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jovialmoonprincess · 5 months

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AU: Journey to Redemption (Part 1)

Coriolanus Snow x Fem!reader

Summary: Y/N, a young idealist in Panem, dreams of making a difference in a post-war society. As the winner of the prestigious Plinth Prize is about to be announced, a mysterious woman unveils a grim fate for Coriolanus Snow, Y/N's nemesis. Offered a chance to alter destiny, Y/N must navigate her conflicting emotions and intervene in pivotal moments to prevent Snow's descent into darkness. The story unfolds against the backdrop of complex relationships, past connections, and the challenges of a changing world, as Y/N grapples with the responsibility of shaping an unexpected destiny and challenging the very fabric of fate.

Word Count: 992

Warning(s): None, enemy to lovers, back in time, destiny, Snow being in love, Snow being Snow, possible grammar and spelling mistakes

A/N: First Fic EVER, dont be mean pls. Also Im not a english native speaker, sorry for any spelling errors. Just saw Songbirds and Snakes and Tom Blyth as President Snow is living rent free in my head! Feedback is appreciated! Follow or like (or both) for part 2!

A month still remained until the announcement of the Plinth Award winner. While Y/N was still somewhat sleepy, in the midst of summer, a brief and subtle snowfall danced outside her window. Believing she was still dreaming, the student got up, opened the window, extended her arm, and touched the flakes to make sure. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen; it seemed like magic. She felt the urge to run out and celebrate the arrival of snow, as she did when she was a child. Maybe the Capitol had created a new technology and was testing it in the middle of the night. It seemed like a plausible theory. Y/N closed the window and sat at the edge of the bed, still feeling the coldness of the ice on her fingers. It didn't feel like a dream; Y/N wasn't a girl who dreamed often either. The last time she dreamt, she was in a park in the Capitol, with her mother gently pushing her on the swing. The games were over, people lived happily again, all in one place, there was peace, and no one would go hungry. As a kid, Y/N had suffered through the war, something she wouldn't overcome. And even now, in a place without hunger, with clean clothes and in the best school in the country, she still wasn't completely happy. How could she be happy while people were dying outside? Y/N quietly prayed to herself that a good person would become president, and her dream could come true. For now, she could only study to become someone who could make a difference in Panem. Even if she didn't know where to start.

Y/N looked out the window, and as the snow fell, she returned to her slumber. She couldn't help but think of another Snow, one that still brought her fond memories. Y/N was an idealistic young woman, driven by the memories of war and the fervent desire to make a difference in Panem. Her father, a respected peacekeeper, had left a controversial legacy, but she strove to follow a path of kindness and justice. Her father died after a while from an illness that was never properly explained; Y/N was sure that the reason for his death was remorse—his hands had innocent blood, and he knew it. He withered away gradually, and on his deathbed, he declared his hatred for war and those who supported it. He died cursing the Capitol and its architects.

Y/N wanted to be a better person; she had this opportunity, had hope to change the world around her. Every day, while donning the Academy uniform, she mentally prepared herself to enter the snake pit that was that place. She couldn't pick fights with anyone, even though she wanted to desperately. She remembered how many fights she had tried to avoid only to end up completely ignored and still punished for her good intentions.

The snow falling outside brought back memories of a simpler time, before the fights and rivalries that marked her life at the Academy.

Y/N was beloved by everyone in school, even though she couldn't care less about those spoiled and corrupt rich kids. She couldn't stand them, but there was someone she detested even more: Coriolanus Snow. He wasn't like the others; his past was different, more similar to hers. And yet, he seemed to forget that. He only cared about his grades and not the people around him. They had fought several times since Y/N entered the academy. It was impossible for them to be in the same room without disagreeing about something. She still remembered their first fight when she asked her brother for help to finish a project of a class they were doing together, and they both ended up with the same grade. Snow, not content with just his top grade, found out and did everything to get the teacher to lower Y/N's grade. Insufferably arrogant. As beautiful as he was, he was despicable. After that, it got worse; he always reminded her that she was the second-best student in the class and that he was better, blah, blah, blah. He never even wondered if you cared about your grades. Apart from this obsession, he was nice outside the academy. You were good friends with Tigris; you loved her, and it wasn't because of Corio that you would stop seeing your friend.

Before all of this, Corio had been a nice guy a few times (most of them when he wasn't all pompous around his rich friends). You invited him to the winter ball before the first fight, close to your first anniversary in the Capitol. You danced all night, and he gave you your first kiss. It was quick, and you never talked about it again. Even that scene still gave you chills to this day. It was only after your grades increased and you began to stand out in class that he started treating you with a certain indifference. It was childish, and you felt a weight on your chest for not continuing with what you had, even if it was little. What was once little became nothing. You still saw Tigris from time to time, but Corio rarely left his room, where he had been locked studying for the last few months. You wished you hadn't left him hanging after the kiss, but you were so shocked and didn't understand your feelings. You couldn't distinguish the attraction you felt for him from the fear of losing a friend. Well, you ended up losing him in the same way.

The twist in her routine came when a mysterious woman, dressed in vibrant colors, approached Y/N on an empty street. Her words, filled with urgency, revealed a dark fate for Coriolanus Snow. Y/N, initially skeptical, saw her disbelief fade away when the woman offered an object that provided disturbing glimpses of the future. It was something like two watches joined by a golden chain. As soon as she touched it, she saw everything. It wasn't possible to hear anything, but it wasn't necessary.

The projected scenes showed an unrecognizable Snow: kissing a girl through a cell, then with buzz cut hair shooting birds in a forest, and finally, with his blond hair combed back, looking at the rector's corpse with hatred. She wanted to vomit. She didn't want to believe. Y/N didn't doubt Snow's ability to be a jerk; it had happened several times with her already. But it usually involved some petty ego fight. He didn't seem like a murderer. Y/N felt a mixture of disgust and disbelief. The arrogant antagonist of her school life now seemed destined for a path of destruction.

"Y/N, I know you're a good girl; they told me you'll be of great help at the moment, and even if you doubt me, you'll try to help everyone. The next years will be dark, you wanted your opportunity, and I'm offering it. In a month, important things will start happening in the timeline, and at certain moments, your participation will be decisive. When those moments come, you must intervene and use your intellectual and emotional intelligence to prevent the country's destruction." When the woman finally paused, it seemed like her brain still hadn't grasped the words. Y/N didn't feel fear from her; it was more like affection and compassion.

"Don't give up on him, Y/N. You know him. Even if he seems cold on the outside, I'm telling you there's still hope in something inside him."

Everything happened so quickly; in the blink of an eye, you were sitting in the cafeteria before class started with your snack in front of you, and your friends were completely unaware of your tumultuous mental journey.

"What's happening to me? Am I feverish, hallucinating for the past few hours? Everything feels like a horrible dream." She wondered, trying to distinguish the line between reality and the nightmare she had just witnessed. Her breathing was hurried; she must have looked like a lunatic. The crazy scenes still played in her mind. She wished to know what would happen, and especially who the girl passionately kissing Snow was. It wasn't the most shocking scene she had seen, but it was the one that bothered her the most for some reason.

The responsibility to prevent Coriolanus Snow's dark fate now rested on Y/N's shoulders. She found herself torn between disbelief and the conviction that something needed to be done to avoid an impending tragedy. The challenge was daunting, and the idea of helping someone she despised caused a deep emotional turmoil.

While facing this dilemma, Y/N knew she couldn't ignore the call of destiny. The month leading up to the Plinth Award became a period of anguish, both mentally and emotionally, for the mission she was destined to fulfill. The game of enemies would transform into a complex dance of redemption and understanding, and Y/N was about to embark on a journey that would challenge not only her convictions but also the limits of destiny itself.

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Thanks for diving into this story with me! Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I enjoyed creating it. Stay for more twists and turns! Cheers! 📖✨

#coriolanus snow #tbosas #president snow #the hunger games #coriolanus x reader #enemy to lovers #angst #angst with a happy ending #coriolanus x you #coriolanus snow x reader #fem reader #hunger games au

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barelytolerabled · 5 months

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Speeding Hearts part 1

lando norris x fem!driverReader

summary: you and your best friend, Pierre Gasly, had the same dream. but now that you’re living it together you start to want something else, someone else.

WC: 3k272

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From the moment you and Pierre Gasly met, you were inseparable. Growing up in the same small town, your shared passion for racing forged a bond that was unbreakable. As kids, you'd race each other on bicycles, then go-karts, and eventually in more powerful machines. Your dreams of Formula One burned brightly in your hearts.

The two of you made a pact, one that would echo through the years of your friendship: if you were ever fortunate enough to find a team in Formula One, it would be together or not at all.

Together, you endured the struggles and sacrifices that came with pursuing a career in motorsport. You celebrated each other's victories, consoled each other in defeat, and trained relentlessly to reach your shared goal. In the eyes of your friends and family, you were a package deal, a dynamic duo who stood as the epitome of friendship and teamwork.

As Alpine Racing welcomed both you and Pierre into its fold, the excitement was palpable. The realization of your childhood dream had become a reality. The gleaming Formula One cars stood before you, a testament to your perseverance and shared determination.

One crisp morning, the two of you found yourselves at a secluded test track. The air was charged with anticipation as you both prepared to unleash the power of the Alpine machine. Strapped into your respective cockpits, you exchanged a knowing glance that spoke volumes, this was a moment you'd both been waiting for.

The engines roared to life, and as you navigated the twists and turns of the track, the years seemed to peel away. The hum of the tires and the rush of wind brought you back to the days of karting on dusty circuits, chasing each other with unbridled joy. The camaraderie and competition were as alive as ever.

In a moment of complicity, Pierre signaled to you on the team radio. "Remember the karting days? Let's show them what we're made of." A grin spread across your face as you pushed the limits, mirroring the synchronized dance you'd perfected as kids.

As you tackled each corner, the memories flowed freely. The shared victories, the defeats that only fueled your determination, and the unspoken language you'd developed over the years.

The track became a canvas where your friendship was painted with every acceleration, every brake, and every perfectly executed maneuver. The thrill of speed merged seamlessly with the nostalgia of simpler times, creating a moment of complicity that transcended the confines of a Formula One test session.

For a fleeting instant, you and Pierre weren't just drivers for Alpine; you were the kids who once dreamed of this very moment, now living it together in the pinnacle of motorsport. The bond forged in those karting days had matured into something unbreakable, carrying you through the twists and turns of life and racing alike.

The checkered flag waved, signaling the end of the test session. As you and Pierre brought your Alpine monoplace to a smooth stop, a sense of accomplishment washed over you. The thrill of the track lingered, echoing in the air like a sweet melody.

With helmets in hand, you both stepped out of your respective cockpits, faces flushed with exhilaration and joy. A shared look passed between you, a silent acknowledgment of the journey that had led to this moment. The echoes of laughter from your karting days seemed to resonate in the pit area.

Unable to contain the elation, Pierre enveloped you in a spontaneous, tight embrace. The camaraderie and friendship that had weathered the years manifested in that simple yet profound gesture. The pit crew, observing the genuine connection between you two, couldn't help but share in the infectious joy.

Pierre grinned, his eyes reflecting the shared memories and dreams that had brought you both to this pinnacle. "We did it," he exclaimed, a mix of pride and excitement in his voice. You reciprocated the sentiment, "Together, just like we always said."

As the pit crew joined in the celebration, cheers and congratulations filled the air. It was a victory not just for Alpine Racing but for the enduring friendship that had withstood the test of time and trials.

The euphoria of the track still lingering, Pierre and you made your way to the first press meeting as Alpine drivers. The anticipation in the room was palpable as journalists gathered, eager to capture the essence of the new dynamic duo. With intertwined fingers under the table, a silent reassurance passed between you.

As the questions began, the room buzzed with curiosity. The first question, directed at you, cut straight to the heart of your connections. "A lot of people know your teammates thanks to his close friendship with Charles Leclerc. Are you also close to him?" The gaze between you and Pierre conveyed volumes. You took a moment, a smile playing on your lips, "Charles is a dear friend, and we've grown up together. But Pierre..." You glanced at him, a twinkle in your eye, "Pierre is my best friend. We share a connection that goes beyond the track."

The next question delved into the challenges of maintaining your friendship amidst the competitive world of Formula One. The room fell into a hush as the journalist asked, "Don't you think that your friendship could be destroyed by the sport, due to, for example, the rivalry?" Pierre and you exchanged a glance, a silent understanding passing between you. Pierre spoke with conviction, "We promised each other from the beginning that we'd do this together, and we meant it. No rivalry or competition will ever come between us. We're in this journey as one."

Then came the inevitable question, a sigh escaping the journalist's lips, "There are already rumors about you two being more than friends. What do you have to say?" The room seemed to hold its breath as you responded, "It's unfortunate that our friendship is questioned just because I'm a woman. Pierre and Charles have never faced such scrutiny. We're teammates, friends, and nothing more. The focus should be on our achievements on the track, not baseless rumors."

The room absorbed your words, and you and Pierre exchanged a knowing look. The unspoken promise echoed once more: no matter the challenges, your friendship would endure, unyielding against the backdrop of rumors and speculation.

The first practice session loomed, and the paddock buzzed with the energy of a thousand stories waiting to unfold. Cameras clicked and rolled, capturing the essence of the moment. You wander toward the bustling paddock, the echoes of conversations and the smell of rubber filling the air.

As you strolled through the maze of team motorhomes, a familiar figure caught your eye. Charles Leclerc, a smile lighting up his face, stood amidst the Ferrari team's setup. The two of you shared a brief but warm conversation, reminiscing about the times you spent together growing up. The camaraderie between you and Charles was evident, a connection that went beyond the competitive boundaries of the track.

Just as the conversation began to deepen, Pierre appeared on the scene, greeting Charles with a friendly nod. "Hey, Charles, good to see you," Pierre said, a sense of camaraderie evident in his tone. He turned to you, "Come on, let's head to the garage. We've got some work to do."

As Pierre guided you toward the Alpine garage, the whir of engines and the hum of activity filled the air. He led you to your designated spot, his focus on the task at hand.

Unbeknownst to you, the eyes of fellow drivers lingered. Some curious, some contemplative. The presence of a woman in the midst of Formula One, especially one closely associated with Pierre, had not gone unnoticed. The scrutiny, subtle yet palpable, escaped your attention as you familiarized yourself with the surroundings.

As the practice session approached, the noise intensified, drowning out the whispers of curiosity. The cameras continued to document every movement, focusing on Alpine's new dynamic duo. Little did you know, the world of Formula One was watching, captivated by the unfolding story that went beyond the confines of the racetrack.

In the heart of the bustling Alpine garage, the moment of focus and preparation had arrived. Pierre and you donned your racing suits, the familiar feel of the material a reassuring embrace. The air hummed with anticipation as the team worked swiftly around you, ensuring every detail was in place.

As you adjusted your gloves, Pierre caught your eye. There was a shared understanding between you two, a connection that transcended the spoken word. It was time for the pre-practice ritual.

Stepping closer, Pierre gently lifted his helmet visor, his eyes meeting yours. The world around you seemed to fade as you leaned in, pressing a brief but significant kiss on his helmet. It was a silent exchange, a gesture that spoke of shared determination and unspoken camaraderie.

The cameras, ever vigilant, captured the moment, freezing it in time for the world to see. The intimacy of the ritual wasn't lost on those observing from the sidelines. The team's photographer snapped candid shots, and rival teams' cameras discreetly recorded the exchange, curious eyes dissecting the dynamic between Alpine's inseparable duo.

With the ritual complete, Pierre enveloped you in a tight hug. The familiar scent of racing fuel lingered in the air as you embraced, drawing strength from each other. It was a ritual born from years of friendship and shared dreams.

A last exchanged look conveyed a silent understanding, this was the moment they had prepared for, the culmination of years of hard work and unwavering friendship. With a nod, you and Pierre headed toward the awaiting Alpine monoplace, leaving the garage behind.

The cameras continued to roll, capturing the start of a new chapter in your Formula One journey. The whispers of intrigue echoed through the paddock, but for Pierre and you, the only focus was the track ahead. As the engines roared to life, the world of Formula One awaited the unfolding story of Alpine's inseparable duo.

The thrill of the first free practice was still coursing through your veins as you faced a barrage of questions from journalists. Microphones and cameras surrounded you, capturing the essence of the moment.

A journalist inquired, "So, how was your first free practice?" A wide smile adorned your face as you responded, "It was beyond incredible. To finally be out there, on the track, living my dream alongside my best friend—there are no words to describe the feeling. I loved every moment of it."

"After this first try, who in the grid takes your interest?" A thoughtful expression crossed your face, and you replied, "That's a tough one. There are so many incredibly talented drivers on the grid. Lewis Hamilton, of course, is a legend, and the way he approaches each race is truly admirable."

You took a moment, considering the question further. "And then there's Lando Norris. His style of driving has fascinated me. There's a certain flair, a uniqueness to the way he tackles the track. It's inspiring to see a fellow driver bring such individuality to their performance."

As the questions continued, you shared insights into the challenges of the circuit and the exhilaration of being part of the Alpine team. The journalists, keen on unraveling the narrative behind Alpine's newest addition, hung onto your every word.

In the midst of the interview, a familiar presence approached. Pierre wrapped his arms around your waist, eliciting a giggle from you. "Sorry to interrupt," he grinned, "but the team is waiting for us. They want to film some content, heard about iced bath and whatnot. You ready for it?"

The unexpected interruption added a playful touch to the moment, and you nodded, "Absolutely, let's go." As you and Pierre made your way toward the waiting team, the journalists couldn't help but capture the candid scene—Alpine's inseparable duo, sharing laughter and camaraderie amidst the intense atmosphere of the paddock.

The team cameras were rolling as you and Pierre approached the iced baths, ready for the team's fun challenge. The atmosphere was light-hearted, and the paddock buzzed with anticipation as fans eagerly awaited a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes camaraderie of the Alpine team.

Pierre, sporting shorts, and you, in a two pieces bathing suit, exchanged playful banter, knowing what awaited. As the cameras zoomed in, you both shared a grin, playfully acknowledging the impending icy dip.

But as you hesitated near the iced bath, Pierre couldn't resist teasing, "Hey, remember when we used to take baths together as kids? You always made the water boiling!" You playfully retaliated, "What are you talking about? You were the one who poured only iced water!" The banter continued, each of you laughing as you relived childhood bath-time antics.

Ever watchful, Pierre stepped in front of you, wrapping his arms around you protectively. It was a spontaneous and genuine gesture, shielding you from the exposure to the cameras. Nestling against his shoulder, your shared understanding spoke volumes, conveying the comfort of an enduring friendship.

The fans caught your reaction, the laughter, the friendly bickering, adding a warm and familiar touch to the content. The rapport between you and Pierre was evident, showcasing the camaraderie that defined your partnership beyond the racetrack.

Encouraged by Pierre's support, you finally took a brave step into the iced bath. Pierre remained in front, still shielding you, until you were comfortably settled. With a nod and a smile, you acknowledged his support, feeling grateful for the friend who always had your back.

Fully immersed in the challenge, Pierre, with a playful grin, joined you in the iced bath. Laughter and playful arguments about the water's temperature ensued, each of you enjoying the icy challenge and the chance to share a moment of camaraderie beyond the intense world of Formula One. The team cameras captured these shared moments, providing fans with a glimpse into the authentic and light-hearted relationship that defined Alpine's inseparable duo.

As you relaxed on the bed, enjoying a moment of quiet, Pierre's phone buzzed, signaling an incoming call. Answering with a casual "Hello," Pierre's expression shifted as he listened intently. After a brief conversation, he hung up, a smile playing on his lips.

"Guess what?" Pierre exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "There's a dinner tonight, a celebration for the start of the season. All the drivers will be there."

Your eyes widened at the news, a mixture of surprise and anticipation. "Really? That sounds amazing," you replied, the prospect of meeting fellow drivers adding an extra layer of excitement to the already eventful day.

Pierre continued, "It's a great opportunity to mingle with everyone. Plus, they're hosting it to welcome you into the Formula One family officially. You need to know other drivers than just me and Charles."

As you considered the invitation, Pierre reassured you, "Don't worry, you'll love it. And besides, you've got me by your side. Let's celebrate the beginning of an incredible season together."

Emerging from the bathroom, you were dressed for the dinner in an outfit that reflected both elegance and comfort, a balance you hoped would fit the occasion. As you stepped into the room, Pierre turned from where he had been getting ready, a smile forming on his face.

"Wow," he exclaimed, appreciatively taking in your appearance. "You look absolutely wonderful."

A touch of uncertainty lingered, and you couldn't help but ask, "You think it's not too much, or maybe it's just ugly?"

Pierre stepped closer, "Not at all. You look fantastic. Elegant, confident, and perfect for the occasion. Trust me, you're going to turn heads tonight, and for all the right reasons."

His genuine compliment eased any lingering doubt, and a sense of confidence washed over you. With a grateful smile, you nodded, "Thanks, Pierre. I appreciate your honesty."

Together, you made your way to the venue of the dinner, the anticipation building with every step. The energy of the bustling paddock now transformed into a more relaxed, celebratory atmosphere as drivers, teams, and Formula One personalities gathered to mark the beginning of a new season.

You gracefully navigated the room, exchanging greetings and smiles with fellow drivers. Charles , standing nearby, caught your eye. With a familiar warmth, you said hello, and soon, a conversation unfolded, providing a comforting anchor amidst the sea of new faces.

As you engaged in a conversation with Charles, the ambiance of the room echoed with laughter and the hum of animated discussions. The camaraderie within the Formula One family was palpable, making the experience feel like a reunion of old friends.

However, the moment arrived when you were called to gather around the table. Pierre, of course, had reserved a seat for you right beside him. As you took your place, a sense of familiarity and comfort enveloped you. To your surprise and delight, on the other side of you was none other than Lando Norris.

"Hey there," Lando greeted with a friendly smile. "Excited for the season?"

You nodded, "Absolutely. It's a dream come true to be part of all this."

Pierre, leaning over from his seat, chimed in, "And having the best company, of course."

As the night wore on and the festivities continued, a sense of exhaustion began to weigh on you. The adrenaline that fueled the day now transitioned into a yearning for the comfort of the hotel bed. Sensing your fatigue, you turned to Pierre, "I think I'm going to head back to the hotel early. It's been a long day."

Pierre nodded and started to get up, ready to accompany you. However, you insisted, "No, stay and celebrate. I'll be fine. I just need some rest."

Pierre began to argue back, concerned about leaving you alone, but before he could protest further, Lando interjected. "Mate, I'm knackered too. I can walk her back if you want."

Pierre looked torn for a moment, torn between the desire to celebrate with friends and the instinct to ensure your well-being. After a moment's contemplation, he relented, "Alright, thanks, Lando. Just send me a message when you arrive, okay?"

Grateful for the compromise, you smiled at Pierre and kiss his cheek slightly, "I promise. Enjoy the rest of the evening. I'll catch up on all the stories tomorrow."

As you and Lando made your way out, the night air providing a refreshing contrast to the lively atmosphere inside, you exchanged a few words of gratitude. Lando, being the gentleman he was, assured you, "No worries. And don't forget to send that message to Pierre, else he'll be panicking."

Outside the hotel room, as you bid goodnight to Lando, he seemed to fidget nervously. "Hey, um, I heard you talking earlier about finding my driving fascinating to the journalists. Is that true?"

You chuckled at his genuine curiosity, "Yeah, absolutely. Your style on the track caught my attention. It's like watching an artist at work."

Lando blushed slightly, "Really? I mean, I just drive how I feel, you know?"

"Exactly," you reassured him, "That's what makes it fascinating. It's authentic, and it adds a unique flair to the races."

He grinned, "Thanks for saying that. It's just... I never thought people would describe my driving like that."

"Well, get used to it. You're making an impression out there," you replied, offering encouragement. "Now, get some rest, and I'll see you on the track tomorrow."

Just as you were about to close the door, Lando hesitated for a moment before asking, "Hey, would you be up for grabbing breakfast tomorrow before the second free practice? It could be a good chance to chat more about racing and stuff."

You smiled at the invitation, appreciating the camaraderie, "Sure, sounds like a plan. Text me the details, and I'll meet you in the morning."

With a final nod, Lando gave a friendly wave and headed down the hallway. Closing the door, you couldn't help but feel a sense of warmth from the connections formed in just one day.

Safe in bed, bonne nuit Pierre💗

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #pierre gasly #charles leclerc #f1

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caeliajournal · 2 months

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A journey through my moodboards

This is an analysis of all the moodboards I've created since I started journaling, from 2021 up to now

Searching for my golden hour

January, 2021

aestetic: golden hour

This phase of my life is defined by the significance of sunsets as a metaphor for what I was looking for: the magical and ephemeral moment that, despite its daily recurrence, never fails to captivate us.

Each of the images represented a goal:

The girl on the path symbolized the need for self-discovery and forging one's identity.

Roses embodied the past and roots, viewed through a lens of positivity and nostalgia.

We can also appreciate a collection of indoor plants, which would have a different meaning if they were wild plants. In this particular case, it represents caring for those who are home.

The bookshelf served as a gentle nudge to keep enriching my life with stories that leave enduring imprints.

Intertwined hands spoke of romantic connection.

Quotes:

❝Seek magic everyday❞

❝I am learning to find joy right here in the mess of things❞ — Morgan Harper Nichols. ❝Grow through what you go through❞ ❝feel what you need to feel and then let it go. do not let it consume you.❞ - Dhiman [...]

Homemade

September, 2021

aestetic: cottage core

The primary distinction I notice in this moodboard compared to the previous one is that nearly all the scenes take place indoors and are linked to artistic expression. It's akin to the seclusion of an artist, one might say.

Numerous activities are depicted, such as reading, writing, cooking, or drawing. The golden mirror symbolizes a distorted self-perception and the urgent need to gaze into it once more for self-recognition. Additionally, there are recurring elements from the previous board, like intertwined hands and a cat.

Unlike the previous aesthetic, this one features colors reminiscent of nature: muted browns and greens.

Quotes:

❝Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.❞ — Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951.

❝Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher it is.❞ — Robin Sharma

❝You have absolute control over just one thing, your thoughts.❞ — Napoleon Hill

[...]

Eternal dilemma: air or earth

Somewhere in 2023

aestetic: cottage core

The colors in this moodboard are much brighter compared to the previous ones, with green and purple being the main tones. There's a portrayal of a sunrise sky, although it's not golden anymore; rather, it has pastel colors, much softer and calmer.

The symbol of the mirror makes a comeback, along with elements that have disappeared and others that have emerged, like daisies, representing innocence and childhood. Themes such as books and art resurface, though this time there's a greater sense of solitude than in the previous boards.

Quotes:

❝part of her mystery is how she is calm in the storm and anxious in the quiet.❞ — JmStorm

❝He was earthly; she was aerial. He was made of clay and iron; she was made of fire and dreaming❞ — Graham Joyce, Some Kind of Fairy Tale

❝Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby.❞

[...]

The manuscript

March, 2024

aestetic: light academia

This moodboard boasts a distinct aesthetic, characterized by neutral tones, and it's centered around the writing process.

There's a contrast of ideas at play. On one side, there's handwriting alongside digital writing; on the other, tea versus coffee. It's safe to say I'm undecided.

There are fewer scenes depicted compared to the previous boards, making it simpler in design.

Quotes:

❝When it comes to art, it's important not to hide the madness.❞ — Atticus

❝The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.❞

#moodboard #cottagecore #cottage aesthetic #aesthetic #light academia #dark academia #light aesthetic #inspiration #photography #inspirational quotes #quotes #A little break from writing

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boundinparchment · 2 months

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Dream a Little Dream of Me - LVIII

Celestia had a cruel sense of humor. He knew this, even before his days as a student. But to be given a soulmate? Now, when he openly blasphemed against the cursed island in the sky? He would outlive you and the dreadful fated bond that haunted your shared dreams. There was little point in this. He could at least put a Vision to good use. People were nothing but disappointments. He had no use for you. Until you pulled the bow across your instrument and awoke a part of him long buried by self-hatred and arrogance. Soulmate AU; Il Dottore/Female reader w/ established personality and backstory. Slow burn. Lore and world speculation and interpretation within; follows canon story where possible. Fic is rated explicit; MDNI. Chapter on AO3 here.

Days passed in a hazy blur, only interrupted by impending responsibilities that could not wait. Without additional hands, all the necessary weapon plans for Natlan fell into Zandik’s lap, as they had before the ball. It was expected; after all, the respite couldn’t last forever.

“It’s oxymoronic, isn’t it?” you asked, standing in front of the wide window of your sitting room. “The fact that the stars shine in front of Celestia demonstrates one point of many that fate is not what it seems, that it’s a falsehood to keep us in a cycle. It is everything you stand against, Zandik. And yet…”

“And yet like any other relationship, fated bonds must still be chosen and prioritized. Having this connection is forced upon us but that does not mean we have to choose it.”

Choice. So many considered fate to be immovable. But if the end was always the same, he said, what did it matter what path you chose to get there?

A sentiment clearly not shared by his colleague, who was, for now, keeping his distance. The only times you saw Pantalone approach were strictly business; he was cordial (for her would never let it be said he was unkind) but aloof. You weren’t quite sure if that was at Zandik’s request or simply a courtesy, but you cared neither way.

Nonetheless, it was odd.

As you composed, you imagined fingers up and down your spine, lips on your breasts, and a laugh so deep you swore one day you would drown in it.

The earth shifted and yet nothing changed at all. So many assumed coupling was the be-all-end-all, that once that threshold was crossed, there was nothing left. If anything, it lent itself to strengthening the intimacy between you, the foundation all the stronger for it. He predicted your notes just before you hit them, smiling in approval as you played a newly-written composition; in turn, you knew precisely where he left the wrench, the sledgehammer, and the more delicate tools of his trade, knowing what he needed out of sheer instinct.

Both of you moved to a beat all your own, adjusting as needed based on a change in tempo or rhythm, but never once thrown off.

Like breathing.

You weren’t certain what, precisely, Zandik was working on any longer and he never quite explained it in-depth. Whenever you asked, his back straightened and he gave an enigmatic smile.

“You’ll see soon enough, rooh 'albi,” he said. “The mechanics are far simpler than they seem.”

The words should have settled your stomach but they only seemed to widen the growing pit in its depths. After all, weapons were hardly your forte, even though you wielded your own. This was a wholly different matter; it was about less self-defense and more a pre-emptive strike, from your understanding. Perhaps nothing more than a trump card never to be used.

On occasion, you ventured out of the Palace to continue working with the other musicians (not without the Tsaritsa’s intervention and approval on the matter). Standing on the stage and working with those who knew what it was to put their very being into their creation sent a nostalgic pang through you; some elements were universal, no matter where you were.

It was, nonetheless, rewarding.

As was the revelation both of you stumbled across deep in shared slumber.

You knew you could influence and affect your dreamscape, change things as needed on the fly; neither of you ever managed to create the same environment twice, not to the same details. You filled in the gaps and your brain recognized the familiar and filtered out the changes without much fanfare. It passed for almost real.

On a whim, after both of you fell asleep still joined to one another, Zandik hypothesized it might be possible to create a singular space and retain it in its entirety. After all, this bond had its own rules, and they did not entirely align with Teyvat’s. He’d extensively tested the growth of certain flora in unusual environments, how gravity could be manipulated, how trees could be felled with a mere flick of a finger.

So why would it not be possible to create a bubble? After all, he posed, Omega had done a decent job of it with you. Not perfect but clearly it was possible to retain the same narrative and idea throughout a dream and return to it.

As soon as the words left his mouth, your lips tugged into a frown, a knee-jerk reaction, one he immediately understood. Had he learned nothing at all from Omega’s antics, from your reassembled memories? Worse yet, had he fixed you just to break you himself? Surely not.

He spread his arms slightly, palms up, as if to say he had nothing to hide.

“Humor me, just once. I am only curious to see the capacity to which it can be taken. After all, nothing is better than one’s firsthand account of an experience. And if nothing comes of it, then so be it.”

It took days to properly test. All you did was create a single door frame, empty and without hinges. Something unusual that would stand out amid the trees and the reflective river nearby while also being otherwise unobtrusive. Zandik measured and recorded its exact location, height, and condition.

Nothing changed in the next dream, nor the one that followed.

“Previous dreams were not as stable, prone to usual behavior observed in a typical sleep cycle; nothing was ever exactly the same. Omega used sedatives to put you into a deeper sleep that allowed for consistency, one long continuous dream…”

The behavior of the dream remained even with a week of celibacy, ruling out any connection that sexual intimacy played a part.

You found him pouring over his notes after dinner one night, the lights so dim you wondered how he could even read.

“The only conclusion that makes the most logical sense,” he said, “is that embracing one’s fated bond provides a level of subconscious and unconscious equilibrium. Dangerous, really, given human nature’s tendency to crave variety.”

The disgust that he was exploring an idea left behind by Omega, successful in all but happiness, was outweighed by the delight of possibilities now presented before you. Raw unconsciousness did not adhere to the laws of the waking world and you found yourself enamored with the potential.

Together, you compiled ideas and blueprints, perfecting a method with which to transfer the knowledge of what you saw and read and making it accessible while you slept. When you weren’t composing, you were settled into a corner of the laboratory, surrounded by books on architecture and structure and design.

“One must know the rules in order to break them. Otherwise you are simply sowing chaos without understanding the consequences,” he said, gesturing to the shelves upon shelves of books. “After all, you wouldn’t just put notes on paper without knowing the ideas behind the most pleasant sounding chords and note progressions, would you?”

The terms were foreign at first, and it took more than one demonstration to explain a principle; Zandik happily obliged your questions, even if the same rules of physics and weight were not applicable.

He drafted; you offered suggestions. Asleep, you raised beams and adjusted floor plans, a skeleton deep in a nameless forest.

You awoke one morning not in your own bed but with your head on the desk, arms and neck stiff. Around your shoulders, a familiar weight and material. You pulled the cloak around you and buried your face in the fur collar, relishing Zandik’s lingering scent as you stared blearily. Down here, without the sun as your guide, you could not gauge the hour. Even the clock on the wall, an ancient thing that worked differently than the clockwork dials you were used to, only provided a tiny clue. The fourth hour. But was it morning? Or just before dinner?

Zandik’s back was to you, across the workshop, jacket and bird forgotten as he circled the bench and his latest creation. He hadn’t slept; even without his absence in the dream, you could see the giddiness in his step, in the motions of his head. Your soulmate was running on pure excitement.

Rising from the chair, the cloak whispered against the floor as you rounded the desk and made your way over. Zandik did a double-take when you approached, smile wide, eyes gleaming. If you ignored the dark circles, you could see the familiar boyish fervor you adored so much; he was eager to share, and you couldn’t help but smile.

“It’s done, rooh 'albi!”

He spread an arm wide, encouraging her to take a look at the large device on the table. It looked like nothing more than a military grade container, the kind you saw on various caravans leaving and arriving at the Palace. The hum of energy that came from it and the various thick cables connected to it were the only giveaway that it was, perhaps, something else entirely.

Whatever it did, it was always a joy to see the tangible results of his work and concepts. Often, the more destructive ideas never truly left the workshop; they were less tactical and useful for actual battle and merely proof of concept. Most things in the various levels of his laboratories were just that: an experiment to see if something was possible.

You enveloped him in a hug, wrapping his cloak around him to the best of your ability as you did so. Pressing a kiss to his scruffy cheek, you whispered your congratulations as your burrowed yourself against him.

His nose brushed your hair, and his excitement faded only enough to momentarily pause and take in your presence. He pulled way, more grounded now that he had another presence, but his eyes betrayed his steady voice, fire still dancing behind them.

“Field testing is in a couple of hours,” he said, cupping your face. “The Tsaritsa and the Captain will be in attendance. I would like for you to be present; this would not be possible if not for you.”

Something in his phrasing tickled your brain but you couldn’t place it. How could you not see it through, when you’d been by his side all this time? You would have insisted if he had not asked (which perhaps, you considered, was precisely why he did).

“I would love nothing more, mon rêve.”

#dottore #il dottore #il dottore x reader #dottore x reader #dottore/female reader #il dottore/female reader #dottore x female reader #il dottore x female reader #genshin impact reader insert #soulmate au #reader insert #x reader

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crepes-suzette-373 · 5 months

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Garuda, Judge, Germa 66, The Divine

@sangerie Perfect timing that you bring up Garuda in your reply, because I remembered a while ago that I didn't check what Judge's current belt looks like when I made that other post and I was just about to make a new post about my findings.

---

I messed up and completely forgot to check when I made that other post. That was just more of an idle thought, though, not something I really wanted to analyse or make theories out of. This one is the (conspiracy) theory/analysis post.

Artistically this is big enough difference that I cannot chalk it off as "simplification/wonky artwork because of image size":

Plus, the "simpler" shape from the MADS flashbacks would be drawn long after the WCI arc. So this has to be a purposeful change on sensei's part.

What was it beforehand and why the change? What is the newer shape supposed to be?

So anyway, that realisation prompted me to look into Karura (the Japanese interpretation of Garuda) because I thought the current belt shape looks like the helmet Judge is wearing, which in turn vaguely reminds me of headdresses in Buddhist gods' statuary.

I think there could be connection between the two in terms of design:

Like, his hair could look reminiscent of the Karura's "fire halo".

The Karura in Japan is a being who is heavily associated with flames (which happens to also look like number 6 spirals in the statue, very interestingly). Some Buddhist teaching even say the Karura either manifests itself as flames, or lends its flames in support to other deities.

Karura's "fire halo" behind Fudou Myou'ou:

This I find to be even more curious, because in the first place Garuda is divine being, and Garuda's "holy flame" is something that purifies evil. Judge seems to be awful in every way, so why give him a nickname that's based on a holy being? Is this just irony, or is this a hint that there's something weird going on that has yet to be revealed? (something in their ancient history?)

Also, about the "69" in the skull's eyes. Even Sanji's Stealth Black/Osoba Mask belt has that "69" element, even if it's in the little wings on the sides and not the skull's eyes. Is that symbol so important that it needs to be everywhere? (to sangerie, if you see this: Niji's belt still has that 69, even much later in the cover story, it just sometimes look wonky in the art because it's too small)

That symbol is known in Japan as "two tomoe" (considered different from yin yang by the Japanese). A tomoe is that comma like shape, and the Germa one is specifically the "right curling" one, because there are versions of it that goes the opposite direction.

A tomoe is also a divine symbol, so it's very frequently seen as the "crest" of shrines. Funnily enough the origin of the tomoe symbol is actually water, but I'm not sure if sensei would go out of his way to research that. If he was using this as a purposeful symbol I feel like he's using it more in the generic divine/shrine related usage.

It's a symbol you see in the drums used by the the Raijin (god of thunder), which also was the design inspiration for Enel.

Interesting thunder/lightning connection there. It's 3, though, and not 2, so I'm not sure if this means anything.

You see that exact symbol with just two in Wano, though it's turned 90 degrees anticlockwise:

I have wondered multiple times if the Vinsmokes have connection to Wano in their past. Even literally just a few hours ago I made a post mentioning the same thing. I always worry that I'm making too deep of a reach, but every now and then I still wonder.

It also has historical connection in Japan, since a two tomoe design is a common samurai crest. I highly doubt it's related to this, but that exact "69" shaped crest is the crest strongly associated with the 47 Ronin.

The interesting thing about the 47 Ronin is that even though they're typically celebrated as heroes who defeated an evil lord even to this day, by historical accounts the 47 ronin were actually the ones in the wrong and the guy they had revenge on wasn't a tyrant or corrupt official. Still, I don't think this has any relevance.

I mean, there's nothing about Germa that suggests that "they seem evil, but actually they're secretly good".

I will admit there is a part of me that is developing a suspicion that there could be a random twist where Germa's whole point was "their motivation/end goal is not bad, but their methods is what's really absolutely disgusting" for various reasons. As in, what if their desire to conquer the North Blue is not just for greed or power, but for a bigger goal beyond it, and this "bigger goal" might not be entirely bad.

I doubt it, because so far everything that we've been shown is just nasty. I'm just automatically suspicious because the World Government labelled them evil, and I don't trust WG.

It could just be something like "they're so evil, that even demons are disgusted", though.

#one piece #conspiracy theory #analysis #vinsmoke family #vinsmoke #germa 66 #vinsmoke judge #long post

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tanadrin · 1 year

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The invention of the basic BCI was revolutionary, though it did not seem so at the time. Developing implantable electronics that could detect impulses from, and provide feedback to, the body's motor and sensory neurons was a natural outgrowth of assistive technologies in the 21st century. The Collapse slowed the development of this technology, but did not stall it completely; the first full BCI suite capable of routing around serious spinal cord damage, and even reducing the symptoms of some kinds of brain injury, was developed in the 2070s. By the middle of the 22nd century, this technology was widely available. By the end, it was commonplace.

But we must distinguish, as more careful technologists did even then, between simpler BCI--brain-computer interfaces--and the subtler MMI, the mind-machine interface. BCI technology, especially in the form of assistive devices, was a terrific accomplishment. But the human sensory and motor systems, at least as accessed by that technology, are comparatively straightforward. Despite the name, a 22nd century BCI barely intrudes into the brain at all, with most of its physical connections being in the spine or peripheral nervous system. It does communicate *with* the brain, and it does so much faster and more reliably than normal sensory input or neuronal output, but there nevertheless still existed in that period a kind of technological barrier between more central cognitive functions, like memory, language, and attention, and the peripheral functions that the BCI was capable of augmenting or replacing.

*That* breakthrough came in the first decades of the 23rd century, again primarily from the medical field: the subarachnoid lace or neural lace, which could be grown from a seed created from the patient's own stem cells, and which found its first use in helping stroke patients recover cognitive function and suppressing seizures. The lace is a delicate web of sensors and chemical-electrical signalling terminals that spreads out over, and carefully penetrats certain parts of the brain; in its modern form, its function and design can be altered even after it is implanted. Most humans raised in an area with access to modern medical facilities have at least a diagnostic lace in place; and, in most contexts, they are regarded as little more than a medical tool.

But of course some of the scientists who developed the lace were interested in pushing the applications of the device further, and in this, they were inspired by the long history of attempts to develop immersive virtual reality that had bedevilled futurists since the 20th century. Since we have had computers capable of manipuating symbolic metaphors for space, we have dreamed of creating a virtual space we can shape to our hearts' content: worlds to escape to, in which we are freed from the tyranny of physical limitations that we labor under in this one. The earliest fiction on this subject imagined a kind of alternate dimension, which we could forsake our mundane existence for entirely, but outside of large multiplayer games that acted rather like amusement parks, the 21st century could only offer a hollow ghost of the Web, bogged down by a cumbersome 3D metaphor users could only crudely manipulate.

The BCI did little to improve the latter--for better or worse, the public Web as we created it in the 20th century is in its essential format (if not its scale) the public Web we have today, a vast library of linked documents we traverse for the most part in two dimensions. It feeds into and draws from the larger Internet, including more specialized software and communications systems that span the whole Solar System (and which, at its margins, interfaces with the Internet of other stars via slow tightbeam and packet ships), but the metaphor of physical space was always going to be insufficient for so complex and sprawling a medium.

What BCI really revolutionized was the massively multiplayer online game. By overriding sensory input and capturing motor output before it can reach the limbs, a BCI allows a player to totally inhabit a virtual world, limited only by the fidelity of the experience the software can offer. Some setups nowadays even forgo overriding the motor output, having the player instead stand in a haptic feedback enclosure where their body can be scanned in real time, with only audio and visual information being channeled through the BCI--this is a popular way to combine physical exercise and entertainment, especially in environments like space stations without a great deal of extra space.

Ultra-immersive games led directly, I argue, to the rise of the Sodalities, which were, if you recall, originally MMO guilds with persistent legal identities. They also influenced the development of the Moon, not just by inspiring the Sodalities, but by providing a channel, through virtual worlds, for socialization and competition that kept the Moon's political fragmentation from devolving into relentless zero-sum competition or war. And for most people, even for the most ardent players of these games, the BCI of the late 22nd century was sufficient. There would always be improvements in sensory fidelity to be made, and new innovations in the games themselves eagerly anticipated every few years, but it seemed, even for those who spent virtually all their waking hours in these spaces, that there was little more that could be accomplished.

But some dreamers are never satisfied; and, occasionally, such dreamers carry us forward and show us new possibilities. The Mogadishu Group began experimenting with pushing the boundaries of MMI and the ways in which MMI could augment and alter virtual spaces in the 2370s. Mare Moscoviensis Industries (the name is not a coincidence) allied with them in the 2380s to release a new kind of VR interface that was meant to revolutionize science and industry by allowing for more intuitive traversal of higher-dimensional spaces, to overcome some of the limits of three-dimensional VR. Their device, the Manifold, was a commercial disaster, with users generally reporting horrible and heretofore unimagined kinds of motion-sickness. MMI went bankrupt in 2387, and was bought by a group of former Mogadishu developers, who added to their number a handful of neuroscientists and transhumanists. They relocated to Plato City, and languished in obscurity for about twenty years.

The next anybody ever heard of the Plato Group (as they were then called), they had bought an old interplanetary freighter and headed for the Outer Solar System. They converted their freighter into a cramped-but-servicable station around Jupiter, and despite occasionally submitting papers to various neuroscience journals and MMI working groups, little was heard from them. This prompted, in 2410, a reporter from the Lunar News Service to hire a private craft to visit the Jupiter outpost; she returned four years later to describe what she found, to general astonishment.

The Plato Group had taken their name more seriously, perhaps, than anyone expected: they had come to regard the mundane, real, three-dimensional world as a second-rate illusion, as shadows on cave walls. But rather than believing there already existed a true realm of forms which they might access by reason, they aspired to create one. MMI was to be the basis, allowing them to free themselves not only of the constraints of the real world (as generations of game-players had already done), but to free themselves of the constraints imposed on those worlds by the evolutionary legacy of the structures of their mind.

They decided early on, for instance, that the human visual cortex was of little use to them. It was constrained to apprehending three-dimensional space, and the reliance of the mind on sight as a primary sense made higher-dimensional spaces difficult or impossible to navigate. Thus, their interface used visual cues only for secondary information--as weak and nondirectional a sense as smell. They focused on using the neural lace to control the firing patterns of the parts of the brain concerned with spatial perception: the place cells, neurons which periodically fire to map spaces to fractal grides of familiar places, and the grid cells, which help construct a two-dimensional sense of location. Via external manipulation, they found they could quickly accommodate these systems to much more complex spaces--not just higher dimensions, but non-Euclidean geometries, and vast hierarchies of scale from the Planck length to many times the size of the observable universe.

The goal of the Plato Group was not simply to make a virtual space to inhabit, however transcendent; into that space they mapped as much information they could, from the Web, the publicly available internet, and any other database they could access, or library that would send them scans of its collection. They reveled in the possibilities of their invented environment, creating new kinds of incomprehensible spatial and sensory art. When asked what the purpose of all this was--were they evangelists for this new mode of being, were they a new kind of Sodality, were they secessionists protesting the limits of the rest of the Solar System's imagination?--they simply replied, "We are happy."

I do not think anyone, on the Moon or elsewhere, really knew what to make of that. Perhaps it is simply that the world they inhabit, however pleasant, is so incomprehensible to us that we cannot appreciate it. Perhaps we do not want to admit there are other modes of being as real and moving to those who inhabit them as our own. Perhaps we simply have a touch of chauvanism about the mundane. If you wish to try to understand yourself, you may--unlike many other utopian endeavors, the Plato Group is still there. Their station--sometimes called the Academy by outsiders, though they simply call it "home"--has expanded considerably over the years. It hangs in the flux tube between Jupiter and Io, drawing its power from Jupiter's magnetic field, and is, I am told, quite impressive if a bit cramped. You can glimpse a little of what they have built using an ordinary BCI-based VR interface; a little more if your neural lace is up to spec. But of course to really understand, to really see their world as they see it, you must be willing to move beyond those things, to forsake--if only temporarily--the world you have been bound to for your entire life, and the shape of the mind you have thus inherited. That is perhaps quite daunting to some. But if we desire to look upon new worlds, must we not always risk that we shall be transformed?

--Tjungdiawain’s Historical Reader, 3rd edition

#tjungdiawan's historical reader #tanadrin's fiction

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secret-bug-pain-blog · 2 months

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@febuwhump Day 25 - ALT PROMPT - Immortality

ZB-162 our beloved. Speedrunning the final postings for these so that we can actually send in our index post. Day 29 is already done - we're just finishing up our mostly-finished prompts and doing a handful of illustrations for those that can't be made full-length in time. This is an OC work! You guys like undead switchboard operators, right? Definitely.

You did not have a name before you entered their systems.

You never expected to have one, then. You are a worker bee. There was no one to direct letters to you, and no reason for anyone to refer to you who wouldn't have already caught your scent. A name is for utility or diplomacy, and you were not one of those who had need for that utility.

You were yet another mediocre worker in service to the queen, and you had no reason to believe you would be anything but.

It was random chance that you, out of all bugs, would be chosen. You were never one to believe in fate, for all that ZBT-63 would claim it was destined. You were one worker among many, and you were the one to draw the short straw.

You knew little when you first entered the labs. You knew little when they first made the surgical incision at the base of your neck, feeding young tendrils of fungus in. Your memory of that time is foggy, clouded with a mixture of trauma and the typical failings of a fleshy, mortal brain.

You spent ten long, painful days in uncertainty, being held under observation as your other half grew. And then you were two, and the uncertainty that had been your constant companion began to fade.

The sentiments that your siblings hold towards your firstborn halves are varied. You know this more than anyone - save, maybe, Kjdrira. You are not entirely unique in it, but you find the feelings of nostalgia your siblings often feel to be alien.

Perhaps, in a way, your original self died when your younger half had burrowed into their brain. Or perhaps you merely want to grasp at anything that will distance you from the mundane bee who first entered Snakemouth.

You do not miss the uncertainty of living memory. You do not miss the mundanity of life in the hive. You certainly do not miss the feeling of being a cog in a machine that does not care about you.

You were given a name - ZB-162 - and you would cease to be a bee shortly after.

The rhythm of the lab was simple. Easy to learn, though you would not be so callous as to call it soothing. It was simple to know what was expected of you. It was simpler to follow it. Tests, you would find, had a simple sort of structure, the sort of thing that you could have grasped even without your other half. It was all strange to you, then. You wouldn't think to ask if there were others like you.

It would be days before you were contacted. It would be days before you would so much as realize that you could be contacted, rather than simply existing as the only bug in a lab full of roaches. It was them who found the network, a hundred years ago, writing words upon words into a communications network hurriedly thrown into the undercarriage of their computer system.

Your siblings reached out, fearful and hopeful in equal parts. You reached back, and in an instant, you were made aware that you were not alone.

You knew little, then. There were few of you connected, few of you even aware it could be done - Kjdrira, so terribly, consistently inventive, its range sweeping so much wider than the rest of you, had been the first to reach out, the first to find that there was even potential for a network to begin with. ZA-31 had been the first to connect, ZBT-49 networking soon after, the others latching on one by one as they were reached out to. You were one in a half-dozen, a bare fragment of the hive, clinging to each other in a world that was all too new.

With time, your numbers would grow. Now, you spoke with your Siblings, you fumbled with languages old and new, and you began to learn the paths that would grow to be your whole life.

You were small. Unknowing and afraid, cowering before systems you could only barely hope to understand. Your connections were feeble and inconsistent, here one day and gone the next, interrupted by the slightest lapse in concentration, and what you could communicate was limited. Lines would overlap. Too many on the line would reduce the signal to incoherency. Few of you spoke the same language, fewer still knowing how to utilize the new one implanted into your brains with your newer halves. You struggled to speak. You struggled to hear.

And yet, fear and loneliness kept you still reaching out.

You were still of flesh, then. Caught with endless hours pacing your cage, barely in range of Kjdrira, speaking through brief brushes of signal. Your enclosure was blank and featureless, your paws itching for work - you could only stand still for so long, then, could only remain idle for so many days before the itch began to burn at your shell again. You were small and afraid, and you had nothing to do but sit and count the hours between tests, and you wanted dearly - oh, so dearly - to be useful.

You began to work on figuring out the connections.

Early on, every new discovery would improve clarity in leaps and bounds. Signals could be passed through Siblings, cloned and echoed to increase their range. A low-volume ping allowed you to indicate beginnings and endings of speech, limiting the interference of crosstalk. Improvements in communication. Improvements in speech. Improvements in coordination. More efficient packets to pass. Learning to lever your new shared language to make your communications more comprehensive. Learning to use the crystals in the roach technology to pass signals, rather than the ones in your own bodies.

You learned the workings of your new bodies by trial and error, slowly working out the limits of what you can and cannot do. You learn it through testing, experience, happenstance - how it was accomplished mattered less than accomplishing it, and with every new connection, you could share your discoveries easier.

One bug's knowledge was the whole hive's knowledge. You clung to each other like lifelines in a world that was not meant for you, tips and tricks and connections making paths between a slowly-growing colony. Your knowledge was the same as everyone else's knowledge, the hive united in working towards whatever would aid you- and the one thing that you were beginning to know, more and more, was that you couldn't sit with the roaches' experimentation forever.

None of you wanted to stay. None of you wanted to be trapped here forever, the short-term benefits of cooperating not outweighing the detriments. The new connections were a double-edged sword, allowing you to remain connected at the cost of knowing precisely when the others were hurt - anaesthetics grew less consistent as you grew further from your host's baselines, and the roaches would not halt progress for their subjects' comfort, logging the failures as simply another part of the experiment.

Your hive was hurting. You were hurting, feedback from your Siblings washing back through the connections that you yourself had forged in rivulets of pain, the ability to sense your hive serving as a way to tell you whenever one of the bugs you connected to died. You wanted it to stop, and you knew you were not alone, the connections between the others of your hive a near-constant presence in the back of your brain that reinforced and confirmed.

Private links were difficult, then. Kjdrira, Blight-carrying crystals loaded into it so thickly that its chest then had been nearly packed solid, was the only one of you who could manage them without fighting its own failsafes. Still, it spoke to you, hidden from the rest of the communications network beyond a thick veil of static.

Something needed to change. Kjdrira, ruthless, protective thing, spoke of a plan - not quite formed, but soon to be worked on, something that it hoped would set you all free.

Kjdrira spoke of rebellion. Of slaughter. Of killing the roaches that had kept you captive. Of turning their own systems against them, allowing them to be slaughtered in their own test chambers, the same way they had slaughtered you.

You had no wish to kill. You had never been one for bloody revenge. But you were bitter, and fearful, and you had watched so many of your own die by now that to watch your own colony die felt routine - you didn't want to feel the deaths of those you now cared for so dearly, and when those who kept you saw you as disposable, you felt there was little reason not to say they were the same.

Kjdrira, and any of your colony who wished to share in its bloodlust, would kill the roaches in their own homes. And you, the network-grower, would help them do it.

You were the first to break into their systems proper.

Crystals, by their nature, network with other crystals. It is the principle upon which crystal computers function, it is the thing that makes computing with crystals even possible without needing something the size of the Ant Kingdom Palace. It was the thing that allowed for your initial contact, it is the thing that allows you to stretch your network beyond the network laid in the lab now. Data carried between points in space, networking between crystals, allowing information to be passed through that which would otherwise be impassible.

Your crystals, the ones that hold your thoughts and your memories, network with the computer network in the labs.

You were the one to find a way in. You were the one to figure out how to carve a path into their systems, to access their files - to access the data they stored on you, and their many experiments.

It was a small step. But you could read their plans now, even if you were clumsy, even if you had to be careful with it. You could monitor upcoming tests, you could predict when newblooms would need to be integrated into the system - you could relay what was to be expected to anyone in your range, even if it took effort.

Seven months into your testing, your heart stopped.

Activity ceased in your brain. Your blood stopped flowing. Your body became medically dead, your host body's innards eaten until they could no longer function, your body more fungus than flesh. Despite it, you are still alive.

You knew when it happened. When the barrier between the coded self they put in you and the self you lived with dissolved. When the sensations of your body changed, subtly different, even if still nearly the same. When the weakening thump of your heartbeat went silent. When the hemolymph stopped flowing in your ears.

You read the report on the computers later. Total brain death. Cessation of bodily function. Appears to have no change in behavior or personality, according to the roaches. You did not struggle to read anymore. You did not need to translate anymore. Your pathway was easier to access, easier to erase once you'd finished, easier to treat as though you were just another scientist. You understood their words as though you had spoken them all your life. You touched the network like an extension of yourself, and it replied in turn.

When you checked the records saved to the crystals in your heart, you found that nearly all of your former transmissions had become total gibberish.

You have forgotten the tongue that you used to speak. You have forgotten the name of your queen. You have forgotten the name of your former friends.

It was too late to mourn then. It is too late to mourn now.

The mycelium of the network spreads, laid in pencil-holes and screw-shafts and rusted, infinitely small cracks in the metal. ZA-811 buries stolen crystal in the floor, and the range expands. ZBT-92 is left in the testing labs for minutes at a time, and they pull overgrowth from their pock-marked shell, laying roots that eventually connect to those beneath the new-blood. You know every new bug that enters. You know every new death. Every day, Kjdrira stocks just a bit more power.

Every day, you get just a bit closer to running.

You remember the day of escape. You remember the slaughter of the roaches. You remember the milk-white blood on Kjdrira's claws, one of last things that you would see with failing eyes. You remember running a million billion lines of communication through yourself, your mind more the speech of others than any thought of your own, hundreds of glimmering threads coordinated in attack and escape.

You remember losing track of your body. You remember losing track of your mind. You remember undirected limbs, a body moving on the bare minimum of thought that your mind had left. You remember your own inability to pay attention. You remember the roach.

You remember the hole ripped in your face, and you remember the eye burst as a clipboard cracked into your fragile, breakable skull.

A hundred strains of micromanaged thought scattered at once, mingling and intermingling as your control was lost. The colony - your colony, the only one you had now - exploded in disorganization and concern, and you could do nothing to help it as you desperately tore into the bug who had attacked you.

You were afraid. You were injured. You were holding your ganglia into your head with your bare claws, missing an eye and staring at a roach's corpse on the ground. It was a miracle you were still alive.

You stayed there, hours after the breach, until your sibling found you. And you stayed there hours longer, after Kjdrira had patched the holes in your shell with roach's blood.

You have no record of the latter part of the night. You still sees its records, filtered through the eyes of hundreds of siblings, disarray and panic and blind attempts at attack. You will still regret losing focus years later.

When you finally drew yourself back to coherence, the door was closed, and none of your kin could open it to chase those who had escaped.

You were still alive, when your siblings began to starve. When it became apparent that you were locked in, that the workarounds and tricks you used for your own operating systems were doomed to fail at the claws of the main lab's operating system. You were still alive when it became evident that a piece was missing, that even the most talented of your number could not open the way out because the scientists had cut out the door. You were still alive when it became obvious that escape was either impossible, or so impractical that it would lose you nearly all of your newfound colony.

And you would remain, as your siblings began to slip into sleep, unable to breach the walls of your entrapping home.

Perhaps it was madness that kept you awake. Perhaps it was duty. Perhaps it was lingering nature. You were a bee from the moment you hatched. Idle paws were not meant for your kind, and idleness never suited you. Perhaps it was carry-over from that that kept you, even detached from hive and identity, working away. Ironic, then, that you would retain your central drive, when others of your kin proved content in idleness.

Your peers, in their few periods of wakefulness, would equate it to hibernation. You could not truly claim to know of it, never having been made of any species that truly hibernated. Bees did not sleep through the winter - they huddled in dorms and bedrooms, trapping the heat in with their bodies, pressing up against each other for warmth and exchanging words and stories as they waited for the cold to pass.

There are fewer, here. Fewer, still, awake consistently. ZBT-63 rarely stays asleep for more than a few months at a time, woken by their splintering back as the errors pile up. ZA-527 struggles to stay down more than a few hours at a time, misfiring signals irritating their brain and their mycelium until it gives up and dedicates its thought to something else. The very Blight that allowed Kjdrira to rain death on the roaches lingers in its blood, unstitching and restitching its flesh at a constant pace that means sleep risks death for it. ZA-61 cannot sleep at all, oldest surviving of its kind and bearing the shoddy work to show it.

Sometimes, there is no one but you. More times, it might as well be no one but you. Compared to the hive, the lab is achingly lonely. Still, you remain.

You spend your time alone, weaving together the network. Fixing code. Working out kinks. Kjdrira has more processing to spare than any of you, but you are loathe to test on it when you know that a poorly-done line could threaten whatever passes for its life nowadays. You have little opportunity to test it nowadays, as hope of ever finding escape wanes.

Time passes. Chitin wears. Your cordyceps hatch fruiting bodies from the weakened shell over what used to be your eye.

Perhaps you will never get out. Perhaps you will never see the sun again. Your vision has long since gone out, all semblance of sight faded years ago, your newer senses never quite the same. Perhaps you will be trapped here forever, withering away in the husk of the lab that you destroyed in a life extended so far as to be unnatural.

Perhaps, rather than surviving so long in this life, it was you, the bee, who should have died before your other half even wove into it.

You have been alive for so very long, trapped in this impenetrable cage. You have taken injury beyond what any bee should have been capable of surviving, you have lived through hardships that many of your former hive never could have dreamed. You have grown resigned, by now, to the fact that you will never die; that your design, made for immortality, will never falter so much as to allow you to. You weave your hive's communication in a great web directed by principles that your older self never could have comprehended, crystalline structures that mortal brains were not made to understand.

You are greater than you once were, in some ways. But you are so very much smaller in others, trapped within a cage you have no hope of breaching. You are administrator of a colony that permits you to warp your siblings' very thoughts, capable of coordinating hundreds of bugs without so much as twitching a finger. But you cannot move beyond the glass cage that contains you.

You have a name. You have a role. You have a million fingers of mycelium moving behind your single, useless eye. You have siblings who care for you, who answer to you, who could not imagine living without you. You are so far from the person who was first claimed for this project that you would not recognize your own face, were you capable of seeing it.

And you - you the cordyceps, you the bee, you the experiment, the network, the immortal - are still doomed to spend your eternity trapped in the echo of another life's corpse.

You should be dead. But you aren't.

What a mercy. What a nightmare.

[ZB-162 - Central Communications Module. Former bee, and the colony member responsible for keeping communications throughout the hive fungal network coherent and functional. One of the few colony members incapable of going into hibernation between Upper Snakemouth's destruction and its re-opening more than a century after - though it itself cares little about speculating on the underlying cause, the most likely cause is something to do with errors in neural mapping, as is common in the larger batches of experiments.]

#whump #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday25 #immortality #bug fables #ocs #zb-162 #leif's request spoilers #this also doubles as backstory! you guys like cool bugs riiiight? zombug blast. get zb-162'd.#anyways time to get back to the Fucking Finishing Things Grind

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cozza-frenzy · 3 months

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The Alters Of The Magbox

Well, here it is! An exhaustive list of every alter in the system, under the cut. This post is mainly just for reference, but feel free to take a look if you've not met all of us yet or are just curious.

Terry (fused with Rocky, Blue Lantern Ring Fragment, Caddy Remnant Fragment) Pronouns: Toon/They/Fin Tag: #Shit Terry Says System Role(s): Host, Conflict Resolution, Knowledge Holder

The host is the alter whose job is to live most of the everyday by fronting most frequently, and the other alters look to toon for guidance, and to resolve fights and arguments. Terry assumed the host role in 2020, but may have been in and out of dormancy for most of the system's life. Toon fused with Rocky and re-absorbed the "Blue Lantern Ring" fragment in the February 2024 fusion phase ("Fuse-A-Palooza"), and took on a second fragment from Caddy's failed fusion. Despite this, Terry's largely retained toon's identity. Chaos D. Stortion (fused with Treacher and Gadget) Pronouns: It/Twist/Spin Tag: #Spiral Posting System Role(s): Gatekeeper, Caregiver, External Protector, Skill & Trauma Holder

Twin sibling to Vivien, Chaos was the first alter Terry made contact with after discovery. It can create doors in the inner world to allow for fast travel, is a primary caregiver to Alex, and rushes to the front to help protect vulnerable friends and family. Twist fused with Treacher and Gadget during Fuse-A-Palooza, retaining its identity, but healing a permanent injury from its source. Spin's currently dating Len in The Panopticon, and one alter in our system who'll remain undisclosed. Cosmic "Taffy" Latte (Fusion of Taffy and Moon Unit) Pronouns: They/Star Tag: #To The Stars System Role(s): Self-Care, Exercise, Mood Booster

Before their fusion, Taffy was the second alter Terry made contact with after discovery, appearing the same night as Chaos. Moon Unit was a fragment created by the system for note-taking and basic self-care in High School. Now fused but retaining their old name as a nickname, star's a lot happier and more confident than either original part was, but has mostly retained "original" Taffy's in-sys appearance as well as star's vegetarianism. Martin Blackwood Pronouns: He/They Tag: #Tea And Sympathy System Role(s): Caregiver, Self-Care, Body Positivity, Grief & Trauma Holder

An introject from The Magnus Archives podcast. Martin's a caregiver for adult alters with mental health issues, and despite appearing soft-spoken and awkward can be incredibly sassy. He's dating Jonathan Sims and Jonny D'Ville in the Panopticon, has a Queerplatonic relationship with Nathan, and Vivien is his adopted sibling, who took his last name to help establish their own identity. Vivien Blackwood Pronouns: They/Them Tag: #Beyond The Shadows System Role(s): Trauma Holder, Skill Holder, Knowledge Holder, former Host

Chaos' twin sibling and part of the Blackwood-Stortion family, Vivien had a lot to overcome when they first showed up as they were still "stuck" emotionally in the time they split. Since then though they've made amazing progress, and have re-ignited their passion for film, art, and especially animation. Viv was a former host during our college years, and remembers the places and people we met during that time. Nathan Blackwood Pronouns: He/It Tag: #Turn Your Gaze System Role(s): Gatekeeper, Memory Management, System Management

Nathan seems to be a fusion of multiple smaller, simpler fragments that now function as a single alter, and joined the Blackwood-Stortion family to help develop his own identity. He has the unique ability to "remote front" from anywhere in the inner world, and is able to view and assess the strength of connections between alters and between inner world areas. Rothko "Marx" Jackson (Fusion of Gerry and Nox) Pronouns: He/It/Paint Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Gatekeeper, Repair Coordinator (allows "stray" memories to re-integrate with suitable alters), Paranoia & Hypervigilance Holder, former Host (as Caddy and Nox)

Marx's story is more than a little complicated. Caddy was a former host that fused with Dr. Gaster, a fragment - and the result was unstable and shattered into several pieces. Gerry was one such piece, and eventually fused with Nox, another former host alter. They both needed each other to find their place in the system - and the result is the colorful and flamboyant Marx, who we're still getting to know as of March 2024. Highwind Ragnarok Pronouns: It/Its Tag: #Problematic Airship System Role(s): Skill Holder, Knowledge Holder

Highwind is an alter created for a surprisingly specific purpose - playing video games with others - and it's damn good at them. It holds our knowledge and skills related to games, and in our inner world is the AI that keeps our airship home clean, safe and secure. Dr. Roy Boss Pronouns: He/Him Tag: #Boom Baby Boom System Role(s): Medical Advocate, In-System Medical Care, Knowledge Holder

Our resident supervillain! Roy's a Bad Guy but he isn't a bad guy; he's our in-system doctor, assessing the health of our inner-world bodies (which reflects our mental state) and treating us for psychosomatic illness. He also speaks to doctors on our behalf, advocating for proper care and medical investigation. Mello D. Adagio Pronouns: Any/All Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Trauma Holder, Skill & Knowledge Holder, System Management, former Host (?) We're pretty sure Mello is another former host, or at least a frequent fronter that dealt with specific trauma scenarios. They have our knowledge of musical instruments, notation, and how Digital Audio Workstations function, and seem to have some relation in system to allowing others to share information. Jeremy Hillary Nowhere Pronouns: He/She Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Knowledge & Memory Holder, Body Positivity, former Persecutor

Jeremy is a recovered persecutor, a type of alter that inflicts intentional harm to the system. After our post-fusion reshuffle, she's gone from the voice of our "inner critic" to an appreciator of beauty and creativity, and a creator in his own right. She holds our knowledge of fine art and theater, and our memories of museums, exhibitions and historical sites. Raine Evenstar Pronouns: They/Them Tag: #Where Hope Grows System Role(s): Reaper (severs contact and bonds with people who've harmed us), Trauma Holder, former System Suppressor, former Host

Raine was the one keeping the rest of the system suppressed for most of our life; forcing other alters into dormancy, and allowing trauma to pile up as detached fragments. They only have memories of fronting to make sure our "dead" relationships stayed that way, but may have been the host for an indeterminate length of time, as our spouse recognizes their voice as what we sounded like around 10 years ago. Celeste Northstar Pronouns: She/Star/Bun Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Life Protector (removes suicidal urges), Host Protector, System Management

Celeste kept her existence a secret from nearly everyone for a long time, but came forward later as the one who forced Raine into temporary dormancy. This allowed Terry to make First Contact with the rest of the system; following that, she helps manage our emotional connections to the rest of the system, letting us "sense" when someone's in distress even if we're not in the same inner world area. Holiday Battenburg Pronouns: She/Cake Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Trauma Holder, Memory Holder, Caregiver

Holiday holds our memories of celebrations, vacations and parties - the good and the bad - and is one of Jazz's primary caregivers (mum). She's the "happy face" we had to put on when dealing with trauma relating to these things, but cake's slowly opening up to feeling a wider range of emotions, and learning to share what she's holding onto. Dagwood H. Sandwich Pronouns: He/Him Tag: #Bring Me Sunshine System Role(s): Mood Booster, Gatekeeper, Memory Holder

Holding the memories of the system's biological brother behind a literal locked door, Dagwood is the system's "littlest gatekeeper", but has been slowly letting those memories out so the system can deal with them piece by piece. Showtunes, "golden age" cartoons, and episodes of Morcambe And Wise will bring him to the front. Astera Weaver (Fusion of Hyi and Ari) Pronouns: It/She Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Gatekeeper, System Management and Communications, Memory Holder Hyi was our original gatekeeper, being able to block most alters from front, and Ari facilitated communications with alters outside of front via audio and video calls in system. Given the two worked so closely together, their fusion wasn't exactly a surprise, and Astera is better able to communicate and more willing to front than either of them were. Nox Vox-Nocturne Pronouns: He/They/It/Eye Tag: #Eye See Monsters System Role(s): Paranoia & Hypervigilance Holder, former Host Nox seems to be a holder for our feelings of paranoia and hypervigilance, and seems to have been host sometime in our late teens/early 20s. He's still getting used to having people care about it, but they're definitely capable of caring about others, and are helping to rekindle our interest in stories and video games. Loves street food, especially a good thai curry.

Amadeus Nocturne Serenade (Fusion of Nocturne and Lucille) Pronouns: It/Dark/Claw Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Anger Holder, Emotional Suppressor, Self-Harm Prevention The original fusion that made Nocturne (Yvonne and Harvey) came as a surprise, but resulted in one of the most emotionally stable alters in the system. Following that, Lucille joined with them, giving it a better coping mechanism. Claw now uses darks intimidating presence as a distraction in the inner world, while it isolates, contains, and "devours" the urge to commit self-harm. Rosie "Riot" Terrence (Fusion of Anarchy and Roxanne) Pronouns: She/They/Bun/Paint Tag: #Viva La Riot System Role(s): Protector, Gatekeeper (removes alters from front), Anger Holder Our first fusion of fusions; Anarchy came from Charlie and Rakugaki, Roxanne came from Roxy and Rosie. They fused during "Fuse-A-Palooza" to cut down on the number of superfluous protectors in the system, consolidating their strength to control buns temper and uphold paints ideals of justice and fairness. Commander Samuel Vimes Pronouns: He/Him Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Gatekeeper, In-System Peacekeeping, Stress Management (system-related stress) An introject from the Discworld series, Vimes appeared in system when we needed someone to contain The Red Forest, a massive fragment amalgamate that manifested as a hostile place in our inner world. He can "lock down" areas of headspace, preventing anyone from getting in or out, and recently took on the burden of the general stress that comes from being a system. Bitter Aster Pronouns: He/Him Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Chores, Emotional Protector, Life Protector (Removes the urge to self-harm), Soother (Prevents panic attacks) Bitter retains our knowledge of coping skills and self-help techniques, and fronts to help during panic attacks and urges to self-harm. In extreme situations, Bitter will actively take away short-term memories or intrusive thoughts so other alters stop focusing on them. Following our post-fusion reshuffle, he helps out with kitchen chores and cooking.

Jenova Destati (fused with The Divine Beast) Pronouns: She/It/Fen Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Pain Taker, former System Suppressor Jenova was the last alter to emerge directly from The Red Forest before it collapsed, and used to only front when the body was in extreme pain. When The Divine Beast emerged from the aftermath of Caddings' failed fusion (itself being the remnants of The Red Forest), they fused together, allowing the Divine Beast to "die" peacefully by becoming a part of Jenova. "Thirteen" (fused with Fox) Pronouns: She/He Tag: #Unlucky For Some System Role(s): Trauma Holder, Memory Holder, System Architect (designs and maintains areas of the Inner World) Thirteen is a trauma holder specifically for "learned helplessness", and came out as transfem (identifying as bigender) shortly before fusing with Fox during Fuse-A-Palooza. The resulting fusion has retained Thirteen's name and "base" identity, so for privacy reasons she'll continue to use a pseudonym online. She's dating Archivist Grian in The Panopticon. "Roses" Pronouns: Any/All (Genderfluid, varies) Tag: #Restless Nights System Role(s): Social Advocate, Trauma Holder, Skill Holder An introject from an undisclosed source. Roses is our charismatic "face" alter, navigating our performances in front of an audience, and complex social situations like formal events and appointments. "Leaf" Pronouns: They/It Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Financial & Resource Anxiety, Trauma Holder An alter whose real name isn't disclosed by their own request, Leaf tries to be as unobtrusive as possible, and for a long time stayed isolated from the system unless forced into front. It started fronting more at the start of March 2024, and their bravery and headstrong attitude (and interest in Monster Hunter) has earned them the title "The Giant Slayer". "Donner" Pronouns: He/Him Tag: #The Devil You Know System Role(s): Caregiver, Trauma Holder, Chores, Former Sexual Alter

An introject from an undisclosed source. Donner is one of Jazz's primary caregivers (dad), and is starting to front more frequently as he learns to get along better with other alters. He used to be the one that "held" the sexuality of other alters due to the confusion of having multiple personalities, but no longer fills this role after discovery.

The Kids

Our alters that are under 18 in system and behave like children or teenagers while fronting. They never front without an adult alter being present, and information here is limited to protect the system.

Jasmine "Jazz" Battenburg (fusion of Radeon and Velocity) Pronouns: She/They Tag: #For Your Soul System Role(s): Trauma, Memory & Knowledge Holder, former Host Alex D. Stortion (fusion of Jackie and Andy) Pronouns: He/She Tag: (None Yet) System Role(s): Trauma & Memory Holder

#Adventures in OSDD #The Magbox Idiot Box #Dissociative Identity Disorder #OSDD-1b #Actually dissociative #Endos and Endo Supporters DNI

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greencarnation · 6 months

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To fully understand what's happening right now, you have to understand that Palestine has been going through an ethnic cleansing since 1948.

But let's start simpler than that. What exactly is ethnic cleansing? There are several definitions that vary very slightly, but they all agree on one thing: it's a crime against humanity and punishable under international law. However, for Palestinians, no justice was ever served.

The Hutchinson encyclopedia defines ethnic cleansing as expulsion by force in order to homogenise the ethnically mixed population of a particular region or territory. The purpose of expulsion is to cause the evacuation of as many residences as possible, by all means at the expeller’s disposal, including non-violent ones.

This definition is accepted by the US state department, whose expects add that part of the essence of ethnic cleansing includes the eradication by all means necessary of a regions history. Sound familiar? The UN employs a similar definition, linking a state/regime's desire for to impose ethnic rule on a mixed area with the use of acts of expulsion and other violent means.

(To understand ethnic cleansing from a more detailed, scholarly standpoint, the work of Drazen Petrovic is recommended, who exposes the close connection between politicians and the army in the perpetration of the crime.)

Wikipedia can be turned to to reflect the most popular definition, due to the fact that it can be edited/added to by anyone. It says: "At the most general level, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the forced expulsion of an ‘undesirable’ population from a given territory as a result of religious or ethnic discrimination, political, strategic or ideological considerations, or a combination of these."

So what happened in 1948? The Nabka ("Catastrophe") is the Palestinian word for the ethnic cleansing that occured when Israeli settlers systematically uprooted almost a million Palestinians from their native homes.

On the evening of the 10th of March 1948, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of the Palestinians from large areas of the country. Methods outlined to forcefully evict people included: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit had it's own list of villages and neighborhoods as targets.

This was called Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), and was the fourth and final version of the plans that outlined what the Zionists had in store for Palestine and its native population. Previous schemes delt only obscurely with how they would deal with so many Palestinians living in the land that the settlers wanted as their own, however this one spelt it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to go.

The aim of the plan was the destruction of both the rural and urban areas of Palestine. They succeeded. After six months, 800 000 people had been violently uprooted, 531 villages destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods emptied. Very few Palestinians were ever able to return.

Many atrocities and war crimes were committed during this time, including the poisoning of the water supply into Acre with typhoid, numerous cases of rape and dozens of massacres the Jews perpetuated.

This is the most formative event in the modern history Palestine, and it has ever since been systematically denied and erased from the global public memory. It's still today not recognised as an historical fact, let alone acknowledged as a crime that needs to be confronted politically as well as morally.

"When it created its nation-state, the Zionist movement did not wage a war that ‘tragically but inevitably’ led to the expulsion of ‘parts of’ the indigenous population, but the other way round: the main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state." - Ilan Pappe

This is still happening today. We are watching live on our phones the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, that's a direct continuation from what began in 1948. It hasn't ended and will not end until Palestine is free and has it's land returned to it. There are no two sides here.

#palestine #israel #gaza #history #palestine history #save palestine #nabka #the nabka #ethnic cleansing

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mabsolgirl · 8 months

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Headphone warning

Transcript below! :3

I made this a while ago, around when I first started making art of the Supernova AU AU. There have been some slight changes since then but I wanted to post this anyway since its been just sitting in my drafts and starting to get dusty. The changes aren't enough to alter anything in the audio in a major way anyway so neeeeh.

It's been a while since I did voice stuff so hopefully I don't sound terrible lol

Obligatory @linxprime ping cause au of their au

Watch me pull world lore outta my ass cause I still don't know what im doing

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In the ruins of a crashed and destroyed ship, you find a strange audio file labeled "Project Supernova". You made a copy of it and now you have the time to give it a listen...

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Transcript

Warning. The following video is the private property of [REDACTED]. Any outside or uncertified personnel caught viewing this video will be terminated by any means necessary. Viewer discretion is advised.

Log 1.

I am Dr. Jane Doe and I’ve recently been put in charge of “Project Supernova” after the old one quit. I decided to keep audio documentations of my findings and observations. I find it easier for me to document things by recording them by audio then writing it all out later.

Project Supernova is a study on the abilities of intelligent lifeforms, how they manifest, if different abilities can be manifested in specific situations, and researching the phenomena of Berserkers. Before I came in, an embryo was successfully fertilized and grown into a stable state. There were many failed attempts with this being the only one that has made it this far, living for roughly 12 years as of this recording. To be honest I question the decision to make a lifeform rather than study the cases of people who already have abilities, but the higher-ups wanted to do this rather than the simpler way.

Regardless it is planned to come out of the tube once it reaches 13 years, which is a couple months away. It should be stable enough by then. Until then we monitor it for any changes.

End log.

Log 2.

Right, so I forgot to mention info about the lifeform last log. My bad, heheh.

So, the lifeform is female and it was made with the DNA of multiple organisms with the two primary ones being Human Earthling and Cuixcus. I think I pronounced that right. Cuixcus was used for their adaptability and Human Earthlings to counteract the weaknesses of the former. It has bones, can withstand hotter temperatures, and while it doesn’t need to, it does breathe oxygen. The DNA from other organisms were used to help stabilize it so it doesn’t just die spontaneously. The genetics chosen specifically to see if heritage has an influence on what abilities would appear.

Now the real reason I am logging this. Earlier today it was monitored that specs of light were floating around the lifeform’s tube. They looked so… ethereal. It was like looking at a cluster of tiny stars. I should probably mention that the lifeform is in an unconscious state. It has been like this since its creation and this was the first time these lights were documented. They disappeared before we could study them. Maybe it dreamt them up? We’ll have to keep an eye on it.

End log.

Log 5.

Today it came out of the tube, emphasis on “it”. We weren't supposed to take it out for another week but I guess it had other plans. One second it was in the tube, the next the lights appeared again and it was out and fell face-first into the equipment. It teleported itself out.

Since it wasn’t connected to the machines anymore it woke up quickly after that. Of course we were all freaking out but it didn’t seem too bothered by us. We ran some tests and it was stable. It bruised its head but other than that it wasn’t significantly injured.

It’s a very curious one. It would grab and inspect what we had. We let it for the most part and it would hand us back what it had when it was done. Right now it’s in its own room that we had to quickly scramble to finish putting together. It’s a quiet little one. The team and I decided on the name “Nova” after the project. As per usual we’ll keep an eye on it.

End log.

Log 27.

A lot happened today. Today is the first day Nova went into her Berserker state. The first thing I noticed was that she was much calmer than I expected. I expected a rampaging beast like the other cases of Berzerkers but Nova would just… stare at us. We kept an eye on our monitors to watch to see what she does and then we watched her create light orbs; like the ones from one of my first logs but much bigger. This time we were able to scan them to see what exactly they were…

They’re stars. I am not joking, she was making literal stars, balls of collapsed burning gas, in her hands! From our observations they disappear when she loses focus but still incredible nonetheless! We later figured out the key piece to what her abilities are: a limited form of matter manipulation. She can teleport herself, and those she touches, by willing her own matter into another space and the stars are made by manipulating the matter of gas and dust to collapse in her hands. It is theorized she can manipulate any form of matter so long as physical contact is made.

After a while she went out of Berserker state and fell unconscious. We hooked her up to make sure she’s alright. Right now she’s comatose; we’re hoping she comes back alright.

End log.

Log 39.

Earlier today one of the higher-ups came in and told us that we were not needed on Project Supernova anymore and that in the coming days a new team would be coming in to take over the project. Of course we were outraged. We were consistently giving them good results! We did what we were told! We did nothing wrong, didn’t question a thing. Nothing we said could convince him otherwise. None of us wanted to leave the project. I’ll admit, Nova has grown on us. She’s like family and now for some reason she’s being taken from us. When he left we all decided to look into it ourselves.

The more we dug, the more things began to not add up. Then… we found something. We’re not here to do what we think we’re doing. We’re gonna get Nova out of here. This place is no longer safe. We’ll get her out and we’ll be the whistleblowers to this place.

End log.

Log 40

…I’m… I’m sorry…

Dr. Jane Doe, Dr. Bailey Shindo, Dr. Margoba Entano, Dr. Manbagea Nals, and Dr. Ripley Hedon have been terminated. Project Supernova assets will be transported to [REDACTED] for further completion by a new team effective immediately. End communication.

#my sister compared this to mewtwos backstory and tbh shes not wrong #btw the name Jane Doe was a placeholder name since its commonly used to refer to someone dead that cant be identified (John Doe for dudes).#the name kinda just stuck while i was making this. I might draw Jane sometime in the future since i have design ideas #art #fnaf au #fnaf oc #supernova au au #i know the supernova posts dont do well but i dont care! i like making them :3 #im really happy with the scene at the end. the weird humming does have a purpose. id like to see if people can identify it >:)

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beauty-and-passion · 2 years

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How about some ts criticism? 🤔

Sure! The perfect work doesn’t exist and Sanders Sides has flaws just like everything else. Some are acceptable, others are subjective and then we have what is, in my opinion, the biggest flaw of the series: the lack of a complete, detailed outline.

What is an outline?

An outline is a general plan of what you are going to write. It can be just a list / a short resume of the idea you have in mind. And it can be enough... if you plan to write a short story. If your story is starting to count more chapters, well, maybe it's easier if you put down more information and make your outline more detailed before writing.

Why?

Memory. We always tend to forget and/or remember things in a different way, because our memories are not perfectly set in stone... unlike writing. When we write something down, that thing isn't going to change so easily.

So, unless you are one of those incredible humans who remember the exact date of every single event of their lives, you should write stuff down to remember it. And if we talk about something as precise and full of details as a story, then you REALLY need to put down as much information as possible.

And yes, this works for all kinds of stories, no matter if it’s a novel or a script or a comic.

What if I don't do it?

Okay, but your story will probably have:

disconnected parts

inconsistencies

repetitions

plain mistakes due to the fact you forgot what you wrote 5 chapters before

sudden personality changes, because you forgot what your characters' personality was supposed to be

a confused progression and an even more confused ending, because you lost some threads along the way

How can you be so sure?

Personal experience. When I started writing my first, big project, I was 11 and knew nothing about writing: I was just putting my ideas on paper and that was it.

But when my project evolved from a simple story to a very long one, to a full series with five novels, I had to think more about what I was doing. I realized my work was weak, full of details I kept forgetting about. The events were disconnected from each other. The characters had sudden personality swings. And, worst of all, a lot of times I had no idea what to write in the next chapter, because I didn’t know how to connect two big events I had in mind.

Over time, I developed a better plan, in order to solve these problems: if the story is one-chapter-long, I just need a brief summary of the events that should happen and a short recap of the character’s personality traits. But if the story is multi-chaptered, then I need to know what happens in every single chapter and day by day. I need to know the characters' backstories and how their personalities will change throughout the story. I need to put down all the threads and decide how they will evolve and connect at the end.

And I need to know all of this before writing the first word, so I will be sure everything will be coherent and make sense from the beginning.

Back to Sanders Sides

It's not a secret that this series has all the issues I mentioned above, especially in the first episodes: character errors, repetitions, inconsistencies, lack of a clear thread. Thomas himself admitted he had no plan, when he started this series - he didn't even know if there was a series. His first videos were more like “experimenting with these characters, while talking about concepts I like”.

On a meta level, this is a good point, because it shows how the series evolved from its simpler, more naive approach, to something more structured, full of hints and details.

But on a writing level… that’s not good writing. Those are all the mistakes of a bad writer - or a beginner like Thomas.

And, just like every beginner, Thomas is lucky too. Why? Because the main point of the series is "Character Thomas is learning more about his Sides over time" and this justifies a lot of additions and mistakes. Sure, it’s a weak justification, but it still works.

But this is the past. Thanks to a mix of luck and good ideas, Thomas found a way to solve the lack of planning.

The problem arises when we look into the future.

An unplanned future

Until now, Thomas has just added pieces to the big puzzle that is Sanders Sides. There is still one piece to add (Orange), so he still has some “freedom”. And he can still use the “Character Thomas is learning more about his Sides” excuse.

But he cannot go on like this forever. Two thirds of the series are already done and we are now approaching season 3, the season that should wrap everything up and close the whole series.

Aaand we still have a lot going on. Maybe too much.

There are at least five topics we have to see that are related to Roman only (his relationship with his brother, the creative process, his relationship with Logan, Patton's influence, his own sense of self). FIVE for just ONE character. If each of the 6 present Sides has at least five threads to develop, then we are talking about a total of 30 threads that should be explored, discussed and wrapped up in one season. Not including Orange (who should be presented, fleshed out, explored in all of his relationships and wrapped up) and Thomas himself, with his issues and his relationship with Nico.

There is more than enough material not for one, but for two whole seasons. Nevertheless, Thomas said he wants to wrap up Sanders Sides with three seasons, so he should have a clear plan of what to do in season 3, right?

The answer is no. If you ask Thomas now “Do you know what will happen in the middle of season three?” he has absolutely no idea. He still keeps adding pieces over time. Just recently he finally decided to write more episodes at the same time. Glad to know he’s learning how to be a better writer, but this is still not enough - not at this point of the series, with 30+ threads to explore and wrap up.

This is what worries me the most, because it’s way more possible that he will forget something, rather than remember every single thread. Especially considering he wants to plan just a couple of episodes at the same time and not the whole thing.

But hey, there are two writers!

Oh yes, Thomas is not writing the story by himself. As far as I remember, he has two writers helping him and this is both a good and very bad thing.

Why is it good? Because Thomas isn't a writer. Joan was and it's thanks to them that we have the dark sides and a more mature development of the series.

But we don't have Joan anymore. And sure, they are free to do what they want with their life... but it's a bit worrisome when the main writer leaves a story. Every person has a different vision of a story and its characters, so a new writer will never have the exact same vision. The work will be filtered through different minds.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing: maybe the new writers have an even better vision of the story, flesh out the characters a lot more and write wonderful things.

But there are two big, very big problems that could arise:

1) Too many heads

Sometimes one head is not enough, but more heads are too much. More heads mean more ideas, but also a more fragmented vision. Worst of all, more heards could mean compromise and this is the worst possible solution in writing, because it means making something of which no one will be truly satisfied.

Also, according to what Thomas said in a previous livestream, WTIT is a bit too “ahead”, because there were some things (probably Thomas’ incoming depression) that were supposed to happen later on. But hey, if you lack a complete outline, this is what happens. And maybe the many heads were too eager to introduce those things, to not stop and think with a clear head about the natural progression of the series.

2) Being too fan of a character

This is something even the best writer has to face, during their life. We all have a favourite (or favourites) and this can lead to a bias in which we make one character shine over the others.

I particularly remember a Sanders Sides fanfiction I read years ago: the writer was clearly very biased and (I hope) very young, because Roman was the main character and he was perfect in everything. But, in order to make Roman so perfect, the other characters became wimpy kids. I particularly remember how Janus was turned into a whiny damsel in distress, unable to do anything more than scream and look at Roman in awe.

Now. I know the writers have their favourite, still I don't think they will be like this and make their favourite shine over the others. But I fear the bias. I fear the moment I will see one of the Sides being perfection incarnate, while the others are reduced to adoring fans.

But you should have faith!

Faith died long ago. And logically speaking, it's a lot more plausible that things will go bad. I might be biased because of my experience, but it's not just my experience. I saw a lot of good ideas being ruined by a pitiful organization. My closest friend is still fighting with her lack of organization, every time she tries to write a new story. Even logical sense is on my side, because writing without a clear plan of course leads to mistakes.

My biggest hope is that a) Thomas Sanders is the luckiest man in the world and finds a way to make the story work even without planning the whole thing or b) Thomas plans the entire season three ahead and not just a bunch of episodes at a time. He needs to know what will happen, because there could be a topic so huge, to require multiple episodes. And if he uses more episodes on one single topic, then what about the other topics? How long will season 3 be? Will he be able to cover everything up?

And if he doesn't have any idea about the topics to talk about, then he needs an outline even more, because, again: how long will season 3 be? He cannot wait forever for the right inspiration to strike. This series needs time, sure, but if Thomas starts at 30 and finishes at 50, then it's way too much time.

When time is too much

When people complain that "every episode takes so long!", they probably forget that Thomas Sanders is one person and he has to play seven different roles: six Sides and character!Thomas. And soon he will play another role. It's not easy to do it and, last time I checked, Thomas was not a machine, so he's not able to play 24/7 either: he needs time to recover, take care of himself and of his career and do other stuff because he has a goddamn life like all of us.

So yes, it makes sense that this series needs a lot of time - maybe even more time than usual, considering that there is one man doing the job of seven actors.

However, that doesn't mean Sanders Sides can last 20 years. Taking some time is fine, taking an eternity is not. Thomas should not take people's interest for granted and do 200 other things at the same time because "people will keep waiting for Sanders Sides".

If Sanders Sides is his main project, then the biggest part of his energy should go into this project and not be equally divided between millions of different projects. It would just be disrespectful towards the series he considers the most important and towards the public who is patiently waiting.

And let’s not forget that, due to the lack of a complete outline, if Thomas doesn’t keep his focus on the main series, more writing mistakes are prone to happen. I said it before: human memory is not perfect. We tend to forget.

And if we distract ourselves with many other ideas, we will forget even more.

So is this series going to be terrible?

I'm not saying that either. The series is still ongoing, there is a whole third season we have to see and Thomas still has some pieces to add. It would make no sense to label it as a bad product already. Only when it will be over, ONLY THEN, we will be able to properly evaluate its merits and limitations.

And even though the series will end up being bad, we still cannot deny the good things. Like the use of fascinating concepts and interesting characters to talk about psychological themes - even heavy ones. Or the entertainment value. Or even just the ability of this man to portray seven characters all by himself. That's not something all actors are able to do, so this is definitely a great proof of acting.

There are good things here. I just hope the writing will be just acceptable enough to keep everything up.

#sanders sides #ask #beauty talks about stuff #writing tips #moral of the story: write a fucking outline #do not make your life more difficult #just plan ahead #maybe it won't solve all the problems you have with writing #but it will surely help a lot #at least you will know what you're doing instead of just being in the dark #ts criticism

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ainulindaelynn · 10 months

Text

@staff

After reading the strategic plan posted today, I want to offer some constructive criticism about retaining users from someone who's relatively new around here.

I joined Tumblr less than a year ago and agree that there’s steeper learning curve than other social media sites... but am a bit baffled by the disconnect. I want to be clear about what made this site hard for me as a new user and propose some easy fixes, because I think it’s pretty straightforward.

Suggestions in blue.

1. Confusion about Reblogging

The etiquette for reblogging was the most anxiety-inducing part of getting started. The language was a bit confusing, coming from non-tumblr blog culture. It also took me a while to understand that there was a difference between reblogging and reposting. There's (rightly) so much animosity for reposting, but to an outside perspective, they seem like the same term, which discourages engagement. Once I realized reblogging is the norm and creators ENJOY reblogs - that it's not theft and their name stays attached, linking directly to them - everything became simpler. There are always three names floating at the top of a post, but who the extra two are is something you pick up along the way without explanation. Understanding earlier would have been a game changer. A few more tutorials at launch would have made a huge difference: This is your blog. You REBLOG things here - that's normal. And here's the basic structure of a post. That would have made the transition a little smoother. Also, if you want to go above and beyond, adding a quick blurb about the difference between reblogging 👍 and reposting 👎 would probably ease tensions on a few fronts.

In short, Tumblr is ahead of most other mainstream SM sites when it comes to prioritizing creators > content and long-term, that's a strategic advantage. Keeping that culture in place requires a little more explanation on the front end though.

2. Confusion about Interacting

Another thing that baffled me in the beginning is that on other sites, hashtags are largely ignored except for organizational purposes, so I didn’t even notice people were leaving their commentary there at first. Now that I know, I actually LOVE that quirk of this site. It’s an introvert’s dream. Every other social media site is pushing other people's opinions in your face all the time. It’s exhausting. Here, I only see people’s comments if I CHOOSE to. If I want, I can interact with the content directly without being distracted by the noise around it. This is a huge draw, not only as a scroller, but also as a poster. I never (NEVER) post on any other site, because I know it’s going to bring it to the top in everyone’s feed and I don’t want to bother with everyone else’s opinions ABOUT my opinions - the endless cycle that inevitably leads to conflict in common spaces like this. Every post will be scrutinized and picked apart on other sites. Here on tumblr, I can put my thoughts on a post and no one sees it except the original poster and people who are *actively* curious about what I think. It’s a system that allows less pressure around posting and fosters more diversity of thought. It creates an environment that makes contributing easy. It’s very, VERY freeing and very, VERY rare in social media.

I wouldn’t mind seeing some rethinking about the way tags are handled if it supports the search engines, but now that I understand the way Tumblr uses them, I actually find this to be one of its greatest strengths and can’t imagine a way to preserve that quality while rearranging the tag system. As is, adding an ‘Anatomy of a Post’ tutorial like I mentioned would clear confusion about this and point new users toward the easiest way to interact with a post.

3. Confusion in Connecting

I did struggle to connect to content and communities at first, but it stemmed from a basic lack of understanding about how the site works. Once I found the pathways, other users pulled me in. Connection actually happens more easily here than on any other site I’ve EVER been on. Tumblr has incredibly useful tools for this; they just aren’t explained to beginners. The tag system is a great entry point. When I realized that I could search a tag and chronologically see EVERY SINGLE POST that had ever existed for it, it was magical. Now that I follow tags (and know the Your Tags tab exists… 🙃), new creators pop up in my feed all the time and get pulled into my communities seamlessly.

A quick tools tour at launch would solve this. And the ‘Anatomy of a Post’ tutorial I mentioned earlier would highlight the spot you can see other people who reblogged the same content. These connection points are easy to use, they just need to be more visible at the start.

That’s all, honestly.

Those are the only barriers that slowed me down in the beginning. They can ALL be solved with a few beginner-friendly tips on launch:

Intro to Dashes (Following, For You, & Your Tags + a brief personalization suggestion)

Intro to Search Features (basics + following tags)

Intro to Your Blog (basics + encouragement to personalize if the bots issue isn’t going to be resolved, because let’s be real… being mistaken for bots is probably why most people quit early these days😉)

Anatomy of a Post (basics + ways to interact)

Restricting the algorithms to the For You tab is really refreshing coming from other sites. It’s there if I want it, but , I can breathe here in a way I can’t on any other site. And honestly, the other reason I’m still around is that people are fucking weird here, which means I have freedom to be too. Any changes that don’t take those two strengths of this site into account risks losing the center and disintegrating the core. Foster a personalized experience. Prioritize avenues that let people interact at whatever level they’re comfortable. Support creator culture. Those are the things that make this better than the competition.

Oh, yeah, and if you're still reading... the organizational tag system needs some upgrades and these pornbots are killing us. Thanks, bye xD

#shouting into the void #using ‘content’ and ‘creators’ solely to avoid excluding anyone #because I know there are so many skills at play here I could never cover them all #(beyond fanworks I mean)#and for the record... I was here BEFORE the twitter collapse #technically it was a re-join (following a 10 year hiatus)#tumblr things

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rickie-the-storyteller · 11 months

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Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Tell me bow would you say that the world where your story takes place has "shaped" your characters and their lives into who they are? In which ways would you say it was positive and in whcih ways negative? What are the most unique aspects of your world that you're the proudest about?

(By the way this is part of an ask game event by @writeblrcafe, you can check out the post I've reblogged from them for the rules)

Thank you for the ask! Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday (or Thursday) to you too.

I wasn't entirely sure how to answer this... I didn't do a lot of "worldbuilding" for my main WIP, per se. It's not like I created this fictional universe, or set it in a historic era or something, and imagined how life would be like in those times. It's literally set in London lol (I was born there!). In the year 2010 (no specific reason for that, actually. Those were just simpler times).

For most of the stories I write, the setting tends to take a bit of a backseat in favour of expanding the characters and making them feel like real people. We view the story through the characters' lens after all.

That being said, I still wanted to answer. So, I thought about it for a while and realised that the setting and the world in which my characters live shape them quite a lot. They are all students in their final year of high school (or sixth form), so they aren't exactly kids anymore, but they're not fully adults, either. This is a really interesting age to play around with (and I'm about that age myself, as well, so I can identify with the struggles these characters face in some ways.

Let's look at this one character at a time:

Stephanie

Stephanie moved to this school in Year 12. That is the beginning of sixth form (so, last year, since Year 13 is their final year).

Steph has been living in London for the least amount of time. She's a foster kid, so she is used to moving around and not having a lot of stability in her life. As a result, she's lived in many different places throughout her childhood, all over the country. She's been in big bustling cities and quiet rural areas. She has an idea of what living in a place like London is like, so this move doesn't phase her too much.

She's a free spirit, just making the most of right now (not having a ton of stability led to this mindset for her. She's like, "I have to enjoy myself now. Who knows if things will ever be this good again?"). She adjusts to London life pretty easily - though, of course, moving to a new place doesn't come without its challenges.

London life offers Steph a chance to form new relationships and deepen her connections. She makes her first real friend group here, and for the first time in her life, she finds someone that she can call "best friend." Another thing I think Stephanie enjoys about living in London is that its dynamic and energetic atmosphere could resonate with her strong personality. The city's vibrant arts and culture scene, along with its rebellious and diverse subcultures, may align with her feisty nature and spunky energy. There is always something to do here, and I think Stephanie would like that a lot.

Growing up in the foster care system and constantly moving around may have made Stephanie feel like she doesn't belong anywhere. However, living in London, a multicultural city with a diverse population could offer her a greater sense of belonging. The city's multiculturalism and acceptance of diverse backgrounds could help her embrace her mixed-race identity. Her experiences in the foster care system and her tendency to be self-reliant may be further reinforced in London. The city's fast-paced lifestyle and the need to adapt to new environments can enhance her resilience, resourcefulness, and ability to navigate through different challenges.

Bret

Unlike Steph, Bret has lived in this city for his whole life, pretty much. I think that living here has impacted him in both positive and negative ways.

Firstly, he loves to have a good time and party with friends, and in London, there are plenty of opportunities to do this. The city has a vibrant nightlife and a thriving party scene. However, the social scene might exacerbate his already existing tendencies towards excessive alcohol and drug use, making it easier for him to continue down a self-destructive path. Living in the city could provide Bret with easy access to these substances.

London is a bustling city where individuals can often blend into the crowds and remain anonymous. This sense of anonymity might provide Bret with a temporary escape from his troubles, allowing him to avoid confronting his grief and depression. It could also contribute to his feelings of detachment and a lack of accountability for his actions. The vastness and anonymity of a big city like London can make it easier for Bret to engage in risky behaviour without immediate consequences. This might further fuel his disregard for rules and authority figures.

Bret is really creative and artistic. He especially loves to make music. London's diverse and vibrant culture could expose Bret to various subcultures, alternative lifestyles, and artistic scenes. This city has plenty of inspiration and opportunities to boost his art further. London's size and diversity mean there are numerous social circles and communities for Bret to explore. This could lead him to associate with like-minded individuals and get his work more attention and opportunities.

He struggles a lot with grief and depression. London offers a range of support networks and resources for individuals struggling with mental health issues. He kind of tries to take care of his problems by himself at first, but if he could look for help elsewhere, it could really make a difference.

Elise

Elise, like Bret, has always lived in London. She loves living here for a couple of reasons...

London is known for its vibrant literary scene, with numerous bookstores, libraries, and literary events. Elise's love for reading would have definitely been nurtured here, by the city's rich literary culture. She would have had the opportunity to explore a wide range of books, engage with authors etc, which could have further fueled her passion for reading.

London's multicultural environment would have exposed Elise to various cultures, perspectives, and ideas. This exposure might have broadened her horizons, allowing her to appreciate different viewpoints and develop a more open-minded outlook. It could have influenced her appreciation for diversity and acceptance of people with different backgrounds and values, despite her own introverted nature. This could have also contributed to the unlikely friendships and relationships that she has formed in her life, e.g. her relationship with Stephanie, and her long-time friendship with Bret (which ends up turning into something more 💕). Living in London would definitely fuel her intellectual curiosity and open her mind to new things/people/opportunities.

El is a huge nerd lol. Luckily for her, London is home to many prestigious educational institutions, and Elise's dedication to her studies would have been supported by the city's emphasis on education. The competitive academic environment might have motivated her to excel in her classes and maintain top grades. Additionally, being surrounded by a city filled with museums, historical landmarks, and cultural institutions could have enriched her learning experiences.

Living in a bustling city like London requires individuals to be independent and adaptable. Elise's ability to always have a plan, her organizational skills, and her resourcefulness might have been influenced by the fast-paced and dynamic environment of the city. London's diverse public transportation system would have also contributed to her self-reliance and navigation skills.

Dylan

Dylan has also been living in London for a while. He has been going to this school since Year 8.

He loves sports a lot. London has a strong sports culture, offering numerous opportunities for Dylan to engage in various athletic activities. The city's sports facilities, clubs, and competitions would likely contribute to his passion for sports and his involvement in physical activities.

London's competitive and fast-paced nature might contribute to Dylan's tendency to bottle up his emotions and express frustration in unhealthy ways, e.g. struggling to open up about his problems and seek help, or taking his pain and frustration out on others.

London's fast-paced lifestyle and the challenges of a multicultural city may impact Dylan's family dynamics. The high cost of living and the strains of a divorce might contribute to his family's struggles and potentially influence his own coping mechanisms and emotional challenges.

London's vibrant and multicultural atmosphere would expose your character to a diverse range of people, cultures, and perspectives. This exposure can enhance his openness and broaden his understanding of the world. London offers a lively social scene with numerous entertainment options and events. This environment would provide ample opportunities for your character to indulge in his fun-loving and enthusiastic nature, constantly seeking new adventures and exciting experiences.

Alice

Alice moved to London from the United States when she was 15. She has been going to this school since GCSEs (so Year 10 - Year 11).

Moving from the United States to London would expose Alice to a new cultural environment. London's diverse population and multicultural atmosphere could contribute to her sense of humour, incorporating elements of British wit and sarcasm into her personality (British humour is very distinct lol. Alice's sarcastic and sassy sense of humour may align well with the city's wit and banter). Living in London could further nurture her comedic skills and provide her with opportunities to engage in humorous exchanges with friends and peers. It would require Alice to adjust to a new culture, lifestyle, and educational system. London's environment would expose her to diverse perspectives and help her develop a broader worldview.

London's competitive educational environment may initially add pressure on Alice, particularly if she compares herself to her talented and academically successful sister. However, witnessing her parents' support and realising that they value her happiness and personal growth above perfection could alleviate some of that pressure. Alice's dedication to self-improvement and her willingness to work hard could help her navigate the academic challenges she faces.

Alice often feels invisible, or out of place. Feeling out of place in her friend group is a common experience for many teenagers. London's diverse social landscape, however, offers Alice the opportunity to meet a wide range of people and potentially find a supportive and understanding circle of friends who appreciate her unique qualities and help her expand her horizons.

Alice is all about pushing herself to do and be better, and London's fast-paced lifestyle could inspire Alice to pursue new interests and challenge herself intellectually and culturally. Her desire to improve, exemplified by her efforts to improve her grades, could be further fueled by the stimulating, ambitious environment of the city. The competitive nature of the educational landscape in London could contribute to Alice's determination to work on herself and strive for improvement, instilling in her a strong work ethic and resilience, pushing her to put in the effort required to achieve her goals. London's educational opportunities and high academic standards could play a role in Alice's motivation to improve her grades (as well as seeing some of her other friends succeed academically, leading her to want that for herself).

So yeah, that's how the setting of the story could impact each character individually. Another thing to take into account is how long each of them have lived in London for... this is why I made sure I mentioned it in each section. If you are born and raised in the city, and you've never been anywhere else, then that's going to impact you. You aren't going to see things in the exact same way as someone who's lived in both rural and urban areas.

#rickie-the-storyteller #worldbuilding wednesday #ask #worldbuilding #steph's crew #impact of setting #writing #creative writing #stephanie smith and her friends #current wip #Stephanie #Bret #Elise #Dylan #Alice

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queenshelby · 2 years

Text

Second Chances (Part Three)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Words: 4,788

Warning: Fluff, Loss, Death, Smut, Cheating

Notes: This story follows a young widowed reader who needs second chance at being happy! Please comment and let me know what you think!

Just after Cillian followed you inside and stripped off his jacket and shoes, he noticed some pictures of you and your family in the hallway.

“Are these your kids?” he asked and, indeed, they were.

“Yes. Although, these photos were taken a while ago” you explained before telling him that they were at your sister’s house for the night.

“So, you’ve got the night to yourself then, huh? That must be rare and quite exciting” Cillian joked before following you into the kitchen while taking in your cosy townhouse. It was rather simple, probably much simpler than what he had been used to. But it was home and you liked it here.

“Actually, the kids are with their grandparents twice a week. All four grandparents love having them and I really don’t mind. It gives me some time with friends” you told him before pulling two bottles of beer from the fridge and turning around only just to find Cillian standing directly behind you.

“Or time to meet with people like me to conduct interviews” Cillian said. He was clearly trying to tease you.

“Oh? So, this is purely work related, hmm? We better get to it then” you joked while looking for the bottle opener.

“Here, let me” Cillian said, interrupting your search, while reaching for one of the bottles in your hand. “It’s a twist top” he then told you and, of course, you should have realised that.

“Oh my god, of course” you said with some embarrassment. Your cheeks were blushing red now and, just as you opened your bottle, Cillian spoke up again and you placed it onto the kitchen counter.

“For what it’s worth, I still hope that tonight was a date” Cillian pointed out with a little reluctance and, just as he said that, you felt your body leaning towards him, seemingly of its own volition.

“I think we could call it a date” you gasped nervously while seeing that his face was at you and, naturally, you pressed your lips against his.

You weren't sure what to expect, considering that he was only the second man you had ever kissed throughout your entire life, but his lips were soft and sweet and you enjoyed every moment of this connection.

Cillian reached out, and took you in his arms, pulling you against him as you kissed. It was intense and, somewhat reluctantly, you parted your lips and allowed his tongue to invade.

“God he was a good kisser” you thought to yourself as his tongue began to dance with yours and, without any words, he suddenly pulled away from you.

No words were spoken between you and you simply starred into each other’s eyes. It was almost like he was seeking permission from you to continue and, when you began to caress his face, his lips began to crush back against yours. He had your approval and he knew he did.

Your mind went blank. You knew that, what you were doing, was wrong and yet you wanted it so desperately.

Eventually, Cillian’s face dropped down past your chin, and his lips settled onto your neck, gently sucking in and nibbling the sensitive skin there.

A small moan escaped you and felt yourself clutching against the kitchen bench with one of your hands while holding onto him with the other.

"Cillian” you gasped, which was all you managed to say before taking in the sensations he gave you. You didn’t want him to stop and he certainly had no intention to.

“God, you smell amazing” Cillian murmured eventually, cirunning his fingers through your hair and down your arms and his words alone made you shiver.

“I am glad you think so” you said almost shyly in response and it wasn’t before long that Cillian’s hands roamed over your clothed body.

You allowed his hands to explore for a while until the sensations became too much for you.

“Not here” you murmured against him as his hands began to slide beneath your dress and, with that, Cillian stopped.

“We don’t have to Y/N…I can wait…” he began to say, knowing that he was possibly moving too fast for you.

“But I want to” you interrupted him before taking hold of his hand and leading him towards your bedroom.

***

The heat escalated as soon as you closed the bedroom door behind you and walked towards your large bed, knowing very well what would come after that.

You were nervous, so nervous that, for a moment, you couldn’t even face him. You simply starred at the painting on the wall and inhaled sharply.

“May I?” Cillian asked as you felt him approach you from behind, placing his hands on the zipper of your dress.

“Yes” you stammered nervously and, just as you did, Cillian pushed your hair to one side and slowly began unzipping dress.

“No bra?” Cillian asked somewhat surprised after he undid your dress and let it drop to the floor which is where it pooled around your neck.

“No bra” you confirmed nervously as you stepped out of your dress and, without turning back around to face him, his lips connected to your neck.

“I am nervous” you admitted as, eventually, the palms of his hands passed over your bare breasts, and you tilted your shoulders back to press them into his hands.

“There is no need to be nervous. We can stop at any time. I am in no rush” Cillian whispered into your ear before he pulled back from gingerly kissing your shoulder and, just as he did, you turned around slowly.

“No…” you swallowed. “Don’t stop, okay?” you then told him while starring into his deep blue eyes.

“Okay” Cillian smiled in return before his eyes began to wander, drinking in the entirety of your body.

“Fuck you are beautiful” Cillian said immediately while his gaze went down to your breasts.

“And you are incredibly handsome” you gasped in return when you noticed that he had already pulled off his t-shirt and was now standing in front of you with his bare chest.

Just as Cillian starred at your full breasts, you starred at his beautiful fleckled skin and bit your lips. It was perfect and, for a moment, you both were frozen right to where you were standing.

Eventually though, Cillian leaned forward, kissing you again. The kiss was even more heated than before and his hands seemed to be everywhere, roaming your body.

“Lie down for me” he eventually whispered to you after your lips drifted apart once more and, with a shy nod, you let yourself fall backwards, lying back on the plush sheet.

When you were laying there in anticipation of what was to come next, you watched him unbuckle his belt and get rid of his jeans, leaving him in nothing but black Calvin Klein briefs.

“Matching mine, I see” you teased, seeing that you were wearing black Calvin Klein panties.

“Well, you’ve got good taste” Cillian winked in response, lightening the mood before he climbed on to the bed with you.

Cillian kissed you passionately once more before trailing kisses down over your neck and breasts, eliciting soft moans from you.

And then, his lips eventually found your stomach, kissing the tender flesh and making you wiggle. He moved slowly down your stomach, licking gently at your waist until, eventually, his fingers were hooked under your panties and he pulled, yanking them down in one motion. He stopped short, staring, seemingly mesmerized.

“Is something wrong?” you panicked.

“No. You are just so god damn perfect Y/N” Cillian told you before carrying on. “I can’t wait to taste you” Cillian added as a slow grin spread across his lips.

“Uhm, what…” you gasped, sitting up slightly and feeling a little self-conscious. Was he seriously going to go down on you after just one date?

Your sentence was cut off quickly and you immediately received the answer to your question when his mouth suddenly pressed against your pussy. His tongue passed over you, and you shrieked in surprise.

“Oh my god, fuck” you moaned out, loud and with high pitch. Cillian’s breath was hot against you, and you laid back against the sheets, clutching on to them with your hands. His mouth was fast, ferocious. He licked you over and over, passing up and down your slick lips and over your clit.

He moved his mouth like he was trying to devour you, and you moaned in appreciation. His tongue pressed against your entrance and slid into you, immediately spreading wet heat into you. You never felt anything quite like this and had to press a hand over your mouth to hold in another moan.

His hands latched onto your hips, and pushed you along the blanket, moving you to give himself more room. It didn't even look like the smallest of efforts for him. You were just so willing and needy for his lips.

“You taste so fucking good” Cillian told you as his tongue passed in and out of you, making you writhe slightly on the sheets. Then one of his hands was on your pelvis, and his thumb passed over your clit.

“Oh fuck” you bit your lip to keep the sounds in as he started rubbing your clit at the same time as he tongue-fucked you. Your blood was boiling, and you wanted more.

“I want to feel you inside of me Cillian” you told him eagerly, almost begging for it and you were surprised by your own actions that night. Why were you so desperate for this man?

"Not yet" he told you, taking his mouth away from you for just a moment.

“Not until you cum against my mouth” he added as his hand slid down and a digit pressed into you, taking the place of his tongue. He slowly worked it in and out of you, and you moved your hips in time with his motions. He had wide fingers, but after his tongue you were slick enough for it to move easily.

His finger pulled back until it was just at your entrance, and then he pushed forward again while, this time, his mouth latched onto your clit.

“Oh my god, this feels so fucking good” you moaned and then you winced slightly as Cillian pushed a second finger into you.

He moved slowly, and you spread your legs wide to accommodate him as his fingers slid into you.

“That’s it. Just relax and let go for me” Cillian cooed after moving his mouth away from you again for a short moment and, just as soon as he was as deep as he could go, he bent his head down once more and flicked his tongue over your clit. It was such a sudden motion that you didn't manage to clamp down on your sudden gasp in time.

He slowly curved his fingers, crooking them and stroking your inner wall as he licked your pearl. You closed your mouth firmly to hold in another moan, writhing under him as he stroked and licked you.

It was more intense than anything else you had ever felt before and, somewhat involuntarily, you pressed your hips up against his mouth, and felt the heat and pressure building up inside of you. His tongue was strong, hitting close enough to your clit that he was pushing you over the edge.

“Cillian, oh god, yes” you shook and clenched, feeling yourself perilously close to losing it. Finally, you couldn't take any more, and you pressed a fist against your mouth to muffle your scream as you plummeted over the edge. He kept thrusting his fingers and moving his tongue as you came, flexing and shaking underneath him as the orgasm overtook you. He slowed down and looked down at you as you descended from your peak.

"You taste so delicious when you cum" he told you and you panted heavily as he gave you another quick flick of his tongue.

“This…oh my god…” you were lost for words, arching your back and clutching against the sheets.

“Do you want me to continue? Because I am sure that I can make you cum again like this?” Cillia smirked as he was now facing you and you were quick to shake your head.

“No, please…I need you inside of me” you told him while desperately cupping his face.

“Alright, I suppose that can be arranged” Cillian chuckled before kissing you again and, just as he did, you reached in between his legs and made contact with his hard cock for the first time that night.

When you wrapped your hand around Cillian’s shaft, a loud moan escaped him and you tried your best to contained yourself.

This was only the second cock you had ever touched and it felt so god damn good in your hand. You stroked him for a while as you were exchanging heated kisses and, with every third or fourth stroke, you could feel the precum leaking from his tip.

“Fuck Y/N, you need to stop that. Otherwise we won’t get to the main event” Cillian told you and, when you removed your hand, he pushed down his briefs, giving you first actual look of his member.

“Do you have a condom by any chance? Because, I am not on birth control” you eventually asked shyly. You didn’t quite know how to have this conversation and simply blurted it out.

“I didn’t plan for this so, no, I don’t” he unfortunately responded before swallowing harshly and you wanted to shout out in frustration right then and there. You needed this, right now! You were desperate for him!

“But, you won’t fall pregnant” Cillian then added suddenly, causing you to be rather confused.

“Uhm, I hate to break it to you Cillian but…” you began to say, which is when Cillian interrupted you.

“I had a vasectomy a few years ago” he pointed out reluctantly, unsure how you would react, but you immediately sighed with relief.

“In that case you will have a long night ahead of you I am afraid” you teased before quickly pushing Cillian off and beneath you.

Without losing any time, you shifted until you half-crouched over him, and pointed his cock straight up at your desperate body. This sudden action surprised him and, when you angled him towards you and let yourself down slowly, he grabbed onto your body and groaned.

“Eager, are we?” Cillian asked as the thick tip of his cock was pressed against you and you moved him slowly up and down, dragging the head along your wet pussy lips.

“So god damn eager, yes” you said as, finally, you worked to ease yourself down on him.

“Oh my god” you moaned as your lips started spreading immediately, stretching as you pushed against the tip.

“Jesus, you are so tight” Cillian groaned with you as his tip suddenly pushed into you, sliding past your tight entrance.

When he was half-way in, you took a moment to adjust to the stretching feeling of your body spreading around the intruder, and to admire your lover beneath you.

“Are you alright?” Cillian asked and you nodded.

“Yes, it’s just been a while and this feels so god damn incredible” you told him as you moved further down on his shaft with glacial slowness.

You could feel every millimetre of his cock as you sunk slowly onto him until, finally, you stopped when the tip of his length was pressed against your very innermost barrier. You moaned slightly, and pushed your hands against his chest.

You rested there for a few seconds before starting to move your hips, back and forward and up and down, riding Cillian slowly.

“You feel so good Y/N” Cillian groaned as his hands went to your breasts, massaging them gently. He touched and stimulated every part inside of you, and you felt your body gripping him like a vice as he thrust up and into you, taking on your own rhythm.

Your pussy still stung slightly from the sudden stretching, but the fullness was an amazing feeling. It felt so intimate and unreal and you kept on riding Cillian with earnest until he needed to assume control.

You could tell that he was struggling. He tried hard not to cum, so you let him roll you beneath him. You felt as though, with him on top of you, he had found the perfect angle, hitting your sweet spot with every thrust.

“God, I feel so full” you groaned as you could feel the gentle heat in your core, pleasant tingles as Cillian thrust into you again and again and again.

He settled on a rhythm, slow but not glacial; steady. Both of his arms were braced on the pillows beside you, keeping himself over top of you without dropping his weight on you.

Your hands roamed, gripping and squeezing his chest and back as he bucked. One hand passed over his chest, and you felt his firm nipples protruding proudly from his chest. You passed your palm over it, rolling it against your palm. You pinched it slightly between your finger and thumb, and he moaned in appreciation.

You took his nipple in hand again and gently squeezed. He reacted by thrusting harder, and your whole body shook with the force of his bucking.

While you gently teased him with one hand, your other dropped to the point of your connection. You pressed against your pelvis for a moment, feeling the skin pull and move as he slid in and out of your slight body. Going lower, you felt the point where he was connected to you. His shaft slid against your hand as he thrust again.

It was odd to feel the shaft as it moved forward and back, moving in and out of you. you followed the line up until you held the base of his shaft in your hand, then down until you felt the edge of his sack, causing Cillian to groan again.

“Play with yourself while I fuck you” Cillian whispered into your ear and your hand found its way back to your own body, to your slick pussy, and the clit that was stiffly erect. The heat was surging in your core, and you wanted to push yourself along faster. Your fingers circled around your bump, flicking against that sensitive spot.

There was something so erotic about being in your bed, spread out under Cillian like this, taking his instructions. He was gentle, trying to go slow, but you knew that he would probably like to have sped up.

You laid there, your legs wrapped around his body, your pussy wrapped around his cock, and gave yourself up to him.

“I am so close Cillian, don’t stop” you moaned as your fingers moved faster and faster, and he matched your speed.

“Don’t worry, I won’t” Cillian confirmed as, with each push in, his shaft spread you around him and stimulated every inch of you. He could have gotten you off doing just that, but your clit play was making everything even more intense.

You were coming up on that edge. Your muscles pulled and contracted, and you shuddered slightly, getting closer and closer. This was going to be intense.

You distantly heard yourself whispering "oh, oh, oh," but could do nothing to silence it. The wave in you built, built. Each time he pierced you and slid into you it grew larger, and you started seeing stars flit around your peripherals. Then, finally, you could take no more.

The bubble burst and the wave rushed down your body. You thrust your head forward and pulled his lips onto yours, muffling your scream. The rush of tingling pleasure surged outwards, moving from your core and suffusing you as you shook and writhed, clinging against him like a sailor clings to the mast in a storm.

The wave crashed, receded and crashed again, and your body twitched as you came.

“Fuck” Cillian grunted loudly, starting to thrust even faster now.

You took your hand away from your overly sensitive nub, and grabbed his sack with it again which was a bold move that sent him over the edge as well.

He shuddered slightly, and you knew he had to be getting close.

"Cum inside me Cillian. Let me feel your cum in my pussy” you whispered to him, tugging on him as he fucked you.

“Say that again” he gasped as your other hand wrapped around his back, holding him close to you as he pumped his hips over and over.

“Cum inside me! I want to feel it. Please” you moaned and Cillian pressed forward more and it stung as he bumped against your cervix again and again. He was desperate to go deeper, but you had nothing more to give.

“That’s it” you moaned, then kissed him once more, gently sucking at his lip.

Cillian groaned into your mouth and you felt him twitch and pulsate inside of you. It was like a heart beating, and you gasped at the raw eroticism of it.

With another groan escaping his lips, Cillian’s shaft flexed again and again, twitching and pumping. He pressed against your cervix so hard that it hurt a bit, and you felt the first burst of heat come from him. It hit your insides like a jet of scalding fluids, spraying like a hose.

He shuddered and moaned out loud as he pressed his cock harder against you, keeping himself as deep buried inside of you as deep as he could. Another spray of cum splashed into you and you squeezed his balls, coaxing more fluid from his throbbing appendage.

Then, finally, it was done. He twitched again and sighed.

"Fuck" you whispered as he finally stopped moving. "That was insane” you told Cillian, eliciting a chuckle from him.

“This must have been the best sex I’ve had in a long time” he told you and you laid there a moment, held together; him in you, and you wrapped around him.

“Oh common, please. You are just saying that to make me feel good” you said in response while caressing his face. You didn’t quite believe him.

“I am serious Y/N. This was amazing. You are amazing” Cillian told you as he was the first to move again. There was a definite squelching noise as his still-erect member slid out of you, and you felt immediate warmth trickle down your ass as a deluge of cum started draining from you.

“Will you stay for the night?” you wondered as you managed to work yourself up to a sitting position, but your legs weren't working well enough for you to stand.

“Would you like me to stay for the night?” Cillian asked and, when you nodded, he immediately pulled you back on top of him and you knew that this was only the beginning.

That night, you made love three more times and you knew that, the following day, you had to deal with some soreness in your intimate region and a severe lack of sleep.

***

The following day, Cillian left at around 7 o’clock, having to pick up his three children from their mother’s house and take them to school. When he left, he took with him the questionnaire which you had prepared for him and left you note on the bedside table telling you exactly that.

The note was long and he had made an effort to tell you how much he enjoyed the night with you. He clearly wanted to see you again, but he also had to fly out to the US that same night to attend some promotional events for his new movie.

Knowing about the movie, you didn’t think anything about it. To you, it was clear that you were going to have another date after he returned from the US. It made sense to you and you didn’t regret having slept with him so soon.

You thought about the amazing date you had with him and you thought about the incredible sex last night. It was unlike anything else you had ever experienced and you were desperate for more. You wanted him and this feeling of desire and need for a man you had only just met was overwhelming but yet so satisfying.

Your thoughts about Cillian were running wild that morning. You could still feel the remnants of him inside of you and the pulsing soreness of your core and, it wasn’t until the doorbell rang, that you began to think about something else.

The front door opened even before you could get out of bed and you knew that it was your sister. She was the only person with a key but rang the doorbell every time simply to announce herself before barging into the house and, possibly, interrupting something private.

“It smells like man in here. So, spill the beans sis” was the first thing she said as she poked her head through the bedroom door. You were still sitting in your bed, yawning and stretching your arms above your head.

“There is nothing to tell” you assured her but she didn’t believe you. Not even for a second.

“Did you sleep with him?” she wanted to know, already knowing what the answer would be and, since you couldn’t lie, you simply sighed.

“I knew it” she laughed before sitting down on the bed with you. “Tell me everything” she demanded but she knew that you wouldn’t kiss and tell.

“Well, your kids are at school and we are meeting Jana for brunch. I know you don’t celebrate your birthday but we always do brunch the day after. So, get ready sis. Chop chop!” your sister finally told you before pulling some clothes out of your cabinet and handing them to you.

Brunch was seriously the last thing on your mind and, what you really needed, was some good sleep. Nonetheless, you got yourself ready and followed your sister out of the house and down the street to your favourite café.

***

At the café, Jana was already waiting for you and, of course, her first question was about your date with Cillian.

She wanted to know how it all went and, when you told her about your date with him, but omitting the fact that you had slept with him, she sighed. By what you had told her just then, you clearly seemed to be interested in Cillian but Jana told you once again to be careful.

“I hate bursting your bubble Y/N, but I found out this morning that he’s not actually single. He might just be after some quick side fling or something” Jana then told you and your thoughts began to race 100 miles an hour. Where was this coming from, you wondered!

“I don’t think so” you simply said without getting into any further detail.

“Well, I did a bit of research after our last conversation. He is dating Florence Pugh so I don’t know why he has asked you out on a date” she then told you before showing you a picture of Cillian holding hands with a young and beautiful woman.

“Common Jana, this could mean anything” your sister tried to argue, being optimistic and not wanting you to get hurt.

“This was taken two weeks ago. She’s an actress who currently lives in L.A. They worked on Chris Nolan’s movie together and he is defiantly dating her” Jana told you and your sister and, just as she did, you began to google search her.

“Are you sure? She’s only 26” you pointed out to Jana. You were gobsmacked thinking that, even at thirty, you were probably too young for him.

“Yes I am sure and this isn’t really unusual for actors either. Her last boyfriend was in his mid-forties as well” she told you and your heart sank.

Was this nothing more than a one-night stand for him? Or maybe he wanted you to be his little fling on the side.

“So did you get the interview finished?” Jana finally asked and, when you shook your head and explained to her that he would email you the answers to her questions sometime today, her chin dropped.

“So, what exactly did you do last night then if you didn’t work on the interview?” she asked and, when you turned awfully quiet, she sighed in disbelieve.

“Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him” she told you but, of course, she already knew from your reaction that you did.

And sorry for all the Florence Pugh Fans! I sincerely adore her, but this just works too well!

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#cillian murphy #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy x you #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy x y

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