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go-to-the-mirror · 1 year

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HEY WELL AT LEAST THEY'RE NONBINARY RIGHT?

he/they jonbinary rights. also oh god oh fuck, time for MAG 132.

@a-mag-a-day

CW: canon- typical suicidal ideation and attempt, canon-typical self sacrificial tendencies. Both discussed more frankly than in the actual podcast.

Also, I'm allowing myself free use of my reaction images (with image descriptions) because I'm in SHAMBLES. Mostly words though.

ARCHIVIST Hello, Melanie. I know I said we’d wait until Basira was back, but I don’t… I’m sorry. I know she won’t… She’d want to do it a different way.

headinhands

Wish me luck. Although, I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I didn’t have any.

The way he says "wish me luck" with that levity and then just hhh like yk joking is one his coping mechanisms for like, crushing fear and grief and stuff, and just the way they SAY it just makes me want to CRY, AAA

I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. When does the fear go away?

I remember in my first listen, this line stood out to me, I was in shambles, shambles. "When does the fear go away" I'm so, so sorry Jon.

[ID: Drawing of a person sitting at a computer, hands covering their face, crying. /End ID]

Anyway, I’m sorry. You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. I know you’d stop me. You’d be right to, but … But if this goes wrong, all you lose is … I’m not risking anyone else.

This is a suicide note. Now, he's hoping he'll get out -- probably -- maybe -- but that. It is. Similar. The apology. All you lose is another monster. He might get stuck there forever, he's terrified, he's doing this for someone he doesn't even like out of guilt, out of the crushing -- ha -- amount of guilt, over Tim, over Daisy, over Martin and Basira and Melanie, over his... victims.

In case I don't make it. In case I don't get lucky.

Jonny stop making this podcast so good I'm going to cry.

Let’s do this one properly.

A reference to the Unknowing, where they... did not do it properly.

Stone steps. Roughly hewn. They… They keep going.

Just wanted to point out that he's like, ooh, information gathering. For information's sake, for the people in Artefacts. I think it's neat that he's doing this, and it's a way that makes sense in the world to let us know what's going on. Like how in Malevolent, Arthur's blind and John describes stuff in eloquent detail like some sort of poet or whatever, the statement givers describe the environment and people in their statements, and Jon is describing The Buried.

[The Archivist struggles forward]

Jon's voice in this, it sounds like they're confined, Jonny did a great job on the voice acting there. And the soundscaping in general is like, oh boy claustrophobia time! It's so good.

ARCHIVIST I heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. He said he couldn’t breathe. I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him, but I am not here for him. I don’t even know him.

The Buried and putting you under the crushing weight of responsibility? Jon went into the coffin because he felt 'crushing' guilt over Tim's death and Daisy's imprisonment in the coffin, and the whole mess that The Unknowing was. In the coffin he's being called by others, and the responsibility of their safety is put on him. Now obviously it's not the other victims who are at fault, however it's interesting that The Buried does that. Perhaps that's how it makes people stay in it, alongside the spooky magic. With putting the responsibility of others on them, making them dig themselves a hole, and not be able to climb out. But Jon has Daisy's tapes as an anchor, he has a purpose, and so he can press on without getting too weighed down?

Just some thoughts.

For all this place closes around me, I feel adrift, like nothing can get through the dirt and the muck and …

This reminds me of how a lot of people say that The Buried and The Vast are quite similar, as an example -- the statement in MAG 195 - Adrift could be either Buried or Vast, big creature, but also crushing depths of water and drowning, but also lots of water. Also the categorizations aren't really like that, again like gender and colours.

The air is heavy – soil and dust. I am very thirsty, but I know I won’t die of it.

Two fun facts about me!

1. I used to live in a desert and the air was like weighted blanket air. I loved it.

2. I used to forget to drink water a lot, and I'd go days where I'd drink like... a glass? Now I drink a minimum of two glasses a day because meds, which has really helped lessen the constant headaches lol. Yea um. Drink water, kiddos.

[He struggles to breath as the Buried squeezes him. The Buried relaxes.]

THE SOUND EDITORS THIS EPISODE WERE KILLING IT!

DAISY —just alone. I think, I think … I hear this, sometimes, singing, when it’s wet. Or, or scratching, trying to get out. But I don’t … I don’t think there’s anyone there. It’s just been me, until now.

Fay Roberts did an excellent job as well. The voice acting <333 10/10 no notes, or like yes notes, and the notes are Feeling Claustrophobic well done.

ARCHIVIST It’s okay, I’ve, uh … I’ve got a plan. DAISY This like all your other plans?

If by "all [their] other plans" she means impulsive, borderline suicidal, and likely to fail... yes.

ARCHIVIST No. I know where we are. There is no out. Not here. This is … This is forever deep below creation, where the weight of existence bears down. This is the Buried, and we are alive. There isn’t even an up. Oh God. What have I done? What have I done?

I really like the way he delivers that line, especially the "This is the Buried, and we are alive" and "Oh God" parts.

DAISY Not alone, though? ARCHIVIST No. No, not alone.

[ID: A blurry screenshot of CC!GoodTimesWithScar from his stream. He's a bit further away from the camera than usual for streams, and has his head in his hands. /End ID]

DAISY Scared. I’m scared. I’ve been scared the whole time here, not just when it’s crushing, when it fills your mouth with dirt. It knows when to stop, or when to ease back so you don’t lose it or grow numb. Leaves you terrified for when it starts again, and when it does, you’re scared it’ll never stop.

My friend, Jay Mapleejay -- who you should follow by the way, @/mapleejay or @/mapleeowl everywhere -- once wondered how the Domains in the Eyepocolypse kept people afraid without the memory loss like in MAG 170. And there's your answer probably.

Also :(

The Hunt was me, but I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me need it.

Idk what to say, just like this line.

I don’t … I don’t know who I am without the chase. I just know that I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want to be better.

Same for this.

ARCHIVIST One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Themes of choice in The Magnus Archivessssss this podcast makes me abnormal in so many ways <333

ARCHIVIST And now? DAISY Don’t know. I miss dreaming. You don’t sleep down here. ARCHIVIST Daisy, you should know I’m … If I wasn’t human before, I’m even less human now. DAISY Yeah, well. At the moment, I don’t care. ARCHIVIST And if we get out? DAISY But we can’t get out. [The Earth shifts.] (The Archivist grunts in pain.) DAISY (Pained) I’m sorry. I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry.

I just really like this exchange :(

[The coffin door creaks open and, groaning with effort, the Archivist and Daisy crawl out into the office. There are many tape recorders playing in the background.] [...] ARCHIVIST Tape recorders. M-must be dozens of them.

The Web my absolute beloathed. Now, I love Martin K-Anchor Blackwood as much as the next hopeless (a)romantic, however I don't think that it was Martin's love for Jon that pulled Jon out The Buried, I think it was The Web. Well, The Web definitely influenced Martin, however we do know that The Web has used their... undying love for one another against them *cough cough* *wink wink* *nudge nudge*, so it could have been the act of Martin leaving the tape recorders, but my personal theory is that it was just The Web. Uh oh, Jo(h)n (/ref).

Anyway! Ain't it great! Daisy's back! Jon isn't constantly alone!

He...

I'm going to have a lot of talking to do come MAG 136.

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grasslandgirl · 2 years

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im not even looking at the questions so heres a surprise mix for you: 11, 18, 32, 39, 1, and 4 have fun bestie

i love u i love u i love u

1. Which of your fics would you keep the basic plot of but rewrite completely?

truly wholeheartedly wish i had the energy and the motivation to rework my av tatbilb au. [you gonna break my heart, sammy?] i loved the concept and spent six months hammering away at it and by the end i was just tired of it and wanted it to be done, and i feel like the ending is rushed and hollow because of it. it was the longest thing i'd ever written or posted at the time- over three years ago, now- and while im really proud of the fact that i planned it out and wrote it and actually finished it, i do think i could and can do it better. spend more time fleshing it out, make it feel less like a trite reworking of the original, dont rush the get together at the end, etc.

idk if i ever will. but maybe some day

4. Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

:)) well. it depends on how you define oc's, but they're pretty close.

and yes ive written SO many stories for them, there's so much lore and extended universes and multiverses.... god. insane. shout out to dnau's. if you know you know etc

11. Three tropes that are fine but overrated.

oooh uh. hm. idk if it's a trope, necessarily, but like supernatural creature/ mermaid au's aren't really my jam- especially when those aren't themes or elements in the canon material, it just always feels so jarring and its hard for me to acclimate to enough to suspend my disbelief

a more traditional trope, i HATE the shotgun proposal trope at the end of a story/movie, especially when they havent been together longer than a year- they should NOT be getting married it will NOT stop their problems

uh also in fic im wary of kid fics, if only bc most people who write kid fics do NOT know how to write children and will write the most intelligent eloquent four year old in the world like. dude. talk to children before you make them central in ur fic. sorry.

18. First, second, or third person?

third, primarily. but given the right circumstances and personal heaspace ive been known to dabble in first and second.

32. Do you have a word/expression that you always use in your writing?

i'm always a sucker for the classic italicized Oh. moment, personally [insert essay about breath in the narrative and how impactful giving your characters AND your readers moments to breathe within the story can be]

but i also really enjoy a- to quote casey, who reads and edits a vast majority of my writing bc she's wonderful- "one sentence paragraph" i think it can be a really fun and a really impactful kind of narrative punch moment and can spice up the rhythm of your writing

as for like specific expressions that i use or over use, im sure i have them i just can't think of any off the top of my head- i write how i talk a lot, so i know a lot of my sav-isms and style of speech leaks into my writing but idk if im self aware enough to notice the explicit patterns yet (if you have noticed patterns/repeated phrases, please let me know!! id love to hear them svkjnsfk)

39. Wildest AU scenario you have written?

this is an impossible question skjfvnskfjvns ive written SO many au's for so many CRAZY concepts that like. the scale of which is the wildest is purely subjective, and im not the one to ask bc i wrote all of them skfjvnskfjv

ive also got a TON of unused crazy au ideas in my docs/ idea lists that i haven't used or written yet so like.... comparatively the ones i HAVE published are pretty tame skjvnksfj

all that said. my eldonado fic Happiest is insane just bc of the sheer self indulgence of it, i wrote them doing a play i did in highschool, and i gave sam the role that i played. can you say #projection ?

ty ty ty ty jamie- for someone who picked a bunch of random numbers you really happened to pick a bunch of questions that are really relevant to us skjvnskfjvnsf

send me writers asks from this list!!

#asks #mwah mwah mwah mwah jimbles i love u thank u this was very fun

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jamwich · 6 years

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Y'know, you could just make up accents in dnd. Tried to give ur character an Australian accent and failed? Well, there is no Australia in this fantasy universe, but there is conceivably a settlement of people who all speak in an accent which sounds, to our ears, like really bad Australian.

What I'm saying is just use the worst fuckong voices for all ur characters and if u get called out on then just say it's how people talk in fricking green-mushrooms or wherever ur character comes from. Make your party suffer.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #i wish id said this more eloquently #but u get the idea

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monsoonblooms12 · 3 years

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Eumoiriety (Ethan x f!MC)

Summary: Four Years of Pooja Sharma's Birthday, from her first year as an Intern to her first year as an Attending.

Eumoiriety: Happiness due to state of innocence and purity💕

A/N: It's my baby's birthday and I went overboard. This is purely self indulgent and since I have zero to negative self control, this turned out way longer than I expected it to. Anyway, I hope you still like it💙

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey X f!MC (Pooja Sharma)

Word Count: around 3.7K (I am sorry!)

Rating: General

Category: A bit angst, A bit fluff

Warnings: None that I saw.

Prompts: @choicesaugustchallenge Day 29 - Birthday

READ ON AO3

Intern Year:

She walks barefoot on the green floor as the dews clinging to grass tips, soothe her like the cold breeze on a summer day.

A few golden rays filter through the canopy that acts as a barrier to the shining sun overhead. When they fall on the grass, the view looks like gold intermixed with emerald.

She wears a white gown, which flutters behind her, as her heart dances with the bees going flower to flower to get their prize of nectar in return for their favour of pollinating them.

There is a calm spreading through her soul, an ease, a slow infusion of tranquillity with her heart beats.

A swish makes her turn. Her eyes capture a silhouette, drifting farther and farther, as if taking her calm along with it.

It's replaced by restlessness.

There is a cajole, a whispered cajole, that urges her feet to run, her mind to think, her heart to wonder.

She follows. One step, and another.

The scene changes.

There are no more trees, no more green with the sun's shine.

At a distance, the waves crash on the sandy shore, their meet with their shore echoing in the silent surroundings.

She looks around and sees it.

The silhouette, now apparent that it was a man, standing with his back to her. He looks unbothered. As if he stole her peace and gave her his unrest in return.

She tries to walk slowly towards, footsteps imprinting on the sand, but the distance never seems to lessen or end.

She tries running, but to no avail.

The waves continue crashing, the footprints continue to get imprinted and the man continues to remain still and silent.

The only change has been in the sky, which is now leaden, dark with humongous clouds.

The thunder begins to cackle.

Once, Twice, Thrice.

She closes her ears with her hands, eyes shut to reduce the impact of the thunderous noise reverberating through every single one of her bones. But the roar keeps getting louder and louder until...

Her eyes snap open, but the echo from her sweven doesn't leave her. She turns around to find her phone ringing, straining her eyes with incredulous bright light (that she forgot to dim). The caller ID is barely registered, but the voice gives away the identity.

It's her sister.

With a flash, all the haze from the peculiar dream gets lost and bubbly happiness takes up the emptied space.

It's their birthday.

The first one since she came here. She had been so busy unknotting the twisted knots of circumstances in which she found herself tangled, that she had forgotten about the once unforgettable occasion of her life.

Maybe she has really lost that childhood she held on so tightly to, she thinks.

But not without a hope. Of a chance to get it back.

Maybe differently.

But the want to relive those carefree days, where the colour of pens you get as gifts, and the decision of who gets the piece of cake with the chocolate masterpiece on it were the only things that held importance. All other worldly, societal woes were secondary, trivial, uncared for.

She wishes her sister and she wishes her back.

3..2..1.. Happy Birthday! To Us!

They scream-whisper together, carrying on the years' long tradition.

The only thing different? They were on their cellulars, ecospheres apart, instead of snuggling and shouting together, and annoying their brother for an entire day.

Subconsciously, a tee-hee escapes her. Thinking about her brother, she takes a look at the clock. Correct 12:03 am on 12th August. If she knows him, he is probably counting the seconds.

At 12:05 am to the dot, another shrill echoes through the silent apartment. Her guess is correct.

On the other side of the screen, sits Idhayan arranging the cake so that Pooja can see the eloquent buttercream designs he has hand made on it.

In the background, there is a blurry motion. It turns out to be Alekhya.

She jumps onto the couch beside their brother, putting an end to his steady concentration.

He makes an irritated face, while she laughs.

And Pooja just watches, giggling alone.

The pang in her chest reminds her, once & once more, about just how much she misses them.

How empty, monochromatic her life is, with all these miles between them.

For the past year, every time any event took a turn for the worse, broke her, or hurt her, she wanted to go back to her safe haven.

The place where the chronicles of her life begun.

Many times, she had found herself convinced (by others as well as her self doubting mind) that she didn't belong here. That she didn't have the calibre, the skills to strive in this fight of dogs, in this race of horses where she felt like a donkey.

Or maybe a snail.

She dreamed of sleeping in her mother's lap when she first found herself in the crossroads of feelings and reason. Making her muddled head clear with words that never crossed the barrier between dream and reality.

When Mrs Martinez died, she imagined herself sitting on the swing, her brother's comfort brownies reduced to messy crumbs, as she let the mountain winds take away the burden of dread that pressed upon her heart.

And the day when Landry's backstab became eminent? She visualized her sister ripping him down, shredding him with knives of words because that's what he deserved.

She knew her father would have made them both coffee like he always did when he came home during breaks from piloting. He would have said a mere few words, which would have been enough for her to see the path ahead.

The mini virtual celebration ends, and the silence settles again. Tendrils of sleep come and go, but never stay.

She is left alone with her thoughts and worries, and a fear of the unknown which is hidden by the curtains of the future.

--------

The day passes like a swift blowing wind in a desert.

It's quiet, too quiet.

And probably for the first time in her life, she adores it. To be away from the hustle of a celebration, which would have been a noise in the cacophony, given the situation.

To get a period of silence for her thoughts to drift away, to think about the unknown, to predict a make or break.

The pages are turned swiftly by her fingers, one of which is clad with a minimal gold ring, another old ritual of hers.

The library harbours the overworked interns, who are now pushing the boundaries of time to find a way to help their friend out.

Their tired eyes pain with the lack of sleep, coffee fuelling through their veins, and mind engrossed in picking up any clue, any line, any tip that could be supportive for them.

Hours pass, no-one utters a word. Pens run on empty notebooks, hands managing to create only messy scribbles. Black and Blue fill the white as if it never existed.

The clock strikes the end hour.

They all get up.

They go home together, for discussions and relaxation.

At the doorstep, everyone enters before her, while she stands still, too engulfed in worries to notice the happenings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Confetti pops, her reverie is broken.

The smile shines like a jewel in a priceless necklace.

The arrangements are minimal, just champagne, cake and friends, but that's more than enough for her. To make her forget the dark fog of pessimism.

Maybe there is hope left.

-------

Second Year:

12th August.

The day that is drifting closer by the minute.

It has always been Alekhya's birthday for her.

On her phone, In her diary, In her mind.

People might regard it as a beautiful flaw of her nature, the flaw of always placing others before herself.

But to her, the instinct seemed natural, obvious. She had never delved into the whys, and she doesn't want to begin now.

For Alekhya, the circumstances became vice-versa.

And this was the beauty of their bond.

Strong, Pure and Selfless.

They never seem to realize that, though.

They hold onto the strings of simplicity, of sweet uncomplexity. And that is what helps them to bridge the gap between siblings and best friends.

After the tumultuous year, that very much resembled the completion of a voyage through the rough Indian Ocean, where storms ravage through days and endless nights, thunders crack, and waves that scale the heights between the ocean and sky to become mountains of water, crash on the feeble pieces of wood barely held together in the form of a boat, coming back to her origin, her hometown is a necessity.

Especially for her to find that normalcy again.

She survived.

Even though she fell, almost drowned, gasped for a breath more times she could count and nearly accepted her fate.

Until that is, the pale faces of the ones she holds close, the endless stream of tears that scale their cheeks, their breaking hearts, came to haunt her in her reverie and prevented her from closing her eyes & from letting that almost undetectable beat of heart stop.

The wishes from last year come back to her. This time, it wasn't virtual anymore. This time, it wasn't just painted in pixels, but written in buttercream letters, one which she could taste.

This time, the hugs weren't just virtual. They were very real, and very needed.

As she sits amidst the bushes of phenomenal florals, she lets her mind project in vivid colours, the extremities of the last year.

Her heart, breaking into tiny glass pieces, not perceived by the eye but sharp enough to draw blood.

The fear of losing and letting so many others lose along.

The coming close and going away, almost kisses and slide of unassuming hands, those which could easily be perceived as a mistake, but were anything but.

Competing in a nameless competition and almost dying in the process.

Getting the lost love back. Slowly, Gradually. (even if it felt too early to call it that)

And then... Her mind stops as the playful tunes start emanating out along with florescent light from the cellular, and the face of the one who has been a regular image of the thoughts that lull her to sleep.

On the other side, his voice is soft.

She can visualize him in the Diagnostics Office, leaning back on his chair.

Most probably on a break.

The new day hasn't even started for him, yet he remembers that it has, for her.

Their talks are interspersed with comfortable silence. For them, just the knowledge that the person on the other side is still there with them is enough.

All through the conversation, she waits.

In a hope that the irrelevant and unimportant date is written in faded letters somewhere in that brilliant mind of his.

As the line approaches its end, talks slowly halt, she feels a faint pang of sadness.

Maybe he doesn't remember it after all.

She bids her farewell, and as his finger hovers close to the end call button, she hears it.

Crystal Clear but still seeming unreal.

Happy Birthday, Pooja.

Her thanks are intermixed with a light giggle, unable to hold back the pleasure that erupts within her, along with the flutter called butterflies in her stomach.

Maybe there is always hope left, after all.

-------

Last year of Residence:

There have been countless moments when she has asked the time to wait, to slow its rushing footsteps that leave no mark behind.

Sometimes it's a beg, while in other vespertine hours, it's a mindless murmur.

This moment is one of them.

When a handful of sand is slowly released on a windy day, the swooshes and swishes carry them away, farther and farther, leave them with no choice but to fly along.

The minutes were being carried away by the same current, where they had no choice but to pass.

No one had the power to hold it, not even the mighties, the richest, the most supreme.

The conditions now extensively mimic the conditions during her first year.

Just this time, it was textbooks on internal medicine and medical procedure instead of ethics.

The wishes that day are hushed, the minimal party comprising of cupcakes and mug cakes and the gang, christened "The Invincibles" after they successfully tackle one hurdle and another but remain strong and together, in their PJs.

It must be one of the first nights since who knows how long when they spent their time doing an activity that doesn't involve colour coded tabs and complicated biological drawings.

And even though some of them make faux complaints about the wasted time, they all needed this break more than they could express.

The morning sun rays filter through the white curtains guarding the windows way too fast, making them unable to pinpoint the exact moment when the black of the night ceased to exist, when the sky became melanocrysus and when the golden took over the entire stretch.

A single text message pushes her to drop the blanket of laziness, the cocoon she inhabited. Getting up and placing a smile has never been as easy as it was now.

Come Over

------

The condo is inhabited by a stark silence when she reaches there.

She knocks. The click of the doorknob on the other side is almost instantaneous.

His hand wraps around her waist like a reflex deeply etched in his encephalon. For the first time in forever, their kisses are not chaste. Or momentary.

When he whispers a happy birthday wish against her forehead, that's what she would call intimacy.

The purity of the action touches her heart and makes it swell, with an emotion that she predicts will not remain unnamed any longer.

-------

First-year as an attending:

The celebratory vibes are in the air today.

Her stride is confident, heels playing a mellow harmony on the shining floors.

No one doesn't recognize her.

The intern who nearly lost her license to the Head of Diagnostics team, it was a journey that had thrown her off-road a million times.

Sometimes the barriers were pinpricks leaving no marks, and sometimes they were boulders crushing her.

And sometimes, one of these on-lookers would tear down her faith by stabbing her from the back, the cowardice of their soul, being mirrored in the blades of those knives of betrayal.

And yet she stands strong, her resolve unperturbed, as she faces the demons, those of others and those of her own.

It's a fight she has been learning to fight since she was eleven.

To curtain her tears with a glow in eyes, to hide the broken heart behind pretty lies. And just like practice makes one perfect, she has almost perfected the art of having to hide the real her inside.

As she passes the numerous congregations, amalgamations of patients and staff, she is greeted by wishes from old acquaintances whose kindness is apparent in their smile and by wishes of employed enemies, whose disinterest or sometimes blatant hate is too, completely apparent in their voice.

But they are not the ones she is worried about.

Interspersed between these two extremities are people who speak kind and in flattery lines with a sword behind their back.

Those who know how to hide their true intentions in the modulations of voice.

Every time she hears a wish where nothing is apparent, her heart stops for a while.

Strings of thought muddle her head and she tries to figure out the reality behind their words.

Sometimes she succeeds, sometimes she fails.

And sometimes she faces vehement opposition of her tired nerves who ask her to stop caring about those who are passing by.

But she never stops.

Her legs carry her to the Diagnostics office.

Her Office.

The swell of pride, of a fulfilment she last felt when she got into Edenbrook, make her head light.

She tries to stop but gives up the efforts soon.

If she has realized something through the twists of lawsuits and turns of almost dying, it is that if you keep waiting for the turns of the clock to approach a "right moment" for a chance to celebrate, you will probably keep waiting your entire life until your breath is being taken away and all that is left are regrets and missed opportunities of happiness.

So she twirls like a princess in her imaginary ball gown, beaming with satisfaction, and taking pride in giving herself the give of success.

Of making her loved ones and herself proud.

She gets so carried away in the train of thoughts, in which one bougie is connected by another, and one more, that she doesn't notice the person who preoccupies the room.

The halt is so sudden, that she almost tumbles upon the man. Almost.

She manages to get hold of herself, her hand on his back.

He turns, eyes meet.

If someone would have asked her what is cosmic, she would have said "The melt of glowing ambers into ice blue." Sure, she has looked into them more times than she can count or recollect. But every time their orbs meet, the reactions the action produces, she can only give the word seraphic to it.

When Ethan left for Amazon, she would often wonder why is she still keeping the lamp of hope alive. His absquatulation broke her, acted like a spark to her over-thinking mind. She would lie on her bed, eyes tracing the same lines on the ceiling above her over and over again, thinking just what she did wrong. She never reached the end of the path though, never really achieved the answer, even after meandering through a hundred courses of thoughts.

But now, she thanks her old self for living through it all. For not letting that lamp extinguish. For keeping it safe in a little corner of the labyrinths of her heart. Wordlessly, she hugs him, the plethora of emotions becoming quite too much to be expressed in minute syllables.

His whisper next to her ears, the innocently simplistic words induce a shiver in her spine.

But the last word.

4 letters, 1 word.

It hangs in the air like a diamond necklace around a maiden's neck. Like a tiny pendant that shines brighter than all elaborate jewels, all lengthy anecdotes.

It's enough, more than enough for her.

And as their smiles slowly spread like the slow rise of the golden sun, gently letting the rays spread through the humble earth. And those smiles, they shine together, brighter than the Sirius.

Happy Birthday, Love.

-------

Her casual gown, bearing floral patterns, flutters along with the soft grass, she feels a sense of wonder. Whether at the shimmering moon, the stardust spread through the stretch in the woods, or at the simplicity of her surroundings, she does not know.

Her unassuming footsteps walk slow, observant of her surroundings. After walking down the trail, she stops at the clearance.

At a distance, something shines under the silver moonbeams. Her mind beckons her to return back, but her intuition asks her to move on. She listens to the latter's plea.

A small cuboidal box and a bunch of white tulips lay peacefully out of place. She usually would have left it, just in case it was a trap.

But this time curiosity overtook reason and she picks the bouquet up. A small note amidst her favourite flowers.

I love you

No name. No initials. But she knew exactly who had written it. Not because he was the one who asked her to come here, in the heaven hidden amidst the chaos, but because those flourishes of his fanciful lettering would never escape her notice. Even if the only source of luminance was distant fairy lights on trees and the faint moonbeams.

Her eyes travel away from the articles. At a distance, the silhouette stands. The same silhouette from her sweven. But this time, there is no restlessness, no rush, no tension in the air. No thunder cackles and no waves crash. This time the silhouette waits for her, unlike the last time when it was her waiting for him.

He turns, only the shine of his orbs visible. And the shadow of the gorgeous smile that dances on his lips. The last time, his stone mask was too heavy, too powerful for any of them to break or move.

But this time? This time, the mask has fallen off, it has met the end of its existence.

He comes closer, the shadow now a clear image. He goes and picks up the cuboid and hands it to her.

"Open it" He whispers in a soft voice, that disappears as soon as it appears.

She takes it and opens it, as per his words. Everything is perfect and normal.

Except for the space in the middle.

Something sparkles, in silver lustre. Her first instinct is, Diamond? She decided to pick it up

It's a key.

She looks up to him, bewildered. Is it what she thinks it is?

Move-in with me?

She places the box of chocolates down, the key held tight in her fist.

And then she kisses him.

She doesn't have to speak a word, but he understands. After all, why would two intertwined hearts need verbal responses to know what the other one feels?

Only his home, can fill the brick walls of his house with love, and make it a home.

------

They both lay side by side on the lush grass, hands intertwined, hearts beating in unison, silence filling their souls like air fills their lungs.

They look at the stars and the moon. Or more appropriately, the gaze at the starry screen, but the mind plays significant moments from their time together.

Pooja's mind however thinks about the four of her birthdays since she set foot in Boston. The mundane softness of them, contrasting all the birthdays she has had in the rest of her years.

The photo frame of the interns from the first year. The group video call, her life from the second year. The PJ party from the third year. And the key from the fourth.

They are puzzle pieces of the saga of her life, the absence of friends from early years, the gap, the void now filled.

And after years of searching, she thinks she has finally found it. Hidden in the normality, the simplicity, the mundanity of life.

Happiness.

PS: If you are reading this, I am very grateful for you. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day🤎

Tags🤎 (Please let me know if you want to be added or removed or if I forgot you):

Perma: @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @udishaman @aestheticartsx @twinkleallnight @schnitzelbutterfingers @sophxwithers @sweatyrysconnoisseur @nikki-2406 @choicesfanaf @trrfanaddict @starrystarrytrouble @gardeningourmet @parkbarks @mvalentine @lovablegranny @mercury84choices @izzyourresidentlawyer @phoenixrising308 @adiehardfan @quixoticdreamer16 @a-crepusculo

Open Heart (All fics and edit): @lucy-268 @maurine07 @bellcat2010 @headoverheelsforramsey @estellaelysian @shanzay44

Ethan x Pooja: @aleynareads @choicesaddict5 @stygianflood @mysticaurathings @jamespotterthefirst @ilikemenbutonlyethanramsey @takemyopenheart @mm2305

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

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i-prefer-the-term-antihero · 3 years

Note

Additionally, your thoughts on Dracula and Adrian from the Netflix adaptation of Castlevania? I find Dracula really tragic, and the ending scene of Season 2 crushed me because I was not expecting Adrian to cry. He’s usually so stoic and calm that I didn’t think he would weep, I expected him to just shrug it off like heroes usually do, but no, when given time to process everything, the first thing he does is break down into tears. Sypha was right in calling him a brooding teen in an adult body.

Ohh man. If you just take a look at my writing blog (or anywhere I post my fanfiction) it’ll become pretty clear pretty quickly how I feel about them XD So far all my Castlevania fics have been about the Tepes Family. Adrian and Drac are my favorite characters in the series!! (Though I do love pretty much all the characters in it.)

YES YES YES!!

They did an incredible job making Drac sympathetic and tragic. I don’t know if you know anything about the games, and granted, they couldn’t put a lot of story stuff in the games, but (at least as far as I’m aware) in most of them it’s like “ya, he was an evil dude who did evil things because he was evil.” So it actually would have been pretty accurate to the source to make him just an unsympathetic, irredeemable villain, but they didn’t and I LOVE them for it. Playing Symphony of the Night (Alucards game) after watching the series l was almost longing for that Drac I know and love from the series, (though it’s fun to see evil Drac too).

As I’ve said, I adore redeemable villains, and they did an amazing job with him, to the point where pretty much everyone in the fandom adores him, which is extremely tough to accomplish—even if you write a redeemable villain well, often large parts of the fandom don’t see it and hate the character. I knew that the point was that they were going to defeat Drac but I have to say, especially since I originally knew nothing of the games, I was hoping they’d save him by the end.

I think the fact that he liked and was kind to Hector and Isaac was evidence that he wasn’t too far gone. I mean, the only two people he genuinely trusted and liked in his court were human…that’s so interesting, I wish it was at least talked about, either in the show or in the fandom. I think he actually liked humans, partially or especially because of Lisa, he just...was so angry, and needed someone to blame. He probably ultimately blamed himself for not being there to save her, and it was just easier to blame the humans he once hated/didn’t understand, even if in reality he didn’t hate them as much as he thought he did...

Doing more thinking and research into the show for my “If These Walls Could Talk” fic I recognize now that symbolically it made sense even within the show that he died when Lisa died (which I can explain more about if you want but id probably end up going off on a long tangent so I’ll save it)...but I still thought practically, in the show, he could have still been redeemed.

Omg I LOVED that. The longer I take to sit with it, the more I realize just how much I loved that they put him crying instead of shaking it off.

It’s very interesting that Drac and Alucard are more openly emotional characters. I might be totally wrong, but as far as I remember, they (...and Lisa when she dies, and probably Isaac in a flashback), are the only main characters we see openly cry. It’s a pretty bold move to make any of your characters emotional like that, but especially your villain, and your bold handsome hero. It’s sooo easy to get emotional characters and emotions wrong…or just offputting to some people...but more on that later.

I think Adrian and Drac are both rather sentimental, in an odd way. Much of Drac’s motivations in the show and even in the games (the times his motivations are explained) had to do with his wives (yes he was married before Lisa in the games...unless Lament of Innocence was retconned...) which is interesting. So many of his decisions are based on emotion. He lets Lisa in just because he likes her, he goes to war with the world because of Lisa, he sits in his study mourning her loss, he let’s Alucard kill him… I also notice very often he digs his nails into his palms until they bleed, presumably because if he didn’t he’d hurt someone else (in the scene where he hurts Alucard, he does this). His sentimentality doesn’t diminish is power as a villain, which is SO difficult to accomplish.

I am emotional myself so I absolutely love to see emotional characters, but for most people, seeing even a normal character be emotional diminishes them in their eyes, or makes them whiny, so making your villain even a little emotional, and having that not take away from the audiences perception of their power as a villain is sooooooo hard to do, and I applaud them for making a so well-beloved, and still villainous and intimidating, but also emotional (at times) villain.

For Alucard. I don’t see any problem with him being emotional, but it makes even more sense if he’s a teen in an adult’s body—which was indeed portrayed quite well.

Yes that was interesting when he cried when drawing his parents!! I wasn’t expecting that when I saw him drawing them. I was enjoying and intrigued by his story so much, then when he started crying I was caught off guard—but in a good way. It really made me feel for him, and understand that he was still grieving his mother, and that knew the gravity of what he was currently doing.

I think it’s kind of important to show that kind of thing in a situation like this. It’s easy to think Alucard hates his dad, and they need to show the emotion of the situation to make it clear “no he doesn’t hate his dad, this actually breaks his heart, he just knows he has to do this.”

I loved when he was telling Trevor and Sypha about how much the world would lose by killing Dracula. It’s really interesting that he hides his emotion with them, and that Trevor and Sypha are so stoic. The son of Dracula isn’t the guy you expect to be the only hero who cries.

In “For Love” when Trevor’s like “Don’t get weepy about it” I was sitting there, sobbing, like “No, please get weepy about it! Let the boy cry for goodness sake!! Give me some emotion!!” But I too was not expecting him to cry like he did, and in grieving the death of his parents...

I knew the crying scene was coming because I’d seen pictures of it on here and pinterest, but I had no context for it. In the end it wasn’t just the weeping itself that made the scene so impactful, it was everything surrounding it. I didn’t know it would happen when he was completely alone (and would be for the foreseeable future), and in grieving his parents, or about the ghosts/flashbacks before it (cementing his grief), or that it was literally the last scene of the season, or that there would be no music for both the scene and the credits thereafter.

And that was what really got me.

Because, firstly, we never got to see any flashbacks to his childhood, and that was what I was begging for the entire series (and hence why its what I write about). To finally get it, and it not to just be something the audience gets to see, but something Alucard himself is seeing... a happy memory he’s seeing when he knows that is completely gone, he cannot hope to have it again, and for him to now be in his father’s place…that’s heartbreaking. Like just having your character cry—let alone those kinds of full-on sobs—is painful enough, showing a son grieving his parents is a particularly heart wrenching kind of sadness, but showing that he is haunted by memories of those parents he lost—not only lost but one of which he killed, and, if SOTN is canon for the show, the other of which he could have saved—of a happy childhood, and he is alone with these memories for the foreseeable future...that is truly heart wrenching.

Also the scene with Trevor and Sypha in the wagon earlier in the episode was super sweet, they could have easily put the Adrian crying scene earlier, and had the Trevor and Sypha scene be the last scene of the season (and Trevor’s game actually does end with them looking into the sunset, so ending with the last scene of “For Love” would be accurate as well), and left it on a positive note, and the audience would have been left with a completeness. But they made a conscious choice put his crying scene last, and it was so powerful, because it made you remember that at the end of the day, he isn’t just our bold handsome hero, he was a son who lost both his parents, and that, to him, this isn’t really a triumph, but a loss. It also kinda confirmed that Drac wasn’t an "evil guy, end of story". That there was reason to grieve him, and to show his son grieving, and to leave it there because of it. It was a personal gravity too

In the end, it was the lack of music in the scene, and even more so during the credits, so theres only his tears, and all you are left with in the end is this amplified emptiness that really did me in. I think I literally sat there, tear tracks on my face, my mouth open when I hit the credits.

Playing Symphony of the Night after watching the show is really interesting in exploring his character. I knew there was very little story, so I wasn’t expecting much from the story, but I actually found that I was beyond excited whenever there actually was some story, and the few lines they did say are stuck with me.

Maria comments early on that Alucard’s not very good at talking. At first I just chalked it up to...weird translations or whatever. But the more I played the game and the more I thought about him in the show...I think she’s right. He’s not very good at talking, yet if and when he does talk he’s quite eloquent, and precise with his words. (This actually makes him a somewhat difficult character to write). I wonder if perhaps this has some connection to his emotionalness. He’s very careful with what he says, and this may spread to what he does—such as being careful when he shows emotion. I’m curious why he’s like this. It could just be his nature, but I wonder if as a kid he was ever hated because he was a vampire—maybe people made fun of him, and he cried, and they made more fun of him because of it—and he learned both to hide his emotions, and that he had to be very deliberate and show people he didn’t mean any ill will with his words. (And he looks older than he is so people might call him immature for acting his mental age). All very speculative, of course. But it’d be fun to write about!

Also, another thing from SOTN that is related to this topic, there was a fight that really struck me (enough I actually wrote a fic about it (inverted recurrence)). SOTN takes plays 300 years after the events of The Netflix Series (aka Dracula’s Curse). Most of the bosses don’t seem to have a lot of meaning story-wise, they’re just there for you to fight. The other day I (Alucard) walked into a boss room...and there were Trevor, Sypha, and Grant (who was omitted from the Netflix series). They were fake versions of them, of course. And there’s no dialogue in the fight so maybe I’m just speculating, but what struck me was that the fact that Dracula could use them against him probably means he still cares about them, even after 300 years. It probably also means that they’re some of the only friends he’s ever had. Granted, he was asleep for a good chunk of those 300 years, still. It goes back to that sentimental-ness I was talking about earlier.

I few years ago I watched the Gravity Falls commentaries, and from them I got a lot of the writing advice I still think about and use today. Alex Hirsch said something on this subject which I really liked which is “Hold your tears.” When a character cries they’ve broken, that’s as far as they can go. So if you make a character cry when the audience themselves doesn’t feel the weight of the scene, or it doesn’t feel like the character has broken yet, it can feel like too...much/cheesy, and distance the audience. especially with cartoons where the way it’s drawn can actually affect your sympathy for the character (it can look weird or accentuated).

They did such an awesome job with this by literally holding his tears until the very end. I don’t know how other, non-emotional people felt about it, but Ive don’t know if I’ve ever seen tears used so well in a show, pack such a punch. To have it not just be a part of the scene but literally the focus, and at the end...it was powerful.

Sorry for the long response, and more importantly, I’m beyond sorry for taking so so SOOO long to respond. I hope you enjoy my response, if you see it <3

P.S. For anyone else who made it all the way to the end, I actually have a Castlevania sideblog now: @symphonyofthewrite !! I’d be beyond happy to recieve asks like this over there, if you’d like to hear more of my thoughts!!

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etherrealoblivion · 4 years

Text

A Broken System (part two)

PART ONE

gif by @toyboxboy

A/N: A THOUSAND FOLLOWERS!!! here’s a treat! part two!!!

tags: smut, part two.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Rating: Explicit

Words: 5,930

MASTERLIST

“Professor Reid!” Morgan shouted, holding up his drink, clinking it against Spencer’s.

Morgan had dragged him out the night before his first class, insisting that they needed to celebrate. Spencer didn’t really see what there was to celebrate. He’d been offered a job as a Professor at Georgetown after a particularly eloquent lecture on Criminology. At first, though, he hadn’t been too keen on the idea. He was good at his job as a profiler, why change that? It was something Hotch had said that changed his mind.

“You’re a great profiler, Reid. You’ve learned so much. Maybe it’s time to teach the next genius.”

And then it had clicked. Something about sharing his experience with bright young faces that sat where he once did, just felt right.

So he accepted the offer the week before first term, the school scrambling to get the paperwork in order and Spencer scrambling to prepare a lesson plan.

It hadn’t occurred to him that teaching would be more time-consuming than profiling.

“Whoo! Professor!” Garcia cheered, downing her fourth shot of the night. “Teach me somethin’. Now!” she slurred, spilling a bit of her drink on Prentiss.

Spencer laughed, politely excusing himself to use the bathroom.

Technically he did go to the bathroom. He splashed some water in his face, then stepped outside to call a cab. He’d go back in, say his ride was on its way, and leave. Simple.

Before he could pull out his phone, he noticed a woman bent over in the alley, breathing heavily. Reaching out a hand, he placed it on her shoulder, trying to be comforting.

Quickly, he was spun around and slammed up against the brick wall of the alley.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Dammit. Spencer knew better than to grab some girl in a back alley behind a club.

But then he turned around.

Woah.

There was a fierce look in her eye, sizing him up. She had on a tight black skirt that perfectly accentuated her curves along with a flowy top that left more to the imagination. What really completed the ensemble was the large sash across her front that said: Birthday Bitch. She was beautiful.

No.

Spencer didn’t let himself think that. Sure, he could appreciate a woman’s beauty. But too much of a good thing…. He had to keep up his barrier.

But then she started to talk. And he didn’t stand a chance.

The way she went on about handshakes and the dangers of going clubbing was extremely adorable. Spencer found himself unable to hold back from bantering with her. Unlike almost every single woman he’d ever encountered, she was easy for him to talk to. The occasional stutter slipped out but she just smiled when it did.

Then she kissed him.

If he hadn’t been attracted before, he was now. Her lips tasted like bourbon and cherries. The feel of her against him was intoxicating. So he walked her home, trying his best to keep his expectations low. If she truly just wanted him to walk her home safely, that’s what he’d do, make sure she was safe and sound, and leave without complaint. If she happened to want more than that, who was he to say no?

It wasn’t like he’d never had sex. Actually, the two most serious relationships he’d had had barely consisted of touching. But he’d had other . . . experiences. The problem was, he’d only had sex with women he’d known for a day or two. Mostly in college. Sometimes online. Never at a club.

Spencer had rules. He didn’t let himself get attached. If he started to feel a spark, he cut off contact. It was the only way to make sure no one was hurt.

But this girl…. She made him throw every rule out the window.

A deep, dark part of him wished he hadn’t asked how old she was turning. God, how wrong was that.

He should have arrested her. She had been in a club, drunk, and went home with a stranger. But she’d also kissed him. And he was pretty sure she felt his erection in the alley. How the hell was he supposed to explain that?

“Hey Morgan, I brought this girl in for having a fake ID. I figured it out just before I was going to go into her apartment and fuck her up the wall. Don’t worry she’s only fourteen years younger than me and slightly inebriated.”

That would go over great.

Okay, so he couldn’t arrest her. But he most certainly couldn’t - to be crude - fuck her up the wall as he’d planned. He’d just say that this was a terrible mistake and let her off with a warning.

It was a solid plan.

Then she called him sir.

Spencer was ashamed at the speed he gave in. Before he knew it, his mouth was on her clit and his fingers buried in her pussy. The sound of her begging him to fuck her was a sound he’d never forget.

And then he was inside her. His bones turned to jelly and his tongue melted down his throat. This had to be what heaven felt like. Pure, unadulterated, paradise.

Who was this girl?

The orgasm was absolutely earth-shattering. He hadn’t been with anyone in so long, he was surprised he lasted as long as he had. He was so pleased he’d been able to make her come. Good to know that sex skills weren’t something that could be unlearned.

When she’d asked him to stay, every bone in Spencer’s body screamed yes. He knew it was a bad idea. One of his biggest rules was don’t stay the night. He wanted to so badly, but he couldn’t. He could not. There was no way.

“I’d like that too.”

Shit.

His alarm went off at six-thirty. Y/N was coiled so tightly up against him that getting up seemed futile.

Apparently she was a heavy sleeper. He was able to gently withdraw his arm and check his phone.

Twenty-nine messages.

My man! It’s that Professor vibe you give off now. You got game.

Spence, Morgan told me you picked up a girl? Are you back in the game? Use protection! -JJ

Spencie!! OMG!! Do you like her? What color are her eyes? Does she like Doctor Who? When’s her birthday? What type of-

He pressed clear all, deleting the messages and getting dressed. He had his first class at seven-thirty and he really needed to shower and change. But he didn’t wanna leave Y/N.

Pulling out a notecard from his wallet, he scribbled her a quick note, kissed her on the forehead, and slipped out the door, locking it before it closed.

He was halfway home before he understood the weight behind what he’d done. He’d had sex with a twenty-year-old that he’d met outside a club. And he’d planned to meet with her again.

What the fuck was he doing?

He made it to his office just in time, surprised to see that it had already been set up for him.

The desk was a dark chestnut, bits and baubles placed around it to make him feel at home. There was some paperwork in the center that he’d deal with later. Right now, he had a class to teach.

He opened the door to the lecture hall and walked in, briefly daunted by the sea of faces staring at him.

Come on Spencer, it’s just like a guest lecture.

“Hello, class.”

“Hello.”

Spencer found himself smiling at the way all of the students had chimed in. This wouldn’t be too weird.

“Please take out your laptops and create a new word document. Once you’ve done that, open your email, please.”

As the students scrambled to follow instructions, he perused their faces, making note of expressions, seat choice, and enthusiasm level.

Then his confidence flew out the window.

Seated next to a redhead in the fourth row was the unmistakable shocked expression of -

Y/N?

notes: so i am no longer doing taglists im really really sorry it’s just way too much of a hassle. BUT i pretty much only post fanfic and don’t really reblog stuff or get a lot of asks soooo if you wanna check for new content, it’ll be on my blog! sorry again <3

#spencer reid smut #spencer #spencer reid #spencer reid gifs #reid #Spencer Reid fic #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #Smut #angst

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years

Text

Out Tonight (Part 2)

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Papi

<- Part 1 | Part 3 ->

Summary: After a night of karaoke, Barba teaches you some Spanish, gives you some slightly patronizing advice, and follows you up to your hotel room. (Lo siento por mi español. Por favor dime si cometí algún error!)

Rafael Barba x female reader

Warning: NSFW/18+, Dub-con!! Everyone is enthusiastically willing, but also super drunk.

For @thatesqcrush’s kink bingo!

6,089 words

“So… Rafael Barba,” you changed the subject away from today’s trial. His failure to get a conviction had sent him into such a steep emotional spiral he cried in your arms at the bar, despite having just met you an hour ago. “That’s Spanish, right?”

The vulnerability in his eyes flattened. “Cuban,” he said, already bracing for the “but you don’t look Latino” comments, or worse, something about rafts or cigars. Instead your eyes got wide like he just ripped off a mask and revealed himself to be David Bowie.

“Cool!”

“I… guess?” There were eighty thousand Cuban-Americans living in New York, but sure.

“Hablar… I mean, hablas español?”

“Sí, lo hablo,” he answered with wry amusement, pinching the bridge of his nose.

You chewed your lip in thought before slowly saying, “Aprendí un poco de español en la escuela, y lo me gusta mucho.”

His brow raised. You actually knew more than he expected, which is to say, you could string more than two words together. “Not bad. Toda mi familia es de Cuba, así que el español es mi lengua materna. Soy el primer estadounidense.”

He spoke faster, at a natural pace, expecting you to follow, but when your eyes glazed over and you awkwardly squeaked out, “...Qué?” it became clear you did not, in fact, speak Spanish.

“Let’s stick to English,” he grimaced.

You whined in disappointment. “But that was so hot! Please? Un poco más. Dime algo en español!”

“Algo.”

An unflattering snort erupted from your nostrils, and you started giggling like a manic school girl. Barba shook his head with second-hand embarrassment, though a smile crept over his lips as you continued struggling to contain yourself, pleased at how well his bad joke had gone over.

“Come on, teach me something,” you pouted, leaning towards him, pushing your chest out. “Por favor… papi?”

He choked on his drink so hard burning whisky shot up his nose. “Ay, dios!” He pounded his chest and ordered a water. “OK, OK, bueno,” he put up his hands in defeat. “Hablaré en español. Solo para ti, mamita. Te gusta?”

“Mucho, papi.” You were taking advantage of calling him that now that you’d seen his reaction. He didn’t nearly die this time, but a red blush was sweeping up his neck under his shirt collar. Emboldened, he leaned toward you, eyes heavily lidded as he flirtatiously held your gaze.

“Tienes novio?”

“A husband? Do I look married?” you flipped your ringless left hand back and front and worried about your age.

He laughed, raising a hand to his forehead with his palm shading his eyes. “That would be esposo.”

“Oh. Right.” Your face darkened. “No, yo soy… single.”

“Estás soltera,” he prompted.

“Ah, gracias. Estoy soltera. Y tú?” you tilted your face down shyly and looked up at him through your lashes. “Tienes esposo? O novia?”

“Nope,” he popped the p, staring into the empty bottom of his scotch glass and wishing he hadn’t decided to cut himself off. The sip of water he took was boring and not numbly soothing at all. He had been single for a depressingly long time, in fact.

“Muy bien,” you smiled with delight, and he suddenly realized his years of failure at relationships were, tonight, a positive. It was the answer a very beautiful woman was hoping for. He may have been suffering from a string of humiliating losses, but winning you over reawakened his cocky self-assurance.

“Acércate.” He curled his finger to beckon you closer, and you swung onto his lap. God, you were so close. Your body fit so perfectly in his arms and you smelled like strawberry lemonade from that cocktail. Before he could help it, he was kissing you again. Softer and a little less desperate this time. A little more… something else. He just met you, but the way you made him feel cared about was stronger than he had ever felt, depressing as that was to admit. The one time he had put his whole heart into a relationship, he’d had it shattered so badly he was still picking up the pieces. Since then, he chose relationships that were mutually guarded, partners he knew he would never connect with, and who didn’t expect anything back. Barba did not open up to people. He’d never let himself cry on anyone before, except his abuelita. He must have been extremely drunk to let his guard down so much, but he pushed the realization out of mind as your fingers curled through his hair around the back of his head and pulled him deeper, your strawberry tongue slipping between his bitter lips. He wanted this. He needed it. He felt so close to you, so right—that was all that mattered.

He started whispering to you in Spanish between kisses, phrases you couldn’t understand, some that you got the gist of. He cringed a little at your attempts to reply in his first language, but kissed you more softly each time. You were trying, at least. You were trying very hard to understand a piece of him. The phrases he murmured against your lips grew progressively more filthy, which your keen ears picked up on even if you weren’t entirely sure what they meant.

“Como se dice, ‘fuck me harder’?” you asked in a low voice full of lust, fingers tightening against his scalp.

“...damelo más duro,” he said with a shudder. His cock twitched and he wondered if you’d noticed the growing erection pressed against your thigh as you sat in his lap. What you would think. But you must have noticed, and you weren’t moving to get away from him.

“Damelo duro, papi,” you purred, leaning to say it into his ear, your breath warm and tickling.

He swallowed, heart hammering in his chest. Barba, always so eloquent under pressure in court, could barely form words to express a coherent thought. You were just joking. You must have been. To you it was a foreign language, and it didn’t sound like a real request to your ears. This was just a flirty game, teaching you naughty Spanish. “Y-you are… getting into dangerous territory here,” he tried to laugh jokingly, but his throat was dry. He swallowed again.

You lowered your voice and your eyelids. “I mean it,” you whispered against the shell of his ear. To punctuate your point, you rolled your hips, deliberately grinding your inner thigh against his forming erection. He was so wildly aroused with alcohol he thought he would come right there, but its effects were also preventing him from getting completely hard yet, something he should probably have been concerned about, but wasn’t.

“Would you like to go somewhere?” he said, voice strained with urgency. “I would very much like to go somewhere immediately and fuck your brains out, please. If that’s… alright with you.”

***

The streets of Midtown were as bright and crowded as they were during the day, just a little less hurried—except for two people. You held Barba’s large hand, long elegant fingers laced with yours, laughing giddily in the warm summer air as you raced toward your hotel, stopping only to desperately kiss each other, fingers in each other’s hair, reigniting the flames that pulled you together.

Barba broke away panting, his lips wet with your saliva. The fresh air had a sobering effect, and something serious occurred to him. He had been animated and outgoing all night at the bar, but he suddenly very much resembled the shrewd lawyer whose picture you had seen in a news article. You felt like you’d been called to the principal’s office under the severity of his gaze, waiting for whatever it was he had to say.

“Did you take any pictures of us together?”

“I… might have taken a few selfies,” you admitted, terrified you’d committed a heinous faux pas.

“Good,” he said. “Do you have location data enabled? You should send those to someone you trust, along with the time you left the bar, and where we’re going.”

Gears in your head turned slowly to put together an intelligible response. You opened your mouth and declared, “...whuh?”

“You’re out drinking alone, taking a stranger home!” he gripped your shoulders as if to shake you. “Do you know how many cases never get off the ground because there’s no ID, no proof the victim and assailant were ever in the same room? Those photos would establish a timeline and a suspect, and would be enough for a warrant. Do you know what I would give to have evidence like that in every case? A lot more rapists would go to jail.”

“Are you… saying you’re a rapist?” you said slowly, cocking your head.

He stiffened, mentally replaying his own words. His eyes darted to the side, up, down, and three other directions in rapid succession. “N-no… But you have no way of knowing that. You’re too trusting. No matter how charming someone seems, it’s better to be paranoid and take precautions.”

“Uh-huh. Real charming. You know, it’s creepy telling someone that right before you’re going to sleep with them. How do you say that in Spanish?”

He groaned and looked so crestfallen it impressed upon you how much horror he must deal with every day, prosecuting special victims cases in the big city. How much that weighed on him and made him see nothing but worst-case scenarios around every corner. It didn’t seem so strange now that he was single—it must be impossible to connect with anyone when you live like that.

“I just… want you to be safe,” he said quietly, eyes down. A swelling of sympathy flooded your heart, and formed a lump in your throat. Before you could think twice, you’d pulled him into your arms.

“I feel very safe with you, Rafael.” Your words drew a tiny, strangled noise from his chest, and his grip around you tightened.

The mood had shifted catastrophically, to the point that it seemed unlikely a one-night stand was in your future any longer. Barba walked slowly by your side, lost in reflective silence. Sex or no, you invited him up to your hotel room. You would never get enough of being around him, and couldn’t bear to say goodbye, even if you were only sitting up talking of somber issues late into the night.

But by the time the elevator doors closed, leaving you completely alone together for the first time, your libidos overpowered the gloom and his hands were all over your body, his mouth hot and fervent against your throat. You moaned wantonly, confident in the privacy the elevator afforded as it whisked you upward toward the eleventh floor. You slipped your hands inside his jacket, feeling his solid pectoral muscles stretching his shirt, and he cupped a hand between your legs, kneading the crotch of your pants. Even through your jeans, it sparked a fire that sizzled through your whole body. You pulled at his back, drawing more of his weight against you.

The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Several cleaning ladies stared unimpressed as you and Barba quickly unhanded each other, stood straighter, and tried to pretend you were dignified professionals just riding an elevator together and definitely not almost having sex in there.

They were far more used to seeing this sort of thing than you were, judging by their almost bored eye rolls, but as you passed them on your way into the hall, one of them muttered something in rapid Spanish that made the other women giggle and Barba trip over his feet, face neon red, and look down at the front of his pants which were sporting a very conspicuous tent.

“Madre de Dios,” he groaned.

Shoulders convulsing with laughter, you took his arm and led him to room, uh… You fumbled in your purse for your room key with the number written on it.

“This is my first time doing this,” you confessed as the magnetic lock clicked and the light on the door changed from red to green.

“Having sex?”

“With someone I just met. In a bar!” you teased, turning the handle.

Part of you wondered when both of you were going to wake up and realize you were acting like horny teenagers—that you shouldn’t be doing this. But you hoped you wouldn’t, at least not until morning. You weren’t nervous. If you had been introspective that night, that would have surprised you the most. The whole confident, sexy Mimi Márquez, Out Tonight act was just a character you put on for karaoke to get psyched up and out of your shell. If you had been questioning yourself, you would have wondered how a shy good girl was having a one-night stand with a handsome Manhattan lawyer wearing a suit that cost more than your mortgage and not having an anxiety attack. But you weren’t questioning yourself, and you weren’t nervous. You looked in his intelligent eyes that were as pale as the underside of a silver maple leaf or dark as a dense hemlock grove depending on the lighting, and you simply wanted him.

***

He followed you into the dark hotel room, which was disappointingly small and shoddy for how expensive it was, so you left the lights off to preserve some mystery. The city glowed through the window brighter than a full moon, anyway. Barba pulled off his suit jacket, tossing it recklessly aside as he prowled toward you. Almost immediately, he thought better of this and found the heap of designer fabric on the floor next to the sandals you had kicked off, picked it up, smoothed it out, and carefully folded it over the back of an office chair at the little desk. He removed his tie and did the same.

You grinned behind your hand. Changing tunes so quickly from ravenously horny to prim—it didn’t surprise you that a guy who dressed as sharply as he did would have his priorities on wrinkle-avoidance even in the heat of the moment. It might have rubbed you as snobbish if it wasn’t so funny.

When he returned to you, his back was to the window, so you couldn’t make out the expression on his shadowed face, but the silhouettes of his shoulders were tense and his voice sheepish as if expecting a rebuke. “Sorry. I couldn’t leave it there. It’s a Brioni and—”

You slid your fingers under the pink-striped suspenders at both shoulders, closed your fists around them, and tugged. He lurched forward, and you caught his lips with yours. Letting out a surprised moan, he closed his eyes, and wrapped his arms around you, grateful you weren’t accusing him of vanity. You held firm to the elastic bands like a leash on him, pulling him closer when you wanted to deepen the contact until he was so enraptured he needed no extra encouragement to shove his tongue between your lips as they parted, his hands roaming your sides, your hair, and over the swell of your bottom, grabbing a handful.

“You really do… have the best ass… below 14th street,” he said devilishly, in between crushing his hungry mouth against yours.

Running down the length of his suspenders, your hands took a tour of his entire torso, enjoying the firm bulk of his chest, and the softness of his belly. You liked that there was something to love there. Gym rats with nothing but hard muscle were painfully dull. His stomach twitched ticklishly at your probing touch and he broke away from your lips to protest, so you continued your suspender tour all the way to the bottom, where the leather straps attached the elastic bands to his pants. His hips rocked forward, and his clothed cock pressed into your thigh. You let out a sultry breath and pushed your own hips back against him, lining him up against your clit to ignite a burning, tempting pressure between you. You couldn’t even kiss him. Your mouth hung slack, and all you could focus on was the friction of his hard cock against your aching cunt. You had to get out of these clothes.

“Bed. Now,” you huffed.

“Yeah.”

As he toed off his leather shoes, you slipped his suspenders off his shoulders and were slightly disappointed this did not immediately make his pants fall off. He climbed on top of the blanket, and you climbed onto his lap, throwing a leg over his hips.

An impressively sized hand with a vein meandering across it curled around that tempting leg, palming the tight denim stretched over your thighs. The hand rode up, found the bottom hem of your blouse and dove under it. You shivered as warm fingertips crested over your jeans and found your waiting skin.

“Are you okay with this?” he rasped, eyes flicking across your face.

“Keep going,” you nodded, the prickles of your skin screaming in protest at the thought that he might stop. His hand worked up your side, exploring new territory under your shirt. Every point of contact sent warm waves vibrating out to your most intimate parts. You lowered your mouth to his and your lips melted against his, pussy soaking through your underwear as you felt his body respond beneath you. His clever fingers found the band of your bra and inched over the fabric.

“Is this alright?” he paused his advance to check in again.

You leaned close and whispered, “I want you to touch me, papi,” darting your tongue just below his ear, and rolling your hips over his cock again. “Touch me everywhere.”

He growled, deep and throaty and thick with lust, his own hips bucking up to grind himself against yours. With your carte blanche permission given, a switch flipped inside him and he dove in, roughly palming your breasts with both hands, rolling the fat and finding your hardened nipples through your bra cups. Even through the thicker fabric, his thumbs circled and pinched the sensitive peaks hard enough that you whimpered with every sensation. Your hips were moving without your leave, desperately driving against his cock while your hands quickly worked to unbutton the front of your shirt. He had become an animal, his eyes unfocused, breathing heavy, lost in voracious need.

“S-slow down,” you tried asking, wondering if he would—if he could at this point, despite all his earlier talk of consent.

His hands were off you in an instant, and he was apologizing and asking if you were OK.

“Just testing your off switch,” you smirked as you finished the final button, and your blouse opened up. Marveling at the man beneath your legs, you unhooked the front clasp of your bra and felt his cock stir at the naked sight of you. Any lingering uncertainty was gone—you managed to score the most principled lay in all of New York sitting by himself in a karaoke bar, and you trusted him completely. “Since I already know your on switch, don’t I papi?”

He swore in Spanish, some excitingly lusty expressions you would have to take note of later.

“What was it again? Cómo se dice...” you teased, tapping your index finger against your lips in thought. You watched his pupils widen as you pinched your finger between your teeth. “Oh yeah. Damelo, papi. Damelo duro.”

Hearing those words from your perfect sensuous lips drove him wild. Grabbing your hips, he rolled you onto your back, swapping positions. His fevered mouth pressed wet kisses all over your exposed skin, heated breath dancing over your neck as his tongue flicked out to taste you. You reached down to curl your fingers into his thick, dark hair. He pushed your breasts, which had fallen to the sides, back together and ran his tongue through the cleavage. You drew in a sharp breath. “Just like that, papi,” you moaned. He took a nipple in his mouth, sucking and circling his tongue over it until your cunt was pulsating and your breath coming out in hard, ragged whimpers, then pinched it between his teeth, drawing a yelp of pleasure mixed with pain. You yanked at his hair and your hips bucked jerkily. Your core ached with emptiness, longing to be filled by his cock. You wrapped your legs around his lower back and pulled his hips down against you to feel more of him. The strangled noises in his throat were practically feral as his clothed sex rutted up against you, valiantly striving to be inside you through your pants. His mouth sloppily devoured your breasts until they were burned raw from his stubble.

He released your nipple with a wet noise and sat up to free his straining erection from his pants. The latching mechanism didn’t seem particularly hard, but after nearly a minute of fumbling he had made very little progress, and you held up a hand and told him to stop.

He whined and gave you puppy dog eyes, but did as you asked. “Is this another test?”

“No. It’s just… those pants are not that complicated.”

His head tipped in confusion.

“You’re really drunk, aren’t you?” You were tipsy yourself, but considering you could at least manage buttons, you had a sudden, sinking realization that he was far more incapacitated than you. He was so well-spoken and thoughtful you hadn’t noticed, but he was a lawyer—staying controlled and eloquent was his job. You might have been drunk, but he was drunk drunk. “If we have sex right now I think that would make me a predator.”

He frowned, cock still straining against the binds of his pants. “Technically, in New York state, being intoxicated does not invalidate sexual consent.”

“Don’t you lawyer this! I don’t care what’s technically legal—you are way too drunk. And I don’t want you waking up with regrets.”

His shoulders fell, because he knew you were right. It was a law he considered a glaring loophole, and he admired you for doing the right thing, but ¡maldita sea! he wished you were just a little less ethical. Deep down he knew he wouldn’t be doing this if he were in full command of himself tonight. But that was why he was so desperate to do it now. He would never let himself go again, not for a long time, and he would miss out on experiencing an intense—if ultimately not real—connection with someone. He would miss out on getting to be with you.

“Well...” you hesitated, watching the disappointment in his eyes displace what had moments ago been confidence and excitement, and tormented by your own unsatisfied ache. “I mean, we can still fool around, right?”

He laid his body down alongside you, his breath still coming in hot, shallow pants. His comforting weight settling beside you on the soft hotel mattress stirred up the coiling insistent heat between your legs. “Is this OK?” he whispered, voice heavy with lust. Blood pounded in your ears as his hand slipped under your waistband.

“Y-yeah, that’s OK,” you nodded. A compromise. It wasn’t sex. Technically.

Trapped tightly between your skin and your jeans, his fingers reached your slit, spreading it with surprising deftness to find your clit. Waves of pleasure exploded through your body as he pressed an irresistible finger to it, making your thighs spasm and lift off the mattress as you bit back a sinful cry. You were almost screaming from just one touch. The sound of throbbing blood in your ears was deafening, and your cunt throbbed in time with it to an unbearable tempo. God, you wanted him to fuck you with his cock.

He drew in a shaking breath as he observed your response, his lust-clouded eyes boring into you with a hint of the keen perceptiveness he used in court. He risked probing deeper, pushing a long digit farther into your panties, dragging it through your pussylips as you squirmed beneath him, then drew it back, dripping, to circle your clit, and smiled as you clamped a hand over your mouth to keep a neighbor-waking vocalization in check. You were soaking wet for him, and it made his erection strain jealously against the closure of his slacks. It had been too long, since he’d allowed himself time for anything other than work. It was almost unbearable having someone moan for him and not be able to fuck them. But you said no, so he focused on what you would allow him to do—on giving you the most earthshaking orgasm you’d ever experienced.

The tightness of your jeans was too restrictive, and you quickly unbuttoned them and zipped them down. “My papi’s fingers feel so good,” you groaned. “I want more of them.”

“You feel… so good,” he answered, lowering his mouth to yours for a fervent, but surprisingly tender kiss as he moved his fingertips over your swollen, stimulated cunt. He traced over your dripping entrance, and pressed in just the tip of one finger, leaving you gasping for more. He withdrew from your pants and brought his fingers to his lips, sucking them clean, his eyes closing as he savored it. “You taste good, too,” he whispered low and gravelly, almost a growl, though not one you would describe as predatory. There was no danger lurking behind those perceptive eyes—the thrill he gave you had a different source. Your tongue darted over his, dipping into his mouth to taste yourself on his broad tongue.

“Is papi going to fuck me with those fingers?” you challenged, enjoying the way his breath hitched every time you called him that. You’d heard it in passing and knew it was something like calling him “daddy,” but you’d never expected it to have such a big effect.

He helped you pull your jeans down below the swell of you ass, not bothering to take them all the way off and interrupt your pleasure any longer. Once he had all the access he needed, he plunged his fingers into you. He observed carefully, gauging your reaction in the way the slick walls of your cunt gripped and twitched around him, and the tone and frequency of your pleading moans. When one finger wasn’t enough, he added a second, satisfied with his judgment as you cried out and arched against him, your hands gripping the blanket at the stretch. “Te gusta, mamita?” he purred, but you were too breathless to give an answer except a throaty carnal whimper.

Adapting himself to your responses, he alternated penetrating you with his fingers and teasing your clit, kissing you hot and fierce, ramping up his intensity to draw louder and louder cries, leaving a trail of wet bruises down your neck. Curling his fingers inside you, he hit a sweet spot that made your legs begin to tremble. You wailed uninhibited and raw, too overwhelmed with pleasure to try to rile him with another “papi.” He sucked your pulse point under your ear, savoring the feeling of your blood racing beneath his lips. Knowing how turned you were, how much he was affecting you was so deliciously invigorating to his ego. As easily as he could command a courtroom, he’d never had the same confidence in his body. Past lovers would say he had perfect technique, but no soul, no intuition for what a they needed—but here you were, cunt twitching on his fingers, moaning over and over for him.

Your eyes kept closing to focus on what he was doing between your thighs, but when they opened you saw how intensely he was watching you. The arousal on his face as he watched was intoxicating. You had never seen such anyone look at you with such wanton lust, and it heightened your excitement.

“Rafael… Raf—oh, fuck,” you hissed, jerking your hips up to deepen the penetration. “Keep going... deeper!”

“Dime, ‘más profundo,’” he ordered softly, but confidently.

“M-más profundo, papi.”

“Eres buena estudiante,” he praised, a smile lighting his eyes as he sank his fingers deeper with enthusiasm. You were getting close, the fire singing between your thighs blossoming outward through your entire body but always coiling tighter in your core, building an unbearable tension that threatened to break you. He rocked his hips, and the heat twisted tighter at the feeling of his iron-hard cock grinding against you.

You squeezed your hand between your two bodies, groping blindly down his stomach until you found his pants and the massive tent he was pushing into your leg. You grasped the hard outline of his cock, squeezing it and working it through his clothes. He drew a sharp breath and for a moment the rhythmic thrusting of his fingers stuttered and paused. His hemlock-green eyes were black with arousal as they examined you. Then he rocked his hips, thrusting into your palm with a low groan, and his fingers pumped into you again with renewed vigor.

“Que buena chica eres… Just like that,” he croaked. His breathing was growing ragged, he was starting to fall apart with your hand working his cock.

He adjusted his weight to free his other hand, stroking the side of your face as he pressed a passionate kiss to your lips. His thumb kneaded your cheeks as they smiled against his mouth and went slack with lust. His mouth wandered lower, teasing your collar bone with light nips to make you yelp and sigh, then bending to take a mouthful of breast. He withdrew his two slick fingers from the depths of your cunt and circled your clit slowly, gently—then fast and rough as he sucked at a hardened nipple, drawing a shattered gasp from your throat. You rubbed his cock frantically, trying to repay some small amount of the pleasure he was giving you. When he plunged his fingers back inside, he added a third, and you moaned at the added fullness—at being stuffed tight, almost too much for you to handle, an intense pleasure threaded through with pain.

“Oh, fuck,” you cried out, eyes rolling back as you felt your climax build, every nerve ending in your body on fire.

“Is that a good fuck, or a bad fuck?”

“Good,” you stammered, barely holding yourself together. “Don’t stop, papi, I’m almost there.” The hint of pain faded into pure bliss as you imagined it was his cock splitting you open.

His eyes gleamed wickedly as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, watching you come undone with every stroke. This horrible week, he had felt so helpless, useless. It made him doubt himself. But this—this he had control over. Your body. Your arousal. Everything that had fallen apart wasn’t his fault; it was because of circumstances outside his authority to influence. When he was given complete control, this was his effect. He could get any result he wanted, elicit any twitch of your cunt, any moan from your lips, and have you singing in ecstasy just from his fingers. Imagine if you let him fuck you, the songs he could have you singing then.

He angled his hand so his palm was rubbing against your clit as he thrust, and he could tell you were riding the edge of the precipice by the helpless mewling whimpers pouring from your lips with increased fervor, how your walls began to invite him deeper, taking more of him until he was buried three knuckles deep and you were still bucking your hips to intensify each thrust, starving for more. His own hips began rocking at a frantic pace into your hand.

“Rafael… Oh, Rafael,” you moaned. You loved the shape of his name in your mouth. It was like you weren’t even strangers, the more you said it. For him, it would have been too personal for a casual hookup most nights, but for some reason it turned him on even more than when you called him papi.

“Ven conmigo,” he urged softly, his hips stroking at a delirious pace that did not match his calm tone. You didn’t recognize what it meant, but the sound of Spanish rolling over his tongue mixed with the wet lewd noises of his fingers fucking you drove you to the edge.

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna...” Your voice broke.

He ducked his head back to your chest and drew a nipple between his teeth, sucking hard just as you came over the precipice and pushing you off it with a violent shove until you wailed out loud, careening into a free-fall steeper and farther than you’d prepared for, your back arching and your walls crashing around his fingers, clenching and convulsing around them.

“Open your eyes,” he said. “Look at me.” You could hear the lawyer in his voice—controlled, assertive. Not quite a command, but your eyes fluttered open obediently. Holding eye contact while your body was being rocked by wave upon wave of fierce climax was too intimate, but he repeated his request low and soft as a tiger’s purr. Your met his gaze and held it. The look of lust on his face, his lips softly parted, lower lip quivering, renewed the strength of your orgasm and sent another shockwave coursing through you.

He kept pumping into you through your orgasm, riding out the aftershocks, until your legs were shaking and weak. The sensation of you coming on his fingers turned him on so much, he only needed to rock into your hand once more, flick his tongue over your breast, and he lost control. He was not vocal as you were as his thighs trembled with his own release, but his hips slowed, and then stopped, their desperate thrusting, and you felt a warm, wet spot soak through the front of his pants. Your gasping cries were stochastic and desperate now, overstimulated—you pushed his hand out of your underwear to stop his relentless fingers, and he rolled off of you heavily.

Laying back on the soft pile of hotel pillows, he slowed his breathing, then sucked his fingers clean one by one with a lascivious growl of pleasure. You watched him, shivering with fascination, and he glanced back at you with a piercing gaze. “I want to fuck you next time. Por favor, déjame a cogerte.”

Next time. You turned away, your cheeks burning up. You never assumed there would be a next time to this, but your heart wouldn’t stop beating at the thought.

“Next time sounds good. That was…” You turned back to praise him, but his eyes were already closed, and a light snore was emanating from his nose. “...Amazing, you lightweight.”

The dizzying effect of all the booze was catching up alarmingly quickly now that you were spent. After the strenuous effort of tugging the blanket out from under Barba so you could tuck it over him, you were completely worn out, and within a minute you were fast asleep as well, cuddled under his arm, your chests rising and falling in unison.

#Rafael Barba #Rafael Barba x Reader #Raúl Esparza #SVU #smut #Barba x female reader #My writing #thatesqcrush kink bingo #I am curious how intelligible this is to someone who speaks zero spanish #hopefully the dialogue tags & context explain enough

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thehollowprince · 3 years

Note

Derek being midly inconvenienced // I wouldn’t really call Scott violating a rape victim’s boundaries, bodily autonomy and consent and using Derek as his own personal murder weapon against Derek’s will a “mild inconvenience”. And Scott didn’t save anyone’s life, since he failed to kill a geriatric psychopath who’s already dying and the only thing he achieved with his dumb plan was to prompt a very much alive Gerard to order the Kanima to slaughter everyone in the warehouse – including Scott 🤷🏿

Oh, my God, you fuckin' child, get a dame life!

I am sorry that you're life is so damn pathetic that you spend your days harassing people on the internet to feel some semblance of meaning. I'm sorry that your comprehension skills never passed the first grade level and you can't look at something and think about it passed face value. More than anything else, I feel pity for you, because you being in my inbox, day after day after fucking day is not something to be proud of. I honestly wish I had as much free time as you seem to have.

You can trot out the word rape to your heart's content, but it doesn't change the fact that A: Scott didn't know that and B: Scott didn't owe him shit. Where is this faux concern when Derek broke into Scott's house, broke his arm, beat him within an inch of his life and pressed a boot to his neck? Where was this concern for Scott, a victim of domestic abuse? Hmm?

@princeescaluswords has said it multiple times in a much nicer and more eloquent way than I can, but you're "argument" about the events of Master Plan is complete and utter bullshit. I know it. You know it. I know that you know it. And you hate that I know it. This bad faith posturing is beyond childish, and if I didn't know any better, I'd swear you're a thirteen-year-old. But the sad truth is that I do know better and that makes this all the more aggravating, that a grown ass adult is on here, harassing people because they liked the main character of a TV show and not the made-up uwu versions of the side characters that you fixated on.

That's sad. I am sad for you.

None of the violence in Master Plan came about because id Scott. That was a combination of Gerard and Derek. If Scott had just stayed out of it and let the two of them duke it out, the outcome would have been vastly different. For starters, Derek would probably be dead and we'd have another crazed Alpha werewolf running around killing people for fun. And if that had come to pass you'd still blame Scott.

We've discussed this as nauseum. It doesn't matter what Scott does, you blame him for everything (if he had killed Gerard, he would have been called a murderer, we all know this) and nothing I (or anyone else) say is going to change your mind on that, no matter what canon evidence we provide.

So it begs the question: why the fuck are you here? What is lacking in your life that has you harassing me?

#asshole anon #scott mccall defense squad #teen wolf fandom problems

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argylemnwrites · 4 years

Text

Fight or Flight - Chapter 11: Weighing

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Heir (canon divergent from the end of book 2)

Word Count: ~3300

Rating: PG-13 (language only)

Summary: Six days since The Walker Absconding

Author’s Note: This series follows the Walkers, their friends, and Cordonia as a whole after they flee the country with their daughter during Barthelemy Beaumont’s attempted coup. To catch up on this series, check out it’s masterlist. (link can be found via my bio - sorry, Tumblr is once again not putting my posts with links in tag searches)

Rashad sighed heavily as he sat in a chair that was much too big behind a desk that was much too formal in an office that was much too stuffy. He’d agreed to be king-regent because he knew Liam was backed into a corner, and that his previous turns as legal counsel to both the palace and the Beaumonts made him the only obviously neutral party in the nobility. But not even one week in, and he found himself wishing he’d refused the appointment. He missed his job, his duties, his office, and that didn’t even touch on the mess he’d been handed.

It’s not like he wasn’t used to complicated and stressful work. But at Sloan Enterprises, it was work he was passionate about, work that he found stimulating and enthralling. Now, he was engulfed in so many decisions ranging from the banal to the insane. It was work he honestly wanted no part of, but that hadn’t exactly been an option.

His goal had simply been to get through the social season and reach the Conclave without rocking the boat, so to speak. Keep Cordonia on a steady course until someone who wanted the title of monarch could assume it, then return to his life as quickly as possible. But that had rapidly proved to be an impossibility. He’d already had to initiate a treason and kidnapping investigation, strip a duke and duchess of their titles, and postpone the social season. He’d done more in a few days than he’d hoped to do during his entire “reign.”

Now, he was facing numerous protests across the country that he had no idea how to handle. He wasn’t some verbose, eloquent speaker. Any speech from him was unlikely to quell citizen unrest. But in the past 36 hours, he’d watched news coverage of five different protests from five different groups. There was the group that called themselves the True Cordonians, a collection of traditionalists who had always opposed Drake and Riley and their connections to the United States, who were upset that the “traitorous” Walkers hadn’t been found yet. Counter-protesters to them had popped up in front of the Valtoria estate, denouncing the kidnapping and treason charges. That group hadn’t named themselves, but “She’s their kid” had become their rallying cry. Then there were the protests in Lythikos that called for Olivia’s installation as the “rightful regent” as well as a pro-Beaumont group that had come out in support of Barthelemy in Ramsford following his exclusive interview with Ana de Luca. And of course, the Liberation Core was using all the turmoil to spread their anti-monarchy message. Even if Rashad had been confident in his abilities to give a national address, he was completely unsure how to find a message that would even partially unify all those opposing groups.

All he wanted to do was to leave as little of a mark as possible as a ruler and to hand off the crown with Cordonia in a stable position. But it was rapidly seeming like those goals were mutually exclusive. And as loathe as he was to make big decisions, hiding away in the palace and letting the country fall to pieces was not something he could do. He needed to steady the ship, so to speak. And that’s why he was meeting with Lady Hana today.

Almost on cue, he heard a sharp tap on the main office door. After a second, Stefan entered, bowing his head slightly. Liam had offered to let his personal assistant stay on and help him with day to day tasks and the basics and essentials of the role. Rashad wasn’t naive enough to think that Stafan wasn’t essentially spying on him and reporting back to Liam, but he’d needed all the help he could get, and Stefan had proved invaluable, preparing daily briefings and news summaries, so he’d kept the man on his staff.

“Your Regency, Lady Hana is here for her appointment.”

“Thank you, Stefan. Send her in, please.”

A few moments later, Lady Hana entered, bowing her head slightly.

“Good afternoon, Your Regency.”

“Same to you, Lady Hana. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the chairs in front of the desk. He was well aware this was probably awkward for her as well. She had probably been in this same office not that long ago with Liam behind the desk.

“Thank you,” she said with a little nod, smoothing her skirt before she sat down.

“So, I figure we better get right down to business.”

“I’ve told Bastien and the investigators everything I know, but I can-”

“No! Not that; I know you’ve already given your statement. I wanted to talk to you about Valtoria.”

Hana was still and silent for just a moment before nodding crisply. “Very well. I would appreciate if I could have a day or two to move my belongings out of the estate.”

Rashad grimaced. This was so uncomfortable. “No, you misunderstand me, Lady Hana. I wanted to discuss whether you were open to accepting the title of Duchess of Valtoria.”

Her eyes widened at that. “Me? As a duchess?”

“Yes. You’ve been living there for about a year and a half at this point, and I am guessing you have served as an advisor to Lady Ri- er, the previous duchess at various points.”

“Well, yes. But it was really nothing.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

She gave him a little smile at that. “Why are you looking to appoint me?”

Rashad figured he had better level with her. She wasn’t going to respond well to flattery she found insincere. “There is too much instability across the kingdom at the moment. Too much is unfolding, and the citizens are rightly unsettled. You are a known presence at that duchy, and you are more than qualified to hold the title. You stepping into that role would help reduce the sense that everything is changing. I might not be able to keep Lythikos and Ramsford calm and peaceful, but if I can give Valtoria some sense of stability, that would be a start at least.”

“I don’t know. This seems like a gigantic call for you to make while you’re…”

“A placeholder?”

“I didn’t know how to phrase it politely,” she said with a little smile.

“That’s quite alright. To answer your question, I’m not sure if this is the right call, but it seems like a natural place to start. You know the people of Valtoria. You’ve lived there and you’ve served them and the country as a whole well. You have the skills and talents required for the position, and professional recruitment is one area I actually do have some experience, so I am confident you would do well in that role. But the choice is yours, of course.”

He watched her swallow, trying to read her expression, but her face wasn’t giving much away. He had no idea what she was thinking, but after a few seconds of tense silence, she nodded. “Alright then. If it’s what the citizens of Valtoria need, I’d be honored to accept.

With that, she stretched her left hand across the desk, so Rashad grasped it firmly. As he pulled out some of the paperwork he’d prepared in hopes that she agreed and started going over some of the logistics, he hoped that his first major decision as regent would be one of his only major decisions. The fear of public scrutiny already loomed large in his mind, and this was a decision he was actually fairly confident in. Sadly, he was a realist, and he knew things were likely to get worse before they got better. All he could do, though, was keep trotting along, trying to get the country through the next couple of months relatively unscathed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Riley let out a groan, dropping her head into her hands. “Drake, this fucking sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

She glanced out the window, almost feeling like she would see a drone with a little camera courtesy of Amalas just peering into their room. Was she using drones? Did she have spies tailing them? Was she just scanning publicly accessible photos tagged in Greek cities with facial ID software? Did it even matter? The end result was the same. Someone she wasn’t sure she could trust knew where her family was, and that was mad nerve-wracking.

Riley glanced back down at Drake, who was sitting on the floor with Bridget, keeping her from using the dresser to pull up to standing. She’d discovered how to do so this morning, and she kept wanting to repeat it, but the last thing they needed was for her to pull the dresser down on top of herself. It made Riley think about all the furniture around their private quarters that Drake had bolted to the wall in preparation for this milestone. None of that would matter anymore.

For the moment, Bridget was distracted with a pile of blocks she was putting into a pillowcase over and over. Riley knew she would return to trying to escape Drake’s reach to try out her new skill soon enough, but for now, at least, she was safely and happily playing.

Riley and Drake had been discussing what to do next for hours and hours at this point. They had called Olivia earlier, and after some back and forth, Drake and Olivia had both seemed confident that Amalas wasn’t actively following them and didn’t know their location beyond the city. After all, she had been eager to contact Olivia with her intel, and it seemed like too much of a coincidence for that call to come just a few hours after they had spent any real time out in public since their fleeing was common knowledge.

The best guess Drake had was that they had been in the background of someone’s Pictagram post or some shit like that, and that Amalas was just constantly running some sort of facial recognition program constantly on posts tagged with various cities in Greece. After all, she had to know they were trapped in Greece at this point. If they attempted to cross the borders, they would have to show their ID cards and they would likely be arrested on the spot.

Even if Amalas was just aware of their general location, it still was concerning that she was devoting that much effort to keeping tabs on them. But what actions they needed to take next were unclear to both of them. Hence them talking around in circles for hours and hours, just waiting for some idea that felt better than all the crappy ones they’d both thrown out there.

“I just don’t like sitting around with her knowing where we are, Drake. Even if she doesn’t know the exact details.”

Drake glanced up at her and gave a little shrug. This wasn’t the first time she’d expressed that sentiment. “I don’t like it either. But there’s no guarantee things will be better if we move on to a new city.”

“Olivia said that she’s trying to use us as leverage. How does that sit right with you?”

He shot her a clearly annoyed glare before looking back at Bridget, emptying the pillowcase for her to start filling with blocks again before he said, “It doesn’t fucking sit right with me. But we need to think long term here. We will need to find places to stay for at least a couple of months. That’s the earliest the Conclave can happen, and the charges won’t be dropped before then. We’re also going to need food and warmer clothing when it’s not the middle of summer, and that beater of a car is not going to hold up forever. We need to be frugal and cautious now.”

Riley knew he was right. Her instinct was always to scramble and react, often impulsively. If they kept following her lead every step of the way, they were probably going to make things harder than they needed to be. And she did appreciate that Drake was trying to put more thought into concrete plans. Both of them drifting along without a clear plan, complacent beyond belief was how Bridget was named heir and they found themselves in this situation in the first place.

“Are we even going to have enough money to get us through the next couple of months?”

Drake let out a sigh and shook his head.

“How long?” Riley asked, scrunching her eyes closed as she braced for the answer.

“Three weeks, more or less, if we keep our expenses like they have been.” She opened her eyes and locked them on his. His shoulders sagged and his eyes were sad and heavy, like he was somehow letting her down by telling her the honest facts.

“Drake… How are we going…” she trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

“I’m gonna need to pick up some odd jobs or something, find a way to make some money.”

“How are we going to do that without any ID we can show or anything. I mean, Amalas is out as a source of forgeries at this point, so unless-”

“Olivia told us she was going to poke around, see what she could do. Hana has our passports, so that’s a start at least.”

“I don’t know. I just… I hate this. Everything we have to do feels like it’s gonna get us caught.”

Drake ran his hand over the stubble on his jaw. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and in all the time she had known him, Riley could count the number of times he hadn’t shaved on one hand. She wondered if he was trying to grow a beard to make himself less recognizable or if he had just been too stressed and sleep deprived to bother today. She knew he wasn’t sleeping well.

“I don’t know how to fix this perfectly, Riley. I just don’t.” He looked so dejected, placing his chin on his bent knee, so Riley slid off the end of the bed and joined him and Bridget on the floor, threading her legs under his raised leg in hopes of conveying some degree of comfort.

“Well, we’re just going to have to make a decision and not look back here. And it looks like the two least bad options are to either stay hiding out here for as long as possible and hope that Amalas doesn’t go blabbing, or move on to a new city and hope she doesn’t find us there and that it isn’t too much of an expense to do so.”

He nodded, reaching for her hand. She grabbed on tightly, threading their fingers together. Maybe it was for the best they were both mad conflicted here. It allowed them to really decide on their next move as a team.

“I know I’ve been kind of reluctant to head to a new city, but one thing that is worth considering is that if we went to a bigger city, I might be able to find some under the table work. Day labor, that sort of thing. Plus…” he trailed off and shook his head a little at that, so Riley pushed on.

“What?”

“Well, we have a better chance of finding someone to do a forgery for us in a bigger city, too.”

“You think we should just find a random stranger to forge us passports with new identities?”

“We might have to. I hope Olivia can come through for us, but I’m not counting on that. She’s not going to risk her reputation and good standing to really put her neck out there for us. It’s one thing to keep our location a secret, it’s another to draw attention to herself by asking a lot of questions about how to fake a convincing Greek passport. So if she isn’t able to help us, we’re probably going to have to find someone to do it for us at some point.”

“I thought you said the bigger cities would be the first place they would try to track us.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a few days. They are probably broadening their search at this point. I feel like that risk isn’t as bad as it used to be.”

“So are you saying you think we should head out?”

He paused for a moment and swallowed roughly, running his free hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I think we could stay here for a little while longer and wait to see what Olivia can do for us about fabricated identification, or we could cut our losses and start trying to plan for that on our own. I don’t exactly like either option, Walker, but I think those two I could live with. Where are you at?”

She bit her lip, trying to figure out what was best. She wished there was a clear sign that one option was better than another, but there just wasn’t. They were going to be gambling here no matter what, and while she normally loved a good game of poker, the fact that the stakes here included the safety of her daughter and her family left her feeling sick to her stomach.

“I guess I don’t trust Amalas knowing even our general location.”

“Even though…,” Drake started, taking a deep breath and giving her hand a squeeze before he continued, “even though you thought she might be a good resource for us yesterday?”

Riley opened her mouth to snap back at him, frustrated that he seemed to be trying to trap her or accuse her or something, but she stopped when she saw the look in his eyes. He was afraid of her. She’d never seen that look directed at her before, not quite like that. Sure, she’d seen him upset and terrified, but she had never been the source of it before. So she swallowed down her instinct to lash out and defend herself and let out a little sigh. She’d put him through enough with this whole fugitive status already, and she didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t be honest with her, couldn’t challenge her. They had always pushed each other, even before they were together. She couldn’t risk losing that now.

“The situation has changed,” she said, trying to keep any defensiveness out of her voice. “If she’s putting the effort into keeping tabs on our whereabouts, she has something up her sleeve, and I don’t trust her. It was one thing when I hoped we might be able to leverage some juicy info and future political favors, but now… I just don’t think we’re going to be willing to pay the price she wants.”

Drake nodded a couple of times before he said, “Okay, so we’re moving on then?”

“If you’re okay with that.”

“As long as we go to a bigger city, I’m okay with it.”

She gave him a little smile and reached up to cup his cheek with her free hand. “Got a place in mind?”

“If we’re gonna do this, we might as well commit. I say Athens, unless you-”

But she cut him off, shaking her head before leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Drake.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I’m-” he started, but threw himself to the side and grabbed Bridget who was crawling over to the dresser, tugging her into his lap. “Oh no you don’t, Peanut.”

Riley felt her lips widening into a genuine smile, a feeling that almost felt foreign after the past several days. But her family was here, and they were all just doing the best they could. Even if it all fell apart, at least she could take comfort in that fact. So for now, she just took in her husband and her daughter sharing a normal moment, happy simply to be together.

Permatag: @walkerswhiskeygirl @riley--walker @bebepac @ravenpuff02 @oofchoices @octobereighth @drakewalker04 @kimmiedoo5 @mfackenthal @thequeenofcronuts

The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir: @iaminlovewithtrr @ao719 @mskaneko @katedrakeohd @jovialyouthmusic @marshmallowsandfire @axwalker @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @dcbbw @yaushie

Drake x MC: @no-one-u-know @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @notoriouscs @drakesensworld @drake-colt-lover-99

Fight or Flight: @masterofbluff @burnsoslow @bobasheebaby @shz256

#drake walker #drake x mc #trr au #trh au #trr fanfic #trh fanfic #trr au fanfic #trh au fanfic #choices fanfiction

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straycat-writes · 4 years

Text

l’appel du vide (nakahara chuuya)

l’appel du vide (french n.) - “the call of the void”; the instinctive urge to jump from high places.

requested by: anonymous

warning(s): Alcohol, swearing

You sighed as you dropped into bed with a dull thud. The clock on the bedside table blinked 2:00 AM, and after the incredibly long day you had just had, you wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers and not emerge for a full 24 hours. That, apparently, was not to be, however. You were teetering on the edge of sleeping and waking, just about to fall asleep, when your phone began to ring on the bedside table.

Mumbling a curse under your breath, you sat up in bed and rubbed your eyes. You reached for your phone, your bleary vision not allowing you to check the caller ID as you picked up the call.

“Hello?”

“(Y/n), hey!!!” said a slurred male voice from the phone, “How are you, baby??”

You blinked, then frowned, “…Chuuya?”

“Who else?” he said cheerily from the other end, before letting out a string of vile curse words as you heard something crash loudly in the background.

You sighed, already feeling a headache coming on, “Why are you calling so late, Chuuya? And are you drunk?”

“I just wanted to hear my darling’s voice, is that too much to ask for?” he whined, “And yes, I mayyybe be a little tipsy, but that has nothing to do with it.”

“Not your darling.” You muttered under your breath as you frustratedly threw off the covers and got off the bed, searching for your keys, “Where are you?”

In Chuuya’s vocabulary, ‘a little tipsy’ meant ‘wasted off my ass and on the verge of passing out’, and whatever history the two of you might have had, you couldn’t leave him be when he was like that.

He paused, as if to consider what to say, “So-somewhere…drinks…bar…I don’t know.”

You rolled your eyes, “You know what? Nevermind, there’s only one place you frequent anyway. Just…stay there. I’ll be there in a few.

True to your words, five minutes later, you were in your car driving towards Chuuya’s favourite bar in the dead of the night. You ran a hand through your hair, muttering to yourself in frustration, “Why, why, why did this idiot call me of all people?”

It had been a month since you had seen him last. All you remember of that last encounter was a lot of screaming and yelling at each other interspersed by strings of curse words before the inevitable ‘I want to break up’ came. You didn’t even remember which one of you had been the one to say it, but frankly, it didn’t matter. It had been said, and that was that. You had completely cut yourself off from him after that, in order to wallow in your sorrow alone and in peace, and as much as it pained you to think about now, the thought of how Chuuya might be holding up hadn’t really crossed your mind.

The answer to that was obviously ‘not good’, as it became apparent once you parked your car outside of where you thought he might be and went inside. Chuuya was getting chastised by the bartender, but he didn’t really seem to be listening, instead looking spaced out and smiling like an idiot. In hindsight, you should have seen this coming. Chuuya has never been too good at dealing with stressful situations, and only has two sorry excuses of coping mechanisms: destroying something or getting drunk off his mind. When he saw you, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

“(Y/n)!!” he trilled, “You’re here.”

Choosing to roll your eyes in favour of gracing his wasted ass with an answer, you went up to him and tried to get him to stand on his own two feet. After apologizing profusely to the bartender on Chuuya’s behalf, you managed to half lead, half drag Chuuya back to your car. You dumped him unceremoniously into the passenger seat before getting in yourself. But instead of starting the car, you just sat there for a while, arms resting on the steering wheel and head resting over them. How did we even get here?

Back when the two of you had still been together, you used to think you’d spend the rest of your life with him. That was before everything went wrong. It was no one’s fault, really, and after a month of shutting yourself away, bingeing on ice-cream and crying yourself to sleep, you had just about convinced yourself it wasn’t meant to be, and that you were both better off away from each other.

But then this bastard decided to drunk dial you in the middle of the night, and here you were.

You felt a slight tug at your hair and looked up to see Chuuya twirling a lock of it in his fingers, “I love your hair. It’s beautiful.”

“Shut up, Chuuya.” You muttered, moving his hand away from your hair as you started the car.

“But I want to talk!” he whined, before quietly adding, “I missed you so much.”

Your heart skipped a beat at that, but you willed yourself to keep driving, “Just…please shut up.”

When he didn’t say anything for a while, you glanced at him from the corner of your eye. His head was resting against the window, eyebrows scrunched up as he stared outside with a very displeased expression on his face. Like he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out how to.

There were dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days, which he probably hadn’t, and your heart clenched in your chest. You knew Chuuya had little in the way of self-care habits, but you hadn’t thought it would get this bad. Any third person looking at the two of you would have immediately pointed out that the look of exhaustion on his face mirrored the one on yours, but the thought never occurred to you.

“Just what the hell have you been doing to yourself?” You mumbled quietly to yourself, not really expecting him to answer.

He heard you though, even through his drunken haze, and let out a bitter laugh. It sounded almost sober, and that surprised you enough to look over at him again. His eyes were glassy and rimmed with red as he looked at you, and even though he definitely wasn’t sober, he looked slightly more in possession of his wits.

“The past month has been the worst in my life.” He said after a while, “Hell, I haven’t got so pissed drunk since that shitty Dazai left.”

You sighed in frustration, “And what do you want me to do about it? I’m the last person you should be coming to.”

“Maybe. Probably.” He mumbled, “At this point, I’m really not sure what I should be doing. I…wish you’d just listen to what I have to say.”

“Listen to what you have to say? There’s nothing left to be said, Chuuya.” You said, getting increasingly distressed as you tried to keep your eyes on the empty road, “It’s done and over with, and just when I thought I’d come to terms with that – “

“I know, I know.” He interrupted, a strange kind of desperation lacing his voice, “But will you please, please just hear what I have to say?”

As if I have a choice, you wanted to say, but didn’t, and he took your silence as a yes.

“I miss you, (y/n), so much. And I know it doesn’t…doesn’t mean…much to you, but I’m so sorry.”

You snorted at that, and he fixed you with an incredulous look. You shook your head.

“I really am, and I – I don’t know what I was thinking, I just – “

“Chuuya.” You interrupted, “You’re just rambling nonsense now. Just…shut up, we’re almost at your flat.”

He sighed, “I…I guess I was just afraid.”

“Afraid?” That had piqued your interest, and the question was out before you could think the better of it.

He was hesitant at first, but then nodded, “Being with you…it felt – felt like walking the edge of a cliff. Not in a bad way, of course, but it felt so…foreign, I guess you can say. I have never been so utterly and completely in love with someone, and I knew if I accepted that and fell over the edge, you would be right there to catch me. So that’s not what scared me…”

You were listening to every word that tumbled out of his mouth with the utmost attention, partly because you were genuinely curious, and partly because you knew he would never talk this openly if he were sober. So, even though some of what he said hurt, you listened.

“What scared me was that…I…I often found myself actually wanting to…jump off that metaphorical cliff. Each time I realized what I was thinking, I would be horrified, because…well, it meant letting myself go, and you know that doesn’t have any good connotations for me. I didn’t know if I should, if it was the sensible thing to do, or even the right one, but…I don’t know if you’ll understand, (y/n), but being so completely in love with someone that you want to completely hand yourself over to them is…frightening, to say the least.”

All this time, you had been listening to him in mute wonder, not wanting to interrupt whatever trance he seemed to be in. He got scared and left you…because he loved you too much?

When you didn’t say anything, he cursed under his breath, “Damn it, this is harder to explain than I thought it would be. I’m not doing a very good job, am I?”

“What? No, it’s just…” You wanted to say you understand, you really did, but you weren’t sure if that was quite true. By now, the two of you had reached his flat, and you parked the car in front of his building, looking over at him frowning.

“Shit…I’m sorry, I just…fuck!”

“Chuuya.” You interrupted, putting a hand on his shoulder, “Chuuya! Look at me. Calm down.”

He sighed, then looked over at you with sad, red rimmed eyes, “It’s just…I’m sad. I’m sorry. I suck. I love you.”

Neither of you said anything for a good two minutes after that, just sitting in the car and listening to each other breathe. Then you sighed.

“Well, you’re certainly very eloquent for someone as pissed drunk as you are.”

He blinked at you, confused, “What?”

You shook your head and smiled at him, a thin, watery smile that dripped with sadness, but a smile nonetheless, “Let’s get you inside.”

You weren’t even sure if he’d remember any of this in the morning, or if he really did feel the way he had just described, so scared to love you, to be in love, that he pushed you away. You had no idea how to handle this, and the ache in your head just kept getting sharper and sharper. For a moment, you even caught yourself thinking that maybe it’d be better if he didn’t remember anything in the morning. That way, the both of you could go on living your lives as if nothing happened. But could you live with such a big ‘what-if’ hanging over your head?

As you drove back home in the dead of the night, after putting him to bed, you decided you weren’t ready to find the answer to that question yet.

#chuuya nakahara #chuuya x reader #drabble #scenario #event prompt #l'appel du vide #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #imagines #bsd #straycat's 1k follower celebration

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dresupi · 4 years

Text

Iris - Axel Cluney/Darcy Lewis

for @meilan-firaga 706 words Rated T Iris - Aftermath of a drunken voicemail

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her head was pounding and she fucking knew she wasn’t going to be able to look Axel in the eye that day. Never mind that Wade had called a meeting between the members of X-Force and she’d been summoned belatedly. She wasn’t actually a member, seeing as she wasn’t a mutant, but she did handle all his tech stuff for him, so it made sense why he wanted her there.

But she really wished she could have known about it the previous night before she went out with Jane and Natasha and got fucking wasted on Russian vodka. That shit was so strong, she’d actually hallucinated calling Axel and confessing every single aspect of her crush on him.

She’d even told him how much it turned her on when he bit his lip and how she really wanted to do that herself. To him. It was more eloquent the night before when she was hallucinating.

As she pushed open the door to Sister Margaret’s, her eyes stopped aching and she was able to take her sunglasses off and slide them into her purse. She took a seat in one of the booths and pulled out her phone to pass the time. Domino slid in on her other side and checked her shoulder.

“Heya, Darce.”

“Hey,” she replied, smiling weakly.

“Oh, you’re hungover,” her friend exclaimed. “Told you that you shoulda let me come along. I never get hungover.”

“Yeah, I’ll remember that for next time,” Darcy groaned.

By that time, everyone had filed in, and Wade had started talking. (He had a visual aid in the form of a dry erase board with a marker that squeaked more than it wrote)

The squeaking was grating on her poor headache and she looked up from her phone to see Axel seated directly across from her, his eyes on the board, but his lip between his teeth.

He bit down until the skin went white, and when he released it, it flushed red again.

Fuck. She might have a headache, but that was still hot as hell.

He ran his tongue over the place where he’d bitten and cut his eyes back to her, locking on her gaze and winking. He had his phone in his hand as well, texting something without looking at the screen.

Her phone buzzed in her hand as his message appeared at the top of the screen.

Frowning hurt, but she did it anyway as she quickly scrambled to check it.

“Is it when I bite it like that, or is there another way I’m not aware of?” It was followed by a winky face and she could have sworn all the blood drained from her face as she quickly checked her call log, her stomach dropping down to her toes when she did.

It wasn’t a hallucination.

She’d actually called him.

And told him she wanted to bite his lip for him.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Another text came through. “Calm down, D. I like it when you’re trying to hack in somewhere and you’ve got that look on your face like you’re trying to read Esperanto. Fucking hot as hell, babe.”

She flushed bright red then, glancing up at his face and then back down at her phone because she liked that even more than when he bit his lip.

“And you will meet up after this meeting to bang out your problems,” Wade said suddenly. “Now if you two are finished eye-fucking each other, can we get back to---“ He tapped the board with his fingers.

“It’s the same basic setup as before, except you need all new fake IDs from me because you guys blew all your covers last time,” she paraphrased. “I’ve got it.”

“Yeah well, let Axel live, will ya? How’s he supposed to pay attention so he doesn’t acid-puke on every single person and blow our covers again if you’re over there being adorable?”

“I acid-puked on one person, and it only damaged their shoes,” Axel retorted. “You blew our covers by not remembering the names on our IDs. Now, having said that...” He turned to Darcy, smirking a little. “You really should let me live, babe.”

Domino rolled her eyes. “Now, I’m going to puke.”

#Acidtaser #Darcy x Zeitgeist #Zeitgeist x Darcy #Darcy Lewis #Zeitgeist #Axel Cluney #Darcy x Axel #Axel x Darcy #Darcy/Zeitgeist #Zeitgeist/Darcy #Axel/Darcy #Darcy/Axel #Flower Language Prompts #orange #meilan firaga #my writing

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affectionatealien · 5 years

Text

Puppet Thieving

Summary: Flower protag has reached a new peak of stress trying to juggle helping out the habiticians and deal with Dr. Habit’s constant antagonizing behavior. They rope Tim Tam into helping them with a very dumb spur of the moment idea and find themselves regretting it near instantly.

Warnings: None

A/N: I don’t ever write but like. Smile For Me has really put me in the mood for it sdfjakldsa. So here’s something featuring my flower kid sona having dumb puppet troubles.

It had been a nervewracking morning. Noon was approaching and I was still waiting on the terrace, and not quite as patiently as I was for the couple of hours before. I still hadn't seen Tim Tam, and I couldn't help but feel terribly sick at the idea they might have been caught for the dumb, dumb thing I roped them into doing (though, if I was being fair to myself, it was something Tim Tam still might have done without my interference).

It all started with another morning PSA- the expected 'advice' Habit gave out in his attempt to keep all the habiticians down and in need of this place, and some sort of decreasingly passive and mountingly aggressive message that almost everyone had figured was aimed at me. And, above all that, that damn puppet. Expressionless, taunting. He'd never shown his own face on camera, just that goofy little muppet rendition of himself. I couldn't help but wonder if he didn't have the dumb thing if he'd make so many of these PSAs. Or maybe if it... Disappeared he'd have to come looking for it, stop being holed up in his office. Or at the very least he'd become distraught enough to take some sort of focus away from trying to discourage me from what I'd been doing. But it was wishful thinking. There wasn't any way to get that thing away from him. Unless you were Tim Tam. Or unless you could bribe Tim Tam. Tim Tam could probably be bribed, right?

As it turned out, Tim Tam COULD be bribed. And with what seemed to just be random junk out of my bouquet, too. Or maybe they were just that excited about getting to steal something that they didn't really care. Knowing (or more accurately, not knowing) Tim Tam, I was better off not pondering too long. However they were still gone, and it was enough to make me worry. I didn't think it would take that long to get into Habit's office, and maybe it didn't and they were just dilly dallying elsewhere. If they were, I suppose I really wasn't able to complain. What I knew though was that the more time that passed the worse of an idea it dawned on me this was. Why involve some kid in some bizarre, almost one sided feud with this strange doctor? Was I really that petty and unthinking?

"Hey." A tiny voice snapped me out of my catastrophizing, while something was shoved into my back. "Found him." Sure enough I turned around, face to face with Tim Tam- and the blank expression of a green little puppet (or maybe not so little- it was odd how much bigger the thing looked in person). Perfect. I snatched it from them, perhaps a little rudely, but there were cameras and I didn't want to get caught right then. Tim Tam continued to linger, and had produced a lighter from... Somewhere. "Let's teach him a lesson."

"AH! W-wait!" I blurted out, as I snatched the puppet into the air. Not that I was sure that would stop a determined Tim Tam. "We- I need to do this. I'll get rid of this dumb thing myself." I said, firm. "Besides, I'm the one he seems hellbent on antagonizing. It's only fair." Tim Tam stood motionless for a moment, expression unchanging, before returning the lighter to an unseen pocket.

"Fine. You owe me." That wasn't a problem, since I'd arrived here I was doing people favors. What was one more? I gave them a quick 'okay' sign, before I retreated back to the apartment floor. The puppet had been stuffed under my arm as stealthily as possible, which was to say not very stealthy in any way. I got lucky and didn't run into anyone on my beeline to my room, and once I was in shut the door, locking it. A wave of relief washed over me as I flopped onto my bed- so far this hadn't gone nearly as disastrously as my previous spiraling made me think it would. With the puppet in hand, I turned it over carefully, examining it, trying to decide what I would do to it. If I burned it that would be satisfying, but an incredibly bad idea since I was indoors. Defacing it would be easy enough, all I needed was a sharpie or some paint for that, but maybe that was too simple. I could just pull it apart, or...

That train of thought seemed to fizzle out, as my will seemed to falter. The more I looked at it, the more I thought about how well made it seemed to be... Had Habit made it himself? Was it that important to him? Why did that even matter now? I'd set out to get rid of this thing for some peace of mind and I should do it. But I couldn't. Instead all I thought about now was Tiff talking about the doctor's wailing and crying when she'd bring up her contract. When he noticed his puppet was gone is that what he'd do? Would he search for it, distraught and upset, resigned to sobbing once it wasn't anywhere he'd searched? Sheesh, if the plans I had for that puppet weren't already guilt inspiring, that imagery was the icing on this awful cake. I looked the puppet over again, trying to see if even a shred of hostility could be mustered. Instead, all I could think was how when it wasn't being used to mock or instigate things with me it was awfully cute even... A reminder of that soft side Kamal seemed to insist exists somewhere in the doctor.

And it dawned on me. The crumpled, trashed diary pages I was given every so often by other habiticians that had originally inspired some pang of sympathy before Habit became outright hostile, paired with this- Habit wasn't the cold, easy to fight antagonist who needed to be confronted and triumphed over like I'd tried to make myself believe he was. It was much more complicated than that. He was hurt, most likely lashing out, and it could be stopped. I knew from experience, I knew from being there. And trying to hurt him or stuff he obviously found important wouldn't help. It'd just make him buckle down on his belief that I was the enemy, and that I was someone coming after him personally. I had to change it somehow- I had to show him I'm not.

I sighed, resigned, and placed the puppet carefully onto my bed before sitting next to it. That wasn't exactly the best time to have this revelation, seeing that I had well. Still stolen the puppet. What was I supposed to do with this thing if I wasn't going to just toss it out the window? There was no way for me to get to his office to return it. And Tim Tam would certainly destroy it if I gave it back to them. I was left with the evidence of a crime I couldn't even bring myself to commit. Still, I stared at the little puppet, trying to think of anything I could do to get it back to him, or at the very least tell him I was sorry. Not that he'd care probably, but I had to at least try if I wanted my plan to work.

I still had my sketchpad with me from home, so I tore a page from it- maybe I could leave the puppet with a note somewhere inconspicuous for him to find it. That might work. So I stared at the paper for what felt like too long, and tried to come up with a satisfactory explanation or apology or anything to say. Instead, all I found myself able to write was a simple 'I'm sorry'- nothing quite seemed to come to mind after that. How very eloquent I was, god. With a resigned sigh, I left the note with the puppet. I might as well go spend the rest of my day somewhere else and try not to think about this just yet.

After a bit of wandering, I found myself back on the terrace- it had been a sunny day and god knew I needed something like that. There was a soft breeze too, which only added to the wistful vibe the terrace seemed to have. From where I was standing I saw Kamal in his regular spot- and at the moment it felt like talking to him might be a good idea to clear up some of what was on my mind. "Oh- Hey flower kid. You find the old janitor's ID yet?" Kamal asked as I approached. I shook my head, I had still been helping others out and hadn't really gotten around to finding him at the moment. I opted to sit next to him on the bench he'd practically taken up residence on, and earned a stare and a tilt of his head. "Is uh. Something bothering ya...?" He asked again, looking a little more concerned than usual. I gave a resigned nod, trying to gather my thoughts. "Kamal... You said you know a lot about Dr. Habit because you worked for him right?" I asked.

"Well. Yeah. I told you, I have all kinds of dirt on the guy-"

"Not that. You said you thought I could talk to him because he's... Got that soft spot and all. How was he when he was... Like that?" It took me a moment to find the words, but Kamal seemed to follow, especially with how he was taken aback.

"Well, for starters I guess, he was uh. Always pretty friendly. I mean I was just the guy's assistant but he always treated me a little more like... A friend? Though it uh, could be pretty awkward, he was well meaning I guess." Kamal recalled. "And Habit is way into like... Any artsy crafty stuff. I mean, I'm sure you've seen all the murals of himself he put up. I was there when he did a lot of them and he sorta just. Went to town with that kinda thing. It's probably the happiest I've seen him you know?"

"Yeah... So, does that mean he made that little puppet too...?"

"I mean, I'd imagine he did. That thing was around before I was though, so who knows. How come...?"

"A-ah. No reason at all. Just was... On the mind I guess." I replied, perhaps a little too quickly.

"So uhh, what's up with the sudden interest in Habit...? Last I talked you kinda seemed pretty mad at him..."

"I was but... Uh, I guess things have changed. Kinda. I just... I dunno, I'm trying to find some kinda insight on why he's doing this. Why me existing is something he takes so personal and whatever."

"Ohhh. I gotcha. Well, I mean for starters you're kinda out here doing what he's been trying to for awhile... Probably doesn't feel great to watch some stranger come in and accomplish what you've been working at for years." He pointed out. I nodded understandingly- of course he'd take something like that so gravely. "...And if it helps any, even if it seems well, personal, I don't think he really feels that way about it. I think him acting like that has well... A lot more to do with the state of mind he's been in. Like I said, the dude hasn't been doing exactly great."

"That makes sense yeah... It sounds like stuff's been. Sorta crumbling for him lately." I said. Not a necessarily astute observation, but it's all I could really think to say.

"Sheesh, you can say that for sure. Stuff's gotten uglier and uglier. But... I really do think you can help him. You've certainly got a knack for it and all. And something makes me think he'll listen to you, too." Kamal reassured. I gave him a weak smile, which he returns for a split moment.

"Thanks. I really needed to hear that I think... This has been pretty insightful, so uh. Thanks again and all."

"Don't mention it! Just remember we should probably get going with this whole 'get into his office' plan pretty soon... The way things have been it's uh. Certainly better sooner than later." Kamal reminded me. I nodded as I stood, and gave a short wave as I left the terrace.

The rest of the day passed quickly in the lounge with a couple of drinks and a head full of thoughts- curfew had come before I knew it and I'd found my way back to my room, tired from what felt like too full of a day. And there on my bed, was that poor hostage of a puppet. I couldn't help but pick it up, almost absentmindedly as I settled into bed, looking it over again. 'It's so soft...' I thought to myself, touching its felted face. For a moment it reminded me of the plush collection I had back home, and how I maybe regretted not bringing any of it with me. It certainly made sleeping easier, which was something I could use more than anything considering how restless this place would leave me.

'No. Absolutely not, I will NOT let myself.' I thought while staring down the puppet. Things were already strange enough, and to be teetering on the edge of letting myself cuddle this... Felted double of the man who I had to help despite his antagonistic nature, on the pretense of maybe sleeping better was beyond ridiculous. Even if it WAS soft and I WAS petting a hand over its hair as I tried desperately to dissuade myself. Well maybe it wouldn't be as weird if I just left it next to my pillow. And just put one hand over it. That wasn't cuddling it so obviously it was fine, nothing weird to see here. I just had to lay like that and try to decide whether or not I'd toss it on the floor like I probably should have. Unless I drifted off, still undecided with the little puppet laid next to me, its little hands flopped over mine.... Which is exactly what happened.

I couldn't remember ever sleeping well enough to be awoken by the morning PSA, instead always waking a few minutes before it would start, feeling drowsy and unrested. But that's exactly what happened that morning- I awoke to that familiar tune, tacky yellow font, and.... That puppet? Weird, this was a new one. Had he recorded this before his puppet was gone?

Once I was more awake, I was aware that the puppet had vanished from its spot next to me- peering over the bedside confirmed that it wasn't shoved into the floor like I'd emptily threatened before sleeping either. Not under the bed, or anywhere else in the room either. Had someone... Taken it?

That did seem to jog my memory. But it's of a dream, from the night before... Or what feels like one at the least. One of my own room, dark and quiet and still. I wasn't alone, a figure hovered quietly. It was tall, looming, but not quite menacing- it seemed somber. Maybe thoughtful. It reached for the puppet, but not before sliding my hand from on top of it, like it was careful to not disturb me too much. It stayed for another moment, and it almost seemed... Remorseful? But what for? And with the puppet, it vanished.

The rest of the PSA played, and for once, it didn't have any 'special message' for me. How strange.

#smile for me #smile for me game #finnbit #toxee's writing

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idreamofplaid · 5 years

Text

Backstage Pass

Square Filled: musician!Jared for @spnaubingo & Free Space for @spnkinkbingo

Characters: Jared x Reader; Jada(OFC)

Rating: Teen

Summary: The reader’s best friend gets her concert tickets for her birthday, and it’s the best night of her life.

Word Count: 1508

Created for @spnkinkbingo & @spnaubingo

Your eyes had been on the drummer all night, the way he held the drumsticks in his huge hands had you fantasizing about how those hands would feel on your body. The way his hair moved as he played the rhythm on his drums made you wonder just how it would feel between your fingers. As far as his shoulders and arms, they were entirely distracting. So distracting you hardly heard the words to the songs beyond knowing the lead singer had a good voice. You thanked the gods many times that your best friend, Jada, was generous and had gotten you front row seats for your birthday.

During intermission you braved the lines at the concession stand to get a beer. When you got back to your seat, Jada seemed a little bummed. You settled back in your seat and took a big drink of your beer figuring you might need it. You asked her, “Did I miss anything?”

“Yeah,” she said with a slight pout on her face. The lead singer had some kind of accident backstage, and he won’t be singing the second half of the show.

You took another sip of your beer. “So, is that it? Is the show over?”

“Nah,” Jada said adjusting her top. With the departure of the lead singer she had been gushing about all night, it didn’t seem she felt the need to show quite so much cleavage anymore. “The drummer is going to take over the vocals.”

You didn’t have time to say anything else because the lights dimmed signaling the start of the second half of the show. The announcer’s voice boomed through the auditorium as strobe lights moved over the crowd. “Welcome back to the stage Salt-n-Burn with Jared Padalecki on lead vocals.”

The first number had an upbeat, driving rock rhythm. It hadn’t been possible to really see the way he could move when he was sitting behind the drums, but this man was a master at swiveling his hips. His voice was a smooth baritone that had you wishing you knew the way it would sound when he whispered in your ear.

The music started for the next song. It was going to be a ballad. You closed your eyes to better lose yourself in his voice. This was going to be good. The first few bars of the music filled your ears along with the gasps of the women near you. You opened your eyes to see Jared Padalecki standing before you and holding out his hand for you to take it. Without thinking, you put your hand in his to the loud cheers of the crowd.

He led you up on stage. One of the crew brought out a stool, and Jared helped you up onto it. This close you had a good look at his eyes. They weren’t just one color but a mix of green, gold, and just a touch of stormy gray. If possible, they were even more gorgeous than the rest of him. Jared sang to you about love and devotion while holding your hand and looking in your eyes like you were the only person in a room full of thousands. He should have been an actor he was so convincing. When the song was over, he led you to the edge of the stage where another member of the crew was waiting to help you down the steps.

The rest of the concert passed like you were in a dream. You knew Jada wouldn’t agree with you, but you thought Jared was better than the original singer. It was definitely safe to say you were completely smitten.

After an encore and rousing applause, Jared blew the crowd a kiss and left the stage. The lights were coming up and you were collecting your things to leave when a man walked up to you wearing an ID badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck. “Excuse me, Miss.” You clutched your purse strap and pulled it up higher on your shoulder just to have something to do. “Mr. Padalecki would like to see you in his dressing room.”

You glanced at Jada. She had an enormous smile on her face. “Get it, Girl! I’ll take a cab home.”

Your friend was already turning to go when you looked back at the guy who had approached you. “O…okay.” He led you through the halls back stage to a black door with Jared’s name on it. He made a fist and rapped on the door with his knuckles.

Jared opened the door wearing the white t-shirt and black pants he’d worn on stage minus the leather jacket. “Hey, thanks, Chris.” He opened the door wider and turned his attention to you. “Please, come in.”

The room you walked into didn’t say typical rockstar to you. It was pretty simple really. The decor was mostly white with a black leather sectional in the center of the room and plants scattered about. “Make yourself comfortable. Would you like something to drink? I’ve got sparkling water and juice. I can get something else if you want it.”

You sat down in the corner of the sectional. “Water’s good. You don’t have booze?”

He laughed while he was opening the mini fridge. “I don’t do booze, rarely anyway. I used to though.” Jared brought you a glass of bubbling water and sat down next to you. “I wanted to say thanks for helping me out.”

You blinked. “Helping you out?”

He smiled, and dear god those dimples might be the death of you. “Yeah.” He glanced down at his hands in his lap. “That’s the first time I sang in front of that many people, and I was nervous as all hell. Having you up there with me helped.” He sat up straight then. “I’d like to know your name.”

“Y/N. It’s Y/N.” You wrapped both hands around your glass hoping it could somehow ground you square back on earth in this surreal situation. “Is that a line?”

Jared smiled easily. “Nope. Not a line. I really wanted to say thank you.”

You looked back around the room. There was a mirror in here. He had to know how he looked. Hot. Rockstar. Hello?!! “I don’t get it. Where are all the girls? The liquor? The drugs?”

His smile faded a little. “I used to do that. All of it. Before my fiancé.” Fiancé. Right. What the fuck? This guy who had thousands of women screaming his name and throwing their underwear at him was actually faithful. Make a note. Find a man like this.

You sipped at your water. Expensive. “She must be really proud of you. Not many people succeed at their dreams like this.”

That’s when you noticed his eyes had gotten all soft and a little sad. “Would have been. I lost her a couple years ago in an accident.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” This was getting awkward.

The awkwardness was only yours, and Jared smoothed it right over. “I’m okay. It was really hard at first, but I did my grieving. All that stuff you mentioned isn’t here because she showed me there was more to life than partying. If she hadn’t, I’d have gotten at least two shots of whiskey in you by now and you’d be half naked on the way to my bed.”

Speechless. How the hell do you respond to that kind of honesty? “I see.”

So much for eloquence on your part.

He glanced down at your lips. “I would like to kiss you though.” You nodded and when his lips touched yours they were softer than they had any right to be. The kissing went on, and Jared lay you down, eased his hand down to cover your hip, and continued to kiss you open mouthed. But he never any move to put his hand up your shirt, down your pants, or take off any of your clothes.

It was like being a teenager again and making out with your boyfriend. Only, Jared was much better at kissing than any boyfriend you’d ever had. When he kissed the corner of your mouth, you smiled. “You are nothing I would ever expect.”

He smiled back at you before giving you another quick kiss. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah. That’s a really good thing.” He held you there on that oversized piece of furniture made for an oversized man.

After just being with him for a couple of minutes in the silence, he said, “Don’t think I don’t want to sleep with you. I do. But I want to take you on at least one proper date first. Will you go out with me?”

You twisted your head around to look at him. “Are you serious? Is this real life happening to me right now?”

“I’m completely serious, and I hope you’ll want to go out with me again after that.” He covered your mouth with his before you could get out the word yes.

Tags: @coffee-obsessed-writer @timelordy-fangirl2 @stusbunker @girl-next-door-writes @mariekoukie6661 @sandlee44 @bitterstar88 @cosicas-cuquis @ohnowin-chester @waywardbaby @dean-winchesters-bacon @akhuna01 @tumbler-tidbits @thoughtslikeaminefield @maddiepants @evansrogerskitten @emoryhemsworth @just-another-busyfangirl @ackleholicwinchester @sorenmarie87 @ladywinchester1967 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @sea040561 @atc74 @mrs-meghan-winchester @deans-baby-momma @ellen-reincarnated1967 @death-unbecomes-you @volleyballer519 @iamme0456 @wendibird

#spnkinkbingo #spnaubingo #jared fluff #jared x reader #jared au #spn rpf #spn au fic

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mintchocolateleaves · 5 years

Text

On The Nature of Daylight (2/3)

Summary: Years ago, he should have asked for an answer, but he didn’t. And now they’re here – Shinichi crashing on Ran’s sofa, the night of their best friend’s wedding, and everything is horrible because he can’t stop thinking.

A/N: Wow! Look, I uploaded it when I said I would. I feel really powerful with the update schedule. I hope you all enjoy part two!

[Part One]

Shinichi can’t stop thinking about it.

He returns to work, tries to focus on the case but finds that his mind is blank. He can’t figure out a murder when he’s this focused on Ran – on how he’s ruined everything, how she’s probably never going to talk to him again, let alone consider being with him.

“Oh man,” Hattori says, when he notices Shinichi come back in, “you two so busy that ya forgot my coffee?”

“We didn’t get any coffee,” he says, and his voice sounds strange to his ears, almost hollow. Strange, considering how only seconds ago, when he’d been kissing Ran, he’d felt full.

He should have better control over his emotions. Now, he feels vulnerable, and Shinichi’s never quite understood how people like Hattori and Ran can allow themselves to be open to feeling… everything.

“Too busy for that, eh?” Hattori says, with a wink. Insinuating.

God, Shinichi hates that insinuation. He almost wishes that he could fall into a happy mood, that he could go along with it, as if that’ll make it real but… Shinichi can’t.

“Nothing happened, Hattori.” Shinichi says instead. He straightens his expression, into something stern, something less amicable, something that says he doesn’t want to talk, not if it’s about this, not if it’s about anything but their case.

Hattori sees the barrier go up and blinks. His own expression turns sour and he says, “Sure, whatever.”

“If you want coffee,” Shinichi continues, “then there’s the breakroom. Or you can go on your own break.”

“Right,” Hattori bites, and Shinichi should feel guilty for lashing out, but he doesn’t.

All he can focus on is the taste of Ran against his lips, how tiny her voice had been as she’d said everything is okay and he can’t…

Shinichi doesn’t really want to think of anything else.

Perhaps it’s a testament to how much of a good guy Hattori is, but he doesn’t hold it against him. Hattori goes for his break and when he comes back, he’s leaving coffee at Shinichi’s desk, and offers a sympathetic shrug.

Shinichi cannot do much else but mutter a thanks and feel like more of a dick.

They work in silence for a while after that, wracking up hours, only really saying anything when Shinichi voices a theory, or when Hattori asks for clarification on a bit of evidence.

It’s almost the end of the work day when Shinichi says, “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

Hattori lifts his eyes from his monitor, stares at Shinichi and offers a half-hearted shrug. He says, “I knew you were a dick the minute we became friends. It’s alright.”

Alright, so he kind of deserved that. Shinichi’s not about to get offended by it. Instead, he sighs and looks back down to his monitor. He says, “I can’t think straight, so I think I’m gonna head home for the day.”

“Shouldn’t have even been here in th’ first place,” Hattori says. Then, “Yeah, I think it’s ‘bout time to call it a day, too. Want me t’ drive ya back?”

Shinichi shakes his head. He doesn’t want to go home, not really, not when he’ll only be left alone with his thoughts. He says, “I… I know we’ve just got work again tomorrow but, you want to stop for drinks before we head back?”

The Osakan sizes him up, takes a moment to consider the question and then offers a small nod. He says, “Somewhere we can eat, I’m starvin’.”

Shinichi supposes that’s reasonable. He’s not exactly eaten much today, either. “Sounds good.”

Hattori drives them. There’s a place, he says, nearby the hotel he’s staying in, so he drives them there in his rental and they walk the rest of the way.

They’re on their second beer, Shinichi still picking at his food, even though Hattori’s practically devoured his own in a manner of minutes, when the Osakan finally says, “So what’s eatin’ at ya?”

Shinichi doesn’t know if he wants to go into it, but Hattori is his best friend, and he’s also the kind of person who’ll keep nosing around until he gets an answer.

“Nothing,” Shinichi starts to say, and then, stopping himself, tries again: “I dunno, I just – Fucked things up, I guess. With Ran.”

He pushes more food around with his chopsticks, picks up a clump of rice and chews. It feels like he’s forcing himself to swallow.

“How’d ya manage that?” Hattori says.

Shinichi squirms in his seat, takes a large gulp of beer. Then, he gulps down another mouthful, wary of Hattori’s gaze on him. He sighs, “I may have – Well I – I kissed her, I guess.”

“Ya guess?”

Shinichi shrugs, because well, Hattori knows what he means. He finishes his beer, signals for another and looks down at his bowl. He pushes it away, clearly done with it.

“Okay, so ya kissed nee-chan…” Hattori’s obviously trying to figure out why this is such a bad thing. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, it’s how every argument between him and Kazuha managed to resolve itself. He’s never been scared to say what he wants. “I don’t see how this is a bad thing?”

Shinichi mumbles into his empty glass.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” he glances away, “doesn’t matter. Drop it Hattori.”

“No, really,” Hattori continues, “I don’t get it. You’ve been wanting to kiss her for years. Like – you’ve been in love with her for years, and now, ya finally kiss. And this is bad?”

The waitress replaces the empty glass with a filled one. Shinichi glares down at foam, at the beer beneath the frothy layer. He hates that he’s been wanting this for years, hates that he can’t move on, can’t think properly when Ran is around, and how now, he can’t think because she’s gone.

“Hattori–”

“Is it really all that bad?”

Shinichi’s voice wavers as he says, “It wasn’t exactly, erm, the right time. She wasn’t expecting it, I guess.”

Hattori watches him for a moment, weighs the words up and thinks it over. He’s quiet, abnormally so, as if trying to decipher the words and then, then, he finally seems to get it because his eyes cloud over ever so slightly and he says, “Oh.”

A half shrug is all Shinichi can offer him. He frowns into his beer and offers Hattori a short look that he hopes translates roughly into ‘what a fucking mess, right?’

“Do I uh,” – now, Hattori looks uncomfortable, uncertain – “on nee-chan’s behalf, do I need to punch you? Or something?”

Shinichi, who would rather not be punched, shakes his head ‘no’. Because while Hattori might be able to kick well, he can punch much better.

“I’m – no,” Shinichi shakes his head, “Ran reserves the right to that.”

He wishes Ran had hit him or gotten angry. Her voice, as tiny as it had been, sends chills down his spine, lingers with him more than any punch could.

“Maybe ya should talk it through with her,” Hattori says. The idea sounds reasonable, Shinichi knows it’s reasonable, but he doesn’t… No. He’s already broken down the wall, the hidden cell keeping all his wants for Ran hidden and now…

Now Shinichi wants.

He wants to be with Ran. He wants to please her, to take her out – he wants to be greedy and let his hands roam all over her. He wants every inch of her, wants to claim her as his, in a million different ways and…

He sighs.

“That,” Shinichi says, because he doesn’t exactly want to get into the myriad of reasons why he can’t be near Ran again, “is a smart idea.”

It’s just not one he’s going to take.

He doesn’t see Ran again, and it’s frustrating.

The week drags on, and Shinichi’s certain that she’s avoiding him just as much as he’s avoiding her. Which would be great, fine, except maybe Hattori’s sort of right. Maybe they should be talking about this.

Get the rejection, the dismissal over with and Shinichi can pretend that he’ll move on.

Shinichi throws himself into his work, not that it helps. He’s far too distracted, and everything seems to remind him of Ran. The station? Oh, he’s just imagining when she used to pick him up after cases. Murders? They used to frequent them together a lot.

Everything leads back to Ran, and it would be easier, if she was at the end of the rabbit trail.

The days go on, and Shinichi watches his phone to see if she’ll ever phone. She doesn’t, and soon the week is over with, and they have to start anew. There’s a tense radio silence with his best friend, and Shinichi has never felt more out of it.

It continues.

And just when it feels like it’s going to last forever, Sonoko returns from her honeymoon and their tension cracks again.

Shinichi doesn’t actually know that Sonoko’s back from her honeymoon until he’s answering his phone, half-asleep, from where he’s practically collapsed against his desk.

He jumps up, ignores Hattori’s small laugh – they’ve all been there, serial killer cases are rough – and grabs his phone.

He doesn’t even look at the caller id, simply presses answer and hopes that whatever phone call he’s receiving will be quick at least.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sonoko asks, after a fairly sleepy ‘hello?’. Shinichi is mid-stretch when she asks, and his shoulder clicks as he brings it down.

“Welcome back to Tokyo, Sonoko.” Shinichi says in response, because how else is he supposed to answer? “Did you enjoy your honeymoon?”

Sonoko harrumphs on the other side of the phone, lets out a small hiss and says, “It was magnificent actually. Both Makoto and I had a brilliant time in Hawaii, those restaurants you suggested, begrudgingly, I admit they were lovely. Past that, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Ah, so eloquent.

“You know,” Shinichi says, “some people say that those who swear only have little vocabularies.”

“Shinichi,” Sonoko says, voice low, “if you keep pushing me, I will strangle you.”

He doesn’t doubt it. Not that he thinks Sonoko would actually succeed in strangling him, but well – the intent is there at least.

“Is this about Ran?” He sighs.

“Of course, it’s–” He can practically see the way she pinches the bridge of her nose. “You’ve done something, and I swear, I’ll strangle you if you don’t tell me what you’ve done to–”

“Jeez,” Shinichi huffs, “Sonoko, chill out.”

By the sound of her indignant spluttering, his words don’t exactly do much to help her calm down. If anything, they frustrate her more. Shinichi can practically hear the gritting of her teeth.

“Just tell me what you did,” Sonoko says.

He considers briefly telling Sonoko to butt out, but it’s Sonoko. Firstly, she’ll never back off when it’s including Ran, the two have always considered each other sisters. Secondly, Sonoko is too stubborn to just drop an issue when it’s right in front of her.

“Nothing,” Shinichi says. He stumbles over the word, and of course Sonoko picks up on it, she’s not stupid, she’s a business woman, trained to pick up on people’s reactions and work them to her own ideals.

“Shinichi, I swear–”

“Ugh, fine. We may have, uh,” – he avoids Hattori at the other desk – “kissed. It was stupid, I won’t do it again.”

Sonoko huffs on the other side. She’s not satisfied with his answer.

“We’re going to talk about this,” Sonoko says. “Six o’clock. I’ll send you the address in a minute. If you don’t show up, I’ll get Makoto to hunt you down.”

Shinichi groans, but minutes later, when he receives a text message with the address, he figures out the route there.

It seems there’s no reason for him to stay late at the station now.

Shinichi makes it to the restaurant with seconds to spare. He’s not late, but he’s not early like he’d wanted to be. Still, he wanders inside, feels underdressed in his work clothes and glances around for Sonoko.

He can’t see her – she must be sat upstairs instead.

“Can I help you?” A waiter asks, popping up from nowhere. Shinichi rattles off Sonoko’s name, states she’s the one who’s reserved their table and within a few seconds, the waiter nods, pointing to the next floor.

He leads Shinichi up the stairs and towards a table by the window outside. A table, where Sonoko is most certainly not sat.

Shinichi freezes.

Ran turns at the sound of footsteps heading towards the table, blinks as she notices Shinichi. Then, she flushes a bright red, something that Shinichi would take enjoyment in, if things weren’t so tense, if his cheeks weren’t the same colour.

“You’re not Sonoko,” Shinichi says.

“No.” Ran takes a moment to look down at her phone, as if wondering whether it will light up and explain the situation. “Oh, I can’t believe her.”

Shinichi squirms at the exasperation. Then, he says, “Well, I’m – yeah, just gonna–”

He wants to turn away, to run and leave but his feet are like concrete. Because, really, that’s not what he wants to do at all.

Shinichi wants to sit down and have dinner. He wants to listen to Ran tell him about her day, wants to hear her every interest, to listen to whatever secrets she wants to share.

He wants to take her hand across the table, wants to brush her hair out of her face, loop it behind her ear.

Shinichi realises he’s selfish, all he does is want.

“Oh jeez – don’t just stand there,” Ran sighs. The exasperation is back, “Sit down Shinichi, we need to – we obviously need to talk.”

Obviously.

Yes, this is a conversation Shinichi has been dreading.

“Right,” Shinichi says, stiffening up, and moving towards the chair opposite Ran as if he’s a marionette. He sits, pulls his chair in and waits. He opens his mouth to say something, but the waiter seems to appear before he can get into the crux of why they’re here.

“Can I get any drinks for you?” The waiter asks.

Ran seems to send him a look that says he should go first. So, Shinichi does the first thing he thinks of, looks up at the waiter, and says, “A glass of wine. Red.”

Ran lets out a visible sigh of relief. She says, “I’ll have the same.”

Fuck it, Shinichi thinks, why not make it a bottle?

He says as such to the waiter. Ran looks positively scandalised, as if Shinichi acting weird is so outside the norm. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten how his acting weird got them into this situation in the first place.

“A bottle of wine got us into this,” Shinichi mutters after a second, “might as well see if it can’t get us out of it.”

They order before the break into the conversation. It’s the only time Ran gives him to prepare, and it’s not nearly long enough.

“The other day,” she starts, “when you – when we…”

Kissed, Shinichi wants to say. When you made me feel complete.

“Yeah,” he says instead, like the amazing wordsmith he is.

“I don’t… you never implied… Shinichi, what was that meant to mean?” Ran says. “You don’t just kiss people in the street.”

Shinichi wants to argue that they were having a moment, or that it wasn’t people in the street, just Ran, only Ran, but it seems like a moot point. Like he’s just grappling for excuses.

“I know,” Shinichi says. He swirls the wine in his glass, stares at it, remembers the way it had stained Ran’s lips and closes his eyes. He’s not sure what his expression must be, but when he glances back to Ran, she’s frowning.

He supposes that maybe he looked pained. As if he was remembering something he didn’t want to.

“Do you,” Ran asks, “because I don’t. I don’t know Shinichi, and I just – if you do, then, God, can’t you explain this to me, because I’ve never been more confused.”

More wine. Shinichi says, “There’s only one explanation Ran, it’s not difficult to figure it out.”

Ran’s eyes widen. It’s as if he’s watching the neurons fire the realisation through her mind, synapses jittery as they scream, finally, that Shinichi is – and always has been – inexcusably in love with her.

“But you’ve never… You never indicated that you were interested, Shinichi.”

Or maybe not.

Shinichi squints, tries to release the tension in his shoulders. It’s impossible, the muscle is taut, aching. He says, “I literally… Ran, I confessed to you in London.”

Ran flushes red again. Then, she says, “You showed interest once, and that was… Shinichi, that was seven years ago.”

Admittedly, Shinichi shouldn’t be expecting the same confession from years before to apply now, but it does. His feelings haven’t changed, so the confession still stands.

“You never responded to it, so I left it.” Shinichi tears his gaze from her to his wine glass, swishes it around to watch something rather than her. “It doesn’t matter, I get it. I shouldn’t have–”

“It’s been years, how was I supposed to know the confession was still…” she lets out a strangled noise, as if she can’t find the words she’s after, “…in effect.”

“I dunno,” Shinichi mumbles, “but it is. Sorry if that’s awkward for you.”

Ran kicks him under the table. He barely feels it, and part of him registers that it’s not a violent one, but rather one that’s designed to capture his attention. It’s almost playful, but he doesn’t let himself admit to that.

“You’re such an idiot,” Ran sighs. “Why didn’t you just say? I would have said yes.”

Shinichi hardly registers the second half. It’s almost as if his brain can’t comprehend the idea of having his feelings returned and so he focuses on the first part of her words.

“Why didn’t I say?” Shinichi echoes. “Why couldn’t you have just responded? I confessed and you never answered me at all.”

Ran frowns. She says, “You’re blaming me?”

“Well, it’s not my fault.”

“Why are you being so defensive,” Ran hisses, “I just said I liked you, you fucking nerd.”

Shinichi pauses.

He takes a moment to consider her words and says, under his breath, “Oh.”

Then, he squirms in his seat again because fuck, now he has an answer, and it’s almost like he’s been given permission to want what he does.

Ran lets out a small laugh, as if she enjoys watching him realise. And then, she blushes, overwhelmed because Shinichi throws his best smile her way, overjoyed.

“So, I–” He pauses, tries to think about how to say it without sounding like a dorky teenager. He wants to sound like the adult he is. “So, I guess we… do we – Fuck, I don’t want to sound like a teenager.”

Ran rolls her eyes. Something about the way she shakes her head at him screams that he’s doomed to fall into the role anyway.

“A date,” Shinichi says finally, “let me take you on a date.”

Ran’s gaze flickers around the restaurant. She purses her lips and raises a hand, as if to say, ‘why else are we here?’

He scowls, “One that doesn’t exist because Sonoko likes to meddle. Let me take you on a… a date. An official one.”

Ran dips her head into a nod. She says, “alright.”

They keep drinking the wine.

This time, Shinichi doesn’t feel so guilty about letting his gaze linger on Ran’s lips when it stains her lips. He considers leaning forward, kissing her, running his tongue against her lips, tasting the mix of Ran and the wine, but they’re in public.

He shouldn’t.

But still, he wants to.

“I’ve got more wine,” Ran says at the end of their meal, once they’ve paid the bill. They’re heading toward the subway station, and Shinichi wants to lean over and grab her hand, but still, he’s hesitant. “If you want to…”

They head down the stairs towards their train, and the station seems… dead. It lacks any form of life but them, and the random stragglers at the other end of the platform.

Shinichi reaches forward, takes Ran’s hand and pulls her towards him. He stares down at the bridge of her nose, smiles and breathes, “yeah?”

“If you want to, uh–”

“I can go for more wine,” Shinichi says, since she’s bright red. He pauses, gaze flickering from her nose, to her lips, then back up to her eyes. “Can I...?”

Ran offers a small smile, and instead of saying anything, tiptoes up to face him, bringing a hand up and weaving it through his hair, pulling him down to her. Shinichi wraps an arm around her waist, pulls her closer and smiles against her lips.

The sound of the train behind in his ears sounds almost distant, far away. He supposes that maybe they should be turning, boarding the train before it leaves, but Shinichi is too wrapped up in Ran to even consider moving.

It’s alright, Shinichi thinks, they can always catch the next one.

------

(A side note: If you’re not the type for mature content. This is where the fic ends! If not: [Part Three])

#DCMK #Kudo Shinichi #Mouri Ran #ShinRan #Hattori Heiji #Suzuki Sonoko #Detective Conan #mywriting #Fic: On The Nature of Daylight

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retoucherdark-blog · 5 years

Text

Photoshop Tutorial

Plenty of people have inquired how exactly I really do lots of my characterizations and peculiar aliens, and so I thought I would finally sit back and write a new tutorial.

I presumed a pleasure image to concentrate on is my face-off image for the Alien Nation 3 competition.

To begin with, I thought I d explain a bit about my strategy. I do a lot of modification layers, curing brush combined with a little liquefy, and cloning. My theory with characters is I try to leave as a number of the pixels. What I attempt to accomplish is create them a color that is different. I scarcely hotel to doing some other paint pops that are destructive.

First things first, I did not have the full concept in your mind once I started this image, and sometimes what the alien had been about to appear to be. In reality, I even plan for this to function as Tom Cruise for almost just about any reason other than that I enjoy the high end photo retoucher intense look in his head and it turned out to be a resolution record to govern without needing to work around .jpeg artifacts.

That said it evolved to some ridiculous goof on Mr. Cruise that wound up having a fantastic reaction from the Republicans thus, go figure!

Let us start...

Mr. Storm has too much hair to generate a persuasive alien, therefore, enables take it off!

Start by cloning out of the middle of the eyebrow outside developing a digital bald-cap.

Remember it doesn't fundamentally matter how far how to wash that your cloning is. It we'll fix it.

(Hint ) I sporadically un-check the aligned button towards the very top once I find an excellent subject of eyebrow which pits to function as a standard skin feel.

After roughing into a new mind contour from the eyebrow outside, then replicate in the gray backdrop from the surface, in creating a new border for the form of the mind.

Following Tom's new eyebrow is glistening and it could still look somewhat like a demanding patchwork of both skin-tones and feel.

Establish the magnitude of the healing brush into something moderate like 20 pixels or so and get started targeting the obvious of one's lousy trademark marks. Clone from the middle of the forehead. (preferably from the unaffected parts ) Magically up on letting upward out of each brush stroke, it's going to set the feel you've set merely there, and then auto color-correct it into to coincide with the nearby pixels! (obtained Id love that curing brush! ) )

Time and energy to eradicate a few of the pesky facial features...

To begin with, let's keep on with the rubber stamp tool and demanding from the removals of Tom's eyebrows in addition to his nose. Once those are all gone, I want to get rid of the piece of stubble and feel on his brow to acquire a complete smoother face.

Measure 4: Much like measure two we are likely to go straight back during these areas with the healing brush and find yourself a beautiful mixture of skin-tone and feel. (for all those wondering why that can be really just a two-step procedure involving the rubber stamp and also the healing brush, then the reply is relatively straightforward. I've gotten a better result from regions of the facial skin having a closest to my result color. Like that once the healing brush does its magical color-correction into the nearby pixels that you don't have any lingering color from the initial pixels inhabiting that place )

Time and energy to get started making his face a little more alien...

I decided I needed to bisect his head having a slit which travels the course of his head in addition to alter the functionality of the mouth.

To accomplish so I generated a new modification layer setting it into degrees.

At the degrees dialog box that I took in the low right white triangle to the middle of the histogram. This left the high lights of how the image rip-off.

Today every time a flat's modification coating is inserted into an image it creates a new clean white coating mask. Target this mask from the layers dialogue box and then invert it shifting. (Command/or Control Id )

Your image should look as if you inserted the degrees adjustment layer. You are all set to begin painting. Then I placed two vertical lines, then one on both sides of the lip of the mouth area.

(that is precisely what the coating mask appears like if you've completed painting )

Today I wish to provide these lines somewhat of thickness. Therefore, I will bring a layer style to the alteration coating.

Either tap into a negative subject of the coating in the coating's pouch or click onto the layer and select Blending Options from the menu that arises to match a coating style.

Here are the configurations that I've selected:

Fundamentally I only noodled up until the light also matched it gave the illusion of thickness into the traces of the facial skin.

I want to provide the traces some modeling to signify there are arteries at the borders of the trails. Therefore went to bring another alteration layer with levels. Now my guideline to be able not to adjust their color. The means to get this done would be to take away the difference of the color I am attempting to incorporate. Therefore that I can take away blue and green, in cases like this, I need a wash.

From the RGB slider that I shoot out high lights together with the underside white arrow taken towards the middle. And that I take out mid tones by slipping the gray shaft to the best. I am the green histogram and choose out green from the high lights, (underside white arrow, then go on into the left) I then do the same with all the gloomy. Even though I take more blue out to compel at the color into more of the opposed to your red. Reach fine from the dialogue box and then aim the mask at the modification layer and invert it.

Today, we're prepared to paint with all the reddish color correction. Make use of a soft border brush 20 30 pixels in size and gently color in approximately every one the traces of the facial skin. Im by applying this particular color correction to begin a number of the bone workaround the eyes together with to generate several shadow locations.

That is a measure that's going to become replicated again and again! I tend to possess heaps of modification layers every serving a color-correction which advertisements or remove from the coating before it. If things get somewhat tricky. .Sorry!

I initially thought I would desire this alien to become aquatic, and so I started down the trail of bright coloring to produce him fish just such as (apparently at any time after I decided to change directions somewhat ).

We are going to accomplish a little shading with a turquoise green tone.

I need this alien to possess a wrinkled feel to his head, rather than glue within a feeling will use my same procedure just like the former modification layers and go to town along with my Wacom tablet computer and stick to the contours of his head and begin to introduce some intriguing shapes and lines that'll start to shape the personality.

With this modification layer Im color adjusting to your rusty orange tone.

Continuing the simulating of the facial skin, I make a dark reddish color correction and get started painting squiggles all around the face area. You'd be amazed how effective that is when warmed on while inside the quantities that are ideal. I discovered this method called figure eights with the way of a make. (They do that kind of item to find skin blotchiness for good special effects makeups, and so I figured why not check it out for virtual blushes, huh?)

Fundamentally what I do will work in tight nit spots with varying amounts of pressure in my pill computer.

Eliminate a couple of other pesky body parts.

Only at that point, I started getting an adequate idea of the way I needed the final piece to check and that I chose people ears to go!

A great deal more color!

I inserted red into the slits of the head to produce them stand out more.

A little cardiovascular work. I included a few darkish veins.

Produce a glowing whitish, yellowish adjustment coating and then sew the mask to paint having a huge feathered brush. Do the shadow areas using a dark brownish color correction focusing into the shadow and light regions of the face being careful not to place shadows where they don't belong.

Another highlight color-correction that time around stained with a 10-pixel brush to essentially make textured lines around the base of the eyes and also at the borders of the lips.

Another dark color-correction to create a few colored stripes and wrinkles to the lips and forehead, creating shining lines into the face area.

Another accent color-correction to put twist specular hi-lights on the newly generated wrinkles.

Full color to a light green. I made the decision now I wasn't going to help keep him. Therefore, a muted coloration was generated by me and then also did a coating mask to sweep it.

I followed up this with a dark reddish color to generate darkly shaded sections of the head and put in comparison to the bone restructuring.

His face appeared too high now, and I am a sucker for older StarTrek type extraterrestrial beings, therefore that I thought I'd opt for a beautiful seen Trill-like pattern (if you watched STNG or even DS9 the mention is eloquent.)

I wanted to possess stains which were trimmed having a darker color and also maintain a lighter color at the middle. I Command/Control-clicked onto the layer mask for the stains color-correction loading its coating mask. I then produced a new adjustment layer which brightened the last one building an outside stroke to my stains and a green tone.

My idea once I began directing this alien to get a peculiar form of species was I would displace Tom's eyes. It looked interesting nonetheless it rendered him unrecognizable. And that I picked the intense look in his eyes which steered me to the image since the origin from the first location. I merely shifted to reddish to the color of the eyes.

Now I had been happy with the cryptic face, and I chose to proceed and produce a scene outside of it.

Therefore I spared my multi-layered color-correction alien and then piled all of my layers together and blended them that I might work somewhat faster (things get somewhat slow with this numerous layers!).

After consolidating the layers that I stored this for a new version and proceeded on into the upcoming few information.

With hardly any modification I watched this as a rubber mask that was lost that was perfect to place to the dining table facing the newly revealed alien.

Then I moved to Liquefy.

I flexed and warped the facial skin area into squish it and also make it seem like churns up rubberized putting onto a desk.

Then, also that I understand in this time sef mccullough, this could shock you...I inserted a modification layer!

I started using a darkish color and gently slit in certain huge wrinkles to signify the folds of the mask.

Then I emphasized those traces with another modification layer.

Then I went over the new springs using a sizable brushed dark color-correction to smooth out things a little.

Another glowing color correction to get things to appears shiny.

And a super-dark color correction to the shadow.

I packed most this up into friends, replicated it and then merged the copy bunch.

Then put the mask onto its side and left a dark gray solid to be a symbol of a desktop for it to lay.

Then following some more Google hunts for several Scleral lenses, some spirit gum glue, and a few sponges for application of the adhesive, I put all together using some vertical blurring to the flopped reflections onto the desk... Done!

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erhiem · 3 years

Link

It is all too easy to take some misconceptions for the simple fact that we have long held them, whether or not they are based on reality, or more accurately, simply shrouded in “common sense”. For many people, sticking to certain ideas is easier than challenging them. After all, challenging them can distract from everything they’ve been taught to believe from a young age. Questioning these ideas in the said presence of better people, will eventually force us to accept that our current ideas are not working, that they no longer have a place in society, which is a realization that, to many people are not able to reach. But even though we haven’t yet reached the point where we’re ready to replace our views with more knowledgeable ones, there are many women pursuing this level of humility. Thanks to them, so many generalized ideas are being shaken and questioned. And even though we have a long way to go, these courageous individuals are leading the way for change, even for those who are reluctant to support it. Here are five Egyptian women who are educating and inspiring our society to see what’s right in front of them.

saba khodiri

Saba Khodir, author and women’s rights activist, is challenging social norms in Egypt before they were modern. She is the co-founder of EndQuote, a collaborative arts platform for Middle Eastern artists and one of the leading voices in the campaign against sexual harassment in Egypt. It is not only Khodir’s fierceness that enables her to influence her audience to reevaluate her views, but the way she so eloquently structures her ideas as to push new ones. Despite being attacked by so many people who are uncomfortable with the views he holds, Khodir is grounded and authentic in pushing for much-needed change in a society that opposes it. Her core ideas revolve around women reclaiming their space and feeling safe and comfortable enough to do so. She does this through empathizing with women from her own experiences, as she says, “I’m kinder to myself because I know other women are watching, and I wish they could, too. Be kind to me.” Khodir has dedicated her life to supporting women who are suffering from all forms of abuse. Her own experiences with abuse have enabled her to help others by giving her voice rather than silencing that pain. His noise on social media has led to many revolutionary changes. What sets Khodir apart from other fighters for change is his sensitivity, his intimate narration of his experiences that have made other women feel safe enough to share their own. Khodir’s platform has reached out to many people over the past two years, spending most of their time educating and provoking the dangerous ideas that are heavily sheltered in our society.

Maryam Naum

Screenwriter of ‘Khali Belak Main Zizi’ and ‘Leh La 2’, Naum is considered a leading social and feminist screenwriter and her work addresses the challenges faced by those who are social and social, with a special focus on women’s issues. are financially marginalised. Through adopting dramatic screenwriting, he is able to reflect on our society by expressing powerful emotions on screen that are otherwise difficult to portray through writing. Her script focuses on the oppression of women in society, such as female genital mutilation, early marriage, sexual harassment and violence against women. Her latest film ‘Between Two Seas’, which was a joint collaboration between the National Council for Women in Egypt and the United Nations Women, sheds light on the many traumatic experiences of Egyptian women.

Ghadir Ahmed

Egyptian feminist, and author of “Abortion Tales,” Ghadeer Ahmed, shares the stories of women who have had abortions. She states that “[she] Decided not to collect these stories just to document, or change public opinion on the question of the legal status of abortion in Egypt, and even the voices of these women by decision-makers. so that they understand how women seeking abortion suffer from the criminalization of it… but writing these stories for women to know that they are not the only ones going through this experience, And whatever she feels is real, that she has a right to feel that way and that’s all she owns. Ahmed’s sympathetic approach has proved successful in influencing the opinion of his audience. She also sarcastically tackles social “norms” so that it is far from normal. In her most recent video someone confronted a comment demeaning her for showing off her bra, and how a woman shouldn’t be stereotyped to fit a certain standard of “respectable.” Her self-confidence and relentless mastery over her ideas is what gives other women the same confidence in their thoughts and decisions.

the woman behind it is the mother

After following This Is Mother Being for some time, it became shocking to see the number of wrong ideas many of her followers believe. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with being uneducated, but simply highlighting the fact that she is participating in bridging knowledge deserves attention. This is Mother Being “Leading the Sexual and Reproductive Health Awareness Movement in the MENA Region.” Although offering a variety of Arabic online classes for women about issues ranging from menstrual health to preparing for birth, Mother Being had taught more than 1,000 women about their bodies and their rights. His work is distinctive in the way he tackles a very wide range of issues. She is shameless in her approach and creates a space in which it is okay to talk about sexual and body-related issues. And by inspiring women to feel more about their bodies, she’s giving them the courage to respect their needs and not belittle them to anyone.

Nadine Ashraf: Attack Police

None other than the Revolutionary Assault Police, which has been instrumental in exposing several sexual abusers over the past year. She constantly worked hard to create a platform in which women could share their stories anonymously. Assault Police fights sexual violence in all its forms and continues to point out wrongdoings that many people are afraid to point out themselves. She is giving space to so many women to call someone out when their limits are being crossed. She repeatedly educates women about their rights. And it is this very shared space in which women can relate to each other and help propel each other up the ladder of empowerment, with individuals like Nadeen Ashraf making a lasting difference.

via NY Times

We said it: Don’t miss it… In light of International Breastfeeding Week: What are its pros and cons!

The post Are our notions preconceived? 5 Women Shifting Social Norms in Egypt appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

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