not enough to do anything else, while Democrats are the party of both the most active and least active citizens. Yet while being the “care only enough to vote” party might be adequate for winning elections, the future belongs to those at the tail end of the distribution who really want to change the world.

The discussion here makes it hard to suggest reforms for conservatives. Do you want to give government more power over corporations? None of the regulators will be on your side. Leave corporations alone? Then you leave power to Woke Capital, though it must to a certain extent be disciplined and limited by the preferences of consumers. Start your own institutions? Good luck staffing them with competent people for normal NGO or media salaries, and if you’re not careful they’ll be captured by your enemies anyway, hence Conquest’s Second Law. And the media will be there every step of the way to declare any of your attempts at taking power to be pure fascism, and brush aside any resistance to your schemes as righteous anger, up to and including rioting and acts of violence.

…

From this perspective we might want to consider this passage from Scott Alexander, who writes the following in his review of a biography of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The normal course of politics is various coalitions of elites and populace, each drawing from their own power bases. A normal political party, like a normal anything else, has elite leaders, analysts, propagandists, and managers, plus populace foot soldiers. Then there's an election, and sometimes our elites get in, and sometimes your elites get in, but getting a political party that's against the elites is really hard and usually the sort of thing that gets claimed rather than accomplished, because elites naturally rise to the top of everything.

But sometimes political parties can run on an explicitly anti-elite platform. In theory this sounds good - nobody wants to be elitist. In practice, this gets really nasty quickly. Democracy is a pure numbers game, so it's hard for the elites to control - the populace can genuinely seize the reins of a democracy if it really wants. But if that happens, the government will be arrayed against every other institution in the nation. Elites naturally rise to the top of everything - media, academia, culture - so all of those institutions will hate the new government and be hated by it in turn. Since all natural organic processes favor elites, if the government wants to win, it will have to destroy everything natural and organic - for example, shut down the regular media and replace it with a government-controlled media run by its supporters.

When elites use the government to promote elite culture, this usually looks like giving grants to the most promising up-and-coming artists recommended by the art schools themselves, and having the local art critics praise their taste and acumen. When the populace uses the government to promote popular culture against elite culture, this usually looks like some hamfisted attempt to designate some kind of "official" style based on what popular stereotypes think is "real art from back in the day when art was good", which every art school and art critic attacks as clueless Philistinism. Every artist in the country will make groundbreaking exciting new art criticizing the government's poor judgment, while the government desperately looks for a few technicians willing to take their money and make, I don't know, pretty landscape paintings or big neoclassical buildings.

The important point is that elite government can govern with a light touch, because everything naturally tends towards what they want and they just need to shepherd it along. But popular/anti-elite government has a strong tendency toward dictatorship, because it won't get what it wants without crushing every normal organic process. Thus the stereotype of the "right-wing strongman", who gets busy with the crushing.

So the idea of "right-wing populism" might invoke this general concept of somebody who, because they have made themselves the champion of the populace against the elites, will probably end up incentivized to crush all the organic processes of civil society, and yoke culture and academia to the will of government in a heavy-handed manner.

To put it in a different way, to steelman the populist position, democracy does not reflect the will of the citizenry, it reflects the will of an activist class, which is not representative of the general population. Populists, in order to bring institutions more in line with what the majority of the people want, need to rely on a more centralized and heavy-handed government. The strongman is liberation from elites, who aren’t the best citizens, but those with the most desire to control people’s lives, often to enforce their idiosyncratic belief system on the rest of the public, and also a liberation from having to become like elites in order to fight them, so conservatives don’t have to give up on things like hobbies and starting families and devote their lives to activism.

#richard hanania #substack

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navegandoaciegas · 4 years

Text

I love my baby to death

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: fluff, friends to lovers, tiniest bit of angst but really tiny I promise, 3.5k words, set after Endgame

Summary: “Say, hypothetically, there’s a 100 year old fossil who’s a bit confused most of the time but he’s got the spirit, right?, and he’s outside with a packed duffle bag, what would you do?”

You were supposed to enjoy a solo roadtrip after years of Avenging, but Bucky invites himself along and you can’t say no to his happy face.

A/N: I haven’t slept in a week because of nightmares and I just needed something to cheer me up, I guess. Reader took Steve’s side in CA:CW and spent two years with him as a nomad. You can choose to see her and Natasha as a platonic relationship or a romantic one, it’s up to you.

masterlist

Read the sequel to this here

“They’re just so fuckin’ gross I don’t understand how you can eat them.”

Bucky sends you his best death glare as he continues digging in his soggy cardboard In-N-Out fries.

“We could have literally stopped by Arby’s three miles west of here” you continue, “they have the best fries. We’re missing out, clearly.” you deadpan eyeing his food skeptically.

“The curly ones? God no, they’re so spicy. I don’t know why you like your food to hurt but I don’t.”

“Okay, first of all they’re not spicy at all, I don’t know where you got that from. And second, they have a taste at least, unlike these.” You reiterate your point by swinging one the fries in his face. Bucky just grabs your hand and bites the fry, almost biting your fingers off too.

“Yeah, like that god-awful spicy chicken you forced on me the other day? No thank you, ma’am, I’ll stand by my own food choices.”

You snort. “Not my fault your post-Depression ass can’t handle anything other than salt and black pepper. But sure, go ‘head and enjoy your sorry excuse of a meal, Buck.”

“People from your generation sure love complaining, huh? Back in my days you ate what your mama made you and never bitched about it, or else you went to bed hungry.”

God, he’s such a grampa. You make a show of rolling your eyes and huffing in annoyance. He likes his senior citizen card a bit too much. He tries to stifle a laugh when he sees the look on your face and just shakes his head at you.

California (and Bucky Barnes) has stolen your heart and you’ve loved this road trip so much you often wonder why it took you being snapped and facing the end of the world twice to retire from the avenging business.

Fresno is interesting, to say the least.

He wanted to stop by, saying something about wanting to see “an old pal from the war” ’s hometown for himself, and you’ve been dreaming about exploring Yosemite for as long as you can remember.

Online pictures of Yosemite National Park were stunning but the real thing is just breathtaking.

You never thought camping would become your thing and you never imagined you’d enjoy stargazing so much. In five months you’ve discovered how big of a nerd Bucky really is and he’s been trying to teach you the names of all the stars and constellations.

He sees Big Dipper, Orion, Ursa Major and Minor; you see pretty twinkling lights and the occasional shooting star. Nevertheless you sit through hours and hours of explanations, because when he speaks of the things he’s passionate about, Bucky is the most beautiful thing in the world.

“You know, the stars are one of the things I missed the most.” he says softy, furrowing his brows as he does when he remembers something from the past. “Stevie and I used to do that as kids sometimes. We’d sneak out of our houses and go on the roof of this abandoned building to watch the stars. Now there’s so much goddamn light everywhere, you can’t even see them anymore.”

Sometimes when you stop and think about it, really think, you can’t imagine how hard it must have been for them, having everything, even the night sky taken away from them.

“Steve never told me.”

“He probably missed the stars too.”

You eye him looking for clues on how he might feel, but you only see a sad smile on his face. “You miss him, don’t you?”

“Every damn day.” his voice cracks and you hold him closer.

“I know Buck, I miss him too. I miss him so much that sometimes I feel like my life has no direction without my Captain.” You’re barely holding back your own tears at this point, “But we’ve got Sam if we need orders, yes?” but you still try to make him smile. You’re always going to try for him.

Your attempt works and he snorts. Always bring Sam up to cheer Bucky.

“I hope he was happy, you know.” he says, “I hope he made the right choice and never regretted a thing. I hope that now he looks back and thinks he wouldn’t have had it any other way. His happiness is all I could ever ask for.”

You cling to each other that night and cry until the early morning. It feels good to let it all out, to let Steve go and look at the future. You’ve lost too much but tonight you only have hope.

-----

New York

Five months before

“Words on the street is you’re retiring your crusty old ass from the field.”

Sam is leaning on the door of your hotel room with his arms folded and a pleased look on his face.

“Rumors travel fast in this post-apocalyptic word, I see.” you say as you continue stuffing a duffle bag with all the clothes you have left.

“How are you?” Sam asks, with his newly found Captain voice. You wonder if it’s something in that damn shield that gives them that stern commanding tone.

“Tryina analize me, Sammy? I’m not one of your guys at the VA.”

It’s not like you’re pissed at Sam, you love him with all your heart, you’re just angry at the world and Sam’s the one standing in your way right now.

You hear him sigh, “I know what you’re feeling right now, I understand why you would think that-” “Don’t” you interrupt him, “Don’t give me that speech, Fury did that for you already. I’m not running away from my problems.”

“I’m not saying that-” you really don’t want him to talk today, so you stop him again “No but you’re thinking it.”

“I know what it’s like.” he says raising his voice “To lose who you care the most in the world. We all lost someone important but you lost Natasha and I know, trust me I know what you feel right now, because it’s what I felt when I lost Riley.”

You stop and swallow the tight lump in your throat.

Your eyes well up with tears as you turn to look at him. You’ve been so blinded by your own pain and anger you didn’t stop for a moment to think about others. “I’m sorry Sam, I shouldn’t have treated you like that.” you say sobbing.

Why did she have to leave you?

Stupid, stupid Natasha. Why did she have to sacrifice herself for the world?

Why her?

He hugs you tight and rocks you back and forth. “I understand why you’re leaving and I’m not here to stop you, I promise. Just keep in touch, yes? Text me everyday so I’m not tempted to track you down and fly wherever you are to see if you’re good.”

You smile for the first time in a long time.

“Don’t worry Sam, you’ll get tired of all the selfies I’ll send you, eventually.”

“You know I’ll never get tired of this pretty face.” he says raising his eyebrows suggestively, making you laugh. “Good, that’s my girl. I missed this laugh so much.”

You stay in his arms a while longer until it’s time for you to leave.

“This is not the only reason I’m here.” he says and clears his throat, “Say, hypothetically, there’s a 100 year old fossil who’s a bit confused most of the time but he’s got the spirit, right?, and he’s outside with a packed duffle bag, what would you do?”

“What?” you manage to stammer out. “Bucky just... wants to...tag along?”

You are now as confused as Bucky is most of the time.

Sam shrugs. “I guess? You know he’s weird like that.”

What he really means is he’s just like you, lost and confused and in desperate need to live a little, but he doesn’t say it out loud. There’s no need to.

“So, would you mind if he came too?”

You see Bucky standing outside, leaning on your SUV. He’s cut his hair short and he looks hotter than you would like to. He turns around and waves at you with a big smile on his face. Like Sam often says, you too like his energy.

“No, I wouldn’t mind at all.”

----

Denver, Colorado

It’s a long way from New York to Colorado and if you’re honest, you’ve loved every minute of it and you’re glad Bucky came along with you. He’s witty, laid back, snarky, smart and overall a fun guy for someone who was a prisoner to nazis for 70 years.

“Look all I’m saying is I think Edward is a fuckin’ creep. Would you like it if someone stood in your room and looked at you while you sleep?”

“But is that someone a hot vampire, Bucky?”

“It literally doesn’t even matter.”

“Stop saying literally Buck, you’re a 100 year old man, not a valley girl.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Lemme check a map.”

“Bucky it’s on the screen there, Google says we have 20 minutes left.”

“But can we trust this Google guy?”

“All I’m saying is if you made and enjoyed congealed salads you probably don’t deserve your right to vote for the future of this country.”

“I mean...fair enough?”

“Do we count blipped years or not?”

“At this point it, it barely makes a difference in my case, doll.”

“Honestly you’ve got a point, old man.”

“How are you so calm right now?”

“My standards are so low it’s practically impossible to piss me off.”

“But you aren’t even a little bothered?”

“Chill, it’s just a flat tire, it’s gonna take 10 minutes to fix.”

“Buck we talked about the things that are unacceptable. ‘Chill’ coming out of your mouth is one of those.”

It’s your second week in Denver already, and you’re having the time of your life.

Bucky is spooning you like he usually does. You think back to the first time you’ve shared a bed and you almost giggle at the memory.

“Uh, Buck?”

“Yes?”

“We might have a problem.”

He enters the room after you and his eyes widen when he sees it.

There’s a bed in the room.

A single bed.

You weren’t expecting much from this place that gives you ‘Bates Motel’ vibes, but you thought you’d have two beds, or at least a couch.

“I’ll just sleep on the floor, don’t worry about it.”

“What?” you shriek “Absolutely not, I’m not letting you suffer all night. We’re going to share.”

“But I-”

“No buts, you know how many times I slept with Steve? I’m used to you supersoldier men by now, I’m no longer affected by your kicks.”

He stays silent. “You and Steve used to…?”

Only then you realize you could have phrased it better.

“God no, I meant just, ya know, share bed.”

He smiles and nods. Why does he look relieved?

Now he clings to you every night, and most times he’s the little spoon because he likes to be held. You used to hate sleeping tangled with someone else until you woke up on top of Bucky, his hands caressing your back, and he told you he had the best night of sleep he’s had in decades.

There’s a lot of things you do just because they make him happy, actually.

But how could you not?

There’s no point in denying your feelings.

----

Salt Lake City, Utah

God, you love Utah.

You drive through immense stretches of red desert whilst Bucky blasts Nicki Minaj like his life depends on it; that’s how it always ends up when he rides shotgun.

He insisted on visiting Monument Valley despite it being out of your way, but you can never find it in yourself to refuse him anything, so you drove 9 hours straight from Denver to the southern border of Utah just so he could see a place that looks a lot like the ones in those Western cowboy movies from the 50s and 60s he loves so much.

“Yasha would have hated it here so much.” you say as you pull over the Airbnb you’ve rented for a couple of days in Salt Lake City.

He snorts, “Yeah, I bet she would have.”

You thought time would heal all wounds and that someday you might stop feeling the void in your life when you think of her, but now you know you’ll never stop hurting. She was such a big part of your life for so long that your heart will never stop aching for her.

Sometimes you think how she never got to see you again after you were snapped.

You wonder if she ever stopped missing you.

You know you’ll never not miss her.

You’ve driven for more than humanly possible in two days, but he’s a supersoldier and you’re really stubborn, and now you can’t wait to sleep in a nice bed for the first time in a long while. Usually you just make do with motels, but tonight you wanted to treat yourselves.

You enter the place and notice immediately the two queen size beds.

You should be relieved, and if it was 4 months ago when you first shared a bed you would probably be, but now you’re so used to his warm body next to yours, his flesh arm over you and his face resting in the crook of your neck that you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to fall asleep without him.

“I’ll go shower first if you don’t mind.” you say as you mentally berate yourself for your thoughts.

Your goal to not fall in love with Bucky Barnes flew out the window somewhere in the green fields of Western Iowa, but at this point you’re just treading a dangerous path and you know you’re going to get hurt.

There’s no way Bucky feels the same about you, right?

You get out the shower, put on a t-shirt you’ve stolen from Steve ages ago and get out of the bathroom, only to stop when you see Bucky on the bed you claimed as yours.

“Sorry, I hope you don’t mind but I feel better when I sleep with you.”

Maybe he does.

----

Nevada

Technically it takes roughly 43 hours to get from New York to Sacramento by car. It took you almost five months.

You’ve been covering Interstate 80, stopping and visiting towns, cities and parks along the way as you pleased, sleeping in seedy motels, your SUV or that fancy ass tent Bucky bought somewhere in Ohio. You’ve begged Bucky to drive from Salt Lake City straight to Sacramento, stopping only when it’s absolutely necessary; you’ll be visiting Nevada after California anyways, so for now you’re just enjoying the scenic drive, with the windows rolled down and the air messing up your hair.

“What’s that song called?” Bucky asks and raises the radio’s volume.

“That’s Dani California by Red Hot Chili Peppers.” you answer absentmindedly, distracted by the seemingly endless stretch of black asphalt and yellowish nothingness around it.

She’s lover, baby and a fighter

Shoulda seen it coming when I got a little brighter

Bucky sings along and smiles glancing your way.

“I like this.” he exclaims when the song ends “Can we listen to it again, please?”

You smile softly and play it again. If there’s one thing Bucky is capable of is listening to the same song on repeat multiple times until you’re so sick of it you don’t ever want to hear it again.

Who knew the other side of you

Who knew what others died to prove

You never thought Bucky would be like this, or that you’d be privileged enought to see this side of him.

There’s a big smile on his face and the orange hues of the sky reflect in his clear eyes. He’s got one hand on the steering wheel and the vibranium one resting on the car’s door and he looks so different from the man haunted by his past and loneliness you met in Budapest all those years ago. He looks so carefree and relaxed now, so happy.

You are proud of him.

California rest in peace

Simultaneous release

California show your teeth

She’s my priestess and I’m your priest

I love my baby to death

------

San Diego, California

You’ve hiked the hills of southern Cali and gone parapending in Torrey Pines. You landed on a breathtaking beach with beautiful dark sand and soon found out, much to Bucky’s dismay and utter disgust, that it was a nudist beach.

He grumbled something about ‘hygiene’ and ‘decor’ and you just laughed at his flustered state.

“First time seeing a naked woman, old man?” you asked in between fits of laughter.

You didn’t notice the sea lion swimming next to you in La Jolla and not even Thanos’ creepy gang could have scared you as much when you turned around and looked him dead in the eyes. Bucky got his revenge filming you as you shot out the ocean with a shrill, covered in algae and terrified.

You are loving the San Diego area so far. Minus the sea lions.

“Hey I- uh- do you mind if I take the car? I wanted to go do some shopping.” Bucky tells you.

He’s really embarrassed for some reason.

You shrug and mumble a ‘sure’ before going back to basking in the sun by the pool of the hotel you’re staying at.

“Okay, I-I guess I’ll g-go then, I’ll come pick you up at 5.30 for dinner.” he stutters out.

Weird, you think, but you don’t give it too much thought. Bucky is like that.

Dinner time rolls around and as promised Bucky comes pick you up on time.

You’re wearing a short green dress with white daisies printed on it and a pair of strappy white sandals. You look good and you know it; Bucky knows it too, judging from the glances he tries to sneak your way.

“So, uhm-” he clears his voice, “I know it’s going to sound weird but I promise it’s not. Can I- Can I blindfold you?”

Can he...what? You could split me in half and I’d be glad about it, you’d like to say.

“Kinky. You could at least buy me differ first, tho.” you settle for something safer instead.

He blushes three shades darker than his usual color and you take the black scarf he’s handing you, barely concealing a teasing smile.

He drives around for a while. When you get to your destination the first thing you hear is the waves beating on the shore and the smell of the ocean. He helps you get out and guides you somewhere.

“Wait here.”

You hear him park the car in reverse, open the trunk and fiddle with something. He comes up behind you and removes the blindfold. You feel his hot breath on your neck and it sends tingles down your spine straight to your pu- “You can look now.”

When you open your eyes you are stunned for a moment. You turn around with a big smile that turns even bigger when you notice the blankets and the little picnic he’s assembled in the trunk.

“Buck, this is- I can’t believe you remembered.”

Somewhere in Colorado you mentioned how romantic you thought Sunset Cliffs were, and how much you wished you could do something like this. It was a fleeting moment, a thought uttered out loud absentmindedly over a couple of drinks in some bar. You were tipsy and you were running your mouth about all the things you’d want in a partner to some random girl who became your best friends for the night.

You realize you’re tearing up when his fingers grace your cheeks.

It feels nice to be cared about so much. It’s been too long since someone took such good care of you.

“I thought I’d do something special for you.” he says with an adorable blush.

“Thank you Bucky, I love this.” you hug him tightly and bury your face in his chest, inhaling his scent.

“Anything for my girl.”

“When did I become your girl, huh?” you ask teasingly.

“Probably when I invited myself on this trip.”

You both laugh at that.

You swallow hard when you see the look on his face. God, how did you miss the signs? You were always a better sniper than a spy, Yasha always told you.

Your heart is beating out of your chest in anticipation as he leans down slowly and your lips brush lightly. His hands are on your waist and yours on his broad shoulders. He kisses you timidly at first, and more passionately as he gains confidence.

“I wanted to do this since Bucharest.” he confesses after your lips part.

“Took you long enough, Sarge.”

But it was worth the wait.

Tonight’s sunset will be burned in the back of your mind permanently.

You kiss and laugh some more, and feed eachother seedless grapes because they’re the only ones you eat. He’s brought strawberries, white wine because you don’t drink red, hummus and pita and an assortment of cheese and crackers.

You kiss and talk, cuddle, laugh and kiss some more all night.

You’ve accepted long ago that you’ll never fill the gaping hole in your lives, but that night when you make love to eachother the void in your hearts that Steve and Natasha left behind doesn’t seem as encompassing as it usually is.

---

Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please reblog and comment, feedback is always appreciated 🥺🤲 might fuck around and write Bucky’s POV too.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky imagine #bucky fanfic #marvel fanfiction #sebastian stan x reader #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #james barnes x reader #james barnes x you #james barnes x y/n

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cozycryptidcorner · 4 years

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Ryota the Kitsune, Chapter 2 (Lemon)

Patrons voted for a second, spicy chapter for Ryota’s story, and who am I do deny them. This was on patreon for two months before being published here, if you want early access to my stories, then join my $1 patron tier!

The humidity of summer lays thick in the air, despite the early morning. Rubbing one eye with the heel of your palm, you tug the basket from the arching branches of a bush as you head over to the nearby river banks, hoping you might find some edible mushrooms growing around in the damp, airy soil.

Ryota is there, standing solid against the current of the stream, his back turned, but his ruddy orange ears atop his head tweak in a way that lets you know that he’s heard your footsteps. The water of the river must be blissfully frigid, with autumn seems to be taking her sweet time in arriving, the sun’s radiation baking the very air itself. You avert your eyes, though, out of modestly, because he’s completely and utterly naked beneath the water.

“How’s the temperature?” You ask, merely for acknowledgment, much less for actual conversation.

“Perfect,” he sounds almost happy, which is a significant change from the wide-eyed, quiet creature he was when you first found him out in the woods.

“That’s good,” you place the basket down and kneel against the mossy ground, digging your fingers around the stones and roots. The one thing on your mind is the mushrooms you plan on using in tonight’s salad, you’ve been waiting for the patch to grow back since you last had them in stew… god, they’re the best.

“You can come in with me?” His tone is carefully neutral.

You’re not entirely certain if it’s a request or an offer, his way of asking for things is to shy away from an actual demand, but given the circumstances, you take it as the latter. “I’m fine right now, but thank you.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, unsure.

“Yeah, I’ll probably go in for the evening.” Stretching out, you stand back up, balancing the basket on your hip. Very, very careful to only look at his eyes, even with the darker temptation to look down south to scope out the kind of length he’s packing, but you still manage to catch a bit in your periphery. “Dinner should be ready soon, but if you’re enjoying yourself, I’ll just set some aside for you to come back to.”

“I can come back with you,” he immediately offers, shifting so that you manage to see more.

Quickly, you avert your eyes from him entirely. “I’m fine, Ryo.”

“My clothes are right there, get them for me? Please?”

You suck in your breath quietly enough for him not to hear, but comply, stepping over a large rock to find his robes out in the sun, warming. With one hand out in the direction, you think he’s in, you hold the cloth out, your fingers only brushing temporarily against his, though it’s enough for you to note their dampness.

The thought of what he might be capable of with those long, slender fingers fills your brain and blood, a heat rising to your face as you pull your hand back, almost too fast. Trying to scrub the images of his bare body from the insides of your mind, you barely manage to stutter, “I- I’ll just meet you back at the, um, back at the house.”

And then you quickly walk back into the trees, not quite catching if Ryota says anything else. God, you’re such a stupid perv, why does your brain try to immediately dress him down every time you see him? Maybe a cold bath would help you out in that regard. Perhaps you need a moment to yourself where you can relieve some of the tension?

You drop the basket off right by the entrance, knowing that Ryota will most likely take care of that, then head up the hill just a bit so that no one important will hear your struggle. Slowly, you let yourself slide down against the rough trunk of a tree, trying to find the mental state you need in order to get yourself off.

Fuck, fuck, it’s been longer than usual since you last touched yourself, with Ryota clinging to you like a babe in a strange land. The amount of privacy you’re used to has shrunk down so considerably that you’ve almost started humping your pillows in your sleep. Who are you going to think about, you muse, and Ryota’s face worms its way into your mind.

No, you can’t do that. You try to think of literally anyone else, pre-apocalypse, but Ryota keeps fighting to stay in the forefront. Unbidden, your hand snakes its way down south, plunging past the elastic of your underwear, and you close your eyes. Again, despite your attempts to maybe think of some Hollywood sex god instead, there he is, your fantasies beckoning him between your legs.

And he breaks through your actual imagination because you hear his quiet footsteps approaching. You almost scratch a gash into your vagina, trying to tear your hand out of your pants, lungs thick with air as adrenaline pours into your veins. God- you didn’t fucking think he’d try to follow you out, and you have to actively untangle the anger from your throat. “I just need a moment to myself.”

He’s here, his robe askew to the point one sleeve hangs off the shoulder, revealing the milky paleness of his chest and you’re going to die. “You don’t-”

You can’t even look at him like this, you’re afraid you’re going to melt into a heated puddle onto the forest floor. “I don’t what?”

There’s a long, tense pause, and he changes the subject. “Do you find me ugly?”

You’re so caught off guard that you turn back around, trying to process each individual word in the sentence to try to comprehend just where it came from. “I don’t- what do you mean?”

“You never look at me,” he says almost too quietly for you to hear, but raises his voice slightly when you won’t turn to meet his eyes, “even now.”

I’m afraid what I’ll think of if I look at you. You’ve never been more thankful not to be a man in your life. “I’m sorry, it’s not… it’s not your fault.”

“Do you find me ugly?” He asks again, stepping closer.

You’re going to die, you think, as you try to glance over to find his face, pinching yourself, so your eyes don’t wander, managing to rasp a simple, “I don’t.”

He bends over, kneeling by your side, and you’re suddenly very aware that your legs are open in a very sexual way. You try to nonchalantly shut them as he speaks. “Then why don’t you like to look at me?”

You don’t want to say it, you don’t, a strand of humiliation wrapping around your throat and tightening. Briefly, you wonder if the bacchanalia he came from follows the kind of reputation that most of them do. A flash of him expertly pressing his lips against yours traitorously flashes behind your eyes and you have to look away, again. Finally, you manage to voice to work. “I think… I think I may be afraid.”

“Of what?” He’s close, too close, you’re going to lose your mind. “I would never hurt you, you know that, yes?”

“Not of that.” Surely he can hear your heart beating loud enough to be a shotgun blast. “I think… I think that I’m afraid of myself.”

He sits, hands perfectly rested on his knees, long, slender fingers tap, tap, tapping against his knees as he thinks what you said over. Hesitantly, he says softly, “so you do not resent me?”

A little bit, yes, but you don’t think that the reasoning is the same. “I resent myself,” you say, looking straight out into the woods instead of facing him.

Is he inching closer? Good lord, you’re going to fucking die. “Why do you resent yourself? Did I do something to make you angry?”

“No,” you have to physically keep yourself from shaking. “It’s nothing you’ve done.”

“Can I help?” He’s so close that you feel his breath on your neck.

“I don’t think it’s something you can help with,” you almost choke, avoiding eye contact, ��I’ll take care of it myself.” Inwardly, you cringe so hard you almost fold in on yourself from the stupid wording. Why did you say it like that?

Before you can get up, he leans in closer, and you’re sure that the sound of you trying to swallow away the lump in your throat can be heard in a fifty miles radius. A new, hotter wetness is pooling between your legs, and by the way his nose seems to intake air, you’re almost afraid he can smell your arousal. He places a hand on your leg, right at your thigh, and suddenly he is the one that seems like he’s going to melt away.

“Why won’t you let me take care of you, though? I’d like to.” His chest heaves for a moment, his tongue sliding out to wet his lips, your eyes trailing the movement like a bird of prey.

With a hesitant breath, because you can not believe this is happening, you manage to say, “I don’t want you to think like- like you owe this to me.”

He shakes his head, coming closer, and you can smell his scent, like the outdoors, green and bright and warm. Instead of answering, he places a wandering hand on the mossy ground, in between your legs and moves his lips right up next to your ear, his words barely more than a breathless whisper. “I want you.”

Oh, god.

“Do you really?” You ask, feeling like the very earth beneath you move away, as though you are floating off into an eternal abyss. “Are you sure?”

He leans forward slightly, pressing his lips up against the shell of your ear, and you feel a shiver dance down your spine. “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you in the forest.”

“W-what?”

“Before I was punished,” his breath warms your neck as his chaste kisses make their way down to your shoulder, “I saw you, helping a rabbit with a broken leg.”

That was a few weeks before he arrived, bloodied and bruised, onto your doorstep. Trying not to let out a gasp as he pulls your leg out and over to his side, you whimper, “you saw that?”

He mumbles something in a language you don’t recognize, but have heard him speak of before, in soft increments. “Yes, I was scouting for more people to join the sacred sect, to enlighten you, but you were already kind, nurturing the earth for food instead of ravaging it.”

“Oh,” you whisper softly, unsure of how to respond. Was it… strange? Yes, it was strange. But is it unwelcome? “So you… you didn’t tell them?”

“No, not at all, but they found out, they always do.” He traces the scar across his chest, the bright pink skin what’s left of the wound. “But I kept you a secret, don’t worry.”

That- the wound was because of you? You suck in your breath as he leans forward, and you lean back, your back hitting the ground. A thousand questions click and snap in your head, voiceless and garbled with the heat between your thighs, making it almost impossible to concentrate. Swallowing, you manage a mere, “why?”

“I wanted you,” he whispers almost deliriously.

“You could have had me if you were truthful to your brethren” the prospect fills your blood with dread, but you remind yourself that he’s on top of you… in your forest.

“I wanted you to want me, too.” He nuzzles his face in the crook of your shoulder. “And I don’t like to share.”

“Oh,” you say in a quiet breath, tangling your fingers around a long strand of his hair that drapes around your head like a curtain.

And you kiss him.

The kiss starts out soft, easy, and noncommittal, but as you pull him downward with your woven fingers, his body pressing firmly up against yours. And his lips… they’re starving, his muscle tense as though physically restraining himself. It only takes a few moments for his tongue to snake it’s way into your mouth, his advancements more than welcome.

It could be a decade or a century since you’ve last made love, and your very body sings with the weight thrust upon it. Letting out a pathetic whine, you keen your waist up to his, feeling the first blossom of an erection peeping out from his roads. During the few moments you’ve managed to sneak a look, you noticed the girth, and have wanted him in you so badly you couldn’t even focus on your words.

You want him now.

“What do you need?” You choke, almost too afraid to make any requests on your own behalf.

He is kind, though, and responds so very gently into your ear. “To please you. I need, oh, to please you.”

You’re going to cry, because you don’t know where you want him to start. Voice trembling, you raise your legs to show him you’re ready. “How did you imagine pleasing me?”

He’s almost shaking, his breath hard and panting with effort. There’s a thick rod pressing up against your thigh, you can almost feel its pulsing need for your between two layers of clothes. Enraged at the aspect of wearing pants, you wriggle out of them, Ryota seeming at ease with digging his nails beneath the fabric to help you out. The earth is cool and fair against your bare skin, a tad bit of moisture working to fight against the summer’s heat.

“Tell me,” you ask again, almost unsure of if your voice is about to give out, “please, tell me how you thought to please me.”

There’s a steady grinding between your thighs as he says, “Kissing you all over to make you feel wet.”

You’re already so wet, you think, a thrumming in your body sings. But you try to continue steadily on, agreeing, “I think that would help, yes.”

“Hm,” he mumbles, pressing his mouth up to your exposed collarbone. The heat in your core grows larger. His breath is deliciously warm against your goose-bumping flesh, you notice, managing to wriggle the hem of your shirt up over your breast. Ryota wastes no time latching onto one nipple, his tongue almost sharp against the pointed, sensitive flesh.

You don’t think you can survive this.

With little thought for his own comfort, he slides downwards, leaving a trail of hickies as he latches onto your skin and sucks, all the while your core gushes more with every nip, lick, and kiss. He lifts your leg over his shoulder, his shuddering breath cool against the puckered skin of your pussy, sending thrills of shivering shocks up through your spine. He’s like that for a moment, eyes almost closed as he takes your scent in, then leans forward to offer up a single lick, ass to clit.

Unbidden, you gasp, because you’re so lost in the moment you almost forget yourself. God, it’s been long- so, so long since you’ve had another being between your legs, and your body is ready.

Ryota seems to appreciate the noise, pressing up against your clit with his tongue, eyes almost crazed with intensity. After a moment of teasing, he kisses at the pooling slit somewhere lower, and you feel… horrendously ready to cum already. An animalistic part of you would like nothing more than to slam your thighs around his face, grip his hair, and ride out your pleasure here and now. He’d let you, too, and he’d probably enjoy it, but the logical side murmurs that if you take it slow and draw things out, your orgasm might be the one to outshine anything you’ve had before.

So you lean back, closing your eyes, and let him take his time, the feeling of carnal desperation pumping thickly through your blood. And he knows what he’s doing, too, you suppose that the reputation of the bacchanalia cults must be true. One of his arms wraps around your waist, anticipating your squirming as he takes your clit between his lips and fucking sucks.

He pulls back to begin exploring your flower more, using his fingers to open your lips up further for a better view. You’re so exposed that you can feel the air, which seemed horrendously warm just minutes before, which cools the broiling heat between your legs. Again, Ryota takes a moment to sloppily kiss the exposed skin, his teeth pressing up hard enough for the thrill, though not to hurt.

Mindlessly, you reach down for his silky hair, running your fingers over his scalp. Against your skin, the black strands look like lines of ink, dark, geometrical, almost like someone drew a pattern against your hand and wrist with a purpose. As if he’s made for you. Without even realizing that you’re so much as opening your mouth, you passively say, “you’re beautiful.”

He pauses, then looks back up at you. Voice almost broken, he says, “Oh. Thank you.”

It takes you a moment to fully process the interaction because you weren’t paying much attention beyond where his tongue pleasures you, and by that point, there’s a building in your core that steals your focus away. As you whine, your back arches, pulling your hand from the strands of his hair to claw at the earth itself in hopes it might ground you. But you’re close, too close, and you don’t want to be gone, not yet.

“Stop,” you demand, pressing your fingers up against his forehead. ” Stop.”

He obeys, pulling up and away from your quivering core, and your basic instincts scream at you in anger for ending the pleasure. “What? What’s wrong, did I hurt you?”

“No,” you shake your head, “but I’d like to cum with you inside of me.”

“Oh.” again, his voice almost quivers, and he seems entirely unfamiliar with the kind of demands you make. “Y-yes, alright.”

“Come here,” you almost murmur, your voice low but enticing. “Please.”

“Anything for you,” he whispers almost quietly enough for you to miss as he obeys, pressing his mouth against yours in a lust-filled, yet still gentle, kiss. You can still taste yourself on his lips, the damp your body made just for him, to welcome him into your core.

His robes have more layers than you initially expected, though you’ve seen him dress and undress plenty of times, even if you do avert your eyes. You tug at the sash across his waist, managing to find where it’s fastened and pull it loose, and Ryota rewards you with a few robust kisses as he peels the outer layer of faded silk off only to reveal yet another robe beneath it.

You hiss impatiently. “How many of these do you have on?”

He chuckles good-naturedly, giving you a nip on the shell of your ear. “Enough.”

Thankfully, the white layer is the last, you think you’d go insane if you had to slog through even two more, and by the way Ryota is breathing heavily, you know he feels the same way. You share one last clothed kiss as you managed to remove it, pulling the sleeves down his shoulders and discarding the woven fabric somewhere… just, away from the matters at hand.

You can feel him there, experimentally pressing his flushed length up against your lips, and there’s a thrill of relief at the mere idea of how close you are to being filled. His hair is like a waterfall that pours the depths of a great void out around his angelic face, his eyes like stars that beckon you with the promise of ecstasy. As he slowly presses the tip up through your entrance, and you try not to be so overcome with the moment that you lose focus of his face.

To help bring yourself back down from the high of pleasure his slowly sheathing cock offers, you try to trace the contours of his face with your thumb, following the path of his nose, then the outline of his mouth. Again, though more to yourself, you observe, “you’re beautiful.”

His hips splutter at the second declaration, his breath hitching. God, you can see how badly he’s wanted you, just at this moment, his eyes melting like syrup at the mere idea you might find him attractive. As he thinks of a response, you angle your hips to better accommodate him, and now it’s his turn to melt back into the earth.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, but your brain is nothing more than sludge, “I know.”

Ryota loses himself in you. It takes a moment for your body to stretch around him- his length is impressive, or at least you think it is… or maybe the isolation has lowered your body’s standards, whatever the case, once he’s sure you’re comfortable, he’s thrusting into you with a pace that ravages you. Like him, you’re lost, the feeling of his body inside yours so soon after he pleasured you with his mouth? It’s almost too much, too fast.

But he manages to slow to a more leisurely pace, his breath choking and yearning. You’re not sure which of you is enjoying the simple act of sex more, it feels like it’s been an eternity for both your bodies. The friction between his length and your inner walls crescendos, his breath desperate and uneven, so you take the reigns. You flip over, using your hips to beckon him to twist beneath you. His eyes relax at the prospect of no longer having to set your pace, and he lies down, almost shaking, on the moss.

Fuck… fuck, the way his pale, milky skin stands out from the greens and browns of the ground. Fuck. The way he looks at you doesn’t help the matter either, he gazes at you with… such adoration, a kind of worshipping ferver, it sends a special breed of pleasure through your nerves, pooling nicely into your core. You place a hand on his chest, tracing the scare with your finger, fixating on the fact of how he risked so much on behalf of… well, you.

It doesn’t take too much longer for your body to fully come to terms with its pleasure, your knees almost itching with how hard they’re digging into the earth. A shudder dances up your spine, there’s a familiar, taught clenching in your core, and you’re in ecstasy. Loved. Adored.

He’s quick to follow, almost as though he was waiting for you to climax first. A hot, thick liquid fills you to the brim, his voice strangling with praise for you, for your body, for your spirit, for your self. You almost become aroused enough for a second round at his endless praise, but as you lay against his chest and allow your heartbeats to align, you decide that you have been satiated.

For now.

“Thank you,” you say, limp from exhaustion, ear at his chest, “for not reporting me.”

He lets out a breath, his own fingers coming up to rest at your scalp. “Thank you,” he whispers, hoarsely, “for loving me the way I am.”

#kitsune #kitsune story #kistune/reader #exophilia #kitsune x reader #monster lovers #monster/reader

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nothinggold13 · 3 years

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Peter the High King

“By his own words, he is Peter first. [...] When the people called him Magnificent, he still begged in quiet repetition to be called Peter.”

A thought in 25 parts.

Dedicated to @awfullybigwardrobe44 for being my editor & also listening to me rant about this analysis for the last month, as I got way too excited about the phrase “Peter the High King.”

I. "That [...] is Cair Paravel of the four thrones, in one of which you must sit as King. I show it to you because you are the first-born and you will be High King over all the rest." [The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe]

It is one thing to be King; it is another to be High King over others. The distinction is lost on Peter. He is still just a kid, and he has not yet tasted his first blood. All he knows is that he will look after his brother and sisters. He is, after all, the first born; it only makes sense that he will lead the other children. There is no fear. In the moment, he feels it plainly.

II. "And Peter became a tall and deep-chested man and a great warrior, and he was called King Peter the Magnificent."

In his eyes, “Magnificent” is an unexpected and undeserved title. For all he is, and all he is seen to be, he is still, in his heart, just Peter. He finds no love for the war that has made him into a warrior. Fears he had once never imagined have long since become his constant companions. But Peter is a King. Like all his duties, he bears this one well. There is peace in springtime, and there is joy in peace. Peter still breathes. Peter still believes. The people still call him Magnificent.

III. "And in a few years, if all goes well, King Peter has promised your royal father that he himself will make you Knight at Cair Paravel." [The Horse and His Boy]

The boy Shasta does not know the King Peter the Faun speaks of. He does not even know enough to recognize both the respect and familiar affection with which the Faun speaks. Tumnus knows the High King well, after all—as does Corin, who the Faun thinks he is speaking to. They know the High King well enough that there is no need to refer to him as such. They may call him King Peter, but only “King.” The title remains out of love and humble admiration, but his name stands firm out of deeper love and friendship. There is no need to call him “the High King,” as others do, and there is no need to call him “Magnificent.” They are familiar with him. They are family. He may as well, in their eyes, just be Peter.

IV. "For though the fancy of a woman has rejected this marriage, the High King Peter is a man of prudence and understanding who will in no way wish to lose the high honour and advantage of being allied to our House and seeing his nephew and grand nephew on the throne of Calormen."

If Peter could hear these words, he would laugh before settling into the depths of his anger. In all the conversation between Rabadash and his father, Peter’s name has never been mentioned. He has been, in their discussion, a nameless, vague, and distant figure. “The High King of Narnia,” they say, “their High King, not ours.” But now Rabadash risks his name, almost as if it’s an appeal; almost as if Peter is listening in after all. There is little cold in the warmth of the High King, but few have heard a laugh as cold as the one Peter would give at this. The inanity of the Calormene Prince’s words would amuse him before they enraged him; for in all his years as High King, Peter has never heard anyone misuse his name so badly.

V. "For though my brother, Peter the High King, defeated the Tisroc a dozen times over, yet long before that day our throats would be cut[...]"

Edmund gets it right. He often does. “My brother,” he says first. “Peter,” he says second. The familiar comes before his title. And Edmund knows, of course, that even if he’s just Peter - even if he’s the High King second - Peter will not suffer such an injustice. If “the High King Peter” is a prudent man, “Peter the High King” is a genuine one. In love and in brotherhood, Peter will always protect his siblings - or, Aslan forbid it, avenge them. He is and ever will be Peter first. He is and ever will be their brother.

VI. "For the truth was that in that golden age when the Witch and the Winter had gone and Peter the High King ruled at Cair Paravel, the smaller woodland people of Narnia were so safe and happy that they were getting a little careless."

This is how the legend starts: In the Golden Age of Narnia, the people were safe and happy. This is how the legend starts, before it is twisted and gilded and lost. In the Golden Age of Narnia, Peter is High King. Perhaps no one notices, but the narrative frames him as he wants to be framed: Peter first. His name comes first. He is a person before he is a king or a myth or a hero. This is how the legend starts, but the narrative is lost when the people need heroes instead.

VII. "’If I had but my cordial with me,’ Queen Lucy was saying, ‘I could soon mend this. But the High King has so strictly charged me not to carry it commonly to the wars and to keep it only for great extremities!’"

Here lies the cost of the title. Lucy doesn’t know the weight Peter took upon himself the day he told her not to carry the cordial into battle. Lucy can’t understand it. Not yet. But Peter has seen the hurt it has caused her to make terrible choices on fields of blood; the devastation she experiences each time she saves one and loses another. Peter is the High King because he needs to be - because someone needs to be - because he is the oldest. The High King must lead the others. The High King must protect the others. So Peter takes the choice away, and with it, he hopes, the hurt.

VIII. "And Lucy told again [...] the tale of the Wardrobe and how she and King Edmund and Queen Susan and Peter the High King had first come into Narnia."

You wouldn’t know it to listen to her, but Lucy doesn’t remember the tale so well on her own. The details of their coming are blanketed in snow; even to Lucy, the story sounds more like a fairy tale than history. But she knows well that among fairy tales, some truths still stand. There are truths like hope; like how the White Witch’s winter is all but forgotten in these peaceful days, but is remembered for the hope in the wide eyes of the young girl who saw it as a wonderland rather than a curse. Even now in Lucy, that hope remains. There are truths like change; like how the betrayal of a boy once desperate for affection became the groundwork for a king to grow in justice. Though all know Edmund is no traitor now, they know it is these past missteps and mistakes that have made him wise. There are truths like courage; like the queen who followed Aslan to his death, yet does not fight in wars. Courage exists in gentleness, in dedication, and in love, and Susan shows them this every day. There are truths like the death and resurrection of the Great Lion, which remains forever the source of salvation for all of Narnia — not for only one. And, perhaps least of all, another truth remains in the fact that Peter is still Peter. The High King was a boy once, and somewhere in their hearts, he is a boy still. It’s funny how as Lucy tells the tale, her beloved older brother takes the form of a brave, terrified child. He is in all their minds a warrior and protector, yet they can see him clearly even at the beginning. It’s funny, but it’s real.

IX. "'It is my sword Rhindon,' he said; 'with it I killed the Wolf.' There was a new tone in his voice, and the others all felt that he was really Peter the High King again." [Prince Caspian]

He is Peter first, when they look at him. His voice is far from mythic. It is Peter’s voice; the voice of man and boy and king and brother. They are reminded by the name of Rhindon how the Wolf’s blood was shed by unwanted bravery - an unwilling thrust. Rhindon is not the sword of a fearless warrior; it is the sword of a dutiful knight. Susan and Edmund and Lucy have never known the legendary Magnificent King. They’ve only known Peter.

X. "But at least you can try to be a King like the High King Peter of old, and not like your uncle."

Peter becomes a fairy tale in the eyes of the frightened Prince. The legendary High King - over all Kings of Narnia, under only Aslan - is, all at once, an idol. Brave and benevolent and wise, he is something to be striven for. The High King Peter is king first, man second. The stories paint him in golden light, and in the damaged remnants of copied portraits in Cornelius’ study, he appears to wear more a halo than a crown.

XI. "It may have the power to call Queen Lucy and King Edmund and Queen Susan and High King Peter back from the past, and they will set all to rights."

There is an old rhyme about Adam’s flesh and bone. There is another about the returning of spring. Few remember the latter, it seems, as a new Son of Adam comes of age. Faith is put on the heads of four children. But Peter remembers well, if he could only be asked, that it is by Aslan’s teeth and mane and blood that the earth is reawakened. It is He that will set all to rights, not the ancient Sons and Daughters. Peter remembers well, though the horn has not yet called for him. Peter remembers well, though when he comes, no one will ask.

XII. "’I'd much rather not have to vote.’ // ‘You're the High King,’ said Trumpkin sternly.”

The decision is placed in his hands, and the weight of it on his shoulders. It is clear by Trumpkin’s tone that he is not looking for majority rule; if the party were split unevenly, Trumpkin would still make the High King choose. Peter never asked to choose. “You’re the High King,” he’s told, and the words scold him, remind him, immortalize him. It shouldn’t be his decision. Peter once trusted Lucy more than he trusted himself. Peter once trusted Aslan more than all his siblings put together. He knows this, but he can’t see Aslan now. In fear, Peter votes to go down. Lucy cries.

XIII. "If you all go, of course, I'll go with you; and if your party splits up, I'll go with the High King. That’s my duty to him and King Caspian."

Peter doesn’t know what scares him the most about this. Two things have been made clear. The first is that Trumpkin, even if not maliciously, would leave the others alone. He would leave them behind, if Peter led him to. Lucy is 9, and Edmund just turned 11. Susan shivers even without cold. They look little like the Queens and King they used to be. And all at once, even if he has no other reason, Peter will follow Lucy in spite of reason. He can’t leave them alone. In spite of himself, in spite of his fears, he will follow. For that is his second - and perhaps greater - fear: when they make it to Caspian, he will still be alone. He sees it clearly. Trumpkin has decided that it is not the four ancient sovereigns on which the fate of Narnia rests. Now it lies on only one. Trumpkin will go with the High King, he says. Peter wonders now whether that means he will be followed or dragged.

XIV. "It's the High King, King Peter."

As he is introduced to the young King Caspian, Peter flinches at each word. They land at first like blows; clumsy punches, but painful all the same. Then, Peter realizes, they settle like cuts instead. He wonders how many it would take to bleed out. He sees the depth of it now. He is Peter last, in the eyes of the Old Narnians. They don’t want Peter; they want the mythical High King of old. So that is how they introduce him: “It’s the High King,” they say first. Second, they call him “King” again. And then tacked on to the end of his title, as if it were specification rather than identity, is his name.

XV. “’You say, Caspian, we are not strong enough to meet Miraz in pitched battle.’ // ‘I'm afraid not, High King,’ said Caspian.”

Every time Peter looks at Caspian, he is painfully aware that Caspian is just a boy. Every time he looks at Caspian, he is reminded that he, himself, is just a boy. Caspian has not figured it out yet. In the wide eyes of the future king, Peter is a mythic hero. It is no wonder he is awestruck. Yet when Peter looks at the other boy, he addresses him by name. Names are a kindness. The kindness is not returned. It is not Peter they look to; the Old Narnians have made it clear that it is the High King that will save them. He yearns to shout that he cannot, to have it out of his hands, to tell them that Aslan will save them instead. But, as always, he swallows these fears. He has a solution, after all. Confused child though he is, he’s already come up with a solution. He could never leave them wanting. The Narnians have hung their hopes on him, and he hopes, in turn, that his answer will buy them time until Aslan acts. They cannot all fight. They cannot face Miraz in battle. So Peter does all he can do, and lets them bleed him dry instead.

XVI. "Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, High King over all Kings in Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion…”

It slips from his tongue as if rehearsal has become nature. By his own words, he is Peter first. Always, he is Peter first. By the gift of Aslan, he is all other titles, but even his most beloved titles are secondary to him. When the people called him Magnificent, he still begged in quiet repetition to be called Peter.

XVII. "There's a man for you! Uses his enemy's arm as a ladder. The High King! The High King! Up, Old Narnia!"

There is a secret here; a secret so old and buried that even Peter himself has almost forgotten it. Because the secret is, for all his fear and doubt and unworthiness, Peter loves his title as a part of him. The rousing cheers of Trumpkin remind him. He knows once more what it is to be High King: it is his greatest burden, but in equal measure, it is his greatest gift. The Narnians rise up with him. The Narnians’ strength is his strength. The High King is just Peter, but Peter is the High King.

XVIII. "But the other creatures all cheered and rose up in honour of Peter the High King, and Queen Susan of the Horn, and King Edmund and Queen Lucy."

When they rise up for the Kings and Queens, they rise up for Peter. It’s like forgiveness, almost, for being man instead of myth; permission to be a boy instead of a man. He does not feel the weight of his title here and now. The memory of the crown he once wore feels, in this moment, more like the flower chains Lucy used to place atop his head. In their cheers, Peter feels that even in the Narnians’ adoring eyes, he is Peter first. The High King will be remembered. Memory, however, is no longer legend.

XIX. "'I've never understood why they belong to Narnia,' said Caspian. 'Did Peter the High King capture them?'" [The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]

Edmund and Lucy don’t know why these words feel as fresh as the sea air, but neither can deny that they feel even more at home now that Caspian has said them. They don’t know how Caspian first referred to their brother, and they don’t know how it was wrong. They don’t know the way Caspian said “High King,” as if Peter were modelled in precious metal. Caspian does not see him that way any longer. Time and memory change things. Perhaps they make idols out of men, but they can, in fact, turn gold and stone into flesh again. Edmund and Lucy don’t know, but they don’t have to know. It’s enough to feel. In love, Peter comes first again. In love, they know when it is right. And so the air is clear when their brother’s name is said, and wounds are healed in a world far away.

XX. "I am one of the four ancient sovereigns of Narnia and you are under allegiance to the High King my brother."

The words are flung like stones, and Edmund knows not what he does. This is, in the end, Peter’s fear. “High King” is a title easily weaponized by greed and pride, and now Edmund clings to it even though it isn’t his to possess. It’s not his fault; Magic is often stronger than loyalty, and sometimes even loyalty doesn’t know it’s own rules. The words are a grievous error, but no one knows to correct them. As Edmund argues with Caspian - both still children beneath all their growth - Peter is thrown under their feet. He is nameless in pride. He becomes Edmund’s brother secondly, and only that so Edmund can lay claim to what he desires. It’s an unintended betrayal. No one will remember it. Magic is often stronger than anger, too.

XXI. "That look is in the face of all true kings of Narnia, who rule by the will of Aslan and sit at Cair Paravel on the throne of Peter the High King." [The Silver Chair]

The High King’s throne is not a physical place; Cair Paravel has long since fallen to ruin and been rebuilt on the coast. Peter never sat in the throne that sits there now… but it is his throne still. In the figure of the High King there still lies a truth which can never and must never be lost in the kingdom of Narnia. For all the ages that lie between them, the throne is still his. Yet the comparison does not lie in that figure; it lies instead in the person. The legend has changed; the narrative has ordered itself after him once again. Memory does not recall a mythic High King, crowned in gold and light. Instead, memory falls on a soft boy who grew into a good man. Memory falls on the flesh and bone rather than steel and gold. Memory falls on Peter.

XXII. "I charge you in the name of Aslan, speak to me. I am Peter the High King." [The Last Battle]

It has been said that who he is always comes first, and what he is always comes second. Sometimes that is only partly true. Sometimes there are names and titles of greater importance and truer power which must come first. As Peter clenches his fist and screws up his courage, it is to Aslan’s name he clings. As Peter asks the vision in front of him to speak, it is to Aslan’s power he appeals. And when, at the end of his address, he does mention his own name, it is not from a place of authority. It is a plea. “I am Peter,” he begs, “Peter the High King. You can trust me. You can speak to me.”

XXIII. “‘Sire,’ said Jill coming forward and making a beautiful curtsey, ‘let me make known to you Peter the High King over all Kings in Narnia.’”

To be High King means and has always meant many things to Peter. He’s 9 years older, now, than when he was first given the title, and he has lived 24 years since then. He barely remembers how in those first days it hardly carried any weight at all. It had been, at the time, his natural role. For him to take that responsibility had just made sense. But Peter feels it heavier now — he feels everything heavier. The weight of the crown has never left his mind, even after nearly a decade. Peter hadn’t known in those moments Aslan first spoke to him — when he first promised him all of this — what it would be to be King, let alone a king over others. Peter knows now, and he knows well. It is the weight of a world; it is blood and sweat and tears; it is the sting of the sword, and the crack of the whip on his own flesh. It is the crash of the ocean, and the salt on the table. It is the lilt of the music echoing through empty palace halls. It is the rhythm of dancing feet, and laughter through open windows, and the patterns in the stars. And, above all, it is not a burden; for all the hurt, it is instead a promise. Peter is the High King, and always will be. The High King is a boy named Peter.

XXIV. “Tirian had no need to ask which was the High King, for he remembered his face (though here it was far nobler) from his dream.”

And it lifts: the heart, the music, the feet, the head. Everything lifts. The heaviest weights mean little in the end. The heaviest weights are worth it all to bear. And Peter is noble now, isn’t he? He is noble to his brother and sister - maybe even to the sister who won’t admit to any of it. He is noble to the friends who seat him at the head of the table. He is noble even in the eyes of a king who bore weights Peter never did. Peter lifts the other king off his knees. Eyes lift. Everything lifts. The weights are lifted off.

XXV. "'Peter, High King of Narnia,' said Aslan. 'Shut the Door.'"

It is to Peter that the command is given: it’s given to the boy who faltered, who doubted: to the boy on his knees. It is Peter, after all, who slayed the wolf, well before he held any title. And yet, as always, his title follows. Once more, Peter will do that which only the High King can. Once more, Peter will serve. Once more, Peter will obey. Even if he falters, or doubts, or falls again to his knees, he will do what he has been charged to do. The door will shut. The key will turn. The weight will be forgotten. It is understood. Peter trusts now; trusts in a reason for his crown and his calling; trusts Aslan even where he didn’t before. There is no fear. In the moment, he feels it plainly.

#narnia #the chronicles of narnia #peter pevensie #the lion the witch and the wardrobe #prince caspian #the last battle #he is Peter the High King #not the High King Peter

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pi-creates · 3 years

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Top 5 Aasim Moments

Is anyone surprised that when CJ asked if people wanted to collaborate on a Top 5 post about a character that I’d choose my favourite pyro?

This was quite fun to talk about and I know everyone else who collaborated on this idea shared the sentiment. If you wanna check out some other lists:

@stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale talks about Louis @kaylee-wolf talks about James @taurusicorn2400 talks about Violet @akemi-rose578 talks about Ruby

Though in all seriousness, Aasim is probably one of my favourite characters from the whole series, and I feel like even as a side-character he has some very good moments that reflect well on who he is as a person. And while most of what we see are only small details, I like what those little details could mean if they were expanded upon.

So yeah, here are my personal Top 5 Aasim Moments from the Final Season.

5. “Aasim was the third.”

“Aasim said you knew how to survive. He could just tell that the school would be safer with you there. I voted for you because I liked you, but his reason, it was better.”

This is one of those things that I think sums up a lot about what kind of person Aasim is. He is thinking about the big picture and the long term consequences from a logical standpoint rather than a purely emotional one. Violet and Tenn have more emotional reasons for wanting Clementine and AJ to stay – and that is all fine and dandy, but I personally like the distinction that Tenn makes which implies that Aasim is trying to consider the future of everyone at the school.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been really nice to him or horrible, he sees Clementine and AJ as people they need to keep around if there’s some guy in the woods who has already taken some of the kids from the school before. It is simply a smarter move to keep the people who know how to survive close by when there may be an impending danger creeping around.

And I think it’s also really telling that he’s only known Clementine and AJ for a few days at the time of the vote, and he’s already gotten a read on their skills. It seems a little counter-intuitive given his sometimes awkward social abilities, but he’s clearly observant and using those observations to inform his decision making.

Plus on a personal level, I like that this shows Aasim as like a middle ground between Violet and Louis. Violet seems to vote in terms of Marlon deserving punishment, and therefore AJ did nothing wrong and shouldn’t receive any repercussions for his actions - whereas Louis just lost his friend and knows that AJ is a threat, and he’s voting from an emotional standpoint where he’s hurt and isn’t focusing on the future because of it.

I find both those mentalities realistic and in-character, but too extreme - Aasim is upset by the death of his friends, he acknowledges that Marlon had made some bad decisions, but he still votes for the pair to stay. He feels like the only character who is listening to the explanations and processing things clearly.

Overall, I really like the way that Tenn tells us about this moment – I just wish that maybe this revelation came earlier in the plot so that we could potentially bring up the discussion with Aasim and thank him, or hear more of his thoughts overall.

4. Going hunting for rabbits

The only pure, one-on-one interaction you can have with Aasim. And I just wish there were more moments like this.

I like that Aasim will ask Clementine if she’s a good shot – and he will take her word for it and let her help without any undercurrent of doubt. And if you do well, he’s quick to say that it’s thanks to you that they’ll end up with more rabbits than expected today.

It’s just nice, ya know? It’s an acknowledgement that we are making an effort and it is appreciated.

And it once again gives you more insight into his priorities – he cares about the group and is hoping that Clem shares his mentality of prioritising the group’s wellbeing and survival first. That she is ok with putting the work in to make sure that they not only get through today, but tomorrow and the next.

Perhaps this is all down to personal preference – but in this series I really really like meeting characters with that mentality. There are too many groups that we meet who don’t have long-term plans, or their plan is essentially to make it up as they go along, take what they need and screw the consequences.

Forward thinking is a really good quality to have in the environment they’re all stuck in, and this scene cements that. I just wish there were more scenes where I could reciprocate having this mentality and potentially find a way to corroborate ideas on where the school is heading.

3. Standing up for Clementine and AJ during the Marlon drama

This is technically spread out between two parts – how Aasim deals with the twin revelation, and also how he deals with the aftermath of AJ shooting Marlon.

It is a very tense situation, emotions are running high, everyone has just learned some unhappy secrets, they are trying to process that Brody has just died, and a gun is being passed around like a hot potato and pointed everywhere. A lot of the kids are confused and unsure if what they’re hearing is truth or lie.

And naturally, since Marlon doesn’t want the truth to come out like that, he isn’t trying to clear things up. If he doesn’t let Clem explain either and simply paints her as the threat and the liar then it is easier for him to gloss over the details. And in reality, no one wants to believe someone they trusted would hide something so heavy from them – and some people would rather continue to trust them because that feels better. That makes us feel like we haven’t been betrayed.

But Aasim doesn’t do that. He wants to hear the story, and he makes sure he shuts Marlon down in his attempts to stop Clementine from explaining herself. Keep in mind, this is also at a time when Marlon has the gun, and is threatening to shoot Clem if she doesn’t shut up. To speak up at all in this moment is dangerous, especially when you are siding against the person with the gun.

I know that the main point of this scene is to appeal to either Louis or Violet – but we shouldn’t forget that we didn’t need to appeal to Aasim for him to stand up for you in his own way. He does that for himself because it’s the right thing to do – you let people explain themselves when something happens. He might not get in the middle of the fight like Louis or Violet, but I still appreciate that he picks up that something is wrong and gives Clem the opportunity to speak up.

Yet of course, we know what happens at the end of that episode regardless of how we play this final scene.

Marlon gets shot. AJ doesn’t understand why everyone is angry. Violet pulls her cleaver out and tells Clem and AJ to go inside, while pretty much everyone else is stuck somewhere between wanting to punch someone and bursting into tears.

While everyone is stuck in this limbo of anger and sadness, Clem leads AJ back towards the dorms. And Mitch isn’t pleased in the slightest and pulls his little knife on the duo. And this is the second time in this whole drama that Aasim steps in to deescalate.

If you choose the silent option [...] or let the timer run out on this choice, Aasim will tell Mitch off, telling him to stop and that what he is doing isn’t helping.

It’s a little thing, but if people have seen me comment on argumentative scenes in these game, I don’t like when characters don’t know how to deescalate. So having a character blatantly point out how fighting fire with fire sometimes just causes a bigger fire and burns everyone – yeah, I appreciate that. Any character who deescalates is a good thing in this series.

2. Watching out for his friends on the boat

Imagine being on that boat, being scared and hearing your friends in clear distress, when suddenly someone appears to break you out – and instead of simply saying “great, get me the hell outta here”, Aasim and Omar wait for Clem to attend to Louis/Violet first.

They know that the highest priority at that moment isn’t them, it’s their friend who has received more direct attention from Lilly.

But then of course things get worse and Clem gets caught too. And Regardless of who is captured, the first thing Clementine hears when trying to find an escape is Aasim asking her if she’s alright. Thanks for checking in, Aasim, that’s a good friend move there.

And that’s his whole thing with the boat – he is watching out for everyone else there. He watches out for Clem who just got there, and in the escape from the boat he is either being the shoulder for Omar to lean on, or he beelines over to Louis to support him after his ordeals from being captured.

He just... aaah, he’s being a good friend and trying to help. It isn’t self-preservation that drives his actions, it’s the preservation of the group as a whole. After everything that happened on that boat, I don’t think we could blame the characters if they wanted to hightail it out of there without thinking. Aasim doesn’t forget about his friends in spite of how scared he tells us he is. How can I see this and not think he’s just an incredible friend to have in the apocalypse?

1. Protecting Willy from the raiders

This is another point with two parts.

The first part is obvious – Mitch has just been stabbed in the throat, and Willy is prepared to run out there into the thick of things. It is only Aasim being quick to grab a hold of him that stops the boy from meeting a similar fate.

And it’s awful to think about – Mitch was a friend to both of them, they’re both probably shocked, hurting, and they don’t have the time to do anything about it. They can’t save him, it’s too late, and they can’t mourn him or do anything. Somehow, Aasim can at least keep his head clear enough to stop Willy from getting himself hurt too. And I can’t help but feel how bad that must hurt emotionally too, to be forced to hold everything back because you have to prioritise everything else over your friend who is dying.

Yet they don’t break. They keep moving. It takes a lot of inner strength to not crumble, and these two manage.

But then there is the second part to this point – and hear me out, we’re entering speculation territory.

The raid continues, and the kids carry on with their plan and fall-back to the admin building. They set off their traps, end up stuck up stairs, and Abel decides to throw a molotov towards them. In the next moment Clem and AJ go into the headmaster’s office, and Aasim and Willy turn and move somewhere down the hallway.

We don’t see either of them again until Clem is outside and given the choice to save Louis or Violet. And when we do see them, it’s seeing Aasim unconscious in the back of the cart, and then Willy suddenly appears behind Clem as he exits the admin building.

…

How?

Aasim and Willy were together when we last saw them, and yet somehow Aasim got caught and Willy stayed in the admin building somewhere?

It doesn’t make sense to me. Aasim had been shown as the one who would be less likely to get caught out of the pair. And surely if they managed to get Aasim they should have been able to more easily get Willy too, right? So why didn’t they?

The most logical answer I can come up is that Aasim got caught while attempting to keep Willy hidden from the other raiders. Whether he was playing distraction and got caught in that task, or if he simply didn’t have time to hide/run after Willy got somewhere safe, in either case I feel like that’s a huge risk to take to save someone else.

But he does that, and I think it’s an incredibly selfless move to make. And I really do believe he will do that - I believe he cares enough to go the extra mile to keep his friends safe.

And I want the details. I love everything that is implied in these moments, but I want those details solidified.

That is the thing about me adoring Aasim as a character - there’s less concrete information to latch onto, but what is there is good.

Are there any other things I missed that you guys love? Let me know - always happy to talk about the pyro.

#twdg #twdg s4 #twdg talk #twdg t5f #twdg aasim

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darkalleywayexpress · 4 years

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Your destiny is written from the day you’re born. Part 3

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Rated M

Warning: non-con sex, oral, violence, abuse.

This is based off The Devil All the Time. Specifically Lee Bodecker. Ideas be taken from the original story of course.

Note: First time writing. Please give feedback. I don’t mind constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy.

P.S. Im really bad at using this website. I find it hard lmao. So please give me time as I grown accustom to it. Thank you! (I have another fic in mind- though it will be darkSteve, but I'm not sure if I should do it or not. If y'all would like it please let me know.) :)))))))))

It’s my wedding day and I still don’t feet like ‘myself’. I feel like a withering leaf in fall on it’s last leg before it completely disappears. Not knowing where I truly stand I felt like I’m trapped, my heart palpating so much it hurts. All the days prior to this day I was unable to sleep, the consistent worrying in my head never faded away. As if my heart and brain knew something that I couldn’t fully comprehend yet. I’m left to fully rely on him not having any income of my own any longer since I was expected to quit work, due to the fact that the sheriffs wide would not be able to work or else people will start talking. Also taking in mind that people started talking, which got me to worry more. Rumors. As my mom put it. But don’t rumors have to stem off of some truth first?Though what I was able to comprehend from everything up until now was how much I hated myself. How big of an idiot I am. How I’m so weak to the point that I can even allow myself to be in every situation that I’ve ever been in. Staring straight at my reflection with the wedding gown he chose for me. Simple, just like me. I can care less about what I’m wearing and instead just truly want this horrendous day over. I can care less about what I’m wearing and instead just want the day over. My room door opens, my youngest brother Sam (who is still older than myself) walks in.

“Psst. Mrs. Bodecker.” With a grin smothered on his face. Seeing my reflection on the mirror he asks “you okay?”

“What am I doing?” Holding my tears back, though its hard my shell breaking.

“Well if you were to ask me I would say throwing yourself in fire. But it’s too late for that now, aint it?” He stops to grab both my hands in his own. “don’t worry y/n everything outta be alright. Before you even know it you’ll be much happier there than here with us. I should be getting down, and you should come soon too. You know how Pa and the others get when it comes to waiting.”

He leaves and I begin crying staring at my reflection. Have I truly thrown myself in flames? I wish I had a loving Pa who would save me from everything and everyone. Who would put me first before anyone else. Saying something along the lines of “Your happiness is what’s most important”. Maybe then I would’ve never been in this situation.

I make my way down. I see Lee standing looking up at me as I walk down. This ain’t the traditional way. But I guess that goes with everything. If I wasn’t the one getting married to him I would think he looks handsome today. They all get ready to head out.

I can’t do this. “I can’t do this.”

My faces back to look at me, her eyes wide open. “Y/n?”

“Mom. I can’t do this. I can’t follow through this marriage.”

“Y/n.” She repeats herself more sternly this time.

Lee scoffs. Frowning but at the same time he seems like he is holding in his laughter. Laughter?

“Y/n, what do you mean I can’t get married?” He asks calmly. His head slightly moving side to side.

“I’m so sorry Lee. I just can’t.” I hold onto my dress running up the stairs, footsteps following behind me. My brothers voice speaking from a distance. He must be speaking to Lee. Before I can make it back to my room my Ma catches up to me yanking my arm, to stop me and get my attention.

“I had dreams for myself too. A dream where we both could’ve been happy. Where we both could’ve been. Not living with Pa and getting beat just because he felt like it - jjust because he was too drunk and he couldn’t think straight! Not a dream where I would marry I man I didn’t even know. Ma, please don’t make me do this. Ma, I beg of you.” I’m at her feet at this point my legs not being able to hold me straight up any longer. Swaying back and forth. Have I lost it?

She kneels down to look me in the face “It’s too late for that now y/n. Give me a chance, just this once? Lee’s a good man. He’ll take care of ya and your future kids. He got voted Sheriff honey now that ain’t so easy. You wont have to worry about nothing, he’ll be the man you deserve. Holding my hands. Compassion. I don’t have much of a choice do I. If I don’t get married Dad’ll beat me to death. Collecting myself I soon head down.

Lee, sitting down on the beat up sofa. I make my way to him. Mom and Sam leaving us alone. He doesn’t look up at me, his head still in his hands. I don’t blame him. I can’t. To be in his shoes, I can’t even imagine. “Lee.”

“Are you alright?” He asks with what seems like genuine concern in his voice.

I nod. “Cold feet as ladies say it. I’m sorry.”

He nods. Putting his hand out forth for me to hold.

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The ceremony at the Church happens so fast and before I even notice we are having our celebration in the backyard that all the folks have it during summer, accept for us it’s in fall.

We sit at the table where the couples tend to sit and people coming forth to congratulate us. I drink for the first time to help ease myself, as I have heard it helps. Luckily Lee was answering all their warm wishes and questions if any. All I’m focusing on is keeping all the warmth I have with this little cropped fur coat. Paying attention to people chattering and drinking away. Harold? What is he doing here? I look to find mom in the crowd. Her eyes already looking at me sternly. What am I supposed to do? The weather gets colder and somehow, I start sweating.

“Congratulations on your marriage.” He says staring only at me, causing me to instinctively look at Lee whom is staring at me and him. “I really didn’t expect ya to get married y/n, especially to someone so old compared to ya self. But I guess it’s expected I mean ya Pa ain’t the nicest.” Harold says all the while grinning. I can feel Lee gripping onto my wrist. Tightly.

“Who the fuck do you think you are coming to my wedding and spewing all this shit to me. Boy.” Lee standing up so quickly from his seat the chair topples away. I grab onto Lee, holding him back so he doesn’t fight with Harold. Harold laughs which causes Lee to punch him square to his jaw. And before I even can do anything else a full fight breaks between the two and I just stand there watching as I cry inside.

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Harold was left bloody. And Lee and I head home. My new ‘home’. Lee slams the door after himself. Fisting my hands so tightly I think my nails are breaking the skin on my palms. Defensive. I feel the need to be defensive.

“Who are you Lee? Are you someone who just thinks out of anger and isn’t able to talk to resolve conflict? Or are you the person that the town loves so much.” The alcohol is truly hitting me hard.

“Forget about be. Who the fuck are you?” He says moderately loud “Start fucking talking or I bet ya it ain’t gonna be good for ya Hon.” I can’t reply it’s like my tongue is cut off. “Who the fuck was that kid?”

Swallowing. “I don’t have to answer you. I – I ain’t your property.” I turn heading to any room with a door at this point.

BANG. He slams his hand against the wall. “DO NOT! Do not walk away from me when I ask you a question.”

I bawling at this point, not turning around to look him. “Mmaybe we aren’t mean’t to be L-lee. Why didn’t you just marry some other girl from this town.”

And before he says anything else I open the first door my eyes hold onto and shut it after myself. Sitting down on the bed I cry. Noticing soon enough that it must be his room. The door opens, Lee walking in to sit beside me.

I get up facing what would be the window, but is covered due to the blinds “Ccould you just give me sometime alone? Ple” his right hand grabs me from my jaw to make me look straight at him.

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I please.” He spits out. Grabbing my fur coat and rips is off my body, turning me around so he can unlace my dress. He pushes me face forward to the mattress, I begin crying to scared to move. I here rustling behind me. Him behind me soon, smelling me. “We could’ve had it so nice but you really wanted to be a bitch. I really did want to take it nice and slow but you really lost that chance and instead I think it’s time for a lesson.”

And it all happens in a blink of an eye. Him putting his manhood in me. I grunt due to the foreign feeling in me. Is it suppose to hurt? “Oh hon, is it your first time he says while staring in between my legs.” I nod, my hands go up covering my face. “Honey, why didn’t you tell me? Is that why you were acting up? Cause you were scared?” He laughs, and stops his rhythm to move my hands away from my face. Kissing me. His hand exploring around my body, kneeding my breats slowly and softly. My hands instinctively go to his own, he grabs onto mine. Putting it on either side of my head, slowly moving his body again. In between my legs begin to feel hotter, wetter. Pain and pleasure mixing together. Clenching an unknown feeling washing over me, he soon whines? Breathing gets harder and sharper and soon stills. I stay still as he gets up to turn the lights off. Pulling the covers over the both of us, his left arm thrown over my body. Eventually drifting to sleep through silent crys.

#The Devil All The Time #lee bodecker #lee bodecker x reader #dark!lee bodecker #tdatt #tdatt fic #tdatt x reader #Dark Fic

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clanwarrior-tumbly · 3 years

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So, hear me out. SDRA2 void cast react to their S/O going through a execution on a false accusation? (Think Kaede)

(No Mikado here bc since he’s the mastermind I doubt he would let such a scenario happen but would if this was someone else’s s/o)

Ik you wanted Shinji too so enjoy!

..........

Iroha

“WHAAAAAAAT?!!! No way could s/o be capable of a murder that complicated!!”

It seemed impossible, indeed, but when the vote turns out to be correct--the painter drops her sketchbook in shock.

You didn’t think you could have, either. Maybe someone was impersonating you while committing the crime and Monocrow missed that?

But he didn't make a mistake. The vote was right. If it was wrong....everyone would've been dead already after learning of the real culprit.

Yet everyone was still standing there silently, questioning your reasons.

However before you can say anything, Iroha starts yelling and crying.

“S/o did nothing!! Th-They...They had to be f-framed, right? Can we do a revote????"

Mikado goes to tell her to shut up and accept that you were gonna die, but you hug her, mumbling apologies. You were scared to leave her..feeling that something was wrong.

Her heart shatters when she later overhears you were both right: you got framed and executed brutally for a crime you didn’t commit.

Emma

Her skepticism is very much real and not something she'll brush aside easily.

She tearfully pleads with you to defend yourself. To say something. Anything.

But..what could you say? From how Sora laid out everything, it seems plausible you were the culprit. And you couldn't help but give up.

Out of anger Emma confesses to being a Void in hopes people would suspect her instead.

Even so..the shocking revelation doesn't give her the reactions she hoped. And she can only watch in sadness as you're voted and...it's correct.

After that she seems defeated, but suddenly claims that she knew from the start it was you and only used her acting skills to try to divert everyone from the truth.

But you knew better. You saw the real her in those moments--she defended you and took a risk outing herself as a Void. You knew that couldn't have been scripted.

And you see it again when she breaks down, hugs you, and begs Monocrow not to kill you yet.

But you're taken by the chain and ripped out of her arms, watching you be executed.

As if her heart wasn't already broken enough...Monocrow regrettably admits that you weren't the true culprit. The real one hid their tracks too well--even from him.

She immediately blames Mikado for rigging the system and decides to abandon Void for good.

No plan was worth following if it meant she had to watch you--the one who helped her most--die right before her eyes.

Hajime

No..this can’t be right..

You? Committed murder? He thought something was amiss. It was a gut feeling.

But Mikado seemed unusually eager for Monocrow to get to the voting time.

"H-Hey guys..I think we made a mistake somewhere.."

"Where?" Sora questions. "If you think I did, speak up. We wanna have full confidence in our decision."

'...fuck.'

Even when he tries to prove your innocence, he can't get anyone on his side. Not even you who seemed to accept you were the culprit.

The vote turns out correct, and he's heartbroken that it was true--he and everyone would live and you would die painfully.

He lets you take his jacket to your execution, unable to look away as you leave and try to endure the torment for as long as you can....before your body finally gives out.

It ended as soon as it began. Hajime just had to blink and...you were gone.

Later he confronted Mikado on his eagerness, and learns something horrifying:

The wizard was the true culprit of the case, but the killing was accidental and if he died, he'd miss out on the plan. So he deflected the blame onto you.

Nikei

He definitely knew something wasn’t right when you became accused of the murder.

Even when Sora laid out the whole story and the vote was correct--he still couldn’t accept that. It just..didn’t sit right with him at all.

He starts demanding what Mikado was up to, seeing the wizard feign pity for you.

You seem resigned to your fate, so you mistook Nikei’s growing anger for you being the murderer--rather than him believing you were innocent.

“Nikei, I’m sorry..I-I did something terrible and you don’t have to forgive me--”

“NO!! You were framed!!” He screams. “Mikado rigged the goddamn system...Monocrow knows what really happened!!”

But the crow stays unusually silent, even as he drags you to your execution.

And when it comes time for Nikei’s later on, Mikado sends him off with one more horrifying truth to crush him with despair:

“You’re right. Your dearly departed s/o was innocent. But I knew you also defected from Void because of them...so their execution served as a lesson to you, but you never learn, do you?”

Shinji

"COME ON EVERYONE!!! DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS SO QUICKLYYY!"

Despite the enthusiasm in his voice, it's clear that it's waning as all the evidence points to you being the culprit.

Even so, he refuses to believe it-- being as stubborn as back in Hajime's trial (or even more stubborn) to the bitter end.

"Shinji..that's enough. If that's what they believe then...they must be right. They've been right every other time."

"B-But..why would you--?!!"

It pains him when the vote is correct.

There's no mistaking it: you killed someone and didn't get away with it.

He loses his trademark smile fast, but you manage to console him and tell him not to blame himself for this....before you're dragged off to your execution.

Imagine his anger when it's later revealed you died only because the evidence was made to point directly to you...but the real culprit came forward and admitted they didn't mean to cover their tracks enough to fool Monocrow.

He wants to understand their reasons..their motivations..why not just be honest?

Though he can't find it in his heart to hate them--that's not what you would've wanted.

#clanask #anonymous #sdra2 x reader #iroha nijiue #iroha nijiue x reader #emma magorobi #emma magorobi x reader #hajime makunouchi #hajime makunouchi x reader #nikei yomiuri #nikei yomiuri x reader #shinji kasai #shinji kasai x reader #angst #sdra2 spoilers #headcanons

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