#like i was a whole foetus what was i doing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

asumofwords · 10 months

Text

Smoke, Fire and Ash

Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence, death, forced marriage, and inc3st. Tags will be added as the fic goes on. Miscarriage, death of a foetus, blood, depression, anger, angst, grief.

This is a dark!fic. 18+ only. Read at your own discretion. Please read the warnings before continuing.

Summary: You are the eldest daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen. You are forced to navigate the difficult surroundings of your upbringing and the eventual disintegration between your family and the Hightower's relationship. What will happen when your older and estranged uncle suddenly takes a more sinister interest in you? (Dark!Aemond x Reader)

Masterlist

Characters: Aemond Targaryen X Reader, HOTD characters.

Note: Hello sweethearts, please read the trigger warnings for this one. Tread carefully as always, and I love you all. I have absolutely LOVED seeing you all talking and thinking and even plotting on what is happening! Makes me so happy <3

Chapter 91: The Absence of Three

Aemond escorted you back to your chambers as you whimpered and hissed in pain. It was so overwhelming, and unlike anything you felt before. The pain came in waves, and it felt like your hips were being crushed together, your whole core clenching in agony.

Aemond kept asking you what was wrong, kept whispering to you what was happening, and each time he came to your side as you clutched the back of the chaise, another wave crashing through you, you grit your teeth and pushed him away with a curse.

“I shall fetch the Maester.”

“He’s dead.” You growled, hands rubbing against the front of your dress as anxiety climbed higher and higher within you.

“I shall fetch the other.”

“No.” You snipped, doubling over again.

And then you felt it.

Something wet and warm between your legs which felt familiar and foreign all at once. But you knew. Of course you knew. Because your body knew.

Aemond watched in confusion as you reached a hand beneath your skirts, grunting as you moved under the different layers.

Just as you mother once had.

Your fingertips pressed against the warm, wetness, and with slow movements, you brought it back out and away, your hand hovering in front of you.

But you knew.

You already knew.

They were covered in blood.

“What’s happening?” Aemond asked, spotting the blood.

But it was too late.

And you knew.

And he knew that too, but he was in denial. A sick and twisted attempt to undo what had been done, to have faith in his precious Seven that the child would be saved.

But deep down, he knew, just as you did.

It felt like the day your mother had lost your sister. Now only you in her place.

Is this what she had felt? Was this the agony she had endured?

But Rhaenyra's pregnancy was further along than yours, and she had to give birth to the body of your sister who was already still.

Would you face the same fate?

Agony rolled through you again, and you sobbed. Aemond rushed to your side, holding your back and one arm as you grunted. You squeezed his hand as the pain did not let up, nor ease.

As if thinking he could help, the fool that he was, the man that he was, for men don't truly know the horrors of being a woman, Aemond raced towards the door and called for the knight to bring the Maester.

You laughed humourlessly at him, watching as he turned around in confusion, your knuckles white against the back of the chaise.

“It’s too late.” You sobbed angrily, pushing away from the chaise as you stumbled towards the wardrobe, bending over as your hand reached behind it, Aemond watching with a hawklike expression.

“What are you doing?” His brows were furrowed from across the room, rooted to the spot as he watched you rummage at a wall.

“Something I should have done in the first place.” You spat back at him, pain, and anger, and grief moving through you. Your fingers finally found what they were looking for, grazing the small vial that you had wedged there, not too long ago.

Aemond took slow steps towards you, suspicion in his eye as you whimpered once again. With great determination, you pulled the vial from the wall, uncorking it with your teeth and bringing it to your lips.

The ruta root slid down the vial and into your waiting mouth.

Aemond stormed towards you, snatching the vial from your hand as he looked at it. You chewed hastily and swallowed, ignoring the foul taste on your tongue.

Aemond looked ready to break, his hand grasping your cheeks painfully, forcing you to open your mouth as his eye searched inside, finger following to try and feel or scoop what you had eaten, only to find nothing but remnants of the root.

“What have you done?” He asked in a rush, panic in his voice.

He thought you were trying to kill yourself.

“Ensured that it’s dead.” You sneered, the vile, bitter taste of the root on your tongue.

“What?” Aemond breathed, “Where did you get that?” The Prince panicked, looking at the vial in his hand once more as he turned it over rapidly.

“A parting gift from our Maester.” You grit, pushing away from him, and limping back towards the fire.

You stood by the chaise again, leaning against its back as your fingers dug into the wood. You bent forward, hand against your stomach in pain as another wave of agony rolled through you.

Aemond rushed towards you, trying to guide you to sit, but you slapped his hands away, irritation and pain and anger continuing to swallow you whole. The Prince stood and stared at you with his brow drawn, obvious fear in his eye as he watched you whimper and whine.

It was all too much. All too much.

Everything was too much. But your body took over, inhaling deeply despite your lungs feeling withered, and your throat feeling shut. A pain that came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Something that was concentrated and spread out, as though it was creeping up along your spine and into your ribcage.

Aemond moved from your periphery as another sob left your lips, a tear falling from your eye to drip onto the stone below.

When he came back to you, he did it carefully, whispering your name to coax you to look at him. And so you did. You looked at him with watery eyes, and a face full of agony and grief, and eyes flickering with rage.

Slowly, as though approaching a startled animal, Aemond lifted his hand. In his palm was a small cloth. A handkerchief or napkin, or perhaps even just a scrap of material. You did not know, nor did you care, as he moved to gently wipe at your face, swiping the light sheen of sweat that had gathered on your brow, and the stray tears that streaked down your cheeks.

Aemond waited for the Maester to arrive, tension in his shoulders as he hovered about you, unsure of how to tend to you as waves of contractions wracked your body.

“You did this.” You whispered, not looking at him, eyes locked on the fire place, where two dearly missed figures had begun to appear, “We lost the babe because of you.”

It was all a blur when the new Maester arrived, ordering you to lay in bed as he tried to give you Moon Tea to help with the continuation of the miscarriage. But you refused it, pushing it away from you, knowing the ruta root would do the job.

Aemond had ensured the Maester that he would get you to drink it, and had spoken quietly to him at the side of the room as to what to do if you became worse, or pale, or fevered with chill.

It was, in that moment, that you realised that this was the Maester that had once had sewn his face shut. A Maester who had tended to Aemond and his healing. A Maester that Aemond clearly trusted.

You lay in the bed in pain, feeling the wet blood between your thighs as you cried quietly.

It felt so familiar. To be in that bed, crying and bleeding.

Was it a curse? Was this what you were destined to? To be burdened with the pain of being a woman?

To be born a woman is to be cursed.

Another wave coursed through you and you curled on your side, clutching at your stomach as you tried to hum to yourself softly, anything to distract yourself from the pain that slid through you like a knife, your body reacting on its own, clenching and tensing.

Aemond sat himself on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he watched you cry and groan, shifting with the pain as your body began to get the urge to push.

It was so strange. It was just as Alicent said.

Your body would know what to do.

But it was too early.

And it was too late.

And the child that had begun to grow within you was gone.

Aemond brushed the hair that had stuck to your face from your sweat or tears, hushing you as the contractions rolled through you hotly.

You sobbed, grasping his hand as you squeezed, hoping to channel the pain through him.

“I’m sorry.”

The next days blurred together, and you found that you barely had the strength to leave the bed. The pain slowly subsided, but the sorrow had burrowed its way inside of you like mould. No matter how much you had tried to scrub it free, it would always come back.

The Maester had come to check on you multiple times a day, checking your condition, and ensuring that you passed the embryonic tissue completely.

It was after the third day that you found the strength to leave the bed. And it made you ache even more for you mother, as she lost her father, the throne and her daughter all in one day. She had to burn her daughter, and stand before the council, all in one day. She was crowned, all in one day.

She was stronger than you.

Stronger than most.

And you wished she was here.

As you shifted amongst the sheets, you moved to stand, but the sound of the sheets rustling caused Aemond to jump from his seat, padding across the chambers towards you as he offered you an arm, and held the top of yours gently.

Whincing, you shied away from his touch, “Please, don’t.”

“Let me help you.” Aemond insisted, and reached to try and grab your arm again.

Anger erupted from you, “You’ve helped plenty.” You snapped.

You moved slowly, grasping a cloak from its spot in the wardrobe, throwing it over your shoulders before slowly shuffling out of the chambers.

Pain was still in your body, grief was still in your chest.

You moved down to the Godswood, where you would always go and sit. To talk to the Gods. To talk to yourself. To simply be. But all you could do was think.

Did you do this to yourself?

When you thought of such things beneath its branches?

When you thought of losing the child to spite him?

Had you wished for this and the Gods had delivered?

That silken stillness of grief was back.

The leaves above you were quiet, no breeze to rustle them, nor birds to sing amongst their branches. It was all so quiet. So still. The world seemed to have stopped. Or it had stopped for you.

You sat for a time in your grief beneath the leaves of the Godswood, wondering what your child could have been, what they would have been like.

But it was not just the child that had been lost. You sat with the knowledge that the Maester was no longer here. And your allies in the Keep had dwindled dramatically.

Perhaps now, more than ever, was the time to ask for the star fruit.

But the eyes on you would be sharper right now, and your movements had to be more calculated and secretive moving forward.

They would all be waiting to you to act.

Or waiting for your family to react.

It was no longer as safe as you thought at the Red Keep.

Not that it ever really was.

Beneath the shade of the Godswood was where you sat until a familiar head of chestnut brown came to stand before you, a usual vision of green.

Alicent looked down at you sadly, and gave her shallow condolences.

You swallowed the lump that formed in your throat, keeping your eyes to the branches of the tree instead of letting them drop to the woman before you.

If you looked down, you were sure tears would spill over.

“How are you faring?” She asked tentatively, tone gentle.

All that the Dowager Queen got in response, was a soft rustle of the breeze and the silence of nothing. She stood for a moment more, if only waiting for your resolve to break, for you to turn and face her, seek her out as a daughter, like the one she was missing.

But you didn’t.

And so the older woman left you to be alone with the Old Gods.

You counted your breaths, and mentally filled the cracks in your chest with a thick, goopy paste, similar to the one the Maester had given you.

You thought of each stroke of your hand, filling in the gaps with the paste until there was nothing left to show. As though the cracks were never there to begin with.

Each stroke of the paste you counted, and each stroke you inhaled deeply.

On the twenty-seventh stroke in your mind, the twenty-seventh breath in your lungs, and the twenty-seventh count in your head, the gentle sound of feet atop grass pulled your attention away from the mental image and repetitive motions.

But the person did not come to stand in front of you, nor did they move to stand beside you, or even pass through the small courtyard. Instead, the feet stopped on the opposite side of the tree, and the rustling of robes indicated they had sat down beneath the Godswood.

Just by the action alone, a habit, muscle memory, memory itself, you knew it was him.

Aemond had sat beneath the crimson leaves and white speckled bark of the ancient Weirwood tree, behind you and hidden away, much like how he did as a child. And though, you could not see him, you could feel his presence greatly.

It struck a cord in your already string plucked chest.

“I did not tell Larys.” He whispered to you, voice almost lost to the wind.

“I told no one of what you did.” Your uncle paused, and you rested you head back against the bark, looking up into the shadowed sky, “He must have found out through his spiders.”

And once again, you believed him.

It wasn’t him.

He had not told Aegon.

Larys had.

You are both silent for some time, basking in the familiarity of it all until you heard him shift, and soon a shadow was cast across you, for however brief it was, before he sat himself down. His shoulder gently brushed against yours as he sat close to you, yet made no move to touch you with his hands.

And you were thankful for it.

As you sat in the silence, your mind raced away from you again, the sticky paste that you had crammed into the cracks, slowly dripped away to reveal them once more. With each drip of the paste, another crack was revealed, and with each crack revealed, another chip of your resolve crumbled away.

You realised that Larys didn’t care for Alys.

You had threatened him, and told him there were things that he didn’t know in your stupidity. In your anger. And in your moment of triumph against him;

You had hinted that you had an ally.

And so he had spun his web, and waited for his prey to lay a foot on one of his strings.

The Maester got caught in the web that was crafted to catch him.

You sat shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the branches together in the quiet knowing of your shared loss. Another thing that you would both endure. Another piece of grief to bring you two closer together.

“I don’t think I can survive much more loss, Aemond.” You whispered, surprising yourself to find your voice.

The One-Eyed Prince turned his head to finally look at you, hand coming to your lap to hold yours, touching the scar from the ceremony gently as he always did, almost as if he doesn’t believe that it is real.

As if he doesn’t believe that it is there.

That he would wake up one day, and you would be gone.

“I am sorry for my part in it.” His voice was steady.

Your heart clenched.

“No you’re not, because you wouldn’t let me suffer the way you do.” The words passed your lips, gentle and quiet, fragile as snow, the words lingering in delicate silk around you. A fatal movement of a hand could cause them to break, to crumple and fall apart. Even the breeze could blow too steadily, and whisk the silk threads away.

But they held strong. And they hovered above the two of you heavily.

“I am truly alone in this Keep.” You breathed.

You could feel Aemond’s eye on the side of your face, his hand tightening around yours.

“You are not alone.” He countered, head turned to look at you completely.

A small laugh escaped you, too tired to hold it in, too weary to stamp it out, and so you let it be, let it crackle from your dry lips that were bitten raw.

You looked down to where he held your hand. A hand that had hurt you. A hand that had taken from you. A hand that had given. A hand that had held, and caressed, and stroked. A hand that now loved, and cherished you.

The hand of the man who has so many sides.

“You and I both know that that is not the truth,” You confessed, “As much as we both wish otherwise.”

Thanks so much for reading along with me, if you wish to be added to the tag list please let me know :) Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated ! Enjoy <3

Tag List:

@izzicle @ej-shitchats @may-machin @alegria1580 @witchy-jadda @videovampire @inkdelicious @queteimporta39 @virtualsweetsqueen @fo-cus @auratiqs @feyres-fireheart @queenofshinigamis @asoiafwh8re @teasandcrumpets @shesjustanothergeek @grungegrrrl@queenofsarcazm @marihoneywk @curlszx88 @virgogaia @loser-keiji @asoiafwh8re @whore-of-many-hot-men @vipervixxen @theonewiththeimaginaryboyfriends @watercolorskyy @lavendervisions @mazmack666 @chokefrog @orangejump-suit @nik2blog @serrhaewinin @ohemgeewhat @winxschester @cryptidsrcool @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @celestedonut @bloodyvelvet777 @iamapersonthatsalive @av-sos @yentroucnagol @sanzu-s @opheliaas-stuff @bellameshipper @maviee @persephonerinyes @neytiri-09 @ensnaredinwonderland @xbluegracex @sotragedynut @nattieot7 @shesawaywiththefairies-blog @coffedraven @prettycutebunny @celestedonut @the-jess-life @ssulfurr @out-of-life @madislayyy @crazylokonugget @cicaspair418 @katwmk @relminnie @milovart @teagrex @visenyaverse @bellameshipper @toodlesxcuddles @tempt-ress @dontmindmereading7 @qyburnsghost @55gyi53vtnquwziq5 @notnormalthings-blog @maidmerrymint @qyburnsghost @madislayyy @chelseaouat

Bold is who I cannot tag!

481 notes · View notes

red1culous · 1 year

Text

Before You Close Your Eyes

Normally she would have been in bed hours ago. Early to bed, early to rise sort of philosophy. But the events of the day had left her on edge. She had tried settling into bed at her usual time, but she spent the next 40 mins staring up at the ceiling and the next 25 minutes after that wondering if she should just dismiss the idea of sleep altogether.

She was just about to when you cracked the door open just a tiny bit. She watched as you stuck your head in through the gap and peered in her direction. You must have thought she was asleep so you let yourself in and start your nightly routine taking the utmost care to keep any sound levels to a minimum. Natasha was greatly amused in spite of her foul mood seeing your body hunched over as you crept through the space on your tip toes. And she almost laughed out loud when you stubbed your little toe on the dresser and bounced around on the spot silently cursing while balancing on one leg doing something akin to a very postmodern version of a Gopak. She watches as you switch off the en-suite bathroom lights and follows the sound of your bare feet padding your way towards the bed. Pulling the covers aside you finally see that Natasha is not yet asleep.

You gasp at the sight of her already watching you with a wry smile on her face. “Nat!” you visibly flinch at the fright. “What the— you should be asleep by now.” She chuckles at you as you climb into bed and lay on your right side tucking your right hand under your pillow. She mirrors you and smiles as she moves a loose strand of hair from off your face.

“Why aren’t you asleep yet?” you say much more gently this time.

She hums and scoots closer towards you. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Right then” you say throwing off your covers and holding open your arms and legs, “there’s nothing a cuddle can’t cure.”

She giggles at you but moves to situate herself in your arms. You snake your arms around her waist and pull her back flush against your front. You feel her relax in your arms with a pleasurable sigh.

There’s a pinch of laughter in your voice. “D’you want to talk about it?” you ask.

“Hmm?” she answers.

Gently you kiss the back of her neck and she shivers slightly. Your whole body thrums to the tune of her. “Why you can’t sleep—“ you add.

“It’s ok baby you go to sleep” she says stifling a yawn. “Today was just so exhausting.”

“You don’t say” you grin and peck in between her shoulder blades.

“What?” she playfully elbows you in the sternum and you laugh circling your arms tighter around her.

“I’m just surprised you aren’t asleep yet seeing that you are of an advanced age and al—“ your sentence dies off as she raises one of your forearms to her mouth and clamps down on it.

You yelp.

“Remind me how old you are again?” she asks with a laugh.

This time you laugh into her hair. “I’m old enough to know better and young enough to not care.”

“Jesus!” she exclaims smacking the leg you have conveniently draped over her lower body. “I can’t believe I’m dating a child!”

“Urgh age is nothing. Plus I like—“

“Don’t say it, Y/N” she jokingly warns.

“—MILFS” you finish and she groans aloud.

“I take it back, I’m dating a literal foetus.”

Smiling into her hair you breathe in her shampoo and the breath you release comes out like a sigh.

“Stop thinking and go to sleep” you add after a few minutes of silence.

“You were in diapers when I was getting my boobs!” she whisper shouts.

You chuckle behind her and worm your hands up to cup her breasts. “Mmm. Nice job with that” you say giving them an appreciative squeeze.

Nat lets out what sounds like a huff and a chuckle. Eventually her breathing evens out and quietens. The silence that envelopes the both of you deepens. You wait a few more minutes before finally letting your eyes close, nuzzling into her, adjusting to her gentle breathing.

-------

I do have a taglist. To join click here.

#redfic #natasha romanoff x fem!reader #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #black widow x reader #Before You Close Your Eyes

548 notes · View notes

ryttu3k · 4 months

Note

I'm curious abut Sascha Vykos. Do you know which novels or splat books would be good to read to learn more about them?

*cracks knuckles*

Number 1 book you need to understand Sascha's background is the Dark Ages Tzimisce clan novel by Myranda Kalis, which has them as the main character (along with their lover, Ilias cel Frumos) and explains why they're... like that. Just a goddamn amazing character study, also completely heartbreaking and singlehandedly made me change my view of them from "haha wtf what an edgelord" to "they're my baby and I'm gonna fight a methuselah for them". Set between 1232 and 1234, if I've managed to maths right.

Also by Myranda and set around a similar time (shortly after the fall of Constantinople) is the Road of Sin book (set around 1205). Sascha (then called Myca) narrates the introduction and first chapter. It does specifically focus on their history with the eponymous Road, but has a lot of interesting character details, along with their relationship with Ilias.

For modern Sascha, there are two. First is the original Clan Novel Saga (set 1999), although in this case, I'm not recommending just the Tzimisce novel, but rather the compiled editions. There's a bunch of Sascha content in the Assamite book as well, since they're quite involved with one of the characters in it, and it also includes extra, exclusive content, including my two favourite chapters - a story by Lucien Soulban (Sascha's creator), and an epilogue by Janet Trautvetter, mostly about Jan Pieterzoon but with Sascha being fairly prominent in it.

Fair warning, CNS was written in 1999 and has. Mm. Edgelordy moments. We do not talk about The Foetus Thing :|

The other, probably most important one is Beckett's Jyhad Diary, which I would recommend for literally anyone interested in VtM in general. Sascha has minor appearances and mentions in a bunch of chapters, but is extremely prominent in the chapter Dreams & Nightmares (also by Myranda Kalis/Sarro). She also wrote the chapter Azhi Dahaka, another must-read relating to Sascha.

The timing for BJD is... less clear, because at least a few of the people involved have said it's set in 2005, but also there's one chapter where an event that explicitly took place around 1999 or 2000 is said to have taken place "sixteen years ago", so. Let's just call that early 21st century.

Most of the rest of the books are chronicles, plus one city book - their origin book, Constantinople by Night (1197, IIRC?) by Lucien Soulban, Philippe Boulle, and Joshua Mosqueira-Asheim. Others, in chronological order by setting, include Bitter Crusade (two chapters, Fiendish Winter and Dying Embers, the latter covering the Fall of Constantinople in 1204), Under the Black Cross (1225), and a whole bunch of the Transylvania Chronicles (Myca/Sascha appears in book 1 in Dark Tides Cresting (1314), in book 2 in Haceldema (covers the Convention of Thorns, 1493), in book 3 in An Angel's Plea (1680, also has the most hilariously thirsty description of Sascha I've ever seen in my life), and in book 4 in The Accounting (1998).)

Seriously. Here's their Transylvania Chronicles 3 character sheet:

They appear in two of the Giovanni Chronicles books, three (1882) and four (same, in a flashback that also has my baby Anatole), in the Nightshade scenario of the Gehenna book (1999), although that's since been retconned out of existence, along with chunks of the Clan Novel Saga, mostly to do with the approaching Gehenna stuff, and in particular Anatole's fate. It's still worth reading just for some fascinating ways the world could end. Finally, they appear in the House of Lies chapter of Nights of Prophecy (1999?).

Aside from those, they also have little appearances and mentions in other books, including letters and notes throughout chapter 7 of the Revised corebook, a rather amusing little reference in chapter 4 of the Victorian Age corebook, a detailed profile and character sheet in Children of the Night although that book pisses me off because it put Beckett, Anatole, and Lucita on the front cover but didn't give us sheets for them!, and the opening letter of the V5 Sabbat book, which you can read here (and then ignore the rest of the book and get the Revised-era Guide to the Sabbat instead).

So yes! They show up a lot, and all through the game's history. The three most important ones to read, I think, are the Dark Ages Tzimisce novel, the combined Clan Novel Saga, and Beckett's Jyhad Diary, then the rest just depending on interest in the era or broader story, since Sascha is less involved in those.

Have fun! They're an absolute hot mess of a character and I adore them!

#vampire the masquerade #vtm #sascha vykos #mx meat crimes

34 notes · View notes

sofasoap · 1 year

Text

A quiet moment - Lastochka

Pairing : Nikolai x F!Reader ( OC/Mini MacTavish) + Taskforce 141 + König

Summary: Little Anya getting all the love from her family.

Part I , Part II, Interlude,Part III,Part IV,Part V,Epilogue, Night

WARNING: Mature theme, talk of pregnancy, swearing, slight hint of sexy time

Thanks to @homicidal-slvt for planting ideas into my brain. this whole series is all for you :)

My usual thanking @saltofmercury, mother of Mini, for lending me the character :) Please go and check out her fics!

“masterlist” for Mini MacTavish expanded verse.

Nikolai can hear you groaning over the headset, in discomfort. But he couldn’t see what was happening. They are flying over a danger zone, he can’t afford to lose his concentration nor tear his eyes off from the sky, no matter how much he wants to turn around, and check up on you physically. He has noticed you haven’t really been yourself in the last month or so. Often wake up groggy, exhausted all day, and losing appetite. He is seriously starting to worry there might be something wrong with you. You are currently bending over, head in your hand and legs curled up in your seat, trying everything to distract yourself from the nauseating feeling that hits you in waves every time there is a slight turbulence, shaking the helicopter.

“Um… Uh, You ok??” König asked, trying to pat you on the back clumsily. Letting out another groan, you threw your headset to the side, curling up even further into your seat, into a foetus position. Slightly panicking, König reached into one of his side pouches, where he brought out a little tin container. Opening it up, he took out a piece of candied lemon ginger from there and stuffed it into your hand. “Ah, have this, I , um, get motion sickness sometimes, and um, this usually helps.” he stammered as he explains, encouraging you to put the candy into your mouth, hoping to give you a bit of relief. Turning your head slightly with watery eyes, you nodded your head, and quickly putting the candy into your mouth. Getting slight relief from the tanginess of the lemon and spiciness of the ginger, you turn onto your side, leaning your head against the back of the pilot seat. “Give me comfort to have my wife as close to me as possible.” Nikolai said once when you question why he always insists on you sitting right behind him. Now you are glad you have something to lean against, other than trying to lean against König, which you are sure the giant soldier probably will get a panic attack if you do that. With a shaky hand, you pointed to the med kit on the other side of the helicopter, mumbling something. König leaned closer and asked you to repeat.

‘.... ondansetron…..med kit… pass it to me please…” you said weakly. You knew you should have taken it this morning before boarding the flight. But went against it because you didn’t want to fall asleep during the mission.

Quickly unbuckle his seat belt, passing other soldiers as he stride over to grab the medication you needed, and pass it onto you. Breaking the foil and putting it under your tongue, try to let your mind wander, and think of everything else other than the breakfast and bile that is threatening to come back up, at the same time praying the anti-nausea medication will kick in ASAP.

König took his headset off, leaning closer, trying to be discreet, “Not trying to be nosy but um, my wife.. She had similar symptoms when she was… you know.” motioning with his large hand, indicating a large stomach.

You feel like someone has dumped a bucketful of cold water over your head. Shit, you forgot that might be the possibility. But… you have a birth control implant. That’s when you realised, it has expired. For quite a while too. CRAP.

“I won’t tell anyone.” Fidgeting with his hand as he reassured you,you nodded your head with gratitude, thanking him for looking after you. He pressed the small tin box with the candy into your hand. “Here have this, just in case um, you need it again.” Opening your eyes wide, you shook your head, trying to decline.

‘It’s ok. I can make more.” “You, you made this?” Gosh, that was a surprise.

Twiddling his thumb, he confessed, “I .. I like baking. And um, carving.” Your eyes brightened up. Two of you spend the rest of the flight discussing recipes, and exchanging your famous chocolate biscuit recipe for his Oma’s mouth watering apple strudel recipe. It was a welcoming distraction until the helicopter came to land.

Nikolai found you lying down across the seat, lazily waving goodbye to the soldiers as they departed for their mission.

“Hey.” You greeted your husband with half closed eyes, the medication has finally kicked in, so has the side effect.

Frowning as he gently moves your head into his lap and caresses your face, “What’s going on little bird, I am seriously worrying about you lately.” “Nothing. Just getting a bit air sick.”Closing your eyes as you enjoy his loving touches, and trying to dismiss his concerns. Not wanting to fuss about you and letting him in on the news until you are a hundred percent sure. There is a chance maybe you ate something that doesn’t agree with you, or maybe you are getting a bit old, and motion sickness gets you easier now. But deep down, you are pretty certain the cause of the discomfort. “You never get motion sickness. At least not when I am piloting.” He puffed with pride. “I know how your brain works, little bird, tell me what is wrong.” He can always read your thoughts. When you are hiding something. When you are uncomfortable. When you pretend to be strong. “I really don’t know.” You are scared. Scared by his reaction to a possible new addition to the family? Or are you scared that after finally working your way back to active duty, you will be pushed back to sitting in the barrack again, that feeling of uselessness coming back to you again. Taking a deep breath and circling your arm around his waist, “Maybe it’s something I ate. I’ll get it checked out once we are back at the base.”

“Promise me you will?” He gave you a look of warning. He knows you too well. You will put things off until the last minute or until necessary.

“Yes love. I will.” burying your face into his abs, taking in his scent, giving you some comfort. Not yet. Just to keep it to yourself a little bit longer..

“Positive?????” “Positive. Congratulations.”

Chameleon passed you the pregnancy stick and blood test result. “Now you know what that means right?”

Your shoulders drop. Rubbing your forehead, you know you have to stop all active duty pretty much from now on. You are going to miss looking after the team from the frontline.

“How did you do it?” You asked after staring at the piece of paper in front of you. Signing off another few documents,she replied,“ Well,I guess my situation is slightly different, I rarely get sent out, so it was easier for me. But.” passing the prescriptions to you, “You know how much John fusses over things, he was texting every hour, if they weren’t going dark,asking how I was feeling.” She sighed.

You can just imagine the Captain hovering around his wife, nagging away like a mother hen. Letting out a snorting laugh, you took the documents from her.

“Anyway, go get some rest. I’ll file the reports to the HR tomorrow. But it’s up to you to break the news to the boys now.” She smiled. You gave her a big hug before you left the infirmary, back to your shared room. You don’t know how long you have sat there for, zoning out, thinking of ways to break the news to the team. Or to your husband first. Also trying to fully come to terms with the situation, another big twist to your life. The two of you have briefly talked about the possibility of starting a family when you first got married. You were quite reluctant to jump into it after trying to recover from your ordeal, and Nikolai never mentioned anything again, and you assumed either he wasn’t too keen to bring up the subject or he had given up on the idea. You heard the soft click of the door unlocking, before seeing Nikolai stepping into the room. Calling out to him with a wavering voice, lips trembling, trying hard to contain the tears that are threatening to drop from your eyes. Those damn hormones are already wrecking your emotions, you thought. Why are you even crying???? It’s a happy occasion isn’t it? That self doubt starts to appear again. What if he gets angry at you? What if he doesn’t want the child at all? On that thought you bursted out crying. Nikolai immediately closes the door, taking a few steps forward and kneeling in front of you. “What’s the matter Lastochka, was it bad news from the doctor? Please tell me?” He gently wraps his larger hands around yours, encouraging you to talk.

Trying very hard not to hyperventilate, you closed your eyes, taking a few deep breath before Letting out the news. “I .. I can’t be with you anymore….” you hiccuped. You feel his hand tighten around yours. Opening your eyes, you can see flashes of fear before staring at you with hardened eyes.

Realising your mistake, you quickly explain, “ No. nono, that came out totally wrong.” you quickly pull back his already retracting hands, guiding it towards your now slightly showing bump. “I can’t go on missions with you boys anymore. Lady Fortuna is officially off active duty now.” you let out a weak chuckle. “ and you.” Patting his hand and softening your gaze at him, “Have to start learning to be a Papa.” He was still staring at you, you couldn’t figure out his emotion at all. You chewed on your lip, waiting anxiously for his reaction. Pulling one of his hands away, his eyes dropped down to your stomach, slowly caressing it as he started mumbling words in Russian. Your eyes fill up with tears again as you see him showing tenderness towards the unborn baby.

“...Boy or girl?” he whispered. Shaking your head. “I am not sure yet. I am going for the scan in a few days.” “How far along?”

“I am guessing I am still in the first trimester….” You didn’t want to say, but you had a pretty good idea when this happened….

That night was the first time he showed his full possessiveness towards you. Filling you up again and again.“That Сука has tainted my beautiful Lastochka with their filthy hand…” “I have told you before, you will only crave for me, no one else.”

“My beautiful bird,sing for me again.. I know you can do it..”

Your face starts burning when you think back to the night. “From that covert mission?” he chuckled. “We were.. Quite busy that night.” standing up, he moved himself to sit beside you, and pull you into his lap.

“Thank you.” He whispered as he slowly and gently kisses you.

“For what?” you murmured.

“Carrying our child.” You chuckled. “Hey, you were part of the production as well.” you teased. “It’s only the start of the journey. We still have a long way to go.” Caressing your bump, he cooed, “Well, can’t wait to meet you, our little nestling.”

“COME ON Anya, come to uncle Gaz!!!” “Nonono Anya, come to your REAL uncle here!!”

“....... “ Ghost sits there, opening his arm, staring down at the baby without a word. “Ignore those .. What is the word, bampots? Come to Poppy Price.” Little Anya crawled forward, looking at each one of them, confused. She slowly moves towards Gaz, who is waving one of his latest crochet dolls at her, trying to lure the baby. Anya pouted a little, and looked at her Uncle Soap, currently flashing a brilliant smile at his niece. Anya hesitated, and eyed Ghost, and her eyes went wide with tears in her eyes, and started quickly crawling towards Price. “There there.. It’s ok.” Price cooed and patted the poor baby as she burst into tears, startled by Ghost’s balaclava. Ghost hung his head, shoulders down, feeling defeated. Gaz and Soap gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “ Maybe lose the balaclava and just wear a face mask next time…” Gaz suggested. Stuffing one of the dolls into his hand, “Or maybe try this.”

The four men were in quite a shock when you called them into Price’s office days after your discovery.

Sliding the ultrasound picture onto the desk. All four of them stared at it, looking up to you, and back to the photo, and seconds later, Ghost, Gaz and Soap erupted into an argument over who is going to be the godfather to the baby, while Price rubbing his temple, irritated at their antics.

You shifted yourself off base towards the end of the pregnancy, getting ready for the birth. Price helped you to find a place, close to the base, easy for you to go back and forth for work and visiting.

The soldiers at the base also have secretly named Ghost Gaz and Soap “Cerberus” as there is always one of the men walking around with you all the time like a guard dog whenever Nikolai isn’t around to look after you.

Little Anya was definitely spoiled by his godfathers and uncles even before she was born.

König and his wife sent a baby gift in a huge crate. You found all sorts of things there. Blankets and winter clothes his wife has made, wooden toys and baby mobiles with aeroplane and helicopter hanging off it made by König. Even a rocking horse. You were really touched by the thoughtfulness of the couple, especially his wife, who you never met before.

This fired up Gaz’s competitiveness when he discovered all the clothing and toys König had sent. He came over one day with a huge bag, inside was all the crocheted dolls of everyone.

Price with his signature boonie hat and little cigar in his mouth, Soap with his mohawk, Gaz with his Union Jack cap, Nikolai and his aviator and headset, and there is you too, in a little combat gear. Konig in his hood and gears. He even asked for photos of your parents crocheting new doll figures afterwards too.

“You made all these?????” Your jaws drop as he keeps bringing over new knitted items. Now you know where all your previous birthday and holiday gifts came from, you always wondered how everything fits you perfectly with all the unique patterns. Gaz has really surprised you with his unexpected handcraft skills. Soap and Ghost practically decorated the whole nursery full of stuff from the cot and changing tables and the dressers and any supplies you can name? They bought it all.

“.... Boys, you realise you have bought a half room full of nappies that I possibly wouldn’t ever finish using?”

“Hey, they did say newborns pop a lot, better to be ready than sorry.” Soap shrugged his shoulders. “And my niece deserves the best. Doesn’t she??” he bent down and started talking in a baby voice to your very ballooned up stomach. You can see Ghost nodding in agreement behind Soap.

Price and Chameleon, being experienced parents to two adult kids, provided you with tips and guidance when you needed the most. Especially Chameleon, she knew the hardship of being a soldier’s wife, looking after the children alone. She was there when your water broke, to calm you down when you were crying and worrying Nikolai and the men wouldn’t make it back in time to witness the birth of the baby.

Anya MacTavish ( Nikolai and you decided she would take on your surname, as it was dangerous for Nikolai’s true name and identity to be attached to the child ) was born a healthy baby, inheriting her father’s more calming nature, making minimal fuss when she landed in this world.

Nikolai tries to be there for the two of you as much as he can. Between assisting the SAS and running the mercenary group, he is a busy man. His heart often drops every time when he comes home, his daughter will clutch onto you, in fear and looking at him as if he is a stranger. It breaks his heart. He decided he needs to start pulling back, spreading his workload to his second in command and spending more time with his family.

Ghost looked down at the doll he was holding, thought hard for a second, before he went ahead and removed his balaclava. You have only seen once or twice in rare circumstances the real face of Simon, but you didn’t expect him to remove the face covering just for your daughter. Hiding her face in the crook of her Poppy Price’s neck, she turned her face slightly as Simon tried to call out to her, waving awkwardly the little doll of himself. She looks at him, eyes going wide again, trying to make sense of who this “ new person “ is, before reaching out for the doll, Price slowly passes Anya over to Simon, while she is distracted. She let out a little yawn as she fiddled around with the doll, eyes fluttering and fell asleep snuggling in Simon’s arm. Everyone smiled at the scene in front of them.

You can see mixed emotion in Simon’s eyes. Happy that both him and Anya are slowly getting comfortable with one another. Your brother-in-arms deserves every bit of happiness after all the trauma he went through with his life, and maybe his goddaughter will bring him that tiny bit of joy. You gave Nikolai a nudge, reminding him to guide Simon upstairs towards the nursery to put the baby down in the cot to sleep.

“Still sleeping?” Nikolai asked in a hushed voice, as he came up and checked his little princess after all the men had returned to the base. Peering over the cot, he can see she’s holding on tight to the Ghost doll in her arm, while sucking on her thumb as she sleeps.

“Sleeping like a log. Nothing is phasing her even if the ceiling collapses.” You are fortunate Anya has been a very easy baby, sleeping through the night most of the time. A very deep sleeper too. “Just like her mother.” “Hey, I do wake up when I sense danger.” You pouted, referring to the safe house incident where you didn’t even realise Soap and Gaz had entered the apartment.

Nikolai bent over and gave his little baby daughter a kiss on the cheek. Thinking back when he proposed to you. He thought he was lucky enough just to have you in his life, now he has a tiny little precious bird he will give all his life to protect her from all the evil of the world. Letting out a yawn. Exhausted from entertaining the guests you were ready to sleep. You let out a little yelp as Nikolai scoop you up into a bridal carry. “Time for bed for the big princess.” Kissing you lightly on your forehead, carrying you back towards the bedroom. Ideas pop up in his head. Maybe another baby wouldn’t be such a bad idea…

141 boys often volunteer for babysitting duty. They were a constant presence in their goddaughter’s life growing up. There is also the constant battle of “ who is Anya’s favourite” going on between the men.

When Anya got married, she insisted her Papa and all her uncles and Poppy walk her down the aisle.

Anya often changes which doll she is in favour of, one week might be Ghost, next week might be Gaz, or hugging both Price and Soap’s doll to sleep at same time. You tease Price and Chameleon if they are getting clucky again, or they are wishing for a grandkid, Price paled thinking about his little Grace being married so young. You tried out König’s recipe of Apple strudel. And it is heavenly delicious. It became one of Nikolai and Anya’s favourite desserts.

Yes, thanks to @siilvan , I am so inspired and might write another chapter in regard how Anya was produced *wink wink * what exactly happened the night of the covert mission (Let’s hope the muse of Smut will inspire me bit more this time )

taglist:

@homicidal-slvt,

@roosterr @preciouslittlecreature

@siilvan @floral-force @kaplerrr

107 notes · View notes

mbti-notes · 2 months

Text

Anon wrote: Hello, mbti-notes! I will quit trying to be creative and will just thank you for this blog. I always come here when I need to somehow freshen up my thoughts. I like your approach and your wording.

I was going to ask you a question about a better way of socialising, but before that I wanted to explain my current mental state. It got long, sorry in advance.

So, lately I have been socialising my a** off. Like literally hopping on every opportunity to have a conversation with anybody. Even with people that I feel no sympathy for and initially despise. I tried to prove to myself a theory that I can have a nice conversation with any kind of person. For what?

Maybe, I am thinking, I was just trying to become a «better adult». I have always been told by my parents and elders that I am a sloppy, slow to react child, that is spending too much time in its head. And I felt uncomfortable with that. Though I doubt anyone would be comfortable with listening to such half-teasing accusations )). But I respect and love my elders, though can be bitter sometimes. Unconditional love is a thing, yeah. No one is perfect.

And I just tried to prove myself that I can be that easy-going, light, happy person. I tried and I succeeded. Because you think what you believe - in a lot of cases. And you can go a pretty long way with silencing that tiny voice in your head that keeps asking: «Is that the real you? Why are you trying to become the person that you despise the most? And why do you not feel anything?»

But because there is (Thank God!) such thing as one’s nature, I am entering my usual state currently. With constant cold showers of mild social anxiety, but having my own projects back on the forefront and exploring new interesting topics that fill me with knowledge (and thus providing comfort/sense of self).

But there is a doubt in my head that is always present: may it be that I am just «slacking off»? Not doing enough of my Extraverted Feeling exercises? Should I go back to caring about people around me even if it seems to be pointless, emptying all of my resources and making me feel miserable and hollow? Maybe it is true that «what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger» and I should continue this slightly destructive way of self-exploration?

Because of those constant intrusive (and self-deprecating) thoughts I feel the need to go back in time somehow. In a way, return to the foetus version of me and tell it to feel less guilty for not liking people around it, for not having answer for everything and being a little bit slow to grow up. And maybe take with me that precious naivety of my younger self, that openness which helped me overcome dark pessimistic thoughts with ease.

But I based my whole socialising experiment on trying to prove that the child me was wrong. That elders are right because they are more experienced and know the flow of things better. Simultaneously, though only a little bit, it helps with fear of dying a mediocre person. At least there is a possibility that you will gain «enlightenment» skill with age. It could have been worse, right?

And of course it is not my first experiment. I did a lot of it in my teens too. Now I am just being more conscious about the steps that I am taking.

And my sentences may be lacking structure, that’s why I will try to sum up everything I wrote in one question. If you would be so kind, please answer. I would really appreciate your feedback.

My question:

Is there some better way to stop feeling disgusted with yourself while trying to socialise, other than just straight-up ignoring your feelings and discomfort?

Example:

I am talking with a person. At some point I understand that I do not care about them. Then I feel hollow, because somewhere deep I start to feel that I sincerely do not care for anyone. I even question if I have any feelings at all. Maybe I am just a piece of egotistic shit and that is all to me. To avoid this dark thought I just throw it away. Stuff it in a metaphorical drawer. And maybe try to justify my lack of empathy by thinking that we are all the same and I am not the only one with a social mask. And maybe feel manipulated/tricked by society/media/literature/art for putting in our minds this concept of sincere empathy afterwards.

Thank you for finishing my long ask!

Hoping to receive a reply.

An INTP (early twenties, female)

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

I appreciate that you have a desire to improve yourself and I certainly wouldn't want to discourage you. However, I would never suggest anyone try your method. What can I say when people go against my advice? Your case is a textbook example of two mistakes I have repeatedly warned people about:

1) It is important to wait until one is psychologically mature enough to pursue inferior function development, otherwise, one could easily get trapped in inferior grip. You are not yet at the stage of ego development where healthy inferior function development is possible or desirable. The results of your "experiment" only confirm this.

2) It is important to approach type development with the right intention, armed with the right understanding of its grand purpose, otherwise, one is likely to exacerbate developmental issues or create even more. Your motivation for function development was suspect from the start. It is apparent in your admissions that you are driven by ego, childishness, and faulty reasoning (that keeps you trapped in your own world of distorted beliefs).

Why do people socialize? They need relationship. To be successful in interpersonal relationships, you have to: invest in strengthening relationship bonds over the long term; care about psychological well-being; open yourself up to being seen and loved. It doesn't sound like any of this was happening. How can a proper relationship form when your intention in socializing is merely to prove some imaginary point? Other people don't really exist for you except as objects to be used and discarded once the point is proven. There is no "social" in your socializing. There is no "Feeling" in your Extraverted Feeling actions.

As far as I can tell, one reason you've faltered is that you don't know what exact problem you're trying to solve. From your description, it seems the main problem is a lack of feeling and empathy. Forcing yourself into inappropriate socializing situations isn't going to solve this problem. If lack of feeling/empathy is indeed at the root, then you ought to focus primarily on it. Lack of feeling/empathy isn't a crime and doesn't automatically make you a bad person; it is a legitimate psychological issue that people experience for a variety of possible reasons. Take time to understand how and why you suffer from this issue. Perhaps consult some experts on the matter.

Putting yourself down or destroying yourself is unnecessary and counter-productive. Self-denial and self-hatred are major impediments to personal growth. If you truly want to grow as a person, the first thing you have to do is face facts and accept the truth of what you are, rather than live in a fantasy world where you believe that weaknesses and faults can be eliminated with the wave of a magic wand. Only by being seated firmly in reality will you have the right frame of mind to learn effective coping and adaptation strategies to make the best of what you have.

#intp #empathy #development #self esteem #self worth #ask

11 notes · View notes

blogauroragloryme · 2 months

Text

I was just searching about Fenqing and came across this in the TGCF shipping wiki page.Right now I felt like focusing on FX and talking about him. Will definitely love to talk about MQ in a different post.

So FX is the loyal bodyguard of XL who had been with him since he was 14 years old.He was trained from the very beginning to be XL's bodyguard and even to lay his life down for XL.Unlike MQ whose background is actually hinted with having an ailing mother and a deceased father ,we don't have anything about FX's family, he's like a piece carved solely for XL's sake.I bet before parting ways FX must have believed his existence is clearly for XL's sake.After parting ways FX must definitely have had a hard time in figuring things out because unlike MQ who had ambitions and is a planned person,FX is a simple minded guy. His qualities makes him stand out because he's loyal,protective and is not at all schematic like the other heavenly officials.I think this is his greatest quality that must win the trust of others. I think separation would be difficult for FX because he must be suddenly thrown into a world where he doesn't have to revolve around XL and it would have completely shifted his perspective of the world. To figure out things like what are his priorities,what he should do , where he should go and stuff like that. I think the very first time FX actually thought of someone apart from the Royal family was Jian Lan. Meeting her and spending time with her must have been the first time he must have indulged himself.That's why it is saddening to imagine how FX must have felt when both XL and JL would have asked FX to leave.I won't deny that it was really hard to imagine FX of all people to actually have a son in the novel,but I do believe he would have made a wonderful father and partner.I wonder how FX must have felt to actually see the women he loved and his son (Idk if it's mentioned or I don't clearly remember whether the foetus started resembling a proper child or what) turned into a ghost and the knowledge that he could have been a father.

As I mentioned above that FX is a straightforward guy,he is honorable (if you remove his cursing ofcourse and temper issues🤣), helpful. His greatest asset is his sincerity and loyalty,if you manage to get on his good side ,he won't ever betray you. He would make a great friend whom you can rely on ,that is FX's personality and that's why he's compared to a dog. Even JL mentioned in the novel that if FX knew about their existence he would jump to take responsibility irrespective of the damage he will incur in the process.

MQ is a sensitive person,but FX is a different kind of sensitive in his own right. FX is pure and based upon the things he's been trained on, it comes naturally for him to protect others and be a source of reliability, and interestingly he got rejected from both the most important people in his life.I cannot help, but think this must have really hurt him badly to not be able to fulfill the duty he was trained for his whole life. The guilt of leaving XL that he carries without masking it,is a clear indication of his regret.I hope that the tragedy with JL and Cuo Cuo doesn't add up to the guilt and hurt he already harbours inside his heart.Just like he amends his relationship with XL throughout the novel and Post canon, like wise I hope he's able to have a proper closure with JL too.

He's a puppy. A puppy switching between anger and sadness , but he's a cute one.🥺

#mxtx novels #mxtx tgcf #heaven official's blessing #feng xin #sad puppy

11 notes · View notes

sapphic-at-dusk · 1 year

Text

Epic 'A Court of Silver Flames' Rant *Big Spoiler Alert*

Sarah J. Maas has a bit of an issue with romanticising extreme thinness. This was an issue in ACOTAR as well. When Feyre was literally starving, she described it in this weird way where she was basically just saying she was pretty and skinny, and she did the exact same thing with Nesta in this book when she achieved an unhealthy level of thinness from undereating due to trauma and alcoholism. Cassian looks at her and thinks that she's "too damn thin", but then goes on to describe how attracted to her he is and how her breasts are still large and inviting, so I guess it doesn't matter? Fucking weird.

The pregnancy subplot had very strong pro-life/anti-abortion undertones and it was scary. Feyre was literally carrying a pregnancy that ensured her death and NO ONE TOLD HER EXCEPT NESTA. Her entire inner circle of family and friends, plus her healthcare provider decided that it was totally fine to just not tell her that having this baby would literally kill her. They actively WITHHELD this information from her, when she could have been saved earlier by abortion, or at least given the KNOWLEDGE that she and the baby were going to die if she carried this baby to term. I presume that there would be some way to conduct an abortion given all of the magic available to the faeries, or even just surgery combined with their healing abilities. They have contraceptive teas, so I think it'd be likely that they'd have some kind of medical abortion options. I just found it so disgusting that none of them thought it was important to tell her. Also, she got over everyone withholding this information from her very quickly. She basically forgot it even happened when she could have DIED. Just a terrible plot overall and it reflects really badly on the characters. It made me lose respect for all of them. Also, Nyx is a terrible baby name.

People's reactions to Nesta telling Feyre about the risks of the labour are TERRIBLE. They completely shun her and Rhys literally wants to kill her just for telling her sister the truth about her life being put in jeopardy for this dumb winged baby. They make Nesta go hike in the snowy mountains for days as punishment for telling her sister vital information about her body. What the fuck is that?

Originally, I thought Nesta's power would be used to abort the foetus but she literally ended up using her power to generate life… like what? That is literally the opposite of her power. It makes no sense that she was able to use her power to do that, unless it was just the Mother that did it. But it seemed, based on Nesta asking the Mother how to use her power to save them, that Nesta was the one using her power to do it. What the fuck was the point of giving her the power of death if she just ended up bringing people back to life? They could've used Feyre's healing powers, but apparently she was 'too weak' from the blood loss. She could've been healing herself closer to the start to prevent so much blood loss. This whole plot point just made no sense and really degraded the appeal of Nesta's death power that was built up to so much throughout the book, which she loses after committing this act anyway.

Aside from the terrible pro-life undertones of this plotline, why is Feyre having a child? She is like 21 years old at the time of pregnancy and 22 years old by the time she gives birth, and IMMORTAL. She could have a child WHENEVER, so why does she choose to do so at such a young age when her lands are on the brink of war. Feyre will literally have no maturity difference between her child in 18 years by immortal standards, and even then it's a young age to have a child. It's just weird. I thought based on the bone carver's vision and Feyre's reaction to it at the time that they would have a child far into the future, not literally like a year after the war with Hybern. Just what the actual fuck? Also, it's hinted that Nesta will soon have a child with Cassian too, which is just annoying. At least Nesta takes precautions to prevent the same issues that Feyre had from happening to her, but Nesta's 25, and she has an entire immortal lifetime ahead of her. It makes no sense for any of the sisters to be having children at this age with so much time ahead of them. Rhys is 500+ years old and just having his first child, meanwhile Feyre is only 22 and risking her life to carry out a death sentence of a pregnancy. It makes sense for faeries to start having children at Rhys's age, because they're probably bored out of their minds at that point and have experienced most of what life has to offer. They would likely be searching for some kind of purpose as well, so it makes sense for him and Cassian. But Feyre and Nesta? Not at all. I think it really undermines the feminist messages (which are inconsistent anyway considering Feyre getting with a guy that repeatedly sexually assaulted her) in the books to have the sisters just end up making babies with their mates as soon as possible. There are countless things to do with an immortal life, and they just decide to do the most generic thing they could possibly do, as soon as possible. It's disappointing, as are many things in this book.

Tamlin's rage at the pregnancy is talked about but not shown at all. Peak telling not showing. Also, just generally, why the hell does Tamlin become such a little bitch? He was literally the main love interest in the first book and was a pretty decent guy, then suddenly just became a possessive asshole and then became a complete villain eventually. You'd think he'd still love or care about Feyre enough to wish her happiness, even if he wishes they were still together.

By the way, why on Earth was Feyre fucking Rhys unprotected in Illyrian form? Did they not consider the risks of that? Have they been having unprotected sex all the time? WHY? They have easy, accessible contraception options, and even if they wanted to have unprotected sex regardless because they were trying for a baby, it would have been so easy for them to just NOT have sex in Illyrian form. They literally just wanted to fuck unprotected with some weird "wingplay" despite the risks and I hate it. Also, Cassian mentioned wingplay during some smut scene and I am scared.

Feyre's suicide pact with Rhys was dumb. What's the point of them both dying if one of them dies? It just causes so much more grief, and then there's no High Lord or High Lady for the Night Court. At least Amren protests against it and says it's dumb, because it really is. It makes even less sense with Feyre's death being seemingly imminent due to all of their terrible decisions in regards to her pregnancy. We love romanticising suicide and death.

Speaking of Amren, I've never really liked her much, but her personality strikes me as more realistic of the faeries that have been alive for hundreds of years than the other personalities in the inner circle. Morrigan, Cassian and Rhys all act like people in their 20s or 30s despite being hundreds of years old. Amren talks down to everyone because she is way older than all of them and has probably lost a decent amount of her morality due to how long she has been alive, but the others show no signs of that immortal arrogance or lack of morality. Rhys was kind of evil in the earlier books to Feyre (remember the whole sexual assault thing?), but other than that, they basically all act perfect nowadays, aside from how they treat Nesta and withhold information from Feyre. It's just weird for them all to be acting so young when they're so old in reality. Also, why are all these twenty-something women getting with 500+-year-old men? This age gap is worse than Twilight. Realistically, if these faeries actually thought and acted like ancient beings, they would not be fucking with 20-something-year-olds. They would be so different that they would find their younger counterparts immature at best and worthy of death at worst. I feel like it'd be likely for them to regard the newer faeries as easy tools for manipulation and to try to use them as slaves/servants/workers, or just otherwise manipulate/use them, not to get into legitimate romantic relationships with them. But for some reason, all the old faeries act like 20-year-olds, so the relationship age gaps aren't as apparent and don't seem as weird as they really are. I think it reduces the appeal of immortal characters a lot when they just act like normal humans.

Feyre, as usual, is too perfect (and not in a good way). This has kind of been an issue in all of the books, but seemed to be accentuated by Nesta being the focus of this book. Everything Feyre has, Nesta does not have. Everyone prefers Feyre to Nesta (except for maybe Cassian). It makes sense because Nesta is a bitch 99% of the time before her development in this book, but Feyre is just way too perfect. At least Elain had the flaw of not fighting to help their family during poverty and being generally kind of clueless, weak and timid, but Feyre just doesn't really have any character flaws and it's boring and annoying. Her only real flaw that I can think of is how she babies and favours Elain and treats Nesta like she's her property. A good example of Feyre being too perfect is the question of how she has such skills in painting. She used to just paint little flowers in their cottage, and she's been busy under the mountain and fighting wars and shit, but somehow she's just a master painter who can paint perfect portraits of things she hasn't even seen with her own eyes. I know she had some time to paint whilst she was at the Spring Court, and I know she's likely had maybe a year to paint at the Night Court without any imminent danger threatening her, but that is nowhere near enough time to become some master painter that can just perfectly capture people's portraits and scenes from life. Her skill in painting is totally unbelievable and just a bit ridiculous given how little time she's had to work on it.

Elain is not focused on AT ALL, which is so incredibly disappointing. She was treated as less than a side character. I really hope we get a book focusing on Elain because she has seer powers (which seem more interesting than Nesta's vague 'death powers') and seems to be gaining some sort of personality/boldness that I'd like to see developed more. Also, what the hell's going on with her love life? She has a mating bond with Lucien but they barely see each other and she clearly hasn't accepted the mating bond yet. Lucien seems to want her to accept it but she's just kind of ignoring it indefinitely. She clearly has a thing for Azriel but neither of them seem to have acted on it at all, plus (from what I remember) the mating bonds can't really be severed, so she doesn't really have a choice anyway even if she decides to be with Azriel (which is kind of fucked to be honest). It would make the most sense for her to either accept the mating bond with Lucien or have Lucien die and then complete the weird brother-sister romance trio that seems to be going on with Rhys-Feyre, Cassian-Nesta. I was looking forward to seeing how the mating bond between Lucien and Elain turned out in this book because I was pretty happy to see it form when she was turned, thinking it would give them both a second chance at love when their lovers were tragically taken from them, but there was absolutely no progression with that storyline. I hate how Elain was just not focused on at all in this book and basically only existed to add a slight bit of tension to Nesta's relationships with others. GIVE ELAIN THE SPOTLIGHT FOR ONCE, PLEASE. I'd like to see her being proactive and actually doing something cool in the next book, possibly in relation to the war (if that even happens at this point, considering the Night Court now has the Dread Trove and could basically level everyone in the world). Additionally, as usual, Elain is treated like a literal child by everyone in this book and it is infuriating.

RE: the Nesta Valkyrie girlboss plot... So, Nesta, Emerie and the priestesses train for what... a few months? And apparently that is enough to put them on the level of elite ancient warriors. They even beat a bunch of Illyrian males who have presumably been training since early childhood. I love how Sarah J. Maas does this girlboss feminist shit whilst pushing this weird pro-life narrative at the expense of Feyre's health and safety. It just makes no sense that Nesta, Emerie and Gwyn manage to gain the titles of Valkyries and Illyrian warriors when they only have months of training compared to the lifetimes of training of the actual Valkyries and Illyrians. It just makes those warriors' titles seem less important and legitimate when those three are able to achieve the titles so easily. Also, Nesta fighting off 6 Illyrian males after a few months of training is just laughable. Can we please get a realistic progression of their fighting skills rather than some Mary Sue jump from novice to literal legendary warrior?

Nesta being forced to train is completely inhumane and disregards her autonomy/free will as an adult. If they don't like her behaviour, that's fair enough, but they should just cut her off financially instead of treating her like a child and taking away her free will. Obviously Nesta abusing the Night Court's funds and not contributing in any way is immoral, but the way to remedy that is not by forcing her to train and work at the library in the House of Wind under literal house arrest. I'm sorry, but the stairs do not give her freedom. She is literally trapped in a house and forced to train and work. This made me lose respect for the inner circle just like them withholding the pregnancy information from Feyre did. She is a traumatised alcoholic and their response to that is to force her into cold turkey recovery and take away all her free will.

Maybe I missed something, but it seemed that Nesta and Cassian's mating bond just randomly appeared out of nowhere with no hints of it before Winter Solstice. The thing about golden threads joining their souls or some shit during the Solstice was a hint, but before that, we were just led to assume that there was a shitload of sexual tension between the two and not an actual mating bond. Elain's mating bond with Lucien was revealed immediately, so why wasn't Nesta's? When did it develop? Was it right after she was made, or was it later on? Is it a gradual shift, because from everything written before, it seems like the bond kicks in all at once. This just seemed to be shoehorned in as a way of legitimising Nesta and Cassian's relationship (at least she didn't get pregnant though - I think I would've thrown the book across the room if that happened). It would've been nicer to see their mating bond develop after a longer period since those two have a lot to work through, or at least for it to be hinted at earlier in the novel.

I hate that everyone in the inner circle/focused on in the books is super hot (where the ugly faeries at?) It seems like appearance is directly correlated to how 'good' a lot of the characters are, i.e. Briallyn being a crone and Lucien having a fake eye due to his moral greyness. It would be so much more interesting if more characters had more physical flaws. Some of the males have very minor physical differences like scars, but the scars are never anywhere that actually affects their overall appearance, like the face. Also, Emerie being called 'disabled' because her wings were clipped is borderline insulting. Like what the fuck.

This is kind of nitpicking, but Nesta doesn't have opportunities to take her contraceptive tea every day but somehow doesn't get pregnant or worry about it despite her constantly fucking Cassian raw.

I am forever haunted by the line of Cassian wanting to court any woman with large breasts (Cassian is a fuckboy confirmed).

This is kind of a random point, so I don't know where to put it, but SARAH J. MAAS, for the love of God, please stop calling virginity 'maidenhead'. It is such a disgusting gendered term which should have been abolished 300 years ago. I know she's trying to give the books an olden twist and they aren't exactly set in the modern world, but there are enough modern elements in the texts that they really don't need to be using the word 'maidenhead'. I find the whole concept of virginity annoying and disgusting anyway because of how heteronormative and sexist it tends to be, but if we're focusing on this shit concept at all, can we at least not make it focused all on women giving their 'maidenhead' to men. It's gross and I hate it. Also, of course she makes all of her female characters bleed when they have sex for the first time, because no one seems to understand that hymens don't bleed after women have sex for the first time (unless the woman has some sort of medical condition where the hymen is fully closed over, in which case surgery is required). I can't believe I have to explain this in regards to a female author's writing, but the hymen is a ring surrounding the entrance of the vagina, which stretches when you have sex for the first time or engage in other activities that could stretch it, like using a sex toy or even horseback riding. The hymen isn't broken, it is stretched. Blood from first-time sex often comes from the woman not being fully comfortable and aroused, causing her vaginal walls to be torn enough to cause some amount of vaginal bleeding. Bleeding is by no means necessary for one's first time, and we need to stop normalising this in fiction.

Koschei (what a dumb name by the way) had so much tension building around him and what he would do throughout the book, so I was expecting some serious shit to go down with him, but his scene was so fucking disappointing. He was barely even in the book and it was such a letdown.

Despite everything, this was such a comforting, cosy book but the subplots and main plot were downright demented so much of the time. The only things that got me through were the compelling, already well-loved characters and the beautiful atmosphere and descriptions of the book. Nesta and Cassian growing to love one another was also nice, though I found it strange that Nesta was just magically cured of her mental illness by Feyre's prescribed activities and loving Cassian. Get the girl some therapy.

I liked Nesta being good at dancing. It was honestly really compelling to see her be skilled at something other than being a complete bitch to everyone in range.

I'd really recommend the audiobook; Stina Nielsen narrated it really well. The only uncomfortable part was the sex scenes (and there were a lot of them, god damn) but those are kind of uncomfortable whether you read it on paperback or listen to it. I just really didn't need to hear about Nesta and Cassian rawdogging every 5 minutes.

So, in conclusion, thank you for reading this giant rant if you have even made it this far. If you have any thoughts I would love to read them. I had no idea this post would be this long but here we are. There were a lot of things wrong with this book despite the cosy vibes and wholesome relationships.

P.S. Nesta literally conjuring the house into a living being because she was that lonely is a fucking mood and I actually really loved the house's character and subplot, if you can call it that. It was just a wholesome relationship.

Edit: I put this into a word count and OH MY LORD.

25 notes · View notes

f0point5 · 2 months

Note

(did he really? Or did he just create her? I could go ON for hours about this but I won’t bore you) //

i was the person who sent this ask and i largely agree with you. i saw a comment that basically said that she comes to the correct conclusion about dating men in their 20s and then loses the plot when she explains her own dynamic

but also i would NOT be bored please feel free to speak more about this

Yeah like I literally had the same moment as her not too long ago where I was like “omg if I end up with this man I will have won the lottery” and I told my mum and she was like “if you think like that then you won’t end up with him. You’re giving him the upper hand”. That girl did not have a mother to tell her he’s the one who won the lottery and it shows.

But yeah she right about the foetus men 😂

But this whole mentorship thing she falls into with this guy is a bit of an ick. And I’ve seen it many a time, I’ve had men try to do it with me many a time. They assume that because you’re young you’ve experienced nothing, which means they can play “build a bitch”. They tell you about wine and about art and about how to dress…all with their personal slant. They fill your head with their own opinions by only exposing you to high end experiences that they approve of. And they make you think that they’re showing you everything the world has to offer and you don’t know any better because you don’t know the breadth of experiences available. Now, I’m not saying this is necessarily bad, and no woman is hard done by by a guy showing them more of the world, even if it’s just the parts he likes. But you can’t seriously think that his “guidance” introduced you to a version of yourself that was always waiting to be unearthed…no darling, you’re just the sum of the experiences he allowed you to have.

It’s like in 50 shades of grey. Anna is a virgin when the book starts. By the end she is somewhat immersed in the bdsm lifestyle (or a bastardised version of it) and she finds those experiences pleasurable. Now, maybe she just so happens to have the same dormant kink as her boyfriend, but more likely, given that’s the only sexual experience she has, she’s presuming that he’s “introduced her to what she likes” rather than subtly guiding her to like what he’s shown her. She likes what he likes and that’s all she knows so it’s good enough, right? Well, how would she know, because that’s all she knows. Doesn’t mean she’s unhappy, but you can’t say unequivocally that that’s who she is when she’s never had the chance to try anything else because the guy in the driver’s seat already knew what he wanted.

I don’t know her husband obviously but I feel like I’ve met a lot of guys like this. Guys who think that you’ll be so impressed by them that they can curate your experiences so that your preferences end up aligning with theirs and you won’t notice because you’re just happy to be there. And a lot of the time it works because how many women who’ve never lived the lifestyle of an affluent middle aged man would notice?

And I guess that’s where I start to get a bit iffy about, not the age gaps, but the experience gaps. If you’re 30 and you’ve lived your whole life in one town, never travelled, never gone shopping in NYC, for example, I think you’re more on the back foot with a 40 year old man with money than a 21 year old who has been educated at a Swiss boarding school and grown up with the trappings of wealth. Because she knows what wine she likes and she won’t be intimidated by the women at the charity gala because they’re just like her mother, and that man won’t be able to tell her how he wants her to fit into his world because she already has a place in it, to an extent. Now, I don’t know the background of the writer of that article, but the way she writes about herself doesn’t lead me to believe she feels - to this day - that she has a place in the world she inhabits without the man who essentially brought her into it. So in a sense, he’s given her an identity.

Basically, I don’t think he’s introduced her to herself, I think he crated a version of her that would be a good partner to him. He’s Pygmalion and she’s Galatea and she’s oh so grateful.

And that’s not bad per se, if she’s happy then that’s fantastic for her. No shade whatsoever. But there’s guys that aren’t so nice about it, and there’s guys who go further with what they want you to like than just the wine or the clothes. And…idk I think she’s sold what is essentially kind of a crappy way to look at yourself - as the lottery winner - as some kind of dream. Except it’s a dream she clearly lives in fear of waking up from.

#not f1

2 notes · View notes

istorkyou · 2 years

Text

A Situationship (Modern!Ivar AU)

A Modern!Ivar x OFC

Warning - STRICTLY 18+ Smut. Language. Alcohol use.

Synopsis - No strings attached. What could go wrong?

Word Count - 4648

Big thanks to @punkrocknpearls for cheerleading, laying her beta magic all over this and the AMAZING moodboard. Look at it. Look at it now. None of my bullshit would see the light of day if it wasn’t for her, so she’s to blame!

Tag List - Let me know if you want on or off :)

@smears-and-spots @punkrocknpearls @youbloodymadgenius @momowhoo @zuxiezendler @not-another-viking-fanfic-blog @ivar-s-my-brat-tamer @pieces-by-me @heavenly1927 @berryonasummerevening @synnersaint @out-of-the-box-and-into-alchemy @petite-hime @serasvictoria @mimiiinspace @itsmysticalmystery @lonewolf471 @mylifeisactuallyamess @draculasbride-blog @love-all-things-writing @southernbe @redhead7799 @kaybee87 @ivarlover @ivarhoegh @idgafiamallthefandoms @darkphoenix5037 @profoundtyrantharmony @snarling-through-our-smiles @crazyunsexycool @xceafh @bragisrunes@noway4u @batmandallyboy @complicatedbutrare

Chapter 1

______________________________

Chapter 2

It's the fourth weekend in a row he’s spent at her place. It’s becoming a regular Friday night ritual: he finishes work, showers, sends her a text or she calls him, and he goes to her when her children are gone and the coast is clear.

Friday inevitably rolls into Saturday morning and twice now it’s rolled into Sunday. He is hoping it will be one of those times this weekend. He loves being in her space; it’s a chilled atmosphere, the kind of ambience he aims for in his own house.

“I do have a life you know,” he says, watching her walk in from the kitchen carrying two glasses of wine. “I know I’ve been here every weekend for a month but I do have a life, friends, plans.”

She smirks at him, placing the wine on the coasters on her coffee table. “Good for you, Ivar.”

“I’m just saying I’m not some sad sack who doesn’t have any other options.”

“Hmm, and yet you have chosen me for the last four weeks. Isn’t that strange,” she teases him. “Are you addicted to me, Ivar?

“Oh piss off!”

“You come here on a Friday and sometimes spend your whole weekends with me… it’s my pussy isn’t it? You just can’t get enough of my wet pussy.”

He grabs her quickly and pulls her into his lap, slapping her hard on her butt.

“It’s this fat ass that keeps me coming back,” he throws her sideways, pushes her dress up and sinks his teeth into the flesh, knowing he will leave a mark; he knows she likes that. She squeals and protests weakly, wiggling her ass in the air at him, grinning broadly.

Alexa plays an alarm from the kitchen and she wriggles off his lap but he holds her still, his hands kneading her cheeks. “Ivar let me up, the dinner will burn!”

Over dinner she asks another upfront question. “So, this thing we’ve got going on, is it going to be a regular thing?”

He swallows thickly, nerves building at what she’s going to say.

She continues. “Because if it is, I need to set boundaries.”

“I’m listening.”

“I have children, under no circumstances are your paths to cross. I’m not interested in this developing into anything other than sex. I enjoy your company and you fuck like an animal, which I love, but this is a booty call. Nothing more.”

“A full weekend booty call. Gotcha,” Ivar chuckles.

“Neither of us is to get pissy if we are busy on the weekends and can’t see each other,” she instructs.

“Obviously.”

“Do you have anything to add?”

“Can we date other people?” Ivar asks.

She looks at him incredulously. “We aren’t dating, Ivar. I’ve no interest in knowing what you do with other people when you aren’t with me. I have no intentions of telling you if I date anyone.”

“Are you going to tell people about me?”

“Am I fuck!” she says with a huffed laugh. “I can just imagine my friends' reactions! One of my friends started dating a guy six years younger than her and he got nicknamed The Foetus. I’m certain you are much, much more than six years younger than me. Uh, I don’t want to know!” She holds her finger up as he opens his mouth.

“I don’t want it getting back to my kids, that’s the main reason. My friends have big mouths. It will get back to their kids, they will spread it around the school. Ugh, I can do without the extra noise in our lives.”

“Fine, I won’t tell people then. Although I would revel in telling them all that I’m fucking the woman with the ass from the bar.”

“Oh Jesus!” She rolls her eyes at him.

“Our secret then. We are just for us.”

She smiles and nods. “Just for us.”

What she’s proposing is actually perfect for Ivar. He works long hours during the week. He doesn’t have the time, much less the energy, to be adding something as time consuming as a relationship to his plate. Plus he knows he is an asshole, and she definitely isn’t. He would probably just drag her down, inevitably push her away and hurt her.

“You know this is a bit more than a booty call, right?” he asks with narrow eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“A booty call is when you fuck and then leave. That doesn't seem to be our pattern. Our pattern is we fuck, I stay, we fuck, I stay, we fuck…” He holds his hands out at the plate in front of him. “Dinner isn’t usually included. This is a situationship.”

“Oh.” She is clearly surprised. She thinks for a second, “I clearly need to brush up on the lingo. I’m not calling it a situationship though, that’s wanky. This is the first time I’ve had a regular…thing. I suppose you better give me that plate back then, if it’s against the rules.” She reaches across the table with a shit eating grin on her face. He snatches it out of her reach and laughs.

“I wasn’t complaining! Get your hands off!” he shouts at her before she rounds the table with a look of mischief on her face, but the sudden ringing of her phone stops her.

“Saved by the bell, sunshine!”

He watches her pick up the phone and take a breath at the name on the screen as she answers it.

“Hello, Steven,” she says in a flat tone.

All her spark goes when she talks to him. Ivar knows he didn’t snuff it out of her; she’s chosen to give him nothing more of herself and Ivar admires her for that.

As he is finishing his meal he sees her shut her eyes, and her jaw muscles contract.

“Steven, for fucks sake. I will come and pick them up.”

Silence again and she glances at Ivar then leaves the room, but her place is pretty open plan so he can still hear her.

“Just fucking stop, okay? I am coming to get them. Yes, I’m sure it’s the worst cold you’ve ever had.” She puts on a patronising tone. “Nothing at all to do with the fucking football game on. You could have just been honest when I offered to keep them this weekend, now you’ve fucked up my evening.” She isn’t shouting but the coldness in her voice sends a clear message.

Ivar hopes he’s never on the receiving end of that tone. He sighs heavily and starts to clear the plates, loading the dishwasher. He knows he’s about to be kicked out and the least he can do is help clear up the kitchen.

“Yes I had plans, and what those plans are, are none of your business. Steven, do not do this to me next weekend because you know this has been booked for a long time. Have them ready, I will beep when I get to yours.” Another pause. “ I don’t know how long I’ll be, I've got to rearrange shit. Just so we are clear, this is a really shitty thing to do to the children.”

He knows she’s hung up when a frustrated string of swear words are shouted.

She stomps back into the kitchen. “Thanks, you didn’t need to do that. I’m sure you heard. I’ve got to get the kids.” She walks to him and kisses him hard. “I’m so sorry, I was looking forward to this evening,” she says with an annoyed curl of her lip.

Her shoulders are raised in tension, much like his are most of the week and he knows how to help her.

“Sit up here.” Ivar pats the island in the middle of the kitchen.

She looks at his hand and frowns. “What?”

“Sit up here. I didn’t get my dessert.” She frowns, then a small blush appears across her face when she realises his meaning.

“I need to get my kids…” She gestures with her head towards the door.

“Your children are fine. It’s your dick of an ex that’s ill. You need to to relieve some of that stress and I’m not seeing you next weekend by the sounds of it. So sit your ass up here now,” he commands her gently, patting the island again.

He can see she likes this side of him, an assured attitude. Bossy almost. A little glimpse into the Weekday him. So she does what he says, but she takes her panties off first and hitches up her dress.

The marble is cold and she squeals when her bare ass touches it.

Ivar pulls one of the stools up in front of her, sits down and pulls himself as close to the island as he can and wrenches her legs apart. He runs his hands up her smooth legs, over her thighs, pushing the dress up to her waist while enjoying the view as she leans back on her hands.

He has an idea and removes his hands from her.

“This position isn’t going to work,” he announces seriously. “Get on all fours.”

Her eyes widen in shock. “All fours?! On my kitchen island?”

He nods and keeps his face set straight.

She shakes her head and chuckles at him. “Horny little bastard. You just want to see my ass in the air again, don’t you?

“I really fucking do. I had plans for you tonight and it seems I have to hurry those along. All fours.”

She slowly does as he says.

“This fucking ass will be the death of me, you know that?” His fingers walk up the back of her thighs onto her ass cheeks, then he scratches his nails down her skin.

“Ivar…” she breathes out.

“Shhh,” he whispers close to her exposed pussy, and her breath hitches as he runs his tongue over her. “You like that? Filthy little fuck buddy.”

“Oh shit…” she moans as his tongue runs up over her asshole. She lurches forward but his fingers dig into her thighs, pulling her back towards him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His tongue runs over her again, circling her hole before he moves down and pushes it into her wet pussy. When he focuses on her clit she completely loses it, her high-pitched moans filling the air, repeating his name over and over again, pushing back against him, reaching behind her to hold his head in place.

He slips two fingers inside her, coating them in her arousal before he pulls them out and starts to rub her clit. She is about to come as he starts licking her asshole again. She falls apart in front of him, thighs shaking, screaming into her arms.

As his mouth leaves her he slaps her ass hard twice, and she collapses onto her side on her counter top.

“You okay there?” he questions with a laugh.

“Not really,” she answers shakily before sitting up and pulling his mouth into hers for a deep kiss. “Fuck! I’m supposed to just go about my evening after that?”

She slips off the counter, praying her legs hold her up. “You are a dirty little shit, Ivar. I love it.”

Without breaking eye contact she drops to her knees in front of him. “Cum on my face.”

“Yeah? I’m the dirty one am I?”

He pops his jeans open, pulls his dick out and starts to jerk off quickly. He grabs her hair when he’s close, pulling her face towards his dick. He paints her cheek with his hot cum, running his thumb through the mess.

“Fuck that was hot as hell.”

She smiles up at him before getting up, walking to her sink to wash him off.

“I will see you soon?” He asks as pulls his jeans up, doing his buttons and belt up.

“I’ll message you.”

They leave her house and as he pulls her in for a kiss she puts her hand in his chest stopping him.

“Neighbours.”

“If your neighbours are really that nosy they’ve probably twigged that I’m here every weekend, you know?”

She rolls her eyes. “See you soon.”

——————

The next weekend she's away. He doesn’t know any details about where she's gone, or with who, and he feels a bit at a loss when Friday rolls around.

He doesn’t want to go out with his brothers, so he decides to be a responsible business owner and work on some of the admin he’s let build up. He checks his phone more than he usually does but doesn’t admit to himself why. Not that he needs to, memories of them are rolling through his head like a movie.

When he gets into bed he sends her a message saying he hopes she had a nice evening and to have fun the rest of the weekend. As soon as he presses send he gives himself a telling off; they don’t text like this. They only text to arrange to meet up.

She reads the message twenty minutes after he sent it but doesn’t reply and by Saturday afternoon he still hasn’t heard from her. He tries not to let it get to him, but he is a little pissed at her lack of reply and decides to call Hvitserk to find out the plans for the night. He needs a distraction.

A girl he meets at the club pays him a lot of attention; she's a pretty girl but when she asks him if he wants to leave the club, he turns her down. He’s still preoccupied by her lack of reply and it’s eating at his mood.

Hvitserk notices. “Hey, you okay? You turned that smoking hot girl down. What’s up? Stressed about work or too busy thinking about your secret girl?”

Ivar’s head whips to his brother, a foul look on his face.

“Oh come on, Ivar. You think it would go completely unnoticed that you’ve been AWOL every weekend for a month? How dumb do you think we all are?”

Ivar gives him a look that can only be described as withering. “Do you really want me to answer that question?”

Hvitserk scoffs. “When do we get to meet her?”

“Never,” he replies simply. “Anyway, it’s not like that between us. Fuck buddies, nothing more.”

Hvitserk looks at him like he doesn’t believe that bullshit for one second. “Okay, if you say so. So take that hot piece of ass home then!” He gestures to the girl that was hitting on Ivar.

He starts thinking why he turned the girl down. Over an unreplied text message from someone he met a month ago? Someone who has been clear about her boundaries and doesn’t want to know anything he does when they aren’t together.

“Fucking simp,” he says under his breath as he calls the girl back over.

He takes the girl back to his and they fuck. He asks her to leave not long after and heads for a shower.

He fishes his phone out of his jeans pocket and his stomach lurches. He missed a FaceTime call from her an hour ago whilst he was fucking that girl. She left him a voice note when he was in the shower.

“Sorry I FaceTime you. I’m very, very drunk and horny and I wanted to watch you jerk off for me but you are probably out. Going to sleep now. See you when I see you.”

“Fuck!” He shouts as he throws his phone across his bed before he stops dead. He has just caught his own thoughts. He would rather have jerked off to her on FaceTime than fuck the random girl.

Oh Jesus Christ.

He scrubs his hand down his face. He realises he needs to get a handle on this very quickly. He can’t allow himself to get this into her, let any sort of emotional connection form. He cannot cross her boundaries, it’s not fair when she has been so open and direct with what she wants. What he needs is some time away so he can reset. Remind himself it’s nothing more than sex.

——————

When she calls him on Friday morning asking if he wants to come to her place that evening he turns her down. Predictably, she is cool as a cucumber about it which makes him feel worse. If he was honest with himself he would have wanted to hear something in her voice, disappointment, anger, hurt…anything really.

He takes another girl home that night.

The next Friday he receives the usual call asking if he wants to come over but he is away for the weekend for Hvitserk’s birthday so he turns her down again.

He is distracted all week. He wants to see her, he’s not been pining or thinking about her loads so he’s sure he’s managed to get himself in check and now he’s just desperate to fuck her again.

It’s 8pm on Friday, he’s been waiting all day for her call or text but nothing.

He gives himself a little pep talk and calls her.

“Hi stranger,” she answers jovially. He can hear she is out somewhere, the background noise is loud and full of chatter and the disappointment immediately hits him in the stomach.

“Hi. I just wanted to see if you were free tonight?”

“Not tonight,” she replies and he thinks he hears regret in her voice and it gives him some hope.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Hang on, it’s hard to hear you, let me go outside.” The background noise fades to street noises. “That’s better. What did you say?”

“I asked if you were free tomorrow?” he repeats.

“Sure, I’ve got no plans. I kind of thought we were done, Ivar.“ There’s no hurt or anger in her voice, just her usual candour.

“You did? Why?” He knows full well why.

“Well I haven’t seen you for weeks, you turned me down two weekends in a row and I hadn’t heard from you this week. Just came to a logical conclusion.”

“Just circumstance, nothing more. Were you sad?” he teases.

“For a minute,” she replies, he can hear the smile in his tone. “It will be nice to see you.”

“Are you going to tear me apart? I bet you’re horny as fuck, after a month with no dick!” He laughs and waits for her cheeky response but he is met with silence.

His stomach drops.

“Oh, I see,” he says and swallows heavily, hoping she didn’t hear the disappointment in his tone.

“What? Are you trying to tell me you’ve been pussy free since we last saw each other?” His silence speaks as loudly as hers did. “Exactly!” She laughs.

He clears his throat and shakes off the negative feelings. “Okay, so tomorrow then? Shall I come over in the morning?”

“Oh hell no, I’m going to be hungover. Come over in the evening. See you then.” She hangs up and Ivar’s left to deal with his confusing feelings.

——————

He can’t help but ask her if she’s dating anyone when he gets to hers the next day. He tries not to, but his id takes over and the stupid, immature words are out of his mouth before he can bite them back.

She gives him a wholly unimpressed look. “Rules, Ivar. I don’t tell you, you don’t tell me.”

“Well, I’m not dating anyone, just so you know.”

She sticks her fingers in her ears. “La-la-la…Don’t need to know, don’t care. Rules, Ivar,” she repeats.

“Fine,” he says sulkily. He doesn’t know what he expected; he wanted her to be happy that he wasn’t seeing anymore, but that’s not her and not what this is. He starts to wonder whether this might be bad for him in the long run, but one look at her ass and he internally bitch slaps himself.

“Can I have a drink?” He walks to her liquor cabinet and stares at her impressive collection.

“Help yourself.”

“To anything?” he asks in a shocked manner. Some of these drinks he’s only seen in the best rated bars across the world.

She looks bewildered. “Yeah.”

“The Suntory Hibiki??”

She shrugs. “Yeah.”

“It’s the 21. It’s discontinued.”

“Jesus Christ, Ivar. I know what it is. Do you want it or not?”

“Fuck yeah I do,” he says excitedly and pours himself a glass.

“If you dare put water in it I will throw you the fuck out of here quicker than you can say the word heathen,” she points her finger at him.

He settles on her sofa, a brown leather Chesterfield, the comfiest sofa he’s ever sat on. He swirls the liquid gold around the heavy-bottomed, crystal tumbler, letting the aroma of the extortionate drink coat his olfactory senses, making his mouth water before he even sips it.

“Do you know how expensive this shit is?” he asks, holding up the amber liquid to the light, swirling it once more before taking a small amount into his mouth, enjoying the slight burn over his tongue and the smoothness as he swallows.

“Yes I’m aware. I bought it,” she replies as if it’s nothing. “Who the fuck do you think buys my shit, Ivar? I do. Always have.”

“What do you do for a living?” He knows he shouldn’t have asked. Again, that's not what they are.

She doesn’t even answer him. She just raises an eyebrow until he is uncomfortable enough to look away.

He asks permission for a top up later in the night.

“Ivar. You have to stop asking me for a drink. You have been here enough to just help yourself. You remind me of one of my kids' friends asking permission. Just get yourself a drink.”

He immediately prickles at her words, comparing him to a teenager. His nostrils flare in extreme annoyance.

It’s time to show her a side she hasn’t seen.

“Get over here. Now.”

She glances at him and huffs out a laugh, carrying on pouring herself a glass of wine.

“I said get over here now!” His voice isn’t raised but it is harsh, commanding, making sure she is in no doubt that he is serious.

She shuts the fridge and stands in the kitchen, one arm crossed over her waist and the other arm holding her wine glass up. He doesn’t break eye contact and he can see clearly she is trying to figure out this new side of him she hasn’t been privy to.

“I didn’t stutter. Get. Over. Here.”

The quirk of a smile on her lips makes his heart beat quicken. She has always led him, given him instruction, and that dynamic was new and exciting to him, something he’s only ever experienced with her. But her words have pissed him off and now he is going to show her what he’s usually like.

She walks to him slowly. She’s wearing a summer dress, short, strappy with buttons running all the way down the front.

“Stand there.” He points at the floor just in front of him. She does as she’s told, silently, waiting for his next instruction.

“Take off your underwear and give them to me,” he orders.

She is still silent as she turns on the spot so she is facing away from him, lifts the back of her dress up over her hips revealing the lacy, teal thong to him. She hooks her thumbs into them before bending over and pulling them down to her ankles.

Ivar clenches his jaw tightly, trying to stifle the noise that tries to make its way out of his mouth. He’s in control here, he reminds himself, even though something prickling in the back of his mind tells him she’s playing him at his own game.

She straightens her back and carefully steps out of her panties before dropping to her knees, picking them up and putting them between her teeth. She turns to him, doe eyed and slowly crawls towards him, parting his legs gently and dropping them into his lap before crawling away again, ass high in the air, dress covering nothing.

As she stands up she faces him and raises one eyebrow at him in challenge.

He grabs her panties and shoves them into his pocket. They are going home with him.

“Undo five buttons and show me your tits.” He shifts on the sofa, trying to give his boner some room within the confines of his trousers.

She does as she is told obediently, never breaking his eye contact. When she reaches the fifth button she pulls her dress open so her tits are on show to him. She ghosts both her hands over herself, thumbs lingering until her nipples are hard. When he manages to rip his eyes from her chest she has a naughty grin on her face.

“Take your dress off,” he instructs her with a ragged breath.

She slowly unbuttons her dress until it’s fully open, tits and neatly-trimmed pussy on show but still on her shoulders. She stops all movements, waiting for him.

“I told you to take it off.” He has tried to resist but he is powerless now, the hottest woman he’s ever fucked in front of him, her dress revealing everything to him. He can’t wait any longer, he unbuckles his belt and pushes his trousers and boxers to mid thigh, his massive hard on on show. He starts to move his fist up and down himself slowly.

She doesn’t move an inch. Her eyes are on him jerking himself off, her mouth open in desire, her breath becoming more shallow. She speaks for the first time since she was in the kitchen.

“Can I sit on your dick?” She’s never asked him for anything, she’s only ever told him what she wants from him.

“Only if you do as you are told, like the good girl I know you are, and take your fucking dress off.” He pulls a condom out of his wallet, opens it and rolls it on.

She wastes no time, she shimmy’s the dress off her shoulders in two seconds but stays in her spot. Waiting for his permission.

His face splits into a devilish smile at her compliance, a new dynamic unlocked.

He holds his dick out, ready for her.

“Come on then. Hop on and make me cum.”

She is on her way to him before his sentence is finished, legs either side of his, rubbing him through her folds before slowly sinking onto him.

“Oh shit, you enjoyed that, huh? So fucking wet…”

She fucks him frantically, holding onto the back of her sofa before she shifts weight and plants her feet either side of him and fucks him like he’s never known in this position.

When they both cum, her screaming up at the ceiling and him grunting into her chest, they stay panting into each other for a long time.

When he regains his composure he pulls her hair to the side, facing her down to him and he runs his tongue along her lips, an angry yet satisfied sneer on his face.

“I asked permission because it’s polite. I didn’t want to just help myself to something that can’t be replaced.”

“Everything can be replaced, Ivar.”

He huffs a laugh and runs his thumb across her bottom lip. He is pretty sure that he’ll never find anyone that could replace her.

“Don’t compare me to a child again. I didn’t like that. I’m younger than you but I will fuck your brains out, do you understand me? I am more of a man than anyone you’ve been with. Am I right?”

He sees the slow smile creep onto her face and she nods at him because he’s right and he knows he’s right.

She pulls his bottom lip between her teeth, biting him gently. “Cocky little shit,” she tells him before slipping her tongue into his mouth.

Chapter 3

#vikings #MODERN VIKINGS #vikings au #vikings fic #vikings fandom #vikings fanfic #ivar #ivar the boneless #ivar ragnarsson #ivar smut #ivar fanfic #ivar imagine #ivar lothbrok #vikings modern au #modern ivar #Modern!AU

85 notes · View notes

trans-cuchulainn · 2 years

Text

i grew up attending an evangelical church, and one time when i was maybe twelve or thirteen, my youth group had a discussion about abortion

on the whole, it was what you would probably expect from an evangelical-but-not-quite-hellfire-and-brimstone church youth group discussion about abortion. the general vibe was that we were not supposed to approve. there were graphic and upsetting descriptions of late-term abortion designed to evoke negative emotions. the usual “the child of a crime isn’t the one who committed it” innocence spiel. all of that. and under any other youth group leader, it would have been nothing more than that: a scaremongering session designed to indoctrinate us into a particular anti-choice mindset

but my youth leader listened to all of us privileged, safe teenagers discuss the “issue” and come to all the conclusions we thought we were supposed to come to as Nice Christian Teens, and then, right towards the end of the session, when she’d heard all of our ignorant judgments...

then she told us the story of how, before she had her son (who was a few years younger than us), she had an abortion

and i don’t remember the exact details of her story. but i do know it wasn’t a dramatic story about rape or a non-viable foetus or anything like that. it was a case of her not being in a position to feel ready to have a child, and choosing not to

and she told us that, knowing that everyone in the room was primed to judge her for that choice

and what she did, in that moment, was teach all of us that the issue we were discussing like it was a hypothetical thought experiment that would never touch us personally was actually something real, and personal, that had affected people we knew. people who were ‘just like us’. people who shared our beliefs and our values. it wasn’t a philosophical issue, it was people’s lives, and sometimes -- more often than we knew -- those people were in the room

i think she was incredibly brave

and i have never, ever forgotten that moment. and whenever, in my evangelical teen years, i found myself slipping into black and white thinking, i remembered that moment. that there is always the potential that you’re in the same room as those for whom your abstract ideologies are lived experiences

i am very grateful to her. i think she had more of an impact on me than either of us knew at the time. i haven’t belonged to an evangelical church for a long time now, but i’m still unlearning a lot of things that shaped me during my upbringing, and i’m glad that she, at least, gave me some things i didn’t need to unlearn

#abortion #just been. thinking about this moment in the light of *waves hands* everything

68 notes · View notes

tired-night-owl · 2 years

Text

Red mittens

Fandom : The Owl House

So i got my period unexpectedly at work and this idea popped up in my head : What if Amity got her first period in the human realm ? It came out a bit less like I imagined it but still liked the idea. Hope all my uterus holders or fan of the hurt/comfort trope enjoy it too.

Word count : 2,279

Summary : Amity’s time of the month make its first appearance in a place she would've preferred not to. The boys get it all wrong and dramatize the whole ordeal making Luz and Camila fear for the the purple haired girl’s life.

Notes : Period talk, Mention of blood, Straight up embarrassing scenario, Mention of Lumity, Mom!Camila, a bit of angst I guess.

She’s been feeling weird all day without really knowing why. She didn’t want to bother anyone so she kept it to herself but it was starting to be suspicious. «��It’s just a big tummy ache that’s all » she told herself. Maybe eating so much human food didn’t agree with her. It’s not that Camila’s food tasted bad but maybe it had something to do with witch biology… Amity didn’t want to insult Luz’s mom by telling her she didn’t feel good and theorized that it was her cooking. Beside, it wouldn’t be her first instinct to go to her own mom for things like this so why would she go to someone else’s mother.

She pondered telling Luz about it but she could tell her girlfriend already had too much on her mind after, well everything. Amity didn’t want to make Luz feel any worse than she already did.

So she went for the second closest person she had with her : her old childhood friend Willow.

Willlow was outside working on a garden full of vegetables, her way of thanking the Noceda family for taking her in. Amity approached slowly and cleared her throat to let the girl know she was there. Jumping out of her own skin by the sudden disruption in her floral concentration, Willow screeched Amity’s name.

« Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.. I- i’ll just leave » Amity apologized with a face so bright it could make the tomatoes in Willow’s garden jealous.

« No no you don’t bother me I just didn’t hear you come, I guess I was really in my zone huh? » the dark haired girl replied playfully.

« What is it Amity ? » There was clearly something wrong for her to look down at her shoes like that Willow thought.

Amity hesitated. Should she really bother someone for a simple tummy ache, certainly it wasn’t a serious situation if no one else than her had one.

« I dont know Willow… since this morning I feel sick and it seems like it’s only getting worse. »

« I’m scared it has something to do with the human food but I don’t want to hurt Camila’s feelings… » the purple head continued.

« Really ? I know it’s not the food we’re used to but I haven’t felt anything and I don’t think the guys did either... Perhaps you have an intolerance to something. What are your symptoms ? » Willow questioned with a voice filled with concern for her friend.

« Well I have a headache that comes and goes, my insides feels weird like this cramping in my lower stomach and - » Amity interrupted herself.

She felt something fall. Something she wasn’t expecting to happen. It couldn’t be ! Not yet and not so far from home… Willow got the hint as Amity’s gaze fell to her pants. Oh Titan…

Willow already had to suffer the embarrassment of going to her fathers when it first happened to her three years ago. She was quite young and cried all day because she thought she was dying. She laughed internally remembering that day but knew she had to keep her composure because it’s not a lighthearted moment the first few times it happens.

« No no no no no no ! Oh my titan Willow what am I gonna do ?! I can’t live this with a stranger ! Camila is the sweetest but its too embarrassing… » she whined as she curled in a foetus position in the dirt.

As she did so, Willow noticed something that would probably finish off Amity from humiliation.

She took off her green cardigan and asked Amity to stand up. Mortified already by the situation, she started crying as Willow put her tricot around her waist. With her face in her hands, Willow still managed to decipher Amity’s muffled sentence.

« I always thought I would have to go to Emira for this and I don’t even know if she’s safe or if I’ll ever see her again… The universe really wants this to be the worst year of my life it seems… » she tried joking between her tears so that Willow wouldn’t pity her too much.

Willow took Amity’s hand in her own in an attempt to comfort her.

« I know you must miss your family at a time like this and I’m honored you came to me for help. I promise you I’ll do everything in my power so that it stays between us. » she reassured.

They stayed in the garden for a little while because Amity wasn’t mentally prepared for the eventual encounter she would have to go through with Camila. Asking her if she could buy her the necessities could be the death of her if she hadn’t already survived an evil goo emperor. It was already embarrassing to tell her... She felt like a beggar to ask for such things of a woman who was already struggling to provide for them. Willow had too as well she imagined, so Camila won’t make a big deal out of it at least. But Luz ?! As much as Amity liked the caring side of her girlfriend, she really didn’t want the word to slip out and she knew her girlfriend would try hard not to, but her acts of service would eventually sell her out to everyone in the house.

As if reading her mind Willow asked her why she didn’t go to her partner with her female predicament.

« I don’t want her to worry more and think this is somehow her fault… Plus, wouldn’t it be like Luz to celebrate my sudden entry into the womanhood with a party or something. » she chuckled nervously.

« Yeah i guess maybe she wouldn’t be the most subtle with this. » Willow laughed softly

The braided girl stood up and dusted herself off before offering a hand to her childhood friend.

« Who knew a couple of months ago we would reconnect this much ? »

Amity laughed at the irony and responded with a quick compliment.

« I don’t think I could’ve imagined it then but I consider myself extremely lucky to have you with me for this now Willow. »

The girls made their way back home trying not to run into anyone. Certain their secret was safe for now they entered almost on their tiptoes not to be noticed, but little did they know Gus saw everything from afar outside…

———

The young boy was studying the small fauna in the Noceda’s yard when he overheard a commotion in Willow’s garden. He didn’t mean to spy on them but when he saw Amity crying he knew something big was happening. She usually was a very collected girl, so something awful was clearly going on. Something was off with Willow too because she shared a sad empathetic look with the youngest Blight. That was more than enough to send the young boy into a frenzy of theories and scenarios.

Gus ran inside and into the basement where Hunter and Luz were working on tiny little accessories for the palisments.

« I don’t think you should sew that with this fabric Hunter, its gonna look wonky on ghost… » Luz chid

Before Hunter could start bickering, Gus was already there with a panicked look on his face unfolding his synopsis.

———

Willow and Amity managed to get into the bathroom without being noticed too much. Willow brought her some new pants, underwears and what was left of her own sanitary products. They started frantically scrubbing her stained clothes in the bathroom’s sink. The red mark creating diluted crimson ribbons against the white surface as they washed it. Gus hurried his two companions up the stairs and into the garden but they were gone. Panic seized the trio as they ran back inside. Luz asked her mother if she saw where they went. Camila responded by simply pointing to the bathroom without even looking up from her book.

Gus started wildly knocking on the door and without waiting for an answer barged in. The girls both looked up with horror in their eyes but it couldn’t match the expression Gus had plastered on his face. The poor little guy almost fainted at the sight and the overwhelming amount of stress he had just put himself through.

« Blood, BLOOD ! SAVE US TITAN ! AMITY’S DYING ! » he screeched

Hunter ran to the kitchen screaming as he fetched the first aid kit and came back to the group without knowing who to go to first : the girl who was seemingly bleeding in the bathroom or the young boy who had just collapsed on the floor. Luz stood there, frozen, scared for her girlfriend and panicked by all that was going on. She realized after starring at them for so long what exactly they were trying to wash.

« Oh… » was all she managed to say.

Camila, annoyed with all this commotion, joined the clearly troubled group of young teens she had took under her roof. She bent down to make sure Gus was okay and as she got up, understood the cause of the ruckus pretty easily.

« Everyone, OUT ! » she ordered

They were all shocked by the abrupt outburst. The woman never showed this side of herself before and they were all a bit scared by it. Two of them grew up with an abusive parental figure, the others didn’t have a maternal presence in their household so didn’t know what to expect from one and as for Luz, well she never saw her mom angry before now.

To say it was a shocker was an understatement but they all listened immediately and hurried back into the basement. Hunter was having a full blown panic attack in the corner thinking he did something wrong and that Camila would throw him out or worse. Gus was still shaking at the sight of Amity’s blood while Luz was sitting on the sofa, staring at her feet. When she finally snapped out of her trance, she tried calming down her friends.

« Gus relax, Amity’s not dying and Hunter, my mother isn’t mad at you she just wanted us to scram I guess… » she reasoned with the boys. Vee had joined them, taking her headphones off freaked out at what she heard.

« Amity’s dying ?! » the basilisk questioned alarmed

« No she’s fine, just a little… woman… accident… » Luz almost but whispered the end of her sentence

« Oh… » they all said simultaneously.

———

Camila locked herself in the bathroom with the girls, her rigid tone from earlier completely gone.

« Sweetie, why didn’t you come to me with this ? » as she took the soiled clothes from them

« I didn’t want to bother you Mrs Noceda… and I was a little embarrassed too I guess… » Amity replied, blushing up to her ears.

« There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Sure I understand you would have preferred to be with your own mom for thi- » Camila stopped her sentence as she saw willow frantically shaking her head no behind Amity.

« -or just maybe not with someone you barely know but I never want any of you to be embarrassed to come to me with your problems. » the mother announced in a soothing voice with her hands on both their shoulders.

« Beside it would have taken you ages washing a blood stain by hand like that, believe me. When I was your age, I bled through all my clothes on the first night so I got used pretty quickly to cleaning up those stubborn spots.» she said with a proud look on her face

Amity’s exhaled softy as a laugh.

« I know it probably will be embarrassing, but you guys should go down and clear up this misunderstanding with the others before they start making it weirder. » Camila suggested

« I think we might be too late for that » Willow responded.

———

They followed Camila’s advice and went downstairs. Willow was first in line, leaving a chance for Amity to prepare herself for this delicate encounter with her friends.

As soon as they heard the stairs creak a little, everyone’s head shot up towards them. When usually only one of them would blush as the sight of one of the girls, the pink colored cheeks could be seen on every faces in the room. Seeing as Amity didn’t seem to be ready to make the first move yet, Willow initiated the conversation.

« We didn’t mean to spook you guys and honestly we didn’t think anyone saw us. Sh-We wanted to keep it private because…well… » she struggled to continue

Amity took pity of her friend who was trying to cover for her and finally decided to stand up for herself.

« I’m not sure when or how I expected this dreadful day to play out even in the isles but I didn’t mean for it to go all insane like that… »

« I-I- we … » she lost her train of thought trying to stay polite.

« We understand and we’re sorry. We shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place… » Hunter cut her off

Silently thanking him for saving her from further embarrassment, Amity shot him a shy smile which he returned.

« I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spy I swear but you guys looked so shady in the garden and with everything that happened back home I thought you were hiding an injury of something serious and- » Gus rambled.

« It’s fine Gus. Next time just come to the person concerned first instead of spreading your wild stories to everyone okay ? » Willow asked him with a giggle.

« Yeah i guess I kinda blew this out of proportion a little » he said scratching the back of his head

« A little ?! » everyone replied laughing

Amity didn’t know how it would’ve played out in what she thought was her « normal » world but by looking at them now, she guessed it didn’t go too bad after all.

22 notes · View notes

rallamajoop · 1 year

Text

Resident Evil Village

So, although Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was (and very much still is) supposed to be next in the gaming queue, I somehow spent Christmas playing Resident Evil 8: Village.

And having now finished this damn game on three different difficulties, developed an addiction to the Mercenaries challenge mode, discovered a host of unexpected feelings about Ethan Winters & family and that Heisenberg bastard, and read a godawful amount of fic… I’m still a little undecided how surprised I should be that it sucked me in so hard.

Because on the one hand, if anything in that crazy franchise was going to get me, clearly it was going to be the one full of vampires and gothic horror tropes (not to mention being set in that one mysterious region of Romania we all know from the Hammer films, where everyone speaks English for no particular reason). Looking back, I’ve been in and out of horror-adjacent fandoms since, oh, about when the first Venom movie came out – maybe this was the next logical step.

On the other hand, it’s an FPS: a genre I only grudgingly came around to at all a matter of months ago. And though my days of saying I don’t do FPS are now undeniably behind me, it’s also a horror game, and (all recent records aside), when it comes to horror games, I am a wimp. The kind of wimp who watched playthroughs of P.T. back in the day going holy fuck I could not manage to walk down a corridor in this shitshow the atmosphere alone would smother me alive. The kind of wimp who noped the fuck out of Portal on the very first level featuring turrets (holy shit, they’re shooting at me? Those are bullet holes in the wall! Is that MY BLOOD on the wall? Oh my god how am I not already dead oh my god) and never came back.

What made the difference this time? Well, apparently my general aversion to shooting people doesn’t so much apply to lycans and zombies, and horror games are much easier to deal with when you’ve already watched a Let’s Play of the whole thing, and know what you’ve signed up for. Or maybe I’m just old and jaded enough that I’m not as easily scared by pixels as I used to be. It certainly helped that Village leans more towards the shallow, action end of the survival horror pool. But as for That One Bit that everyone talks about when they discuss how RE8 made them shit their pants, I can only admit that the other thing I learned about myself watching those playthroughs of P.T. is that ‘screaming mutant foetus monster’ is exactly the point at which my brain gives up on terror and just goes “…well that’s just a bit gauche, isn’t it?” (Don’t talk to me about those don’t-look-away walking dolls from the DLC though. That bit got to me like no screaming foetus ever did.)

No, the really odd thing about me suddenly falling hard for this game is that, well, it didn’t get me at the time. Much as I’ve enjoyed watching apparently the whole rest of the internet being brought together in mutual horniness for the incomparable Lady Dimitrescu, the whole step-on-me-mistress-thing has never really been my jam – and though I did watch that Let’s Play of the full game way back when, nothing about it grabbed me enough to become really fannish about it at the time.

What changed? Well, we can partly blame a couple of youtube channels I’ve been casually following lately by folks who were also big Resident Evil fans. But the tipping point may have been my questionable decision to watch a playthrough of the new Shadows of Rose DLC at exactly the wrong (or perhaps right) time of the month, resulting in me bawling my eyes out and discovering feelings about the Winters family I never knew I had.

All that said, actually buying and playing the base game was one of those random whims, entered into with 0 expectations I was actually likely to finish the thing. I mean, the factory section alone looks like such a slog.

…so it turns out that (putting aside the hassle of navigating the place) the factory can be a ton of fun once you’ve figured out what you’re doing.

What can I say? This is a game truly brimming with personality, the dark-fairytale vibe utterly works, the campy OTT villains are a delight, I will gladly fight anyone trying to tell me Ethan’s a boring nothing of a protagonist – and having had the time to get past the “GDI game is this guy supposed to be a lycan or not? MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND!”-annoyance* that stopped me from enjoying Heisenberg properly while watching the playthrough, this time I fell for him hard (and wound up shipping him with Ethan, so fandom has got me again). The ending delivers, the horror elements are on point, and it’s just damn good fun to play.

Doing my first run on Casual difficulty was my one mistake. It’s the mode most widely recommended to the inexperienced player, but either that’s a recommendation calibrated for folks playing with a controller rather than a keyboard, or all that time playing Deus Ex (which, I remind you, is heavy on stealth takedowns and 3rd-person-cover mechanics that do not apply here at all) prepared me better than I realised, because Casual difficulty bored me. The mechanics, world and story still carried me through, but I did not die a single time that wasn’t thanks to an insta-death mistake. There’s no way to change difficulty mid-game, and you’re far enough in by the time you really get to find out how difficult combat was going to be that I didn’t feel like restarting. But having finished the game, I was hungry for a real challenge.

So this is when I noticed New Game+ was an option – as was unlocking infinite ammo for many weapons – and rationally deciding that replaying on only Standard difficulty with the added advantage of all those upgraded guns wasn’t going to cut it, I jumped difficulties right up to Hardcore mode.

This, too, may have been a mistake. The very first lycan attack had me running to the Internet for advice on how to survive it (it turns out the accepted strategy is basically to just hide in a cellar for as long as possible, then leg it into the next house and climb halfway up a ladder, where you’re very hard to hit). But with that milestone cleared, I found my groove, and had a much better time (though I certainly died a lot more this time through). Even with all the upgrades, it was pretty damn punishing in places – but punishing in the way that forces you to really engage with the mechanics (or at least learn to love the good old ‘set a mine and back away’-strategy). And I’m pleased to say that unlike DX:HR, RE has proper difficulty modes: we’re not just tweaking damage ratios, enemies also get much faster and more aggressive at higher difficulties – not to mention those damn lycan archers now apparently have the accuracy of a sniper.

Having beaten the game on Hardcore, I was pretty well done (there’s an even harder mode, Village of Shadows, but I wasn’t looking for that much punishment). But any lingering doubts about how fully I’d embraced the shooty-bang-fun-times side of Resident Evil gameplay were well and truly put to bed by the time I’d discovered the Mercenaries bonus game.

This mode sets you up with limited weapon selection up against a hoard of easy-to-kill enemies, scoring you higher the longer you can keep a combo going. Again: not the sort of thing I expected to suck me in, but anyone who’s ever watched me play a rhythm game will know that I can be a real sucker for a full-combo challenge. Mechanically, it’s almost the opposite of beating the story on Hardcore, but it forces you to learn layouts of some game areas in ways you never needed to before, and actually seeing numbers for how much damage you’re doing illuminates so many mechanics you were just guessing at.

Better yet, there’s a hoard of stuff you can unlock by playing it, including (as of the DLC!) the ability to play as Heisenberg or Lady Dimitrescu, which is a whole heap of fun in its own right. And if you’re prepared to play long enough to get 25 other achievements (I was), you can even unlock ‘special customisations’ for most of your weapons in the main game – boosting damage even further, or a bunch of other bonuses that I could not resist trying out…

…only, having already beaten the game on Hardcore, there wasn’t much appeal to doing that again, only with less challenge. So… oh fuck, I’m going to play this thing on Village of Shadows difficulty after all, aren’t I?

Honestly: no regrets. Lord knows I’d never survive this mode going on raw (shut up shut up I’M NOT GOING TO TRY), but it’s very doable on New Game+2. And it’s very much the mode for folks who’ve already beaten the game at least twice, because just when you were getting familiar with the story’s pre-scripted roster, this mode mixes it up and throws in new enemies where you don't expect them (and just rarely enough that they’ll always be a surprise). Having trouble with those lycan archers on Hardcore? Well, now there’s more of them, in places you didn’t expect! Had enough trouble escaping Lady D. after she slices off your hand? Ha, now we’ve spawned an extra enemy in the same space, and did we mention that you have no weapons you can use one-handed? (Seriously, good times! And that’s ‘times’, plural, because surviving that one took me a few tries.)

All that said, I’m not sure those ‘special customisations’ were really calibrated for even this difficulty – and they’re vague enough that you’ll find that out the hard way. The magnum’s ‘Extra damage against lycans’-bonus, for example, apparently means ‘can now one-shot even the alfa varcolac miniboss’ (pictured below). And sure, that’s the magnum: but the sniper rifle’s ‘extra damage at range’ can do the same thing. It’s just maybe a bit much.

Honestly, I’d be all for it if the point was to give players who really want that Village of Shadows achievement another way to get it – but then you get to the gauntlet that is the endgame, and all that fancy souped up inventory gets taken away from you for plot reasons.

Actually, I’d put the start of the endgame-gauntlet back at Sturm (last boss of the factory level before Heisenberg), because even though you’ve got your regular guns there, he’s invincible from the front, charges like a mad bull and can apparently target you through solid walls. Then you fight Heisenberg, in the obligatory here-have-a-tank sequence, and neither New Game+ upgrades or special customisations have any effect on your tank. And then you get the section where you have to play as Chris, whose lousy pistol-and-machine-gun arsenal is also unaffected by special customisations (though I can see no good reason why not). And Chris’ section really is a gauntlet, with an uncooperative auto-save, an infinite stream of charging lycans, and another boss fight against some bastard who doesn’t take damage from the front, swinging a giant mace in a tiny arena. All of a sudden, you’re playing the exact same version of this game as someone who never hit New Game + at all.

I died a lot in this section. Seriously, so many times. But I stuck it out, and I gotta say, damn but these higher difficulty modes force you to learn how to play. In case anyone else reading this actually wants some tips: stuck at the Stronghold? The trick is to book it back to the entry passage the moment the first wave starts, maybe drop a mine or two, and use the narrow space for crowd control (same thing works during the second wave – it gets a little less intense from there). Stuck in the factory? Learn to love flash grenades! Sturm? Again: flash grenades! (You would not think a guy with a propeller for a face would be so susceptible, but who am I to argue with results?) Heisenberg? Turns out aiming for those glowing weak points really does make a difference, and your tank can make a MUCH faster dash out of the way of his charge move if you stop firing the machine gun. Chris? God, don’t even get me started on Chris.** (“Oh my god, Chris, your lousy pea-shooter guns have all the stopping power of wet tissue! Get a real gun, you LOSER!”)

After all that, the letdown at the end is that Miranda (the final boss) is kind of a piece of piss. You finally get all your old inventory back, and she takes damage from the front and everything. After dying a stupid number of times reaching every milestone above, Miranda went down in one go. I’d be more unimpressed by this, but after all Ethan’s been through at that point, maybe he kind of deserves it.

Obviously, I had to play Rose’s DLC bonus campaign too, but – much as I loved it for story and atmosphere – it was admittedly less fun to play. That’s probably deliberate: it’s much more down the survival horror end of the action-horror spectrum – aiming is slow and cumbersome, and your options and resources are very limited. Given that you’re playing as a teenage girl rather than a grown man on his second rodeo, that makes a lot of sense… but there’s still not a lot there to have me eager to come back for a replay. (Her final boss battle is a lot more satisfying, though it does suffer from the fact you’re thrown so many new mechanics that just figuring out how you’re supposed to use them is pretty distracting.)

I could go on at this point – as always in new fandom mode, I have so many thoughts on the world, the fandom, the challenge of piecing together the backstory timeline, the possibilities for where this series might go in future, and how poor Mia deserves so much more love than she gets – but that can all wait. The long and short remains: I never would’ve imagined how hard I could get sucked into this game, but I have had such a time learning how wrong I was.

* Look, if a guy who shows up with the lycans, and can apparently command other lycans, is not supposed to be a lycan himself, then maybe think twice before including another giant lycan character who a) wears his coat, b) USES HIS HAMMER and c) never appears on screen at the same time as him. You’ll save so much confusion on the part of your audience, I promise!

** Really? Well, fine.

The game autosaves shortly after you beat the first two varcolacs (I found it helped to go left around the fungus into the field, and use some grenades), and again once you reach the clearing (protip: if you can make it there, everything behind you despawns! There are a couple of real waves of attackers to get through to get there though, plus a slow-but-constantly spawning stream of lycan runners to mask that), then one final time before you jump down the hole. Knowing those auto-save points is useful, because 1) reloading your last manual save point will put you all the way back before the Heisenberg boss fight, which is officially Too Far, and 2) if you pass an autosave accidentally after using up all your supplies and on low health, the next bit is going to be that much harder. To survive the clearing, forget killing everything: spend the first wave hiding behind the house on the right with the supplies (it confuses them), and the second hiding behind the other house with supplies on your left, then climb the ladder to the roof and stand up to target the mould. Don’t climb the roof earlier: the archers will get you. To survive the boss, try to run under his swings when he leaps at you, hit him with a flash grenade every time your pals with the goddamn space laser are ready, target him, then shoot the hell out of the weak point on his back. [deep breath] DONE! (And goddamnit, Chris, if I have to listen to you say ‘I’ve reach the target clearing. Damn this looks big’ one more time, I will shoot you myself.)

#Resident Evil Village #Resident Evil #more overlong gaming anecdotes

8 notes · View notes