#of COURSE he has coping mechanisms when the comfort and kindness he naturally extends is rarely returned | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

redrobin-detective · 3 years

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Ben 10 lore that exists in my heart regardless of canon

- Ben’s personality in his mid-late teens is a mix of his Alien Force and Omniverse self. On the surface, he’s very cheerful and kind even if he is a bit of arrogant showoff. He makes jokes and plays around and acts as if he isn’t bothered by the things in his life. Those who know him best understand a good portion of his outward confidence and cockiness is just a facade to cover up his insecurities and to project the ideal, effortless hero. While sometimes seen as immature, most beings know Ben 10 means business as he takes his unofficial job and people’s safety very seriously. He’s clever, adaptable, charismatic and empathetic which makes him a formidable opponent and a loyal friend. Doesn’t open up easily but if you get to him, he become so dearly attached.

- Drinks smoothies so much for several reasons. Comfort food go brrr, reminds him of the good easy times with him Gwen and Kev. It’s also a light but generally nutritous food to give him energy for heroing. Anything too heavy and he’ll be puking (both from physical and emotional stress). Though he jokes about his mom’s health foods, his are a crazy concoction of add in proteins and vitamins/minerals bc he knows he’ll out and out collapse without it. (Still has on occasion bc boy still doesn’t eat right/enough)

- While Fame is exciting for him at first he soon begins to detest it. Not the fans, no, he can’t bring himself to hate the people who look up to him. But he hates the constant attention, that he can’t walk outside without being mobbed. the only place he feels safe is his hometown where most people are so used to him and his weirdness that they don’t react much anymore. Takes to wearing a cape and face shield when going out anywhere so he can actually get things done without being recognized and mobbed.

- Part of the reason Bellwood isn’t concerned with Ben is partially because ben’s been weird and alien for as long as they can remember but also many don’t realize how famous/powerful he is. Yeah that’s just Ben Tennyson over there, sometimes he turns into funny creatures- wait what do you MEAN he’s the savior of the universe?? He cried over a spilled smoothie the other day.

- Does mostly online schooling by the time he’s 15. At first he tries to do half day things to maintain something of a normal life but it quickly becomes overwhelming and dangerous him/the school. Finishes his GED early but the Plumbers and Azmuth make him take additional college level and alien courses to prepare him for his future role. Ben gripes but really does love learning all these things, especially on his terms (ADHD and stress + the public school system do not always go hand in hand). He’s a quick learner when he deems the information important and is made accessible to his learning needs.

- Ben definitely has ADHD speaking of which, it was nearly uncontrollable as a child bc his free-spirited parents didn’t believe in medicating. Ben convinced them he needed it and after some trial and error, found meds that worked. As he became more involved in heroics/growing up he had to change his medicine regimen (resulting in him being a bit more off the rails in OV) and needed antidepressants and therapy to manage it better. As an adult he has a whole litany of coping mechanisms (good and bad yes) and regularly checks in with his therapist and doctors to keep things under control.

- Has a complicated relationship with his necrofriggian children. Considers himself their mother and worries after them. They too feel a connection to their parent despite this being unusual for their species. A few visit (some more than others) while they grow while others maintain distance. Ben never breathes a word of them to the media for fear of them being targeted. Still he keeps an eye on them and ensures all 14 mature to adulthood (another rarity for the species). Checks in every now and again with the ones who don’t want to see him and those that do. Two join the Plumbers and Ben is both proud and worried. His youngest becomes partners with Rook Ben.

- Just in general loves kids, they’re his favorite fans and while he’ll grumble at pushy adult fans he always smiles and kneels down for the little ones. Not so secretly wanted to have children of his own but knew it was a risk overall and used a lot of that energy with mentoring and teaching. Eventually had Kenny later in life (late 30s-40s) and was over the moon, becoming such a loving and doing parent or as much as he could be with his hectic schedule.

- Omnitrix can’t come off, never has at any point since it first latched onto Ben’s arm. Azmuth tried and failed to get the device off, doesn’t let Ben know for many years as he feared the consequences. The watch loves and protects Ben even beyond it’s programming making him much more durable to damage and releasing energy charges when he’s threatened. Not even removing Ben’s arm would separate them. They’re stuck for life.

- Ben does have Anodite heritage but the Omnitrix actively suppresses it and uses the built up energy to power the transformations which is why ben is mostly unaffected by what should cause a massive energy drain on him. Theoretically if Ben learned to harness and safely use his Mana at an early age like Gwen he would have been fine but letting it build up without safe outlet meant activation would have killed him. Omnitrix Ben, however, went his whole life not knowing of his latent abilities and how the watch saved his life.

- Ben’s eyes get more green and glowy as time passes from the Omnitrix. At first they think its a trick of the light but by the time he’s an adult his eyes are pretty much glow in the dark. His veins light up too after long stretches of using the Omnitrix. Its vaguely unsettling to people who aren’t used to Ben.

- Max and the Earth Plumbers work so, so hard to keep teen Ben on Earth when half the universe is blowing up their comm lines asking for The Ben 10 to help with whatever problem of the day. Ben himself doesn’t quite understand when he’s younger the prestige and expectations on his shoulders. Max throws up a million and one roadblocks so Ben can live as normal a life as possible while he still can. Still, while doing that he Still overloads Ben with expectations and responsibilities on earth and beyond. He becomes a soldier again with Ben as their greatest weapon. He never forgave himself of losing sight of his grandson underneath the hero esp after Ben’s breakdown.

- Rook partnership with Ben ends not long after Omniverse with his promotion to Magister. Ben tries to play it cool but the thought of another loved one/teammate leaving his tears him apart. Max revealing that Ben most likely wouldn’t get a new Plumber assigned partner since he’s almost an adult and won’t need it and Rook accidentally missing their last smoothie run due to a scheduling mishap causes Ben to snap and have the nervous breakdown that had been building for almost a decade. He completely loses it for a little while and needs to take an extended leave of absence from school and heroics that lasts about a year. Spends time recovering both on Earth and Galvan Prime, does some diplomatic training, learns about aliens, actually confronts the stress and loneliness of his life. He comes out the other side stronger but still fragile and exhausted.

- Ben’s above mentioned breakdown brings him closer to all his friends who didn’t quite realize the extent of Ben’s burden. Rook had been under the impression Ben didn’t like him all that much so the knowledge that his departure was the final straw for friend/hero’s collapse was shocking. Ben and Azmuth also become closer, the Galvan becoming fiercely protective of the boy seeing as his Earth family didn’t do well to keep him safe. It takes years for him to get over his anger at Max for putting so much on his grandchild. Ben makes more friends, in and out of the hero business, finally gets a therapist and gets some of his burdens eased a bit. It’s not a sure fire fix and Ben has several smaller breakdowns the rest of his life but its something.

- Azmuth was straight up suicidal before he met Ben for the first time. Ben gave him back hope for the universe and his ability to create items for peace not weapons. The boy infuriates him, frightens him, frustrates him but Azmuth cannot deny in his heart of hearts that he loves Ben dearly. He’s very upset at Ben’s breakdown and doesn’t know how to handle the worst of the initail outbursts. Azmuth talks Ben down from a suicide attempt. He reaches out to Ben that he Too felt overwhelmed by pressure, thought himself only good for war. Ben’s arrival in his life saved him and now he will do the same for Ben. It’s the first positive step forward in Ben’s recovery.

- For no other reason than I like it, Azmuth primarily refers to Ben as Benjamin (mostly to annoy the kid but he likes the way it sounds too) and Ben in softer, more serious moments.

- Professor Paradox continues to flit in and out of Ben’s life. He says its because Ben is the most equipped to handle universal peril (true) but he’s also just very fond of the boy. Ben, existing in so many forms and having such importance also exists a beat outside of normal reality which Paradox identifies with. Ben is naturally attuned to time related problems because of this (instantly IDing Spanner as from the future before being told later deducing him to be his unborn son). Plus Ben named him, way back when. He’s just drawn to Ben.

- Adult Ben, while being seen as an impressively skilled fighter and champion, really has his strength as a universal diplomat of sorts. Based out of Earth, he helps mediate and defuse conflicts, advocate against tyranny and overall preserve peace and balance. He’s not perfect, he makes mistakes and sometimes is forced to become violent (and yes kill) but overall is regarded as a peacekeeper, something younger ben simply couldn’t understand.

- Gwen gets her degree and primarily does work with advocacy and teaching about magic/alien culture. While she and Ben are still close, there’s a bit of a frustrated divide in that she isn’t helping him share the burden of the universe. Gwen never wanted to be a hero and has enough worth to not shackle herself to a job that’ll burn her out. Ben loves heroing but gives too much of himself away trying to fix everything. They get into screaming arguments that it wouldn’t be so bad out there if she just helped him but she refuses to budge and says he shouldn’t make himself do so much. They always make up and thy still are each other’s closest relationships.

- Ben marries Kai in a political move, Kai is Asexual and Ben Aromantic. They didn’t love each other but they got on well enough and Ben was really feeling the stress of carrying the hero burden so Kai also being involved made him feel like he wasn’t alone. Both were also so tired of the universe constantly asking about their love life and said ‘fuck it we’re married leave us alone’. Gwen was always mad about it feeling Ben deserved better but the two of them were happy with it. They had separate rooms, mostly separate lives but they became strong friends and supports with their strictly platonic marriage. They had Ken via Invitro in an incubator and were loving if extremely busy parents.

- Also from the moment he appeared, Ben knew that Spanner was his future son, Kenny. He played ignorant and then was kind of deliberately teasing him in future encounters. He knew the rules of time and didn’t want to disrupt things further even if he was angry and worried as heck about why Ken felt the need to time travel. When future Ben catches up in the timeline, Kenny gets SUCH a lecture.

- Ben isn’t quite immortal but he’s also not entirely human anymore either. The Omnitrix not only keeps him safe from most harm but it lightens the effect of aging. Ben 10 is active many, many years when most humans would have been forced to retire. He’s not sure how long the watch will keep him alive and it terrifies him. Gwen too is functionally immortal however she ages like a normal human, then when her natural death came, shed her skin and became a fulltime Anodite. So in the end, it was her and Ben together wondering which of them will die first. Gwen has trouble retaining her humanity as pure energy and swears she’ll let herself fizzle out when Ben goes. When that’ll be however...

#Ben 10 #this took sooo long whoops #i wanna write about ben's breakdown so mad you have no idea

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spacestationdaedalus · 3 years

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when my demons won’t let me be

or: not in his right state of mind, Jon accidentally compels Martin. It’s not okay, but it’s okay.

or or: i spend so much time reading sick fic and i finally wrote one of my own angst and plenty of hurt/comfort, warnings for canon-typical compulsion and descriptions of panic and disassociation

Martin wakes to a shifting of weight and a cut off breath. It's a hazy half-awareness, coming to him under a snowdrift, on a radio station drowning in dull static.

In a well-practiced motion, Martin extends an arm over the covers to rest on Jon's chest. He doesn't let the full weight fall, not yet. Enough for Jon to know he's there, a touch light enough that Jon can readily push away or lean into. It depends on the particular brand of nightmare, the terror that's chosen to follow him to sleep. Sometimes he sets Martin's arm aside with a gentle squeeze, sitting up against the headboard and taking comfort in the cool bedroom air and the sound of Martin's breathing. At least, in Jon's own words. Other times, he holds Martin's arm to his chest, taking comfort in the weight and warmth of it.

Neither of those things happen, though.

Jon rolls sharply, seemingly ignoring Martin's arm in favor of the other side of the bed. He curls around himself with a low whine, harshly cut off in the back of his throat.

"J'n?" Martin props himself up on one arm. Voice rough with sleep, but no less concerned.

Jon shifts, a back and forth movement that looks like it could be the shaking of his head. His shoulders are taut and trembling. He makes another sound that could be the beginning of a shout, and it brings Martin to full awareness. He moves his hands to Jon's shoulder before he has time to think, desperate to help, to comfort, to something.

"Jon, it's alright-"

“Don’t touch me!” Jon bursts out, dripping and full of static and oh oh oh. It cascades over Martin’s mind, oily and slick. His hands pull away like they've been burned, but numb and far off. As though belonging to a stranger.

He shifts away from Jon and off of the bed, limbs moving robotically to pull back the covers, to move him away until his back meets the bedroom wall. Martin's hands are raised halfway, frozen in a caricature of comfort. A puppet on strings. He wants to move, shout, anything. But the gaze of eyes he can’t see bears down on him, an insurmountable weight holding him in place. Like a butterfly pinned inside a glass display case.

Jon is sitting up, now. Eyes (eyes, eyes, he's all eyes) blown wide, bright and glassy even in the low light of the room. His breathing is ragged and uneven in obvious panic. Even with his hands clenched tight in the front of his nightshirt, Martin can see they’re trembling. Martin’s heart aches and he wants to help but he can’t move and Jon’s eyes are still on him and he can’t breathe and it hurts. And he's afraid. He can hear his pulse pounding in his ears, the eyes are still watching him and it feels so much like burning paper and righteous anger and Elias's face and everything Martin had been trying to forget.

Jon brings up a hand to cover his mouth. Horror and panic clear in his eyes, which Martin knows are reflected in his own. Then Jon backs away, clearly unsteady on shaking legs. Martin's vision starts to blur (when was the last time he blinked?) but he hears Jon's steps fade into the hall. And Martin can do nothing.

The back of Martin's mind still using logic was hoping the feeling would fade once Jon wasn't looking at him. Unfortunately, Martin is used to being proven wrong. Face blank, body rigid, mind screaming.

Autonomy comes back to him slowly, a tingling in his fingertips that trickles down his arms and leaves an awful shakiness in its wake. Nerves making up for lost time, maybe. Trying to catch up with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. A grip Martin wasn't aware of begins to loosen from around his ribcage, and his first real breath in ages is a shuddering gasp. The force of it combined with the jelly replacing his knees sends him sliding to the floor, using the wall for support.

Martin breathes. In. Out. The first breath is molten in his lungs. His eyes water against it, and the second one is even worse. The third leaves as a sob that echoes back at him. In one last betrayal of his body against him, the tears spill over to drip down his cheeks. Martin rests his forehead against his knees and wills himself not to fall apart.

The Lonely was easy, in that regard. For months, Martin didn't have to worry about this kind of thing - the fear and anger and gaping misery that had been following them for so long. But evidently suppressing your trauma with more trauma wasn't a healthy coping mechanism. Go figure.

Leaving the Lonely was hard. Martin had spent most of the first 48 hours oscillating wildly between numb detachment and emotion so overwhelming he thought he would drown in it. Jon helped. He was patient, gentle, all the things Martin thought were too good to be true.

Martin forces himself up as soon as he's able. Maybe sooner, given the way the room sways when he stands. But it passes after a moment, and Martin goes to find Jon.

The house is dark. The occasional creak from the pipes and floors could be off-putting, but compared to everything else, it's benign. He uses fingers brushed against the wall to guide him down the short hallway.

"Jon?" He calls. The floor creaks in response.

Martin reaches the threshold between the hall and the kitchen. The haze of the moon behind thin clouds bleeds through the window above the sink, providing just enough light to see. Martin catches a shadow out of the corner of his eye, but it isn't actually a shadow, and Martin lets himself feel a hint of temporary relief.

Jon is tucked in the corner between two cabinets. Head buried against his bent knees, hands gripping into his hair in a position that mirrors Martin's from mere moments ago. Martin's heart leaps into his throat.

"Oh, Jon." Martin kneels in front of him, slow as to not startle him. If Jon notices, he makes no sign of it.

"Jon?" Martin reaches, but stops halfway. He doesn't want a repeat of before. His palm itches, but he keeps it airborne. Until he knows it's okay.

Jon makes a sound in the back of his throat, one that Martin hasn't heard before. His next inhale is strained and wet and - oh.

Martin had never seen Jon cry before. Angry, upset, shaken, sure. But not this. It twists something awful and thorny in his chest. Martin wants to hug him, but he keeps the few inches between them.

"Don't-" Jon starts suddenly, and for an awful moment the hairs on the back of Martin's neck stand up on end. But Jon cuts himself off with a keening noise, and curls further into himself. His shoulders are trembling, either from holding back sobs or the biting chill of the poorly-insulated kitchen floor, Martin can't be sure. Probably both.

"I-I'm sorry-" Jon stutters, sounding like each word is a fight to get out. "I-I-I don't - I don't know…"

"Just breathe, Jon. It's alright."

Jon shakes his head against his legs. "N-no, you need to-" A sob cuts him off.

"Need to what, love?" The term of endearment slips out naturally on Martin's tongue. If Jon notices, he doesn't say so.

"Leave." The last word crackles slightly in the air, like static electricity threatening a shock. Martin freezes. The compulsion threatens to overtake him, but it's weaker than before. It rings in his skull, and Martin fights it back until it fades to background noise.

Jon whispers, barely audible. "I can't - I can't control it."

Oh.

"Alright, alright…" Martin bites his lip for a moment. Nods to himself.

"Okay, let's just - I'll ask you yes or no questions for now. You can, ah - just nod for yes and shake your head for no. Is that alright?"

Jon's face is still hidden, but that's alright. After a moment, he nods enough for Martin to discern the movement.

"G-good, okay-" Martin pauses, not immediately sure what question to go with first.

"Did you have a nightmare, earlier? Is that what scared you?" Martin silently chides himself for asking two questions, but hopefully it won't matter.

Jon nods.

"Has this happened before? The, uh-" Martin makes a hand motion, but Jon can't see it. "Th-the 'not being able to control the compulsion,' thing?"

There's a pause, then Jon shakes his head. Martin frowns.

"Alright, that's alright. Do you think you can look at me?"

Another pause, longer. Martin doesn't press as the seconds pass. Then Jon slowly raises his head.

Jon's eyes are wide, rimmed with red and dark circles more pronounced than they had been in the last few days. Tears are steadily dripping down his cheeks, flushed dark against his complexion. His lips are pressed tightly together, and Martin can see the barely contained panic mingled with exhaustion in every line of his face.

"Hey." Martin greets, feeling like a small victory. Jon quickly casts his gaze down and to the side, not meeting Martin's eyes. He also moves his hands to wrap around his torso, shivering harshly against the cabinets. Martin frowns again. He racks his brain for the seemingly mundane moments from the previous day. Jon talking less as the day had gone on, his less-than-already-finnicky appetite, going to bed early because he said he was a bit tired. Nothing individually out of the ordinary, not after the hell they'd dragged themselves through just to get here. But-

"Jon, is it alright if I touch you?"

Jon nods almost immediately, but still avoids Martin's eyes. Encouraged, Martin moves carefully to press the back of his hand against Jon's cheek. It's warm - hot, even - to the touch. Martin checks his forehead for good measure, feeling the heat before their skin actually makes contact. Martin's winces in sympathy, moving his hand back to Jon's cheek. He uses both hands, for good measure, to cup Jon's face, and wipe the stray tears still dripping from his lashes.

"Oh, love. You're burning up." Martin says, gently. "That must have something to do with it."

Jon's brow furrows. He brings his own hand up to his face, seemingly to try and feel his own temperature. Martin can't help the quiet laugh.

"First let's get off the floor. 's not exactly comfortable, yeah?" Martin offers.

Jon doesn't react, eyes locked in a middle distance between the two of them. But then all at once his expression breaks, and he buries his face in his hands.

Martin's heart leaps into his throat. "Oh, hey, hey-"

Jon's words are muffled by his hands, and broken up by harsh, jagged sobs.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-I didn't-"

Martin moves forward slightly so he can wrap his arms around Jon. He can feel the shivers wracking Jon's frame, and the heat radiating off of him in waves. Martin tucks Jon's head under his chin, and holds him.

"Hey, it's okay." And it's not a lie. Martin was scared - terrified, to put it lightly. He knows he can't just brush that fear away. But he's not scared of Jon, never has been, never will be. And Martin know Jon, knows him and loves him and knows that he loves him back. Martin thinks that this might be more complicated than that, but right now, with Jon coming apart on the kitchen floor, it feels that simple.

"I know you didn't mean to, Jon. It's alright."

Jon shakes his head weakly in protest. Martin can't make out his exact words, jumbled as they are. But he feels the intent behind them, with the way they reverberate in his chest.

"We can talk about it later, when you're feeling better. But I'm not mad, I promise." Martin runs a hand through Jon's hair. It might have been a braid when Jon first went to bed, but it's mostly undone now. "Right now, I'm just worried about you. That's a nasty fever you're running."

They stay like that for a few minutes more. Jon's form is still a trembling leaf in Martin's arms, shallow and uneven breaths punctured by the occasional apology and stifled cry. Jon's forehead is pressed into his neck, burning like a furnace against Martin's skin.

Martin almost asks Jon if he can walk, but instead-

"Jon, is it alright if I pick you up?"

Jon tenses, and Martin immediately regrets asking. But then Jon nods affirmative, relaxing slightly into Martin's hold. Oh thank god.

Jon fits easily into the bends of Martin's arms, one at his back and one under his knees. Jon's hands clench the front of Martin's shirt, tightening and loosening in an uneven rhythm as Martin stands. It's easy for Martin to carry him the short distance to the bedroom, mindful of the narrow door frames.

The quilt and sheets are pulled back from before, which is helpful now. Martin eases Jon onto the bed. He brushes Jon's hair away from his face in what Martin hopes is a comforting gesture. But Jon still has that faraway, panicky look in his eyes, and Martin has an idea.

"Don't move, alright? I'll be right back, I promise." Martin presses a kiss to Jon's forehead, hoping he heard and understood enough of that to not mind when he leaves the room.

Martin comes back with a damp cloth and a glass of water. And a bottle of pain reliever - one that Martin had originally picked up from the store as an afterthought, but is grateful for now. He sets the glass and bottle on the nightstand and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed. Next to Jon, who hasn't so much as shifted in Martin's admittedly brief absence. Martin lays a hand on Jon's shoulder, but after a moment, moves to Jon's cheek. An olive branch to Jon's clouded awareness.

"Alright, love. I'm gonna lay this on the back of your neck, okay? Can you lean forward a touch for me?"

Jon doesn't move or otherwise react for a moment, and Martin is almost sure he didn't hear it. But then he pitches forward slightly, and Martin shifts so he can support Jon's weight against his shoulder. He brushes Jon's loose curls to the side, letting his fingers linger there for good measure.

"It's gonna feel really cold, but it'll help. Easy," Martin murmurs, placing the folded cloth on the back of Jon's neck. Jon flinches at the touch, hissing between a groan and a whimper.

"I know, I know." Martin soothes easily, adding other words of comfort here and there, lost to his memory as soon as they cross his lips. He holds Jon close, taking the chance to comb his fingers again through Jon's bed-moussed hair. He knows Jon likes having his hair played with, so Martin ever so gently works his way through some of the tangles, careful never to pull too hard or too fast. Jon's breaths slow and deepen - still marred by the occasional hitch, but a vast improvement from before. He gradually sinks more of his weight onto Martin's shoulder, until Martin is sure he's the only reason Jon is still upright. But Martin doesn't mind.

"Better?" Martin asks, when Jon's trembling passes and his breaths sound less like someone on the verge of drowning. Jon clears his throat.

"I- yes." He rasps, hardly a whisper. The word pulls a cough out of him, but he keeps going. "Th- thank you."

"Of course." Martin says. He all but beams at the sound of Jon's voice, wretched as it sounds. He considers making tea, but something about the bonelessness of Jon's posture tells him Jon won't be awake long enough to see a cup finished. But he does grab the glass of water from the nightstand, and shifts so Jon can take it in both hands.

"Drink some of that for me." Martin presses, and Jon doesn't argue. Martin reaches for the pain reliever next, shaking two pills out and handing them to Jon. He seems surprised at first, but quietly offers a thank you as he takes them from Martin's hand.

"How are you feeling?" Martin asks. It feels like a stupid question, but one of those stupid questions that you just have to ask in lieu of anything else.

"I'm-" Martin knows Jon is about to say I'm alright and something in his face must stop Jon from finishing, because he cuts himself off with a sigh. He presses the heel of his palm into his eye, suppressing a wince. "To - to be honest, uh, quite terrible."

The frankness of it could almost be funny, but Martin's heart aches instead. "I'm sorry. The medicine should help, at least."

Even without his glasses, Martin can make out the two in the hour place of the digital clock on the nightstand, and yeah, it's time for bed.

"And some proper sleep."

Jon nods, eyelids heavy. Martin takes the half-empty glass from his hand, and encourages Jon to lie back with a gentle push. Martin joins him on the other side of the bed, pulling the covers back over the two of them. He leans, partially sitting up against the headboard, inviting Jon into the place at his side if he wants it.

Jon fills the space immediately, burrowing his face into Martin's shoulder. Arms curled in front of him, pressed into Martin's side. He sighs softly. Martin watches the last of the tension bleed out of Jon's face, eyes closed. Jon's fever leaves Martin's side overly warm in minutes, but Martin can't bring himself to mind.

He's sure Jon is already asleep, but-

"M-rtin?"

"What is it, Jon? Do you need something?"

Jon makes a negative sound into Martin's shoulder, shaking his head. It's quiet for a moment, save for their breathing.

"I love you."

Martin freezes, and the response comes as naturally as an inhale after an exhale.

"I love you too."

#the magnus archives #tma #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #jonmartin #tma fics #my writing #i have not proofread this but i'm also proud of it pls forgive me

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hacawijo · 3 years

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Alright, If We’re Gonna Play with Az’s Bonus Chapter, Let’s PLAY with Az’s Bonus Chapter (Pt. 1)

I’m going to do a close reading of this bonus chapter, because this whole thing is stressing me out and I want to write out what I think I know what I definitely know and what I’m worried about. Here. We. Go.

I’m not going to directly quote supporting info in this post, but I will be using a LOT of quotes in the next few weeks, so if anyone wants me to confirm a certain statement I’m making here just let me know and I’ll drop the receipts :)

Also this is super long but I had a lot of thoughts I’m excited about! My commentary is in bold italics!

The river house had finally fallen quiet after the raucous Winter Solstice party, the faelights dimming to cast little pools of gold amid the deep shadow here is an example of contrast between light and dark, which many have made salient points on regarding the counterbalance of Elain/Azriel and their relationship of the longest night of the year.

Amren, Mor, and Varian had finally gone to bed, but Azriel found himself lingering downstairs.

He knew he should get some sleep. He’d need it come dawn, for the snowball battle up at the cabin. Cassian had mentioned no less than six times tonight that he had a secret plan regarding his so-called impending victory. Az had let his brother boast. Especially since Azriel had been planning his own victory for a year now. Had been planning his own victory for a year now, and had one the past 199 years’ worth of fights.

Cassian wouldn’t know what was coming for him. And Az fully planned on capitalizing on the fact that Nesta likely wouldn’t let Cassian sleep much tonight.

Az snickered to himself, to the listening shadows around him. Note the differentiation between himself and the shadows around him - he snickers to them outside of himself, as they are not HIM, they are his companions.

Sleep, they seemed to whisper in his ear. Sleep.

I wish I could, he answered silently. But sleep so rarely found him these days. Again, engaging in a conversation with them. Though he does say that they SEEMED to whisper sleep, which is interesting. He seems to communicate with them beyond worded language, this is a case where he’s translating whatever that communication is into words.

Too many razor-sharp thoughts sliced him any time he grew still long enough for them to strike Yeah this guy needs some therapy for sure, love him but this feels very much like the state of avoidance that Nesta found herself in. Too many wants and needs left his skin overheated and pulling taut across his bones. so he slept only when his body gave out, and even then only for a few hours. This feels very much like an extreme, one that certainly didn’t exist all of the time with Mor (otherwise he’s truly not been sleeping for…ever). I have a very, very hard time believing he would have this reaction because of lust or a coveting kind of obsession.

Azriel surveyed the empty family room, presents and ribbons littering the furniture. Cassian and Nesta hadn’t reappeared downstairs, though that came as no surprise. He was elated for his brother, and yet...

Azriel couldn’t stop it. The envy in his chest. Of Cassian, and Rhys. This is almost exactly the sentiment expressed by Cassian in ACOFAS/ACOSF

He knew he’d be swallowed by it if he went up to his bedroom, so he’d remained down here by the dying light of the fire.

But even the silence weighed too heavily, and though the shadows kept him company, as they always had, as they always would, he found himself leaving the room. Entering the foyer. Entering the foyer for what? Entering in order to go to bed? Or was he drawn there, somehow knowing Elain would be there? I really don’t know the answer and I don’t have a preference as to whether or not they are mates, but it’s worth thinking about. Also important to note that the SHADOWS ARE NOT ENOUGH FOR AZRIEL. They are his friends, an important coping mechanism, but they are not the sum of who he is, nor do they even represent the part of himself that is most realized or fulfilled.

Soft steps padded from under the stair archway, and there she was.

The faelights gilded Elain’s unbound hair, making her glow like the sun at dawn. She halted, her breath catching in her throat. Again, imagery to highlight a contrast between the two of them, Elain as the sun at dawn. Note that it’s talking about dawn, not day. SJM has repeatedly used language about Summer, Dawn, Spring and such to describe Elain, which makes me wonder if her light is meant to transcend the courts - in the same way that the shadows are not the sum of Azriel, the sun (the Day, the Dawn, Spring, Summer etc.) is not the sum of Elain.

“I...” He watched her swallow. She clutched a small gift in her hands. “I was coming to leave this on your pile of presents. I forgot to give it to you earlier.” One thing I noticed on closer examination, she went downstairs to leave it in his pile, not to see him. I wonder if it hurts her to be around HIM as well. Elain has said several times in this book (either on the page or in second- or third-hand account) that she is committed to this court, and I wonder if that same commitment that had her going to the Hewn City is what also has prevented her from ending things with Lucien. It’s not in her nature to be disingenuous, and so she cannot fake certain feelings for him, but it IS in her nature to be selfless, and she probably understands what their mating bond means and how important Lucien’s alliance is. I wonder also if she is unsure as to Azriel’s feelings or if she knows somehow, as Azriel sort of implies she might below.

Lie. Well, the second part was a lie. He didn’t need his shadows to read her tone, the slight tightening of her face. She’d waited until everyone was asleep before venturing down, where she’d leave her gift amongst his other, opened presents, subtle and unnoticed. This is another instance in which Azriel sees her when no one else does, even when she’s not intending or someone to see her. Also, of course, important to note that he can read her without his shadows - a crutch that he uses in interactions with many other people.

Elain closed the distance, and her breathing quickened as she again paused, now a scant foot away. She extended the wrapped gift, her hand shaking. “Here.” Elain makes ALL the moves in this scene - she approaches him, she asks him to put the necklace on her, she leans in, she says yes etc. etc. I think Azriel is actually very respectful and restrained throughout this whole interaction.

Az tried not to look at his scarred fingers as they took the gift. Azriel is ashamed of his scars, and is ashamed of them with Feyre and Mor as well as Elain, this is an across-the-board part of his characterization. She hadn’t bought her mate a present. But she’d gotten Azriel one last year — a headache powder he kept on his nightstand at the House of Wind The headache powder: proof that Elain has been seeing him - specifically seeing him rub his temples. Not to use, but to look at. Which he’d done every night he’d slept there. Or attempted to sleep there.

Azriel unwrapped the box, glancing at the card that merely said, You might find these useful at the House these days, and then opened the lid. Elain is not a casual person, she can’t even handle it when Feyre (her sister) tries to talk to her and Nesta (her other sister) privately about High Fae menstruation. For every lack of flourish or formality that Elain gives Azriel, that is another measured degree of comfort she feels with him - she wouldn’t give an unsigned, familiar note to just anyone.

Two small, bean-shaped fabric blobs lay within. Elain murmured, “You put them in your ears, and they block any sound. With Nesta and Cassian living there with you...”

He chuckled, unable to suppress the impulse. “No wonder you didn’t want me to open it in front of everyone.”

Elain’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Nesta wouldn’t appreciate the joke.” Elain and Azriel have similar senses of humor. Not necessarily in content, but in the way it sort of crops up off-the-cuff and sometimes unnoticed. I like that Elain makes him laugh.

He offered a smile back. “I wasn’t sure if I should give you your present.”

He left the rest unspoken. Because her mate was here, sleeping a level up. Because her mate had been in the family room and Azriel had needed to stay by the door the whole time because he couldn’t stand the sight of it, the scent of their mating bond, and needed to have the option of leaving if it became too much.

Elain’s large brown eyes flickered, well aware of all that. Just as he knew she was well aware of why Azriel so rarely came to family dinners these days. Alright so, this is really curious. Does this mean that they both seem to be aware of the other’s feelings AND aware that the other is aware of their feelings? I really do wonder if, in this case, Az is an unreliable narrator- maybe assuming more certainty of Elain than she actually has. Again, I don’t think he would have such a visceral reaction to Elain and Lucien being in the same room (and not even close to each other at all) if he was just infatuated or in lust with her

But tonight, here in the dark and quiet more juxtaposition, with no one to see... no one to see, except the two of them, who always see more than others and who always see each other more than anyone else He pulled the small velvet box from the shadows around him. Opened it for her.

Elain sucked in a soft breath that whispered over his skin. His shadows skittered back at the sound. They’d always been prone to vanish when she was around. If Azriel is aware of the fact that his shadows disappear around Elain, and is still almost certainly in love with Elain, I think we can gather that it’s a positive thing for his shadows to give them privacy- which- btw, is what I think they are doing. The shadows feel to Azriel, to me, the way that the HoW feels to Nesta. The HoW doesn’t dislike Cassian, but also doesn’t need to be as diligent with Nesta when he’s around, because the House trusts Cassian with her.

The golden necklace seemed ordinary — it’s chain unremarkable, the amulet tiny enough that it could be dismissed as an everyday charm. It was a small, flat rose fashioned of stained glass, designed so that when held to the light, the truth depth of the colors would become visible. A thing of secret, lovely beauty. So I don’t think he’s saying that Elain is a thing here. I think he’s saying that HIS FEELINGS for her are a thing of secret, lovely beauty. It’s been made pretty clear that Elain’s physical AND inner beauty are decidedly visible and prominent. She is, the opposite of secret- though she is often described as lovely. I think what’s more interesting here is the time dedicated to describing this gift and the time dedicated to describing Lucien’s gift of pearl earrings (more on that later, but spoiler-alert, that’s the extent of the description)

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, lifting it from the box. The golden faelight shone through the little glass facets this word choice is notable because it’s an indication of layers and depth and different sides, setting the charm glowing with hues of red and pink and white. Azriel let his shadows he let them do it, again the way he interacts with his shadows does not make it seem like they ARE him. It would probably say “Azriel’s shadows whisked away the box” or “Azriel used his shadows to…” etc. whisk away the box as she said softly, “Put it on me?” Again, Elain is driving the action

His head went quiet. But he took the necklace, opening the clasp as she exposed her back sweeping her hair up in one hand to bare her long, creamy neck. That this situation is described in such slow, delicate detail evokes a sense of intimacy and gravity to the reader. Every tiny piece of this little bite of interaction means something to Azriel and probably to Elain.

He knew it was wrong, but there he was, sliding the necklace around her. Letting his scarred fingers touch her immaculate skin this word choice is admittedly a little strange, but the use of this and later of the word sacrilege is FAR from the first time SJM uses religiously-coded language to describe a romantic/sexual/intimate situation. In this very book, Cassian describes his sex with Nesta “as close to a religious experience” as he’d ever gotten - furthermore, there is often talk of the worship of bodies. More on this in another post! ALSO, of course he thinks about touching her in relation to himself. He is himself, for one thing, for another, one of the most reinforced aspects of Azriel’s character that has been made clear to us as readers is his belief that he is unworthy. This comes up not at all just with Elain, it comes up everywhere. It comes up when Azriel volunteers for the most dangerous assignments, it comes up with Mor A LOT, it comes up with Rhys and Cassian. I HAVE A LOT MORE TO SAY ABOUT AZRIEL SO I JUST NEED TO STOP TYPING RIGHT N. Letting them brush the side of her throat, savoring the velvet-soft texture. Elain shivered that’s hot and he took a damn long time fastening the clasp.

Azriel’s fingers lingered at her nape, atop the first knob of her spine SUCH precise language, so agonizing. Slowly, Elain pivoted into his touch. Until his palm lay flat against her neck.

It had never gone this far. They’d exchanged looks, the occasional brush of their fingers, but never this. Never blatant, unrestricted touching. Another important line in reiterating the fact that there are two people participating in this interaction and the broader relationship, with the use of ‘exchanged’ and ‘their.’ It could easily also say something like, “Azriel had never gone this far. She’d sometimes caught him looking at her and he her, and every so often he’d taken the risk of brushing his fingers against hers.” Elain’s agency in these interactions and this relationship is SO IMPORTANT! It is the difference between Az viewing Elain as a two-dimensional and unattainable figure and as a real person with wants and needs.

Wrong — it was so wrong. Azriel knows, just as well as Rhys, what is at stake in Elain’s relationship with Lucien. He also has reverence for the mating bond in the same way that many other fae and faeries do. Of course he thinks it’s wrong!

He didn’t care.

He needed to know what the skin of her neck tasted like. What those perfect lips tasted like. Her breasts. Her sex. He needed her coming on his tongue — There is literally so much talk in Feysand and Nessian of tasting and eating out. Both Rhys and Cassian make it very clear that they spent a lot of time thinking about what their partners would taste like and how they might go about finding out for sure.

Azriel’s cock strained behind his pants, aching so fiercely he could hardly think. He prayed she didn’t peer down. Prayed she didn’t understand the shift in his scent.

He had only allowed himself these thoughts in the dead of night. Because he knows it’s a fool’s hope. He never thinks about this as a viable path! Had only allowed his hand to fist his cock and think about her then, when even his shadows had gone to sleep again a recognition of the separation between him and his shadows. How that beautiful face might appear as he entered her, what sounds she’d make. See above: Nessian and Feysand are just as dirty and graphic (especially Nessian) and Rhys and Cassian are JUST AS WORSHIPFUL of their partners.

Elain bit her lower lip, and it took every ounce Azriel’s restraint to keep from putting his own teeth there.

“I should go,” Elain said, but made no move to leave. Again, they are BOTH cognizant, I think, of the risks and dynamics at play here.

“Yes,” he said, his thumb sweeping in long strokes along the side of her throat.

Her arousal drifted up to him, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head at the sweet scent. He’d beg on his knees for a chance to taste it Rhys’s WHOLE THING is that he kneels before Feyre in reverence. But Azriel just stroked her neck again. SJM repeatedly uses the scent of arousal as a way to confirm sexual interest beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Elain shuddered, drifting closer. So close one deep breath would brush her breasts against his chest. She looked up at him, her face so trusting and hopeful and open that he knew she had no idea that he had done unspeakable things that sullied his hands far beyond their scars. I personally think this is Azriel being self-deprecating. I think that Elain is a seer, and probably has some idea of what Azriel does. Does this mean he puts her on a pedestal or that he views her as pure? It’s possible, but I think Azriel views most people whom he loves as pure compared to himself in one way or another— even Cassian. There is a line I’ll cite eventually where Rhys muses on the similarities between himself and Azriel, since Rhys is the only person Azriel allows to see the full scope of his rage. Ditto with the pedestal.

Such terrible things that it was a sacrilege same story as my point above on the word immaculate, but again I do totally admit that it’s a strange word. I just think that we have had so little of Azriel’s perspective that we can’t really say whether this is a perversion of his connection to Elain or if this is a regular sort of attitude for him for his fingers to touch her skin, tainting her with his presence.

But he could have this. This one moment, and maybe a taste, and that would be it. AND THAT WOULD BE IT. HE DOESN’T THINK IT WILL GO FURTHER!

“Yes,” Elain breathed, like she read the decision. You fucking go Elain get that ass Just this taste in the dead of the longest night of the year, where only the Mother interesting choice of words given Nesta’s association with the Mother and Nesta’s apparent tacit acceptance of Azriel’s feelings for Elain (more on that later) might witness them.

Azriel’s hand slid up her neck, burying in her thick hair. Tilting her face the way he wanted it. Elain’s mouth parted slightly, her eyes scanning his before flirting shut.

Offer and permission. OFFER AND PERMISSION. ELAIN WANTS THE SHADOWSINGER D!!!!!

He nearly groaned with relief and need as he lowered his head toward hers.

Azriel. And suddenly, the one time they both are comfortable with how they’re being seen (that Azriel is being seen by no one else BUT Elain, that Elain is finally being seen intimately, by someone, in the dark, namely, AZRIEL)

Rhys’s voice thundered through him, halting him mere inches from Elain’s sweet mouth.

Azriel. So if you were to ask me what the biggest sign of Elriel’s longevity in this chapter is, it is this: that they did not kiss. SJM built a very tightly worded and wound tension around this moment with her language, and. the fact that it is not fulfilled is frustrating, right? We know that he touched the knob of her spine - we know that she shivered. For that level of intimacy not to end in a kiss, means something. Rhys could easily have interrupted them after their lips had already touched, and if this relationship were a device serving another, that’s what would have happened.

SJM knows that the tension is built and unfulfilled, and I think she also knows that this wouldn’t have been the right time for them to have their first kiss - which is what I think many readers have noticed in so many words. Where my thoughts differ is that I think SJM is walking a line between romantically coding the moment AND acknowledging that this moment is not ideal, and that it doesn’t deserve to be fulfilled satisfyingly, especially given Azriel’s self-loathing. MORE LATER :) Which should maybe be my catchphrase.

Also, them not kissing can’t just be about the fact that it’s a bonus chapter. You can’t make that argument about their not-kiss and then argue that the interaction with Gwyn is essential to the coming story. Which, I think it is significant, by the way, I’m just not sure how yet :P

Unrelenting command filled his name, and Azriel looked up. Rhysand stood atop the staircase. Glowering down at them.

My office. Now.

Rhys vanished, and Azriel was left standing before Elain, who still awaited his kiss. His stomach twisted as he pulled his hand away from her hair and stepped back. Forced himself to say, “This was a mistake.” UGH. The capital P Pain.

She opened her eyes, hurt and confusion warring there before she whispered, “I’m sorry.” See, this reaction makes me think that she is not as aware of his feelings as he thinks she is. That she later returns the necklace (or did she?) reinforces this. I think that if she was certain how he felt about her, she would be frustrated and maybe angry in the way that she has responded to Feyre’s comments about her mating bond with Lucien, not hurt and confused.

“You don’t — Don’t apologize,” he managed to say. “Never apologize. It’s I who should...” He shook his head, unable to stand the bleakness he’d brought to her expression. “Goodnight.” But at least it definitely confirms her feelings to Azriel.

PART II IS BEING POSTED BACK-TO-BACK!

#acosf #azriel bonus chapter #azriel shadowsinger #elriel #elain archeron #rhysand #gwyn acosf #acotar #acotar theory #feyre archeron #close reading #line by line #evidence #nessian #lightsinger #elain x azriel #shadowsinger

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lilbabycee · 4 years

Text

bunny // steve rogers (part one) 🐰

READ PART TWO

↳ summary: the reader finds herself in a little bit of trouble... financially. enter steve rogers.

↳ relationship: soft dark!steve rogers x brat!reader

↳ word count: 5.6k

↳ warnings: sugar baby au, eventual dark steve, daddy kink, eventual smut, mentions of substance abuse, unhealthy coping mechanisms + relationships, the reader is rich and a little bit of a bitch

↳ author’s note: i started writing this series ages ago but i’m thinking that maybe posting it on here will give me the inspiration to continue! please enjoy! ❤️

chapter one: you expensive you know that?

—

" you expensive, you know that?

i'm high-maintenance a little but not in a, not in a negative way

i just like extremely expensive things"

- faithful, drake

—

“But Daddy-!”

“No, absolutely not,” your father shuts you down without hesitation which immediately makes your eyes water.

“Please, I promise I won’t do it again-”

“That’s what you said the last time,” he reminds you nonchalantly and you can hear the rapid clicking of a keyboard in the background of the call. He’s not even paying full attention to you, likely still working on whatever the CEO of a multi- billion dollar corporation needs to work on.

“But I’m serious this time!” you insist, cocking a hip and tapping your acrylics loudly on the top of your marble kitchen counter. “You know what I’m like - I swear I’ll do better this time-”

“Nope,” his hard tone cuts you off as you hear his office phone ring. He sighs loudly over the receiver which makes your heart fall. “Look, honey-”

You know what’s coming and you can’t even try to stop it.

“-I’ve got another call coming in. I’m not sending you another dime until you can prove to me that you have the ability to be financially independent. I didn’t pay for all of those expensive private schools so that you could sit on your ass all day and blow my money like it’s in endless supply. You have all the necessary credentials to go and get a well-paying job, so go get one, goddammit. And please call your mother - she’s been trying to call you all day. Neither of us have any time left to entertain your little addictions nor your blatant disregard for the hard work that we’ve put in to get you where you are today.

“You’ve proven to me before that you are grossly incapable of doing even the simplest of tasks, so don’t let me down with this one,” he sighs loudly. “Sometimes, I wish you were more like my colleagues’ kids - they’re doctors and lawyers but all you are is ungrateful. I’ve really gotta take this call,” he says your name sternly which makes you tap your nails even faster. “Do as you’re told for once in your damn life.”

“Daddy-!” you borderline shriek once more before the phone clicks and he’s off attending to more important business.

You don’t even realize that you’re pouting until your lips start to tremble, nor do you realize how much his words have gotten to you until you touch your cheek gently with your fingertips and they come back wet and glistening like gold in the warm light of day.

Maybe he’s right. You’ve been living in this penthouse for the past year without having to worry about anything. You loved it when you attended the first viewing, mainly because of the huge windows, three bedrooms and bathrooms (that you definitely don’t need because you live alone), the open plan, spacious kitchen and living areas, and the fact that all of your neighbors are either famous or excessively wealthy like you. You saw the acquirement of this apartment as a prime opportunity to further climb the social ladder, not that it’s really all that hard for you considering the fact that your father is one of the richest people in not only New York but the entire country. But you’d lived in Italy for a year prior to moving back to New York and upon your return to the USA, you decided that you really wanted to re-establish a name for yourself here, of course with the help of your father. He bought the penthouse almost the moment that you said you had your eye on it, and he just kind of…left you here. He’s only come to visit a handful of times since you bought it two years ago, though your mother has been over far more frequently to your utter dismay.

You inhale deeply through your nose, your eyelash extensions fluttering dramatically against your cheekbones. Grabbing your phone - the newest iPhone that you bought after you broke your other one at your friend Peter’s party - you sulk over to one of your ridiculously overpriced couches and fall dramatically - but not dramatically enough to crease the material of your latest drunk purchase, a white Gucci jumpsuit - on top of all your throw pillows, the picture of a damsel in distress. Your freshly manicured toes - painted white yesterday - curl into the softness of it as you huff, dabbing delicately at your face again to rid yourself of any traces of sadness before thinking about what the hell you’re going to do next.

Yes, you have a savings account that is far more than enough for you and your grandchildren’s grandchildren to live lavish lives and while that’s all well and good, even you know that you probably shouldn’t spend that... but it’d have to do until you found another way to get your money. With that, you shrug noncommittally and your face ID unlocks your phone so that you can start your newest endeavor - buying one of everything off of Alexander Wang.

Sure, you should be proactive and take initiative to finally take the steps to distance yourself from your parents, but you’ve only just had your twentieth birthday. After graduating from high school at fifteen - yes, fifteen: your parents really pushed you, to say the least, and it helped that you were naturally intelligent beyond the capabilities of even the nation’s best high school teachers - you started your undergraduate at Harvard in the fall and finished at eighteen. You took what you dubbed an ‘extended summer vacation’ - hence Italy - and now you’re at an impasse.

Okay, admittedly your various interests - you refuse to call them addictions because they’re really not that serious - that may or may not include a wide array of party drugs and alcohol probably don’t make you the most trustworthy person in the eyes of your parents. But you’ve done everything that they’ve told you to do for the past twenty years of your life - can they blame a girl for wanting to have a little fun? A smile spreads across your face as, while scrolling, you spy the blue dad jeans that were completely out of stock just last week and quickly add them to your cart with a sense of self-satisfaction before continuing to add almost everything else to your bag. It’s not like you’re heavily dependent on anything - substance abuse is not a good look for you: it was definitely more early 2000s than now - and you only do them recreationally in social situations, so your parents really have nothing to worry about. They’re overly paranoid about you somehow tarnishing their image when in reality, your work in and outside of an academic setting has really bolstered their reputation more than they could have ever hoped for - not to toot your own metaphorical horn, but your endless philanthropic work coupled with your eagerness to “make a change” and your work in fashion has put you on the Forbes 30 Under 30 every year since you were fifteen.

You press the checkout button and your Apple Pay seamlessly completes the purchase for you: $29,000. Shrugging noncommittally, you lock your phone and stare pensively at the picturesque view of New York City outside of your window; that is until Alexa alerts you that Natasha is calling you.

Perfect timing.

Natasha’s voice echoes over the loudspeakers in the ceiling. “Hey, bunny,” she greets you and you groan loudly at the nickname, restlessly hopping up to grab a glass of water from your kitchen.

“Hey Nat,” you reply, more of a whine than anything else, and she laughs loudly at your tone.

“What happened to you? “

“Daddy cut me off,” you huff, walking to the couches in front of the TV and settling down with your glass of water. With a press of a few buttons on the universal remote, you FaceTime your best friend instead - a flash of red hair and then a blindingly white smile. She assesses you on your couch and laughs again, a full-bodied cackle that only intensifies your pout.

“It’s not funny,” you protest, although the corners of your lips are quirking up in amusement at her ridiculous laughter.

“What did I tell you?” Natasha struggles to get the words out in between chuckles. “I knew he was gonna do this-”

“Yeah, so did I, but I didn’t think he’d do it this soon-!”

“I’m surprised he didn’t do it sooner,” Natasha moves around a little before propping her phone up against her knees so that you can see her sitting comfortably in her bed. She starts picking at her own black acrylics, “and you can’t deny, bunny-”

“Don’t say I deserve this,” you narrow your eyes at her, and Natasha only sends you her signature smirk.

“I wouldn’t say you deserve it, per se,” Natasha begins, “but you’ve gotta admit,” she says your name, clearly on the verge of laughter again, “I like a party as much as the next girl, but you do go a little overboard-”

“I wouldn’t say overboard,” you insist, suddenly taking up a very keen interest in your cuticles. “Here’s what it is: Mother doesn’t like the fact that I don’t like her and Daddy’s just flat out disappointed in me for no reason-”

“-apart from the fact that you very nearly got caught doing lines of blow off of Senator Pierce’s son-”

“Shhhh,” you interrupt her, closing your eyes and pressing a finger to your lips while shaking your head, unable to fight the growing grin on your face. “That was one time-”

“You mean the one time you got caught-?”

“Yes, Natasha, that’s what I mean. Anyway - you never call me like this unless you need something - thought you were gonna text me instead. What’s up? Is it Bru-”

“Oh, no,” Natasha quickly cuts you off, her cheeks flushing red. “Bruce and I have been over for a while now-”

“You were just talking about him last week-”

“Yeah, yeah,” she deflects, tapping her fingers on her thigh. “I was actually calling to see if you wanted to go shopping for Parker’s party that’s tonight-?”

“Yes, absolutely yes - why would you even have to ask-?”

“Okay, cool,” she interrupts you, smiling toothily. “Get Jarvis to get you there by 2:30 - I wanna go to the Louis store: the summer collection just dropped-”

“Sounds perfect-”

“But one more thing,” she says your name again but in a more concerned tone. You finish your glass of water and set it on the coffee table before leaning forward slightly.

“What’s going on, Nat?”

“I’m worried about you, bunny,” both her eyes and her tone have softened drastically, making you purse your lips. “What’re you gonna do now that your dad’s not giving you any more money?”

You sigh loudly through your nose, shaking your head. “I don’t know, Nat,” you admit, snapping a hair tie against the skin of your wrist rapidly. “I’ll just have to find a job - or do more sponsorships and ads and get back into modeling and maybe actually try acting this time?”

Her green eyes pin you to your couch, even through the screen, and she scrutinizes your face for almost a full thirty seconds before scrunching up her nose and nodding hesitantly. “Alright. As long as you’re sure that you can make it work… because if not, I have an option that I think you may like…”

Your eyebrows shoot to your hairline as you motion for her to continue.

“Y’know how Wanda got really into that thing a couple of years ago?”

Your brain works overtime, trying to remember exactly what it was that Wanda was doing - all you remember is that it was fairly secretive and she didn’t tell you a lot about why she kept sneaking around.

“She was seeing that older guy,” you snap your fingers when you remember, Natasha’s slow nod confirming it, and then promptly frown because-

“What does this have to do with me?” You stare directly into Natasha’s eyes as she falters, obviously wondering if it’s too late to just backtrack altogether - yes, it is - and then she sighs.

“She wasn’t just seeing him,” your best friend starts slowly, choosing her words with great care, “she was his sugar baby.”

Now, this is news to you.

“You’re fucking with me,” you scoff in disbelief. “Wanda?”

Natasha keeps nodding, blowing her bubblegum between her rouge-painted lips until it pops with a sharp snap. “I’m serious, you can go ask her. But believe me, I was just as surprised as you when she first told me-”

“She didn’t tell me,” you murmur, something akin to betrayal burning your tear ducts. Natasha only barks out a laugh and clucks her tongue at you in a decidedly motherly way.

“Of course she didn’t tell you,” the redhead snorts, shaking her head. “She didn’t want you getting any ideas,” she says your name through a laugh, “you were - what - like eighteen two years ago? That would’ve been questionable at best -”

“But you guys didn’t know that I was gonna do anything-”

“Come on, bunny,” Natasha pins you with a look that shuts you up almost immediately. “Give us some credit - we’re not dumb and we know you-”

“Fine,” you drag out the last syllable of the word childishly. “So why mention it to me now?”

“Because you’re old enough… and in a situation where your Daddy’s not paying for any of your stuff anymore.”

You tilt your head to the side, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Yeah, okay, but I’ve got, like, a lot of other opportunities that I don’t even need to work for,” you tell her cockily, crossing your arms over your chest defensively. “Why should I take this one when I could get any other real job so easily?”

Natasha’s lips curve into that same smirk. “Because you’re a whore.”

You collapse into a fit of giggles but she’s right. Really and truly, you are - what you like to call - a self-proclaimed slut. But any woman who’s free enough in her sexuality seems to be one these days, so you own the title that’s been hurled at you like an insult for so many years. You wear it with pride... for the most part, but not too much pride because you still have parents who still - somehow - think you’re a total virgin.

(you are still a virgin but your promiscuity makes people think otherwise)

“Right,” you agree easily, tapping your nails on the arm of the couch.

“Just something for you to think about,” Natasha hums, checking the time on her watch before rubbing the sleeve of her white Balenciaga hoodie over her face “Now, leave me alone. I’ve gotta go get ready; I’ll see you in a few.”

Without any further conversation, she ends the call and leaves you laughing light-heartedly although something heavy continues to weigh on your conscience. A sugar daddy. You can’t lie to yourself and say that it’s something that you’ve never thought about before - because it most definitely is - and it’s been the shameless subject of some of your filthiest dreams. Are you going to lie and say that you don’t have an… affinity for older men? No, you aren’t. Are you gonna tell yourself that the idea of a man spoiling you doesn’t make heat burn in your core? Absolutely not. However, you’ve never thought of yourself as the submissive type. Your confidence - no, cockiness has always been a real defining trait for you and that’s always worked in your favor when it comes to romance or even sex. You take what you want, rather than waiting for it to come to you. Although, you have a feeling that an attitude like that could get you in a lot of trouble in circumstances like these.

But what’s life without a little danger?

—

You’ve put on a tight, cropped black t-shirt and on top, a brown Fendi mini dress with thin spaghetti straps that clings to your body like a second skin; your feet are clad in heeled Louboutin ankle boots. Grabbing your black Prada bag and almost comically giant black, square Burberry sunglasses, you stare at your reflection in the mirror. You only put on a little bit of blush, mascara, and tinted lipgloss, accessorizing with small golden hoops, an array of rings that have been gifted to you by either your father or your ex-boyfriends and a simple gold necklace that spells out ‘bunny’ in cursive, a gift from Natasha. Satisfied, you slide your sunglasses onto your face and head to the elevator, phone in hand.

When you reach the lobby, Jarvis is waiting for you, holding the door open with a kind smile on his face.

“Miss,” he greets you, ushering you out the door. You basically jump on him, winding your arms around his neck and he chuckles as you sway back and forth in your embrace.

“Afternoon, Jarvis,” you grin at him.

The two of you walk outside to the black Range Rover with the tinted windows - black matches your outfit today - and as you climb in the back, your security detail split up into the other SUVs in front and behind you.

“So, what’s the plan today?” Jarvis asks you conversationally, stopping at a red light not even 15 seconds after you pull away from the front of your apartment. Damn New York traffic.

“Nat and I are going to Nordstrom’s,” you tell him despite the fact that he already knows, but he nods regardless. “And then Peter Parker’s hosting a party tonight.”

“And will you be needing a ride to that event?”

“No thanks, J,” you shoot him a smile before looking back down at your phone. “I’ll probably get a ride with Natasha.”

Jarvis nods and the rest of the ride passes in comfortable silence, the radio playing softly and the clicking of your nails on your phone screen the only sounds in the car.

—

“There’s absolutely no way you’re wearing that-”

“Shut up, Nat!” you squeal, grabbing the dress off the rack. “It’s kinda cute!”

Your best friend rolls her eyes at you fondly, staring at the monstrosity that you’re clutching in your hands.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” she deadpans, searching your face almost desperately for any sign of sarcasm.

You act offended: “I’m not!”

Nat just pokes you in the sides, tugs on your earlobe, and continues her hunt, which makes you burst into loud laughter and leaves the store employees looking at the two of you in what you’ve come to recognize as contained, professional amusement.

—

It’s about an hour before the party starts when you even start thinking about getting ready. In a Versace robe with your hair wrapped up in a towel, you’re scrolling through Instagram with a mud mask on. Nat comes into the room and shrieks at the sight of your face, making you flick your eyes up and grin as wide as the mask lets you. With her hand over her heart, she stares at you dryly while silent little chuckles shake your whole body.

“You’re in a good mood,” she remarks, eyeing you with an air of suspicion.

“Of course I am, Nat,” you look at her in disbelief. “I’m about to get wasted tonight-”

She interrupts you by calling your name out in a warning tone. Your only response is a dramatic roll of your eyes.

“We’re going so that we can have fun, not so you can go on a bender-”

“I won’t!” you drop your phone and throw your hands up in exasperation. “Holy shit, Mom - do you have no confidence in me?!”

Loud silence hangs in the air for a minute while Nat just blinks at you.

“...remember when you left me alone in Manhattan because you went to go trip on acid with Senator Coulson’s son-”

“Oh my God, Nat, okay, I get it - I’m a shitty friend and a drug addict, blah blah blah, whatever-”

“You’re not an addict,” she corrects you. “You just... really like doing drugs.”

You shrug, stretching your arms over your head, bringing them back down and then slapping your hands loudly on the bare skin of your thighs. The sound makes Nat flinch which amuses you mildly before you yawn loudly.

“Need me to help you with anything before I start getting ready?” you offer, knowing that once you start getting ready, you’re going to be in your own little world for about an hour and a half.

Natasha - who is significantly less high-maintenance than you - shakes her head. You nod, standing up and heading into her bathroom to wash the mud off your face.

“Did you think about what I told you earlier?” she asks, following you into the spacious room to lay on the chaise tucked against the wall behind you. You lock eyes with her in the mirror as she stretches herself out like a feline.

“Yeah,” you say nonchalantly. “Just for a little, but I don’t know if that kinda thing is for me.”

She runs her tongue over her bottom lip, looking down at her nails. “Oh, okay. I was just wondering ‘cause Wanda said there would be some people that she knows are into that kinda thing at Parker’s tonight-”

Oh, now your interest is peaked. You whip around, towel still in hand from drying your face, and stare her dead in the eye.

“For real?”

“Yeah, but if you’re not really interested-”

“Shut up, Natasha, you know I’m interested.” Your heart beats fast in your chest and your teeth catch on your lower lip, gnawing on it gently. Your fingers come back up to your wrist and stretch the elastic so that it bounces back against your skin. “Like… a lot of them will be there?”

She nods, regarding you with cool interest. “At least that’s what Wanda said. She’s better versed in this whole thing than I am.”

You can only bob your head up and down, suddenly nervous about attending this party. Natasha can sense it, putting a comforting hand on your arm.

“Look, bunny, it’ll be fine,” she gives you a reassuring smile. “They’ll love you. And if you change your mind, you won’t even have to interact with them in the first place; you’ll just be like any other person attending this thing. But Wanda knows a lot of them - that should be reassuring enough: she knows all about these guys, so it’s not like she’s going to introduce us to any major creeps.”

“Okay.”

—

“Okay,” you breathe out. Okay, you can do this. You’ve met presidents and prime ministers, singers and actors, kings and queens, but you’ve never been this nervous in your entire life.

Granted, none of those people were asking you to exchange sex for money, so it’s not really the same thing.

You’re wearing Dolce & Gabbana tonight - because they asked you to - and the golden silk dress that hits your mid-thigh and hugs your body so tight that it looks as if you were poured into it makes it all worth it. It shows off all of the dips and curves of your body and paired with your Alexander Vauthier clear slingback heels and a gold Vanina pearl-embellished handbag, you feel like a million dollars (even though that’s definitely not what this outfit costs). Natasha is standing next to you in a black Dolce & Gabbana corset dress - because they asked her to - and black red bottoms.

Your long red nails come up to toy with your ‘bunny’ necklace while you scan the massive crowds for a friendly face. It’s true that between the two of you, it is very much likely that you know - or know of - everybody here. But you don’t spare them a second glance despite the fact that they’re ogling you. No, you don’t linger on the bulging muscles and impressive height nor the full lips and pretty hair like you usually do. Instead, you’re looking for-

“Wanda! ” you call out, eyes falling on her reddish-brown hair flowing down her back in loose waves.

She’s standing by the bar, speaking to someone that you don’t know when she turns around, blue eyes quickly landing on you as she gives you that charming smile. Grabbing Nat’s hand, you run over to her and envelop her in a warm embrace. She squeals loudly, stumbling back as you realize that she’s probably already had a few drinks by now.

“Hi, guys,” she greets the two of you, looking up and down at your outfits approvingly. “You look hot.”

You return the compliment and pressing a kiss to her cheek, you stroke her hair while she and Nat engage in conversation. You take the opportunity to stare at all of the different groups of people who have gathered on Peter’s rooftop. There must be at least 300 people here already - the night has barely started - and you can see not a single person who looks like an old man. You furrow your brow, squinting and pushing up on your toes to see if you can see anyone that you don’t vaguely recognize from somewhere or another.

“Lookin’ for someone?”

The voice is unmistakable.

“Peter!”

He says your name in what’s only a mildly offensive mockery of your tone. You abandon Wanda and throw yourself into the arms of the boy, ruffling his already unkempt hair and also smacking a loud kiss on his cheek. He chuckles, his arm winding around your waist as he says hello to both Wanda and Nat.

Apparently you’re in a hugging mood tonight.

“I’m glad you guys could all make it,” he smiles so sweetly that you kiss him again, his cheeks turning flaming red. Peter has always been like a little brother to you although he’s actually a year older. You both went to high school and college together, and it helps that your mother and his aunt are also really good friends.

Except you don’t know how anybody could want to be friends with your demon of a mother.

“We couldn’t miss this,” Wanda gestures around her, pinching Peter on the cheek like a child which makes him frown. “Where’s MJ, Petey?”

You all “ooh” like high schoolers and Peter’s face turns somehow even redder - your heart swells - and he takes this as his cue to leave, slipping away and mumbling something about having to greet guests like a good host. It makes you all giggle, watching the boy with fond eyes.

Wanda abruptly turns to you, downing the champagne that she picks up off of the tray of one of the passing waiters.

“So Nat told me that you’re looking for a sugar daddy-”

“Shhh!” you hiss at her, clamping your hands tightly over her mouth because oh my god, Wanda, please speak louder. This makes Natasha laugh into her own glass of champagne.“Oh my god, why are you yelling?”

“Okay,” she drags it out and rolls her eyes, leaning into your group of three and whispering exaggeratedly. “So I heard you’re looking for a sugar daddy.”

“Sure, okay,” you whisper back, looking around before standing up straight because it’s just occurred to you how sketchy you all must look huddled in a circle like this. “So like… how does this work? Do we just… go up to them? Is there like some kind of code-?”

Wanda snorts loudly, throwing her head back and laughing. Your face slips into a pout and you cross your arms over your chest.

“No, idiot,” Wanda replies, pulling a tube of lipstick and a mirror out of her clutch. She starts to apply it while speaking to you. “They’re here already, and we’ve just gotta go up to them,” she smacks her lips together with finality, “and tell them we’re interested. Or, more like you’re going up to them and we’re here for moral support.”

“What happened to your guy, Wanda?” Nat asks, signaling to the bartender for a refill.

“And how did you get into it?” you ask her, one eyebrow quirking.

She smiles conspiratorially and runs her hands carefully through her hair. “There’s an app. And Viz and I are still together-”

“Viz? ” you almost choke on your own spit because you laugh so hard. Natasha joins you in a far more respectful way, her shoulders shaking as she picks up her now-full glass. Getting literal daggers thrown at your face would’ve been less piercing than the look that Wanda’s giving you right now, so you decide to shut your mouth and listen.

“Yes,” she says your name condescendingly, which makes you roll your eyes. “His name is Vision - it’s a long, personal story that I won’t share with either of you because you both fucking suck,” she stares the two of you down, “but that’s his nickname and what everyone calls him. It’s kinda cool, you know: super contemporary. Like Madonna or Beyoncé or Cher-”

“Okay,” Natasha licks her lips, putting one of her hands on her hip. “We get it, Wanda, thanks. But you told us that you guys broke up-?”

“Yeah, we just took a break,” Wanda shrugs. “Now, we’re back together and better than ever.”

You and Nat share a look before blinking back at Wanda, nodding your heads compliantly.

“So,” you rock back on your heels and start snapping your hair tie again. “Are we gonna go do this, or?”

Wanda’s eyes drift down to your wrist before she places a hand on top of it, stilling your actions. Your eyes are wide and glossy, your teeth worrying your lip.

“What’re you nervous about?” Wanda begins quietly, rubbing circles into your skin with her thumb. “They’ll love you - they’re all super cool and really hot. I think that the only problem that you’ll have is that you’ll be spoilt for choice.”

Your laugh comes out watery but sincere nonetheless, so Wanda loops her arm through yours while Natasha grips your hand tightly.

“Maybe we should get you a drink-”

“No, Nat,” you inhale deeply. “I wanna be completely sober for this. After… after, yeah. I’m definitely gonna need a drink after.”

You all laugh while Wanda weaves you through swathes of socialites, stopping to say hello to some people. When you finally make your way all the way to the other end of the roof, you can see why you didn’t see them before. There is a set of stairs that lead down to what looks like a zen garden. Tall torches flame a collection of very comfortable-looking couches are placed around a stone firepit and on top of those couches are a group of some of the most handsome men that you’ve ever laid eyes on.

The first one to make eye contact with you is astoundingly attractive, so much so that you almost trip over your own feet. You know- you can just tell that he smells incredible. His mahogany skin shines in the light of the fire, and his full lips curve over a gap-toothed smile that he shoots your way; it immediately makes a smile of your own spread on your face. His beard is lined up to perfection and there’s a mischievous sparkle in his whiskey brown eyes. A little bit of his chest hair pokes out from underneath the top of his almost halfway-unbuttoned dress shirt and your mouth waters. You almost feel sorry for the slacks that are hugging his thighs sinfully tight because his powerful legs look like they’re about to burst through the seams.

You decide that you’ve never wanted to be a pair of pants so badly in your life.

Jesus Christ. These men aren’t even close to what I expected.

All you can say is that you’re glad to see that the same caliber of attractiveness holds up for the rest of them.

The man next to him has longer brunette hair that hits his shoulders and you just want to run your hands through the silky strands. He has a bit more of a rugged look, his facial hair groomed purposely to give off that energy. He’s wearing a tight, long-sleeve black shirt and black slacks too, the monochrome outfit highlighting every inch of his well-toned body. When you look at him, he’s staring down into his glass, the sweetest smile on his face that makes you bite the inside of your cheek. But then he looks up at you, and you’re taken aback by the vibrance of his steel-blue eyes. It stops your breath momentarily, and you have time to regain it when he taps the man next to him on the knee and points towards the three of you.

The man in question raises his head, face shielded partially by a pair of yellow-tinted glasses. His blonde hair is slicked back away from his face, and you take a second to admire his prominent bone structure. But he’s looking right past you, eyes boring holes into Wanda which makes you stop your ogling.

You assume that this must be Vision.

There’s one of the men who isn’t facing you and doesn’t even turn around to do so, but you can make out his extremely broad shoulders clad in a white t-shirt even from where you stand a distance away. Even the back of his head is attractive, his thick neck and pushed-back blonde hair. Wanda tugs on your arm impatiently, evidently eager to reach her man.

The three of you linked together almost fall down the stairs before you regain your collective composures and strut over there with all the confidence that you don’t feel. Wanda lets you and Nat go when you draw closer, fixing her hair before the brightest grin that you’ve ever seen on her face shines at Vision. He opens his arms to greet her and you have to look away because of the very much x-rated kiss that she plants on him: you feel like you’re intruding on something.

“Jesus,” Nat snorts in your ear, her hand still resting in yours. This makes you giggle, high-pitched and nervously, so Nat squeezes your hand before she pulls you forwards.

Wanda has situated herself in the lap of her man, his hand resting gently on her hip. She clears her throat, cheeks red from her public display of affection, and begins to speak.

“Hi, guys,” she says, waving and smiling at all the men politely. They all greet her back warmly, raising their hands too. “These are my best friends. This is Nat,” she gestures to the girl next to you and Nat just nods her head in acknowledgment.

“And this is the friend I told you about,” Wanda introduces you by name to the four men who she points at in turn: “Bunny, this is Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes, Vision, and Steve Rogers.”

Giving a little awkward wave of your hand, you unglue your eyes from the floor and scan all of the men up close now.

They’re all so much prettier up close.

From this distance, you can now clearly see how pretty Sam’s eyes are, how bright Bucky’s smile is, how strong Vision’s jaw is, and-

Holy shit.

It’s obvious that you must’ve died and gone to heaven some time in these past few minutes because Adonis’ blue eyes are scorching holes into your face. His high-neck white long sleeve sweater is probably in his size but the way that his muscles flex under the material is telling you otherwise. The size of his biceps - probably as big as your head - briefly make you wonder what they would feel like wrapped around your neck-

If you stare hard enough at his pecs - which you are - you can see the hard peaks of his nipples; you decide that there’s something so sensual about that and if that alone didn’t just make you wet, you decide that you can’t be human. The sweater is tucked into grey checkered pants with a black Yves Saint Laurent belt wrapped around his surprisingly narrow waist. He’s leaning back in his seat with his huge hands on his thighs, his strong legs spread wide almost an invitation for you to crawl between them. Your eyes move past his clearly tailored pants to his huge feet clad in black Versace loafers and you can feel the liquid that pools in your cunt. Realizing that you’re shamelessly checking this poor man out, your eyes snap up to his face only to have the breath completely knocked out of you, not for the first time tonight.

Not only is his body complete perfection, but his face is also arguably even better. His defined jawline gives you the urge to run your tongue over it but that beard. Your squeeze your thighs together because you want to know how it feels between your thighs. His ears are perfectly proportional to his head - a characteristic that should never be underestimated, mind you - and his cheekbones are high. But you can’t ignore the fullness nor the rosy pigmentation of his lips - his lower lip is fuller than the top and you wanna bite it so bad and he’s smirking a little. When you finally lock eyes with him, you feel as if you’re drowning but admittedly even if you were, you wouldn’t mind doing so in the blue of his irises. They darken slightly when they train onto yours, and one of his perfect eyebrows lifts questioningly.

This whole interaction has only lasted about five seconds but it feels like you’re in a movie, everything moving in slow motion. He stands up abruptly and you do actually choke at his size, his sheer height and width alone soaking your panties. One hand in his pocket, he takes slow, measured steps until he stands directly in front of you, not even sparing a glance at Natasha.

“Bunny, huh?” you pray that your knees won’t give out at his deep baritone and you can’t take your eyes away from his, even when he sticks out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Steve Rogers.”

tagged: @literaturefeen @donutloverxo @evnscvll @stargazingfangirl18

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers blurb #steve rogers blurbs #steve rogers headcanons #steve rogers headcanon #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers imagines #marvel cinematic universe #marvel fanfiction #sugar daddy au #soft dark steve rogers

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mysaldate · 4 years

Note

if you're up for it, could you please write Kamanue headcanons? general or past life, fluff or angst or comfort, i don't really mind, whatever strikes your fancy most~

Ok so writing this for the second time since Tumblr decided it would be oh-so-funny to delete the whole thing smh…

That’s a broad scale so I’ll try to fit in as much as I can but I can’t promise much since we didn’t exactly see much of him. I’ll try to overanalyse whatever we DID get tho!

General Kamanue headcanons

As I already said in the previous request (the personality one), he hasn’t been among the Lower Moons for long when Muzan decided to dismantle them. He might not even be Kyogai’s direct successor based on how quickly Muzan claims they’re usually killed off and replaced. And also like I already mentioned, he’s not exactly too keen on changes so such a huge one probably left him confused as to why and how it happened.

He strikes me as a bit less conflict-loving than some other demons. If he crossed onto another demon’s territory, he’d probably first try to intimidate them with his rank before even considering fighting them. And all of that happens only if the other demon finds him of their own initiative, he won’t go looking for them on his own.

If he was given the chance to get comfortable in his new position, I feel like he might try really hard to fulfill Muzan’s expectations. He may not agree with everything Muzan says and find some of his demands ridiculously difficult but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t try to fulfill them anyway. Note that he complains that it’s easy for Muzan to want them not to be scared but doesn’t think anything about it being impossible or completely beyond their reach. He’s just not strong enough for it yet but he will be one day (or not).

Connected with the previous headcanon, if he was given the chance to meet with Douma, and if Douma shared the knowledge of girls being more nutritious with him, they would probably start making up most of his diet. After all, they have many more advantages than just that – they taste better, they have softer flesh and they usually tend to have less physical strength than guys so they put up less of a fight.

He carries some amount of respect to those who have been demons for longer than him. That is not to say he won’t talk back if he can get away with it but in general, he’s more likely to watch his mouth at least a little when around older demons, regardless of whether or not are they more powerful than him.

Naturally, Muzan terrifies him. But he also looks up to him a lot and has deep respect to him. Again, not only because of his power but also his years of wisdom. Of course though, the impressive extend of Muzan’s demonic abilities amazes him to no end as well. If only there wasn’t the constant death threat whenever you get near him…

He also isn’t the type to pursue or give chase to the Demon Slayer Corps’ members who choose to flee rather than to fight him. So long as they leave him alone, he’s pretty cool with them walking around as they please as well. It’s really kind of a mystery why Muzan picked him for the position, even to him.

A fluff (or crack?) headcanon I have for him is that he once met Murata and they almost fought. And by that I mean, they got into position while each of them tried to find their way out at the same time. Murata was already tired from his last mission, Kamanue was feshly appointed Lower Moon, still kind of shaken after having his eyeball engraved and wanted nothing more than to rest up a bit as well. They ended up sitting down together and complaining about their scary superiors and then the dawn broke them off. Neither of them ever spoke of it again of course.

Kamanue backstory headcanons

Kamanue was born into a middle class family, though on the poorer side still. My main basis for this claim is the fact that, aside from Rui, he is the only one of the Lower Moons who walks barefoot. And a lot of each demon’s backstory can usually be seen in their appearance (such as Douma’s cult clothing, Akaza’s open clothes revealing his muscles and tattooes, Kokushibo’s kimono and sword etc.).

He had a lot of siblings and age-wise was somewhere in the middle. Due to this, he often felt overlooked or ignored. His eldest brother/sister was the one their parents relied on and his younger siblings always got more attention (or was it just his feeling that they did?) but his relationship with his family was overall normal.

This is where his snarky side comes from. It was sort of a coping mechanism for him, being mildly rude to his siblings to make up for the attention he felt he wasn’t getting. He didn’t mean it in a bad way though and they knew it so nobody minded it too much. He sometimes got a little loose-lipped in front of people outside of his family though which got him the reputation of a rude child.

Something happened. Maybe a heavy rain washed away their crops, maybe his father and older brother/s had to go fight for the landlord, maybe a wild animal killed his father or ate their food. Either way, Kamanue was either forced to or decided to go look for a job to help his family at least a little.

Looking at his design again and googling a bit (that’s why Tumblr crashed on me the first time), his outfit carries certain amount of similarity to 19th/early 20th century nurse outfits (specifically the white button-up, belt and shape of his pants) and it’s also just a little similar to Yushiro’s so I believe he became the servant/assistant of a local doctor.

Naturally, he needed to tone his snarkiness down in there, both towards his employer and the customers. I would imagine he wasn’t treated too fairly, seeing as he came from a rather poor family. But since he couldn’t say anything, he let the bitterness stay inside of him.

It was after one of his siblings died because the doctor refused to treat since they didn’t have enough money that Kamanue finally exploded. All the pent-up anger was finally let loose and he ended up killing the doctor. That’s where Muzan comes in, picking him up and turning him into a demon.

His haori is stitched together from two pieces. The main part, white, is from his job there. The yellow sleeves and pockets are makeshift from the haori of his dead sibling (y’know, the common theme with KNY).

I originally planned to expand more on his life as a demon before he became one of the Moons but I realized I didn’t really have anything much to say there so hope this will be enough!

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #kny headcanons #kamanue #lower moon 6 #overanalysing is my passion #kny imagines

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cupidmarwani-archive · 4 years

Text

Come Into the Water (4/15)

In the morning, Sarah wakes up staring at the little analog clock sitting on the floor in the corner. She doesn’t remember putting it there, but it’s helpful as it tells her she needs to get going to her appointment soon. The appointment she definitely doesn’t want to go to. The appointment she has to go to if she doesn’t want anyone banging down her door to drag her, kicking and screaming, back to sterile walls where they call her a danger to herself even though it’s hardly true.

She forces herself to sit up and find a pair of pants, which turn out to be a loose pair of pink sweats lined in fleece, soft and comfortable and protective against the world. They’re a security blanket to hold onto as she rifles through drawers in the kitchen until she finds her house key. It takes a few minutes, but she gets it and leaves, locking the door on her way out. She doesn’t have a car, but the downtown area- which is really just four intersecting streets- is within walking distance and the movers pointed the address out to her on their way by a couple days ago.

Each step is draining, but she takes them because she has to. Admittedly, the cool, fresh air feels nice in her throat and she hasn’t taken a good, long walk in a while. She used to jog around her neighborhood, and then her campus, just for the way it feels after. The sting in her muscles, the ache in her chest, the energy that slowly burns itself away as dopamine and adrenaline stop spreading themselves around her often overworked brain.This isn’t more than a couple miles, and she’s only walking, but it feels like a start. She’s out of practice anyways, and quickly gets out of breath.

Thankfully, when she arrives at the office, there’s a water cooler in the corner that she helps herself to three full cups of before approaching the receptionist and nodding when she’s asked if she’s Sarah Reese. She’ll be talking for a while, and that’ll take a fair amount of energy for the day.

“Have a seat for a minute, I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Sarah sits down on one of the hard chairs and crumples her paper cup in her hand because she can. Destroying things is cathartic, and she contemplates going home, ripping open her box of dishes, and breaking every single plate until her entire floor is nothing but shards of broken glass digging into her feet. Maybe it’s not a healthy coping mechanism, but she considers it until a kind woman with greying hair, cat eye glasses, and pink lipstick that has started to feather around her mouth. The color is a bti garish, but that makes it safe, in a way. Sarah comes forward, drops her cup in the little teal trash can, and follows into the office.

A comfortable armchair faces an overly soft couch, which Sarah sits on gingerly. She knows of Dr. Riley, knows she’s well liked and respected, but that doesn’t mean she knows her or is already comfortable talking about herself. That sort of thing takes time. She’s only been in town for three days, although it feels like much longer with the way her sense of time distorts nowadays.

“Good morning, Sarah,” Dr. Riley says warmly.

Sarah nods.

“You know I looked through some of your old therapist’s notes, and I’ll be talking to them while we treat you, but I want to know you outside of that. Can you start by telling me about yourself? Maybe about your childhood, or how you’re settling in, or what you were studying at school?”

The last question slithers around each of Sarah’s ribs in a slow suffocation before she tries speaking. It’s alright. She wasn’t going to answer it anyways. “I’ve met my neighbors,” she answers. “Maggie and Olivia and their son, Noah. We had dinner last night, and Olivia and I had breakfast yesterday.”

Dr. Riley writes something in her notepad, which Sarah absolutely doesn’t internally panic about for a brief moment before she reigns herself back in. There’s nothing to be afraid of here. There’s someone right outside the door, and a window with easy access, and a heavy lamp to Sarah’s right for self defense, should she need it. She’s okay.

“Tell me about that.”

For a good half hour, Sarah finds herself talking about Maggie and Olivia’s kindness, about how well they mesh and how much their house feels like a home. From there, she starts talking about how much she wants a home like that, because she can’t help it. However, she pointedly doesn’t mention Ava, nor the thrill that ran her at the realization that women can marry other women and be happy. What a dream she had never considered before.

But then she’s thinking about those very things, and it draws Dr. Riley’s attention when she falls silent in an effort to avoid talking about them.

“Sarah?”

“Do you believe in mermaids?” she blurts out.

It sounds stupid. A child’s fantasy, a crazy woman’s desperate attempt to cling to something good when the world is crumbling around her into little pieces that she cannot put back together. The way real glass shatters, not the fake attempt that is mostly large shards. The words are out there, though, and cannot be taken back no matter how much Sarah wishes on the contrary.

However, instead of being concerned or asking Sarah if she sees things that aren’t there, Dr. Riley smiles at her and shifts in her chair. “Seen one already? We’ve got a pod around here, off the coast a ways. Everyone who lives here has seen them at some point, but usually not unless they’ve been here a while. The mermaids can be shy- or mean.”

That’s not the response she had been expecting, but Sarah relaxes immediately. She’s not crazy. Neither is Olivia, nor Maggie. This is normal here. Her relief must show on her face because Dr. Riley laughs a little and goes over to her desk and returns with a framed photograph of a dark haired woman, gleaming grey tail splashing in the waves as she sits on the rocks, her hair covering her chest modestly, unlike Ava in real life or any of the photos.

“This is Brianne. We have dinner together from time to time.”

A question strikes Sarah as she studies Brianne’s hands splayed in her lap.

“You said they have a pod? Like dolphins?”

“You could put it that way.”

She nods thoughtfully. “So if one were trapped, like, tangled in a net, wouldn’t the others help her?”

“Of course.”

Then why was Ava alone? Sarah doesn’t voice the question, but it clings to her as Dr. Riley puts the picture back where it was. It might have something to do with the way Ava stopped appearing in photographs, and something is familiar about being cut off from everyone. The way her only friends abandoned her when she told them what he did to her. Packing her things all on her own without anyone there to save her.

Next thing she knows, Dr. Riley is telling her what she’d like her to do before their next session in a few days; she should keep trying to socialize with the neighbors, and she should reach out about how she feels. If she knew Sarah needed to get necessities for the house, she’d probably tell her to buy those, too.

After she leaves, reemerging into late morning air, Sarah looks around the block. There’s a general store, a bakery, a boutique, a gift shop- just a few little staples, one of which she stops at to finally pick up basics for around the house. But at the end of the “downtown” area, there’s a large building- or rather, one medium building with two smaller ones near it, with a sign outside she can’t read from this distance. Something draws her to it, and she doesn’t read the sign before approaching, looking at the well kept local grass growing, but not too tall, around the area. She hears voices and follows them, all the way to the back of the building, where a handful of men and women are tending to a lush garden of flowers and such, pulling up weeds. When she gets closer, she recognizes one of the women.

“Olivia?”

Olivia stands up and smiles, wiping her work gloves on loose, stained denim pants. “Hey, what’s up?”

She shrugs in answer. “I was just wandering around, is all. Looking for something to do with my day.”

“Well, if you want-” Olivia kneels in the dirt again and grabs a spare pair of dirty work gloves, “-you can join us. It’ll only take an hour or so, but it’s rewarding.”

An hour sounds like a long time, and Sarah wants to go home. But something calls her to stay, and she takes the gloves, slides them onto her too-small hands, and looks for plants that don’t belong. Everyone is chattering happily, and make an effort to pull her into the conversation without forcing her to take part. It feels nice to be a part of something, if she’s honest.

The work isn’t hard, and it goes by quickly before Olivia stands up and bids everyone goodbye, says she’ll see them later. Only then does Sarah dare to ask where she is, and Olivia gives her this proud, eager smile that fits on her face as naturally as the wedding band on her finger.

“This is the temple. It’s not much, but it’s ours, and I’m proud of it.”

“Oh.”

Sarah doesn’t entirely understand, but she doesn’t have to in order to like it. It’s something that makes people happy and brings them together, and on a day when she has more energy, perhaps she’ll ask more questions or give it all a more thorough look. For now, though, she walks off with Olivia and they head home in companionable silence, another invitation extended for dinner that Sarah accepts because she has yet to go grocery shopping.

They part at the front step and Sarah, because she can’t help it, goes back down to the shore after setting down her groceries, rolling up her pants and crossing her arms over her chest in the cold wind. She wants to see Ava again, but doubts she will. She ran off last time, after all, and that’s not usually grounds for a warm welcome.

However, as she approaches the tidepools, she hears a familiar splash, and looks out at the water to see eyes peering at her over the slow waves. Blue. Familiar. Ava. Sarah wants to say something, but all the words die in her throat instead of making it to her lips and tongue.

Slowly, Ava comes closer, until she’s shallow enough that her whole upper body is out of water and she folds her arms on the rocks, resting her chin on them, and lazily swishes her tail in the water.

“You left,” she says in a stiff voice like windless summer days. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Ava makes the same trilling sound from the day before and smiles, revealing an unnatural edge to her teeth. They’re beautiful, though. Less threatening than a human mouth would be for Sarah, strangely enough. She smiles back and slides down the rock to sit on it, her calves in the water, almost to the rolled-up hem of her sweats.

“I want to show you something, but you have to trust me.”

Sarah shouldn’t trust her. But Ava is so kind, has such an open and real look on her face, the kind it’s easy to sink into like a warm bed on a cold wintry day. She nods, and Ava tugs at her ankle, about to pull her in. Instead of panicking, Sarah pulls away and sheds her sweatpants, too fond of them to ruin them in the sea, and throws them back to safety in one of the last tidepools before the cliffside, hoping they won’t go too far.

When Ava pulls at her again, Sarah allows her without another thought.

#ciwfic #fic #mine #reesker

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foxrun-fluffery · 5 years

Text

The Greatest Distance

Summary: Thorin’s company is displaced in time by Gandalf, due to an emergency. They land in front of country girl Piper and her son. After recognizing them, mostly, she realizes that in no way can they be left on their own in this modern world, and now she has to cope with some of the strangest house guests ever!

Tag List: @sdavid09, @fallnangelcreations @sherala007 (I tried)

CHAPTER FOUR

READ FROM BEGINNING | PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

Dinner and a deconstruction

By the time the meat was cooked, and the potatoes mashed, Piper realized she had lost track of the dwarves milling about her property. Riordan and the three youngest were still out in the yard, having fun. Riordan had gotten Fili, Kili, and Ori into a game of tag. Through some careful chit chat with Bombur and Bilbo, she had discovered that the company had not yet encountered the trolls, but had dealt with the rain she recalled Dori referring to as a ‘deluge’ and the wizard telling Bilbo about the other four wizards. She realized the poor hobbit had little time to endear himself to the dwarves yet, aside from filling their stomachs on that first meeting. They hadn’t yet met the brown wizard, nor the elves. As she could recall, Thorin’s attitude did shift after Rivendell or Imladris, she did like the elvish name for it, but imagined the dwarves would not. Not that she would mention it, thinking it only as a passing thought.

Seeing a figure pass by the doorway, she leaned out, “Oh, Gloin! Could you please let everyone know dinner is about ready?” That certainly seemed to get him perked up and trotting quickly out the door. “Bofur, could you give me a hand with the table?” “Aye, settin’ it then?” He asked, getting up from where he had sprawled on her overly plush sofa. It was comfortable, and he was regretting that Thorin had already staked it out as his bed for their stay. While Piper had guest rooms, she said they would have to wait until she emptied the stuff she had stored in them out. For tonight the floor would do. He hurried to her side, smiling brightly up at her. Some part of his brain had always regretted the height of human females, but this time he found he didn’t mind it at all. No, even her strangely short and brightly colored hair wasn’t at all disconcerting. It fascinated him, like a cut gemstone.

“Nope, gotta put the leaf in, otherwise we’ll never fit everyone in here.” Piper quickly guided him through adding the extra sections to the table, and was rather amused by his curiosity about the extended table. She grinned as he crawled under it to inspect the mechanism, and how he watched as all of the pieces fit together. In all likelihood she had just changed the way tables were made in Middle Earth from now on. Then she went to get the dishes out, humming a little tune as she did.

“Ah, do ye sing, lass?” Bofur asked curiously, having finished his examination of her dining table, he had appeared at her side.

Piper jumped slightly, realizing she was quickly adapting to the loud steps of the dwarves she hadn’t really taken notice of him coming up on her. “Me? Ehh… not a whole lot. Mostly just lullabies for Rio, though he’s starting to outgrow them. Anymore he only wants me to sing for him when he’s sick.” Her smile was a touch sad, for she felt, as most parents did, that her little boy was growing too quickly. “He’s so independant already.” She sighed, bittersweet.

Bofur reached out to take a stack of plates from her, and he lightly set his hand on her forearm. “He’s a good lad, that boy. Ye have every right t’ be proud o’ him.”

“Growing up with just me to raise him, he’s had to learn a lot, and fast.” Piper’s expression softened under his touch, and she nodded gently. “He’s bright, he likes working with his hands, there’s a whole bunch of old tools in the shop that are his, he’s always tinkering with bits and pieces of things. My grandpa sort of hoarded everything, so Rio’s had a lot to experiment with.”

This made Bofur laugh, grinning brightly. “Aye, he’d make a great dwarf then!”

Smirking, Piper eyed him, “That’s a helluva compliment.” There was a moment, she and he held each other’s gaze. He was admiring her, and she was studying him, wondering what he thought, how she and her boy seemed to the dwarves. “With luck, anything he learns from you guys will be positive.”

“Aye!” Bofur mocked indignance, “How could it no’ be?!”

By then others were drifting in, attracted by the smell of the roasts cooking. Each member of the company was happy to lend a hand in setting the table. Though Piper wasn’t certain she appreciated their method, she wasn’t surprised by it. Claiming herself a spot out of the way, she watched her plates being tossed and flung through the air, along with the silverware. Someone, she thought it was Nori, starting humming a light tune, and soon the others were humming or wordlessly singing along. She realized they were using the beat of the song to keep track of each other’s movements. How ingenious!

Riordan had come in near the end of the table being set, Balin keeping a hand on the boy’s shoulder so he didn’t dash right into the middle of it. Still the boy clapped along and cheered when they were done. “Momma, can we set the table like that all the time?!”

Piper barked a laugh and shook her head, “No way, half-pint, I can’t afford the dishes you’d break!” With a grin, she jumped forward, sweeping the four year old up and onto her hip, tickling his ribs and making him shriek with laughter. “Okay, young man,” she set him back on the ground, hiding a wince from him. He was getting far too big to be carrying about like that. “Go wash up.”

The boy gave his typical groan, but he ran off to the bathroom to do what he was told, a few of the dwarves, and the hobbit, following suit. Some of the older or more stubbornly set in their ways ones stayed and took their seats at the table.

Piper, Bombur, and Bofur all brought trays of food over, while upon his return from washing, Bilbo managed the numerous bottles and containers, in a quick dash back and forth, of things Piper told him were condiments. He’d never seen bottles like that, nor had he heard of a few of the things she set out. Whatever “sour cream” was, though it sounded wholly unappetizing even to a hobbit, she insisted it was set on the table, along with the bacon crumbles she had cooked off, and the diced chives. He also was directed to a big bag of shredded cheese, and a bottle of “ranch dressing” as the woman told him that was the only way Riordan would eat his potatoes. That was a shocker to the little hobbit. Someone who didn’t like potatoes!?

Once they had everything set, with glasses of water, much to the disheartenment of the dwarves, everyone sat down. Thorin sat at Piper’s side, as everyone insisted she had the head of the table. Riordan naturally was at her other side, and the others filed in. Bombur was more than happy to cut the food, after giving her serving utensils a good looking over and an approving nod. Though the dwarves seemed to take their food in a rather raucous fashion, Piper insisted that Riordan use his best manners still.

Bofur, who was sitting on the other side of Riordan, reigned in his jovial eating habits to set a good example for the boy, though he did so in a playful way. Sometimes he would be so polite it was very clearly over the top, and other times he’d challenge the boy to cut his meat in certain sizes and shapes, keeping him from cramming huge mouthfuls in after he saw the look of disapproval from his mother at one particularly giant bite. At the boy’s insistence, he gave the ranch dressing a try on his potatoes and had to agree that it did make them a great deal better. However, he had bargained with the boy that he would try the ranch, if Riordan would eat chives on his potatoes.

Piper smiled, watching the dwarf and her boy, wondering for the hundredth time throughout the last four years, how life would have been different if they’d have a more normal family. But then again, normal wasn’t really their thing. She turned to Thorin, smiling pleasantly. “So, have you got everything figured out for wood cutting? I can always run in and get things we’d need.”

“We?” He mused, arching a brow at her as he chewed his roast.

“Of course! I grew up cutting wood, you don’t think I’d make you do it all yourselves!” Piper scoffed, shaking her head at him with an amused twinkle in her eyes. “I told you, I’d do what I can to help all of you here.”

Canting his head slightly, in a grateful nod, Thorin smiled. “I appreciate that. We will need your guidance to make sure we’re doing the job acceptable to the standards of this world.” He looked to his plate then and then back up, “This is a fine meal, we’re very grateful.”

Piper blushed, “Well, Bombur and Bilbo were both wonderful help getting it prepared.” She turned and found her fellow cooks at the table and smiled at them. “Bilbo is quite good with his seasonings, even I’m impressed, and I usually everyone says I’ve got a good sense for flavors.”

Bilbo’s cheeks, too, pinkened, “It’s nothing really, just some things my mother used to use when I was growing up.” He cast a warm quick look at Riordan. “I’m just happy to pass them on.”

The woman chuckled, “Oh yes, I’ve written down everything you used, I’ll be doing my best to copy it in the future.” She lifted her head a little, hearing amongst the soft and less than soft chatter at the table, someone bemoaning the lack of mead or ale. She noticed that Thorin had heard it too, and she grinned, “You know, if anyone here drank so much at every meal, they’d be written of as an alcoholic. You dwarves must have one hell of a constitution.”

The king cracked a smile, venturing even to laugh. “That we do. It’s probably best your kind do not try to keep up,” He told her with no malice, it was simply fact to him. Men could not drink like a dwarf. “We have a greater appreciation for well crafted ale, is all.”

Piper let the conversation fall for a while, as everyone filled their stomachs. She spoke up after a while, addressing the king once more. “Without risk of offending anyone, can I ask a question about dwarves? There are few details known and a number that are suspected, but we’re not certain.”

“Very well,” Thorin wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back in his seat, his meal eaten and his stomach filled comfortably. True, all of them could eat a good deal more, but this was enough to satisfy for now. “What do you wish to know?”

“Do dwarvish braids have meaning?”

The king’s brows rose, and he was surprised that details such as that had filtered to this world. “Yes, they do. The braids and the ornamentation on them.” He motioned his own, “Mine display that I am warrior, this,” He indicated a decorated clasp behind his ear, “bears the crest of my house.” He motioned for Fili and Kili and both turned to show their own clasps that looked very much the same. “Had their father been alive, he would have made those for them. In his absence I crafted them myself.”

“And mine,” Gloin piped up then, taking cue from their leader that it was acceptable to speak about it, “Show my standing in the banker’s guild.” He motioned to the evenly spaced braids in his beard.

Dwalin puffed, his shoulders square as he held his head up with pride. “I mark my braid with victories in battle.”

“So you choose what you wear then, or is there a sort of baseline?” Piper had leaned forward, looking at each of them as they spoke, noticing their pride.

“Everyone chooses what they want to represent, what they take pride in, or what means the most to them.” Thorin explained.

Dori grinned, pointing to his youngest brother. “Ori has started his set of braids in the scholars guild.”

The young dwarf in question smiled sheepishly, and tilted his head to show the braids in his own hair and beard. “I’d like to earn a warriors braid too.”

“Oh hush you’re doing quite fine!” Dori admonished, not liking the thought of his brother in danger such as battle.

“I’m sure you’ll do great things, Ori.” Piper smiled reassuringly to him, glad to see his smile grew more confident.

“And this one,” Gloin spoke up again, “Me wife an’ I braided on our wedding day! This she crafted for me!” He showed her a slim braid that was nearly hidden in his bushy hair, and an intricately detailed bead that bound the end. “She has one I made of course.”

“That’s beautiful, Gloin. I can see she really loves you, so much detail!” Piper exclaimed, rising a little to lean across the table and see his bead clearly. She didn’t miss the way his eyes misted. “I’m sure she misses you just as much as you miss her.”

“Aye.” He said, quietly, and he ran his finger over the bead before he tucked it away into his wild hair again. Although he was misty eyed, he had a warm smile on his face, and his brother was watching him fondly, as were a few others. They all appreciated families and the like, even if most dwarves never married.

Nori caught Piper looking towards him next and he pursed his lips, clearly not sharing, yet he gave her a wink.He grinned at her smirk, seeing the determination growing in her eyes.

“I want braids!” Riordan piped up suddenly, looking around at everyone, and smiling when it started an uproarious laugh around the table.

“Maybe, if you had enough hair,” Dwalin chuckled, amused at the boy’s declaration.

The child had a very short cut, that wasn’t even uncommon among dwarven children. As much as they did like their hair, until a child was old enough to help wash, and to keep their hair from getting sticky and messy things tangled into it, short hair was not unseen. It wasn’t until a child was around eight or nine that their parents allowed their hair to grow, by then the little dwarfling was mature enough to take care of it to a degree. Their mothers still tended to the most of the care, in particular the brushing and braiding, but the children could help wash it then.

Riordan pouted, looking around at the dwarves at their table. “How long does it take to grow?” Piper chuckled, “If you wanna grow your hair out, it’ll be a while.” Knowing her boy he’d change his mind four times before it was ever long enough to do anything with. “But remember the last time your hair got long?” Riordan looked down at his plate, nodding quietly. He remembered. Oh did he remember. It had only been a couple of months ago. Thinking about it, he reached up and rubbed the side of his head. “Yeah…”

Piper caught a few curious glances and explained, “He got a sticky candy stuck in his hair when he fell asleep on it. And that’s why we had to cut his hair all off.” She chuckled, seeing her boy still pouting about it. “I think that was a lesson well learned.” Seeing everyone had just about finished up, she rose, startled when a number of them started to rise too. Ah, old fashioned manners. “Settle down boys. I’m just gonna go get us some tea.”

“Momma, can we have a soda?” Riordan asked, sounding as sweet and hopeful as he could.

“What’s soda?” Kili asked, looking from the boy to his mother.

Hearing his question, and the way the others gradually fell silent, Piper knew the dwarves behind her were all waiting for her answer. Quickly she debated a few factors, how much soda she had, and the risks of giving the dwarves caffeine.. .eh, you only live once! “Yeah, kiddo, sure.”

“Root beer floats?”

“Now you’re pushing it.” Piper laughed, shaking her head at her son and going to get the case of soda she had in the walk-in pantry. She distributed cans to the dwarves, setting one the table before each, quietly got their attention with a hand held up, then demonstrated how to pop the top on the cans. The dwarves, to her amusement, followed suit in a split second, and then there was a mixed reaction after that.

Nori, Balin, Gloin, Dwalin, Bifur, Dori, and Oin all stopped to sniff their drink first. Thorin and Bofur were both looking at Piper, though with very different expressions. Bofur seemed almost to forget he had a drink, and Thorin waited to say a polite thank you, before he raised his can to sip. The rest of the dwarves however, instantly went to chug their drinks. Most of them got the wonderful sensation of bubbles up the nose, and they stopped to clap hands over their noses, objecting in either language. And Nori gave a fine belch, but Kili outshadowed him. Riordan, feeling it was, this time, acceptable, followed suit and got a cheer from some of the dwarves for his attempt. But it was, as had happened before, Ori who won the prize. All the while, the quiet hobbit was grimacing at the belches and sipping as politely as he could, though he kept having to stop to rub his nose, looking mildly amused at the tickle.

“Mighty unusual drink, this!” Balin said, sniffling and rubbing his nose. “It’s got bubbles in it like nothing else!” He did seem to be enjoying it though. In fact, not a one of the dwarves had stopped drinking their soda for long.

“There are tons of flavors, but we just have this one right now. It’s very sugary, so we don’t drink it very often.” Piper explained. “Glad you all like it.” Then she rose to start clearing the emptied plates, but found a hand on her wrist. She looked up, surprised, at Thorin.

“Allow us. It’s very kind of you to prepare the meal, and offer your home. The least we can do is help clean up.” Thorin gave the others a pointed look, and soon Piper was privy to a clean up scene not too dissimilar to the one from a certain movie. Though, as when the table had been set, they only hummed a tune, rather than setting to a full song. Bombur, having learned how the sink worked, no longer got to polish off leftovers, but was in charge, with Bifur, of washing plates.

Riordan was sent off to wash up, as he had ranch dressing all over his face. He didn’t return, instead going to his room to play for a while, before his mother stuffed him into pajamas and sent him to bed.

Once dinner was cleaned up, for it was simply a matter of doing the dishes, as there were no leftovers at all, the dwarves settled in, sitting around the den. A few started to pull out pipes and flint, and their tobacco pouches. Only Bofur saw Piper grimace at the sight, though she didn’t actually forbid them. He looked down at his pipe in his hands that he was filling just then. Did the people here not smoke at all? “Uhm… is it… is it alright, lass, if we smoke?”

“Mmm yeah, just not on my white couch, okay? Even the best cleaners don’t get the smell out all the way.” Piper also didn’t want any pipe ash ground into the fabric. “Alright, if you guys are good for now, I should go get some more work done on this project I’ve got going. Should be a nice big payout if I can get it working, but the deadline is coming up.”

Bofur smiled kindly, nodding his head, “Best o’ luck t’ ye, lass.” He watched her as she walked out, his gaze lingering, his pipe forgotten. Until he heard a snickering from the young princes. Then he turned and saw most of the others were looking at him. “Oi! Mind yer own!” He waved them off, trying to hide the way his face heated up. “Pesky nosy lot o’ ya…”

“Oi, Nori! I didn’t get you those fancy sleeves to get them all greased up! How did you even manage that?!” Dori griped, looking at the smudges on Nori’s intricately stitched sleeves. “What did you get into to make that mess?” Nori ducked his head, looking down at his sleeves. Sure enough there was a smear or five of dark grease on them, that could almost be mistaken for orc blood, if it wasn’t for the smell. “Uh, we just looked around… kind of well… come see.” Grabbing his brother’s wrist, he pulled Dori up and out of the room to the front door. Ori, Balin, Fili, Kili, Bifur, Bombur, Oin and Gloin all followed along, either part of the guilty party, or very curious. Nori lead them to the garage beside the house, thinking it was some sort of workshop. There he pointed to some sort of deconstructed contraption. “See? We uh… well we got a little carried away.” He scratched the back of his neck nervously, shuffling his feet from side to side.

“Lad… ye have to put it back t’gether.” Oin grumbled, “It wasn’t yers to take apart!”

Gloin coughed, knowing he had been a part of the trouble. “We didn’t mean to, it just looked… useful.”

Balin sighed, shaking his head, “Of course it was useful, for whatever purpose it had before!” He rolled his eyes, not to unlike what his brother might have done. “Do any of you remember how it all went together?” “I think we lost a couple of parts…” Nori admitted. “Fix this!” Balin insisted sharply. “Before the lass finds out.” He turned and headed back to the house, stroking his beard irritably. “Curious bunch of half-wits,” he mumbled as he walked back in the front door. What were they thinking!? His thoughts must have been obvious, both his brother and their king approached him.

“What have they done?” Thorin asked, his voice low as the three stood, huddled, Dwalin at his shoulder looking stern.

The elder dwarf sighed heavily, “Seems they found some machine in the workshop and have taken it apart, and lost a piece, and it seems they don’t quite know how to put it back together.”

Thorin grimaced, rubbing a hand over his face. “Balin, Dwalin, go supervise them. I’ll… talk to Piper about it.” Huffing, he turned, knowing the two brothers would be just the motivation the rest needed to fix their mess. He descended the basement stairs and followed the short hallway to the room he saw a light in and knocked, then he heard her call to him, so he opened the door. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, she was curled up in a chair, in front of a flat slab that stood upright on a stand, tapping away at a panel of little buttons. “Piper?”

“Mmm just one second okay? Kinda… middle of… numbers….” She typed away furiously, trying to remember the sequence as she entered it. Not realizing she had just asked the heir to the crown of Erebor, the wandering king of the dwarves, to wait for her.

The heir in question didn’t mind at all, he was looking around the room, studying everything. There were a ton of electronics, which he didn’t recognize of course, and schematics on the walls to great vessels, but by the design he couldn’t comprehend how they could float on water. What even was a turbolift or a power nacelle? This Enterprise vessel was a strange one. Then there were pictures in frames. They were so clear he almost expected them to come alive. But there was Piper, Riordan, and a number of people who looked similar to them by their features, so he guessed they were her family. He found himself looking closely at them, smiling when he could see they were clearly enjoying themselves in each picture. Nowhere were there any formal portraits, but daily life images, smiles and fun and memories. It made his heart happy to see such things, but at the same time he ached for the dwarves lost when Erebor fell, and the hardships that fell upon them after. There were few smiles and happy memories made then. He quietly prayed to Mahal, not certain his prayers would be heard, that this kind woman and her precious son would never face such hardships.

“Oh! Thorin! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you wait!” Piper turned her chair to look at him, blinking owlishly. “Is something wrong? You okay? Do you guys need anything?” She rose and crossed the distance to his side, eyes wide and searching his face.

Holding his hands up, Thorin shook his head, missing the way Piper’s eyes traveled to watch his hair sway. “No, nothing is wrong… well, that is not entirely true. It seems that some of my company have gotten a little out of hand, and I have come to apologize.” He sighed when she only seemed confused, “They found a machine in your workshop… and have taken it apart. I have ordered them to reassemble it, but they seem yet uncertain as to whether or not they can.”

“Workshop…? Oh my garage! Uh… there’s just a snowblower and a lawnmower in there… huh.” She frowned, thinking about if she could afford to replace either right now. Probably not. But they had very little lawn, as most of the ground around them was pine needles and natural growth. She only maintained enough lawn for Riordan to play on. Her mother had done more, but she seemed to like the natural approach better. Hopefully they hadn’t taken the snowblower apart. That she needed. “Well, if they can’t I’m sure I can find a repairman who can.” With a shrug she smiled. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty easy going. Things happen, life goes on. Getting all twisted about it doesn’t help anyone.”

Thorin stood, staring at her for a moment, before one of his handsome smiles spread on his face. “If only more people had your heart, Lady Piper.” He grunted when she thumped him on the shoulder. “My apologies, Piper. Just, Piper.”

Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes. “Damn majestic dwarf.”

“Majestic?” He queried, sounding far too amused. “You think I’m majestic?”

Piper laughed, grinning at him. “Well, it’s probably the most used term to describe you that I’ve noticed.” She looked over at her photo wall that he’d been admiring. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I thought you knew of us already,” He countered, raising a brow as he watched her face.

She shrugged in that lopsided way she had. “I do, sort of. I mean, I know the major facts, but not the little details. Tell me about you, Thorin. Not Thorin Oakenshield, the great warrior, the crowned prince, but tell me about Thorin, the m--dwarf. Do you have anything you enjoy doing? Hobbies, interests, dirty little secrets?”

Thorin laughed then, “It would only be fair if you shared with me the same.” His blue eyes were lit with a mischief that he rarely let show. But she had a way of drawing that out in people, it seemed. He found a low-set overstuffed chair and sat in it, while she returned to her desk. They chatted for roughly two hours before she finished her work and had to go up to put Riordan to bed. There was a big smile on her face, that none of the other dwarves missed.

“Had a good time?” Fili asked in a teasing tone of his uncle as the older dwarf joined them, taking his spot on the sofa.

“Mind your tongue. We simply spoke.” Thorin reprimanded him lightly. “Our hostess is quite interesting.” He didn’t see behind him, that Bofur was studying his boots, making certain to meet no one’s gaze. It was a sickening feeling twisting in his gut, he wanted to jump up and scream at their king, but he couldn’t. He wanted to run and find Piper and find out all of these interesting things for himself, but he couldn’t. Instead he grabbed his blanket, pulled his hat down over his eyes and curled up on his spot to sleep, even if it was early. He didn’t feel like being a part of the world right at the moment.

Bifur and Bombur shared a glance, knowing that was unlike their Bofur to act that way, but they understood it. Bombur sighed, and sat back, puffing on his pipe, while he watched Bifur measuring a block of wood he had hewn from the oak outside. He wondered what sort of toy his cousin would craft, as Bifur wasn’t telling anyone just yet.

Eventually the group came in from outside, claiming they had the machine mostly put back together, or so they thought. And they would finish in the morning, as a couple of them were starting to nod off while working. After another hour, Piper had come to bid those who were still awake sweet dreams, and she went off to bed herself, promising the dwarves and hobbit they could have baths tomorrow. Bilbo seemed the most pleased by this.

#Tale Teller’s Plot Bunny Challenge 2019 #TheGreatestDistance #TheHobbit #Bofur #Bombur #Fic #Thorin #Bifur #OC #etc etc etc

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taggerbug · 6 years

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spiderman science

v. 2.0

If you like Spiderman meta, or want to read what Spiderman would look like if he were more realistic, here you go.This is going to be a long one, folks. Thanks to @redmiel for encouraging me to post these notes.

Preface: I’ve never read any Spiderman comics, and my first exposure to any sort of Spiderman lore was seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming a couple months ago. I’ve been an amateur entomologist for 12 years, so I decided the best way to cope with the sheer audacity of the meta in that movie (mechanical spinnerets??? cowards) would be to do some research and, essentially, design a Spiderman based on real spider characteristics, adapted to a human form and while keeping a very rough sketch of what Spiderman is supposed to be in mind. This has been a fun project to keep up with, so here’s what I have so far:

Species

Based on what I saw in Homecoming, I’d pin down the approximate species of spider for Peter Parker to inherit his abilities from as being a jumping spider, with a little tarantula and spitting spider mixed in. Jumping spiders are fairly unique among spiders, as they have front-facing eyes (and subsequently, better vision), are active hunters rather than sit-and-wait hunters, and of course can jump up to 14 times their own body length. I’ll explain the tarantula and spitting spider traits later.

Silk

What kind of Iron Man-worshipping heretic gives Spiderman mechanical spinnerets and artificial web fluid?? Real spider silk is so much cooler to work with. As a precedent, let’s put spinnerets on Spiderman’s wrists. The silk glands would be located in the shoulders, as that’s the best location that can be transferred to human anatomy - the spitting spider’s venom and silk glands are located in the cephalothorax, the first segment of a spider’s body.

Anyway, spider silk is really neat. It’s stronger than a steel thread of the same size, can stretch up to 200 times its original length, and the spider (peter) can control the diameter of the silk thread with the spinnerets! The web-based combat in Homecoming was okay, but it completely missed out on a few natural defenses that spiders actually use silk for, like dropping down on prey with silk nets, or setting up an “alert system” with silk triplines.

“Spider Sense”

I was actually mildly pleasantly surprised at the way the “spider sense” was portrayed in the Infinity War trailer. Spiders can detect low-level vibrations with the hairs on their bodies, similar to the way Peter’s hair suddenly stood up. In this context, the detection of low-level vibrations can be translated to being able to perceive sudden movements and lurking enemies without being a terrible stretch.

Assorted Physiological Features and Behaviours (not including combat-based)

Key terms are in bold, because this is a lot of text.

Here’s the fun part, in my opinion. Spiders have so many cool and often unrealized anatomical traits, and as long as you make sure that transplanting a spider characteristic to Spiderman won’t kill him, it’s all good.

To walk on walls like spiders, Spiderman would have microfibers on the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet, and would also have microscopic claws tipping his fingertips. Most spiders have two or three claws on the ends of their legs, which are bigger proportionally than what I’m proposing, but I’m trying to let Spiderman retain at least a hope of preserving a secret identity (the only reason I can’t even give him more eyes).

Another thing that’s really cool about spiders is that instead of focusing the lens of the eye and the iris remaining the same size, like humans, they focus the iris and the lens stays the same size. This usually can only be seen by looking closely at a jumping spider who is focusing on different objects, but in a human it would be a bit more noticeable, and would probably appear as a strange flickering in Peter’s eyes when he looks around, but nobody would be likely to notice the cause of the flickering unless they used the same methods as with a jumping spider - looked very closely and intentionally. Simply put, when Spiderman focuses on a new object, the colors of his eyes would dilate or contract, instead of the pupil.

Now that I think about it, a (weak) connection could be made to the way Spiderman’s suit’s eyes focus the main white part, instead of the black lining, but then again that could simply represent a squinting motion of the eyelids instead.

“Ballooning” is a behaviour exhibited solely by baby spiders and extremely small adults, although it is sometimes (and perhaps more accurately) called “kiting”. In this, the spider assembles a triangular-shaped sail of sorts out of silk, which is then used under the right wind conditions to float on the air currents. This is, in my opinion, absolutely fascinating and a devastatingly unused opportunity that Marvel could be taking advantage of.

Spiders are unable to thermoregulate, so throughout the day some species constantly seek out warmer areas, such as areas with more sun. For Spiderman, this could mean that whenever he enters a room, he unconsciously finds the warmest spot possible and stays there as long as he can. It also means that his ability to function would be reduced in winter, as most spiders hibernate or outright die.

Some common health problems for spiders are dehydration and lack of humidity! This is especially apparent in tarantulas, but applies to most species. Spiders have fluid-based joints (I’ll mention that in Combat-Based Abilities), so staying hydrated is essential to basic movement. A sign of dehydration in spiders is the abdomen shrinking suddenly (which is a late-stage sign, and usually means the spider needs to drink soon or it will die) which, in Spiderman, would be exhibited as sudden and severe weight loss around the stomach and hips. As long as he keeps some humidifiers in his apartment and drinks tons of water, he’ll be fine, but the danger of dehydration would be felt much more acutely by him than humans.

Spiders breathe through spiracles, or tiny holes on their sides that connect to a primitive trachea. Spiderman definitely cannot have a spider’s respiratory system, as book lungs are essentially the arachnid equivalent of asthma, but having a few spiracles on the sides of his collarbone/upper chest that connect to his trachea would aid in oxygen intake, if not actual lung capacity. This would also allow Spiderman to survive for a period of time if being strangled from the neck up (but would be ineffective against suffocation by compression).

The popular depiction of a spider feeding is of a spider injecting its prey with a dissolving enzyme and then drinking it, but some spiders secrete this enzyme while breaking the prey apart with their pedipalps and mandibles. The latter is more easily translated, and so Spiderman could have the dissolving enzyme incorporated into his saliva, so that food would partially dissolve in his mouth and then be swallowed.

One last note that can be read as either a sweet concept, or a hilarious idea, is the courtship process of spiders. Generally, male spiders present females with gifts (usually food),but in jumping spiders and peacock spiders, the males also dance and “sing” for a female they hope to impress (the singing is accomplished by making clicking noises and tapping on a surface). For examples, look up videos of “jumping spider courtship” or the same with peacock spiders. If you’ve ever seen a .gif of a spider moving oddly with a set of drums poorly edited into it, that was most likely a courtship dance.

Combat-Based Abilities

These are some other features that deal more directly with how Spiderman would move and fight. First, let’s discuss jumping. Leaping from building to building is all well and good, but doing that by swinging from sticky strands of silk is the most unnecessary - and unsafe - thing I’ve ever heard of. Firstly, as with jumping spiders, Spiderman would need to attach a silk safety line to whatever he’s jumping off of. Not only does this provide a measure of security in case he falls, but it stabilizes the actual jump (the same is true for jumping spiders). Furthermore, the actual process of jumping is fascinating. To make a jump, a jumping spider will suddenly force hemolymph (the spider equivalent of blood) into the legs, which abruptly straightens the joints and propels the spider forward. In Spiderman, this would look like him crouching on the edge of a building, silk safety line attaching one wrist to the building, and then suddenly changing his blood pressure to force blood into his legs, causing the legs to extend abruptly and propel him forward. Isn’t that cool?

Now, I know that I’ve said in the past that Spiderman must only have a human endoskeleton if he wants to survive, BUT exoskeletons are really cool so I’m bastardizing the concept to fit my needs. An exoskeleton is the hard “shell” that surrounds a spider in lieu of internally placed bones, like humans. The reason Spiderman can’t have a proper exoskeleton is because that would severely limit his movement and make most human motions, as well as his signature agility, impossible to perform. However, since exoskeletons are comprised of layers of chitin (the layers are called cuticles), Spiderman could have a few thin layers of chitin covering his limbs and part of his back. Immobile areas, like the front and back of his limbs, would be plated with semi-rigid plates of chitin, with joints only covered by a superficial layer to connect the exoskeleton while still allowing a full range of movement. This arrangement would not cover his stomach, chest, neck, or head. In order to grow with a partial exoskeleton, Spiderman would need to molt, especially often as a teenager. Molting occurs periodically in a spider’s growth, and involves shedding the old, too-small exoskeleton for a newer, softer exoskeleton that is more comfortable for the spider’s increased size. The new exoskeleton hardens after a couple of days, during which time the spider is vulnerable to predators. In the days leading up to a molt, the spider will experience difficulty moving, due to the old exoskeleton separating from the spider itself. Once Spiderman reaches his full growth (adulthood), molting will stop.

One last thing about molting that’s really cool! If a spider loses a leg before its final molt, it will regrow the limb inside its new exoskeleton, so when it next molts, it has the leg back! By application, as long as he doesn’t die of blood loss, Spiderman could safely lose a limb as long as he’s still a child. However, the new limb would not be available until the next molt. So if Spiderman loses an arm and is set to molt two months away, then he would not have that arm until the two months are up and he sheds his old exoskeleton. Not like the mutant from X-Men who regrew his limbs instantly (i think it was in last stand?). For Spiderman, there would be a waiting period, and any loss of limb after his final molt in early adulthood would be permanent. Just another cool thing to think about!

Finally, the venom. I cannot resist designing a spider-based hero without the use of venom - it’s the most commonly known characteristic of spiders, even though most are harmless to humans. For fangs to be incorporated into human anatomy, they would have to be based on an up-and-down movement, like tarantulas, rather than the sideways bite that most spiders use. Those would be tucked into the upper jaw, and connect to the venom glands in the shoulders as previously discussed (with the extra glands, homeboy’s going to look like an olympic swimmer). Based on Spiderman’s moral compass in Homecoming, the use of venom would be a last resort, and when used, the fangs would would open downwards (à la snake) and deliver a neurotoxin. I chose a neurotoxin for the type of venom because I figured it would be more useful to Spiderman to have the symptoms of such (muscle cramps, temporary paralysis, sometimes death) instead of a localized flesh-damaging venom.

That’s all for now! I hope you enjoy this information as much as I did while writing it. If you have any questions, feel free to send an ask, but if you’re asking about anything other than entomology (how does spiderman force blood into his legs without having a heart attack? hell if i know, buddy) I won’t know. As stated earlier, I also have barely any knowledge of actual Spiderman lore, so please don’t get mad because I didn’t know something that happens in canon. I just like spiders.

In conclusion,

marvel needs to hire an arachnology consultant!

#spiderman #spider-man #mcu #spiderman science #spiderman homecoming #GOD this got long #took me four hours to transcribe everything from my notes too :/#might add on to this later ?#sorry for the hella long post

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jasondean · 6 years

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i'm sending you the first thing i thought of when i tried to think of an ask to send you. so. here's this cursed thing. heathersstuck.

ohhh my god okay first of all im gonna preemptively apologize for how long this is about to be.

another disclaimer that this is all gonna be based on my knowledge of the alternia that we see in homestuck itself because i havent gotten super into hiveswap yet. and, as we all know, any good homestuck au is one where the contending canon is thrust into the homestuck universe as opposed to the other way around. so im gonna spare everyone the painful ideation of plucking a small handful from the VAST homestuck cast just to put them into the plot of heathers

im ALSO gonna preface that im thinking about the heathers film while writing this, not the musical. and im not gonna go into anything regarding martha, betty, kurt, or ram because i think focusing on the main cast is enough for right now lol.

anyway, potential positions in the blood caste system as well as god tier assignments under the cut!

so ive definitely thought about this on several occasions and ive seen some heatherstuck content where the heathers are trolls right. the thing is, the color symbolism from both media dont line up. and the heathers being drawn to keep their original colors just doesnt work out with the hemospectrum. like no way is heather chandler a red blood or mutant blood (imo itd make sense for jd to have mutant blood). the heathers being red, yellow, and green blooded would just make them a group of lowbloods and that doesnt fit with the power structure depicted in either canon.

heather chandler would absolutely have fuchsia blood! i couldnt imagine it any other way. duke could maybe get away with being jade blooded because thatd put her in the midblood range but also what does that leave for mcnamara? i dont really have a good answer for that right now but -

the heathers themselves aside, veronica would actually be pretty well suited for being some kind of blueblood (teal or cerulean maybe?) veronica being blue blooded would put her in a position of enough privilege to be taken under chandlers wing but also not privileged enough to naturally be at the top.

jd would probably be rust or mutant blooded. but its also fun to consider: purple blood? since those in that blood class are more susceptible to becoming more ..unhinged. however, i personally favor rust or mutant blooded since i am partial to reds and it would help play into his hatred of society.

trolls or not though theyd all be destined for something right? so im gonna move onto potential god tiers.

now this is where my laptop cut out so most of the classpect analyses themselves come with help fom http://dahniwitchoflight.tumblr.com

im imagining veronica as a rogue of space. first of all, space players are CRUCIAL to a session as one of the cardinal aspects (space & time making up the fabric of paradox space). its been said by calliope that space can be a passive aspect that holds great power, “hosting the stage before suddenly in some way ‘showing who the master truly is’” and then collapsing in on itself. space players are essential to sessions because it falls on them to light the forge which is necessary for the process of ultimate alchemy (creating the next universe) - and that aside, the idea of veronica collecting and breeding frogs is incredibly cute to me.

“Those bound to the aspect of Space are, as the name suggests, concerned with the big picture. They are patient, masters of the art of ‘wait-and-see’, and are inclined to take things as they come. That isn’t to say that they’re pushovers or willing to let injustice lie-they just choose their battles wisely, understanding that sometimes you have to let something burn to the ground in order to build it back better and stronger than before. To this effect, they tend to be innovators, concerned with creation and redemption. Catch them recycling the old to make the new, the fresh, and the beautiful. For the Space-bound, the journey is as, if not more, important than the destination; how they do something is as important as what they do. At their best, they are steady, impartial, and creative. At their worst, they can be detached, apathetic, and vague.” – this description of space players comes from the extended zodiac quiz itself

rogues invite theft through their aspect or theft of their aspect. they have problems coping with their aspect or their supposed lack of it, they think that they cant handle it which causes them to give it up too easily. the challenge rogues face is to come to terms with their aspect and own it.

heres a bit on rogues of space specifically: “They might have a tendency to quickly change the subject into others things or cover their interests up to distract from what they perceive to be their failed creations. They may feel uncomfortable with the thought that everything is random and meaningless in the universe, or that it is what you make of it, because they often think they don’t know what to make of it. They may feel lonely at times and feel like they have too much Space to themselves, wanting to fill it up with other people and things. They might lower their standards to the point that they give up their personal Space to someone not worthy enough, just so they won’t feel alone.On the flip side they might feel like they have too much stuff, maybe because they invite others to use up their Space, giving it away too readily, lamenting their lack of impatience with others, or the ability to say no to people. […] a Rogue’s challenge is to learn to be comfortable with their Aspect, and allow the healthy parts of it to enter their lives. They must learn to be okay with what they have right now, that they have it within themselves to change things and make them better. They don’t have to give up so easily.”

jd seems like hed obviously be a prince of doom and this feels self explanatory but. princes are described as being stubborn and pessimistic and they actively destroy using their class / destroy through their class. a princes challenge is to not end up destroying themselves along the way. doom aspect because not only does it pretty much encompass chaos, but the symbol (and the aspect itself has been speculated to be) pretty clearly draws from The Tumor which is. a giant fucking bomb essentially. another fun tidbit about doom players is that they are DEATH MAGNETS they die a LOT and its theorized that for this reason sburb has a sort of game mechanic in place to help balance that out by granting doom players multiple dream selves. i just think itd be really fun to see a sburb session where jd (maybe) cant be kept down by dying. doom is also associated with judgement and sacrifice, and have been said to be “fates chosen sufferers.” “doom players are wise, kind, and non judgmental at their best and bitter, resentful, and fatalistic at their worst.”

and while i definitely think the doom class is fitting for jd im stuck between prince and bard? bards are the embodiment of the “wild card”. they allow destruction through their aspect / invite destruction through their aspect and their challenge is to not be ruled by the whims of their aspect. and im just now thinking that while this does make sense in its own way, princes and bards are active / passive opposites and i cant really imagine jd being the more laid back of the two. hes just too extra, lol. although i love the idea of jd being in that ridiculous bard getup

heres some insight to princes of doom: “A Prince of Doom unapologetically pushes people way past their own limits. They are truly passionate, even almost crazy activists. They hate being told no or that they can’t do something, but are more likely to simply destroy or kill the person who said no then prove them otherwise. Depending on what kind of situation or session they find themselves in, and whether or not what they do is really needed at the moment, they can be heaven sent saviors, freeing people from what binds them, or terrifying dictators, ruling over people and enforcing their will wherever they want, letting nothing and no one limit what they do. […] They likely use Bombs and Fire as their main weapons. They have a lot of potential to go down a very destructive or even evil path if they use their powers irresponsibly, but not every Prince of Doom is automatically evil or will Doom their session.“

heather chandler i can definitely see being a witch of rage. witches manipulate using their aspect or manipulate their aspect directly and their challenge is to use their rule breaking powers in a morally conscious way.

heres some info about witches of rage: “You don’t tell a Witch of Rage anything, they tell you. Anything you have to say they can Reject with Doubt, Negativity and Skepticism and be like ‘No you’re wrong, it’s actually this way.’ They manipulate fear, mistrust and anger, either lowering it or making you believe it’s not all that bad, even if it is. Or they can amplify it, making you paranoid and afraid of even mundane things. […] They can be ‘loose cannons’ and this can be good or bad, depending on how good you are on getting them on your side and keeping them there. Their entire moral challenge lies in the choice between using their powers on their allies or their enemies, like most witches.”

heather duke would likely be a maid of mind. a maid creates with their aspect / creates their aspect, and a maids challenge is to rely on themself for their aspect. this absolutely isnt to say that duke cannot think for herself at the beginning of the story by any means.

here’s a bit about maids of mind: “At first they tend to defer to the decisions of the group rather than be a part of them and are more focused on watching and waiting and seeing how other people make decisions. […] When a Maid of Mind starts rising to their challenge, they start deciding for themselves what roles they need to play and when. […] They may just have an apathetic and indifferent personality in general. They start letting their thoughts and decision be known and have an effect instead of just referring to others and blending in.”

and finally heather mcnamara would probably be a page of heart. (i had a hard time coming up with a god tier for her since, if im being honest, shes not a character i pay much attention to.) pages invite exploitation of their aspect / invite exploitation through their aspect. they start with a deficit in their aspect that they overcome through (obvious) overcompensation. their challenge is to keep at things, even if they fail or the journey is slow, to become stronger in the end.

bit about pages of heart: “They can be very over dramatic in their emotional displays, blowing up every little thing completely out of proportion and giving disproportionate emotional responses to almost everything. […] They can be easily exploited through all of this by other people who either take advantage of the Page’s emotions and empathy, or take advantage of the Page’s obsessions and desires, using it against them. […] When they rise up to their challenge, they start learning to be more balanced and sincere with their emotions, their affections, and with themselves. They learn how to be passionate, sincere and truly honest with themselves and others.”

and all of this is just SOME of the possibilities of what could happen in a homestuck heathers au. would they all be in the same session? would they all be trolls? would the heathers & veronica be in their own session and jd be in his own session that ends up intertwining together? theres literally SO MANY possibilities when it comes to homestuck aus and i love that shit.

now that ive spent so much time speculating all this its time to deposit myself directly into the dumpster

#heathers #homestuck #i cant believe im about to use this tag but #heathersstuck #or wait #heatherstuck #i think single s feels more right #anyway #stupidestquestion #are you happy #.txt

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charactercritiquecentral-blog · 6 years

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Definitely Not Mod Sky

Nah this is,, this is definitely not Mod Sky wanting a review now that Mod Smiley had one done lmao. But honestly be plain with me guys. I need genuine reviews!!

So here, have my bab to look at. I’ll try to include as much detail as possible. Mod Tan and Mod Thunder, you’ve prob been there for the creation of this nerd; Mod Smiley, you might know him? Idk if I’ve mentioned him much. Anyways, here goes.

ALSO:: CW for depression, PTSD, trauma, self-harm and alcohol abuse.

Ignore my awful art ;v;

–

Birth Name: Joseph Nash ((Not used much))

Aliases:Sabre, Sab ((Usually goes by these, partially for anonymity, partially because it makes him more comfortable))

Age:Somewhere in his mid thirties

Gender:Cis male

Orientation:Demiromantic Heterosexual

Star Sign:Taurus

Occupation: Freelance Technician/Engineer

Injuries and issues: [Physical] - Burn scar on right side of face. Hearing and seeing difficulties on that side - caused by a bad chemical reaction in the past - sometimes wears a hearing aid and/or glasses when it’s a bad day. Mostly old self-harm scars across arms and inner thighs. Mild asthma. [Mental] - Severe depression, PTSD and anxiety. Insomnia and night terrors. In therapy and on pills for all of this. Prone to flashbacks and panic attacks.

Personality: Despite his appearance, Sab’s usually quite a shy person when you first meet him, in part due to his scars. Although he enjoys being around people, he’s usually found on the sidelines unless somebody directly approaches him. Sometimes his unwillingness to communicate makes him miss out on opportunities and friendships, although he can be drawn out of his shell. He takes a while to trust and is bad with judging from first impressions; he’s wary of people in general despite having a fear of being alone.

However, he’s fairly down-to-earth once he gets to know you. He’s well-meaning and a hard worker; he copes by keeping himself busy and can usually be found fiddling with things to take his mind off his worries. He has a bad habit of dismantling things that are left in reach. Although he tends to have a rocky exterior, he genuinely means well and he’s quite a sensitive soul. He’s also a hopeless romantic, which honestly, he’s fine with people knowing.

Sab’s mental health means that he can tend to be quite jumpy and paranoid, though. Once you do him wrong, he’ll likely avoid you altogether. It’s easy for him to push the people he loves away because he’s got it in his head that they’re mad at him or dislike him. On the other hand, he can be excessively rude towards those that he feels threatened by and has a habit of pushing arguments too far. He’s a pessimist at heart, although he’s trying his best to stay positive. He’s getting better about being open with his feelings, although he still sometimes falls prey to self-harm and excessive drinking when things get really bad. Unfortunately, Sab’s a lot harsher on himself than he is to others, which means he’s more likely to take his anger out on himself in destructive ways.

Backstory in a nutshell: Sab grew up on the outskirts of Arizona, in what I suppose could be called a New Age scientific cult. Most of it was underground and enclosed; families lived there, had their children there, got married there, the lot. And so, Sab was born into this life as Joseph Nash. It was based on human experimentation, of course, as pushing the limits of the human body would be interesting to anybody - but most of the experiments there were people that had volunteered. On one hand, this was easier, and said people got honored as martyrs for the cause. On the other, it meant family and friends would often give their lives for science. Like the others, Sab was trained in science and technology, biology, maths and basic literature skills. He was treated well, as were they all. Most of them considered the others to be a kind of extended family. Being trainees and apprentices, Sab and others his age never really got to be involved in the whole experimentation part of it, and mostly worked on maintenance and engineering - and the odd “disposal”. Luckily for him, he never got to earn his wings; as with most unethical practices, it was found, shut down, and the higher-ups were arrested. Since most of the younger generation hadn’t actually committed any crimes, they were instead put into rehabilitation and then therapy.

Of course, once Sab realized the gravity of what had been happening there, it hit him like a ton of bricks. He suffers with guilt and self-loathing a lot, even now; that was to be expected. He cut contact with everything from his past in a bout of fear and moved so that he didn’t have to face the things he’d done; for a while, he relied on alcohol and hookups to try to fill some kind of void until he ended up going back into therapy. Now he’s on pills and mostly stable, though issues still remain. But the outside world is doing him good and, slowly, he’s finally living the life that he missed out on for thirty years.

Trivia:

* He’s a huge fan of chick flicks and romances. He’s fine with this.

* He usually ends up blasting heavy metal or rock to drown out his thoughts, although when he’s happier he tends to go for pop. Music is important to him since it lets him calm down without lashing out at himself.

* He’s slightly awful at spelling and writing due to never really having that much of an education in it. On the other hand, though, he’s a whiz at maths and very good with machinery.

* Sabre was a name given to him by friends back in the facility. They tended to call each other by nicknames, simply because it made them feel like they were connecting with one another. A lot of them went for weapons, machine parts or colours, since that was what they knew best.

* Sab loves the natural world. Adores it. He’ll spend hours sitting outside, walking, hiking; rain or shine. Being out in nature is where he really feels safe.

* He’s quite a large guy. Not height-wise, but weight-wise. Due to hefting heavy machinery around in the past, he’s got quite a lot of muscle; however, because his coping mechanisms include binge-eating and binge-drinking, he’s also gained quite a lot of weight. Character Submitted by the amazing Mod Sky! I really like Sab, he sounds very normal. He has a normal appearance, nothing weird about being short, having scars and being larger. I am happy to get weight representation here! I, personally get aggy when too many of my characters have the same body types! Humans aren’t all hourglasses so kudos to you for doing this! The backstory in reference to Sab’s mental health and conduct is so sad! It is also really authentic and relatable, the idea of insecurities due to factors out of our control tends to be heartbreaking on its own, let alone when it influences introversion on such a level as Sab’s does! My heart goes out to him! His backstory makes him unique, to say the least, but it seems very... out there, with him being born into a New Age Scientific Cult... Not that that’s a problem! It happens to people, and I’m glad that you have demonstrated that he hasn’t come out of this situation completely unfazed. The ways in which he deals with the trauma he underwent all appear to be reasonable, all things considered! You have handled an outlandish and odd home life and the consequences really well from what you have said here! And hey, characters can’t all have backstories of sunshine and rainbows! I love the trivia you have provided us with, the juxtaposition between Sab’s job and his love for nature is refreshing and realistic! It’s great! I have seen Sab in action, and although this may have made me biased, I really do like this character! Thank you for your submission! ~Mod Smiley

#human #submission #mod sky #mod smiley #oc review #oc critique #character bio #bio critique #bio review #We do OC Critiques

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dontcallmecarrie · 7 years

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Fic Idea: Welcome To The Family

[In Which Natasha Is A Better Friend]

Warnings: Natasha Romanov’s background and POV [which…yeah, be careful because child soldiers are the least of it; plus a different take on what Graduation consists of], canon-typical violence, mental health issues [hi, Tony’s PTSD and Co.], loss of trust, probably OOC in some places, gradual canon divergence [wow isn’t that familiar], not Steve friendly, not Wanda friendly, closer-to-Skynet-than-is-comfortable!JARVIS, dubious morality, some pretty unhealthy things in general [childhoods, coping mechanisms, etc], mercy-killing [mentioned as a past thing, rather brief but in the context of Natasha’s Graduation]

Main changes here from canon: Natasha’s characterization [as in, it doesn’t change on the turn of a dime]. Her relationship with Bruce isn’t something I’ll delve into, because guess who can’t write romance to save my life?

Also, JARVIS lives, because the day I acknowledge his death is pencilled in for never. And in this AU, Zola implied something a bit less specific than he did in canon.

Full thing’s under the cut because you guys know how I roll when it comes to fic ideas [read: very, very, very long outlines]. I’ll get to writing the fic on this sometime in the future, but in the meantime here you go.

Natasha Romanov was a very dangerous person. In more ways than one.

It came with the ‘was raised as a living weapon during one of the most politically terse times in history’ package, after all, only a complete and utter fool would claim otherwise. And with it, came an appreciation for some things other people might take for granted, like the various applications of duct tape, the lifespan of granola bars, and even more fundamental things. Like trust.

No, make that especially trust, and faith in humanity in general; just what kind of childhood did these people have, to just believe someone’s word? To take a known assassin and just…extend their hand like that? [Weird. But strangely adorable, too, there was that.]

…Yeah, years later, and Clint Barton is still very baffling.

Point is, Natasha’s…unique background meant she had a perspective very few people ever got. The Stark Industries/Natalie Rushman mess meant she got a front-row seat as to the show Tony Stark put up. And that was what it was; a front, she knew. [Like knew like, after all.]

The entire fiasco had also been a case of “I know” and “you know I know” and “you know I know you know”, because Stark Industries apparently had a very unique stance on corporate espionage, and SHIELD hadn’t been very subtle in their attempts to get her in.

The “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not recommended” bit was a convoluted snarl of politics and dynamics and if Natasha hadn’t been born and raised in this, and if Tony hadn’t been a genius with Maria Stark and Peggy Carter as role models, he might’ve missed some of the nuances in what went unsaid. As it was, neither Fury nor Natasha missed the laughter in his voice, when he’d gotten to that bit.

Natasha didn’t blame him; years in, and she still didn’t get why SHIELD loved melodrama so much.

But it wasn’t until the Avengers assembled, that her observations started paying off. Clint’s being compromised had been jarring, to be sure, and none of her training had ever covered huge green monsters, but Natasha had done her best to roll with it.

If anything, Tony’s presence had been a comfort; yes, he was a pain in the ass, but he was familiar, an ally, and tended to come with a side of explosions and breakthroughs. The man was a force of nature, and Natasha sometimes wondered how things might’ve gone if he’d been born to anyone else, or anywhere else…then again, that sounded like nightmare fuel, never mind. [Don’t imagine him as a trainer in the Red Room, don’t imagine him as an enemy operative—no.]

Steve Rogers might have been an icon, might have been a bastion of principles and what it meant to be American—but Natasha was Russian, and she’d known to see past the propaganda to see the dazed and confused man who was still learning how to pick up the pieces when his world turned to ash.

He looked like he needed a friend. [Which…huh. There’s an idea.]

New York had been…interesting, to say the least. But it wasn’t until later, until Tony set about with cleanup after the invasion was over, that their friendship really kicked off.

It helped, that they were very similar to each other; Clint might have noticed, if he wasn’t busy trying to piece himself back together, but as it was Tony tossed her a business card and sauntered away with Dr. Banner in tow, with a faux-careless “keep in touch if you want, Pepper wanted to talk to you about going out for drinks sometime” over his shoulder.

But Natasha had noticed the guarded look in his eyes, even if nobody else did, and she knew, without a word being said, that, despite all his trust issues [which she’d only glimpsed during her stint at SI, but had seen enough of to know it was a beast], this was Tony making an attempt to reach out.

Well…it’d be rude not to, after that, right?

And…Tony looked like he could use a friend, too. Not to knock Happy or Pepper, but this was something few could relate to, trying to atone for past sins [and failing miserably], plus the ‘hey we fought aliens together that one time, now what?’ thing.

So, Natasha did what she could, to keep in touch. It was very off-again-on-again, because of missions and general work-related issues, but she managed. Things were rather rocky and awkward at first, but enough late-night phone calls thanks to time differences and downtime and boring stakeouts meant a very convoluted friendship soon bloomed.

Which…Natasha couldn’t quite wrap her head around it, actually. The man had trust issues and one of the most full-blown cases of PTSD she’d ever seen, and yet he somehow mustered up the strength and kindness to reach out and befriend the person who literally stabbed him in the neck?!

What even.

Tony Stark was added to Natasha’s “Weirdest Humans Ever Met But Would Gladly Murder For” list, because of that. It wasn’t very long, there were only three names, now, because Clint’s wife was just as baffling as he was.

Time passed, and while work at SHIELD meant that Natasha’s social life was 85% work-related [counting Clint and Steve], the other 15% had Natasha glued to her phone while keeping tabs on Tony and Pepper and JARVIS. [Which…she hadn’t known the AI was so sophisticated, before. Actually, she’d be surprised if anyone outside Tony’s inner circle knew, and treasured the show of trust like the rare thing it was.]

Time passed, and Natasha was feeling pretty good about everything; work was going well, Steve seemed to be settling in and making good progress in moving on [now if only he’d let her help him get a date], Clint and his wife were expecting their first baby and had asked her to be a godmother, and though Tony was having a hard time, he looked like he had things well in hand [and she couldn’t exactly visit him while in the middle of an op in Vanuatu].

So, of course, Murphy’s Law struck with a vengeance.

HYDRA hit with all the force of a sledgehammer, and the Winter Soldier had rattled Natasha badly. If she’d trusted her [SHIELD-issued, when’d she gotten so complacent, dammit?!] phone, she would’ve called Tony for help, but as it was she didn’t doubt someone was monitoring his communications, since doubtlessly someone up the chain had noticed his friendship with the Level 7 Special Agent.

The reveal that the Nazis weren’t as gone as the world had hoped, that she’d been working for them, that her efforts to atone for all the red in her ledger had been for nothing, tasted like ash. It was a cold, bitter realization, and Natasha couldn’t imagine how Steve must be feeling. She, at least, had practice with this, after all: with realizing that everything and everyone she’d been surrounded with was an enemy agent, with the feeling of nothing was safe, not when empires crumbled and regimes turned to ash.

Steve really hadn’t taken it well.

In retrospect, she should’ve seen it coming, really.

But Natasha carried on. Though…Zola had mentioned something, back at the bunker, and what he’d implied had left her feeling cold.

And…Tony needed to know.

Natasha had heard him talking about his parents, once, when he’d been running on two carafes of coffee and not much else, mid-way through his 27-hour-long engineering binge, and the mention of how much of an ass Howard had been had stuck with her, nearly as much as how much he’d clearly cared for his mother.

Natasha might not have have the kindest of childhoods [ha-understatement of the decade], but she did her best to be as supportive as possible, even if she went ‘that sounds fake but okay’ to what others claimed were normal childhoods [jury was still out in regards to Tony’s mentions of having built a bomb before puberty, though, no matter how relatable that experience was].

Steve must’ve told him, though, right? Because he might have been understandably hyperfocused on Bucky, there was no way he’d missed HYDRA’s hand in the death of Howard Stark. And though Steve and Tony might’ve had their differences, there was absolutely no way the man Natasha knew would keep something this huge from her other friend.

Not when Steve’s searching for the Winter Soldier, not when Tony’s moving heaven and earth to clean up after them in DC. Not when the team started to regroup, and work together to take down every last vestige of HYDRA once and for all. Time passes, and things continue in this vein.

Sokovia’s where the rose-tinted lenses came off.

Ultron caught everyone off-guard, really. Natasha had talked to Tony often enough to know he hadn’t been remotely close to interface, and while the Iron Legion was intimidating, she approved of its various applications.

And yet the team tried to blame Tony.

No, strike that, they did blame Tony, and that she hadn’t seen the cracks in the team before Thor nearly snapped his neck [because she’d seen that technique before, in the Red Room, and it had never been in a nonlethal application], she tasted bile in the back of her throat because how had she missed this?!

The Red Witch’s recruitment didn’t exactly help, either. Ignoring the dredging up of memories best left forgotten [Graduation and the mercy-killing of the only childhood friend she’d ever had because she wouldn’t stop screaming and wouldn’t have survived the Serum and remained sane], Natasha recognized the look in Wanda’s eyes. She saw it in the mirror, after all, and was intimately aware of her capabilities, of what it felt like to have nothing left to lose.

Of how to use people.

She didn’t get why Steve had recruited her, really; he already had a hard time just adjusting to life in general, why the hell did he invite a viper into the fold?

…again, it was one of those things that were embarrassingly obvious in retrospect.

It was no surprise Tony’d retired, really. Not when the only other friend besides her had flown the coop, not when everyone else had seen him being choked by an ally and hadn’t batted an eye, not when nobody else seemed to care that JARVIS had nearly died.

But at least they were still friends.

Even if Wanda threw a contemptuous look her way whenever Natasha’s phone started to play AC/DC [because Tony’s sense of humor knew no bounds and Natasha didn’t have the heart to say no when he’d offered to program in a few ringtones], or Steve frowned when she laughed at a Snapchat from Tony showcasing DUM-E’s latest attempt at a smoothie. [Sure, it was when she should’ve been sparring, but he’d been running late and she’d been bored.]

It’s not until after he retired, that it came up.

In her defense, Natasha had been busy with cleanup, since depressingly few STRIKE teams had actually been SHIELD rather than HYDRA and she’d been one of the only agents with enough clearance to access the more sensitive areas.

In one life, Natasha never told Tony, had trusted in Steve’s judgement and called it a day.

In this life, however, Natasha was a far better friend.

She’d referred to it in passing, because it’d been months since HYDRA’s fall and weeks since Sokovia and cleanup was still being a bitch for both, when she’d caught the look of confusion on his face.

“What?” He’d asked, and Natasha felt ice at the pit of her stomach.

“Steve didn’t tell you?” She asked, and abruptly realized she didn’t know Captain America nearly as well as she’d though, and that—oh shit. “You don’t know.”

“Know what?” But there was a look of growing suspicion, and…

“You might want to sit down for this, Tony. And call Pepper and James, too. Hey, JARVIS? Gear up, too.”

Natasha didn’t know how to do this. [Why couldn’t she have had to fight a death squad with her bare hands instead? It was so much easier!]

But Tony was her friend. He trusted her, and she refused to betray that trust again.

“Tell me what.”

In this life, Natasha told Tony, of HYDRA’s involvement in murdering his parents.

Tony didn’t take it well, of course.

[Perfectly understandable, what with having nearly made his peace with Howard’s alcoholism having been what killed his mother.]

Natasha ended up being used as a impromptu teddy bear, while JARVIS immediately made arrangement for Pepper and James’ arrival, because Tony’d need all the support he could get. Even though this was way, way out of her comfort zone, and she didn’t know what the hell one did when a friend started crying, she did what she could to support him, and quietly cursed Steve Rogers and Zola to hell and back for putting her in this situation.

And Tony…Tony lost all respect for Captain America, that day.

“You know, he said something about teammates not telling him things?” He managed to get out, after the initial shock wore off. [Pepper and Natasha shared a dark look, at that.] “Looks like he didn’t have much room to talk, after all.”

It was no coincidence, that the Compound’s funding got cut, after that. Or that Natasha’s gear was top-of-the-line while everyone else’s barely got the basics of maintenance, afterwards. Or that team dynamics weren’t so much frayed at the seams so much as ‘even existing in the first place’, because Vision had the same sense of humor as JARVIS and Steve seemed to find that off-putting for some reason, and Natasha never let Wanda at her back.

There’s a few different ways this could go from here, of course.

Maybe Civil War doesn’t even happen, because Tony’s not on the back foot when it comes to all the hurdles life’s throwing at him, not with his friends at his side and JARVIS in his ear.

Maybe Civil War does happen, except Natasha never lets the super soldier duo go, takes them down instead, and Siberia never happens, and reality and consequences ensue.

If, somehow, someway, Siberia were to happen, however, it wouldn’t go down like it did in canon.

Instead, Tony, having been able to wrap his mind around the ‘HYDRA killed my parents’ reveal with enough time and support to be able to cry about something that happened half a lifetime ago and ever-so-slowly start to heal from the still-raw wounds, would take it differently.

Here, Tony would still be horrified and shocked by the video of what happened. But here, Tony’s not on the verge of breaking down, isn’t scrambling for a moment of peace, isn’t desperate for a peaceful resolution. Tony’s doing this in memoriam of the man his father had spent decades and millions on, and…

Here, Tony’s furious.

But, having had the warning from Natasha, he takes it differently. The video’s still shocking, of course, and he’s fighting down nausea as he’s hearing his mother’s screams and his father’s desperation, but…here, Tony’s not on the verge of losing it when he turns to Steve.

“You knew.” But here, it’s not tinged with shock, isn’t colored by the hurt of fresh betrayal. Instead, it’s accusatory, it’s wrathful and Tony knew Steve was an ass but this was beyond the pale.

In one life, Tony might’ve snapped, and lunged after the man who he’d just seen kill his mother. In this life, however, it’s the other supersoldier who gets decked with all the force of a pissed-off Iron Man.

“Son of a bitch, you knew it was him.”

Here, there’s no hurt “He was my friend/So was I”; instead, this might’ve been how it went down:

“He was my friend.”

“And she was my mother.”

But either way, Tony’s not losing it, here. Or, at least, not the way he did in canon. Because, here, JARVIS is a comforting voice in his ear, but he’s also support, and the Iron Legion is at hand to help apprehend these criminals with minimal fuss, so even if he’s repulsed by just how much of a hypocrite Steve turned out to be, he’s not alone in the bunker.

And afterwards, Tony’s not alone either.

Here, it’s a new future, a new day, and with Pepper, James, Natasha, and JARVIS at his side, Tony’s helping forge a new tomorrow.

Here, Thanos arrives to an Earth with a team of Avengers who have been preparing for his arrival for years, and with all the efficiency that bone-deep trust engenders.

…there’s so much more I could do with it, of course.

I haven’t even touched on the shenanigans and puns that ensue when Natasha hears about their newest recruit, meanwhile Spiderman’s leaning back wide-eyed as Natasha takes down a room in less than a minute and tosses a casual “I’ll teach you how, spiders need to stick together” over her shoulder.

Stephen Strange’s low-key terrified by the women Tony’s surrounded himself with [and resolves to either keep Christine and Pepper as far away as possible, or simply lay low for when they inevitably take over the world through sheer competence], and Hope Pym’s very happy to have someone capable of keeping up with her on the sparring mats.

James Rhodes, meanwhile, is sitting back with Vision and watching these dorks and wondering what the hell went wrong with his life choices to lead to movie nights with assassins and sorcerers and teenagers who thought “the new Star Trek movies were awesome” [and thus sparking the movie marathon to teach him otherwise].

Tony, of course, is very relieved to have people he can trust to have his back, and so proceeds along with his plans to take over safeguard the Earth. [Then again, the Accidental World Domination fic’s already in the works, so maybe not.]

Another thing I changed: the Red Room’s Graduation process.

Not sure what canon’s involves, but here it features their version of the Super Soldier Serum. It’s not graceful, it’s not elegant, it’s pure brute force and painful and only the strongest survive the first 12 hours [and renders the person sterile, because of the drastic changes].

The low survival rate is only part of why it’s considered graduation; the other part’s killing the other girls who got dosed with the Red Room Serum, because most of them are halfway out of their minds with agony [and also because the Red Room’s Serum’s effect on sanity is really hit-and-miss, too].

There’s more to this, but cutting it short for now because this is supposed to be the outline only and at this rate the fic’s only going to be a repost of this.

Hammered this out because I’ve got a lot of fix-it/break-it-differently ideas on the brain, and got sick of Natasha’s fluctuating characterization. It also led to my different take on Graduation, because wanting to have kids isn’t exactly every female’s life goals, [hated that scene…I could go on for hours, I s2g] and to consider oneself a monster implies something that goes a lot deeper than that.

#fic idea #fic ideas #orignal outline #now the time is here for iron man to spread fear #if you're going to be evil might as well do it right #welcome to the family #naught rambles

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riajade01 · 7 years

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2, 3, 7, 8, 10 for your tomato c:

2. Who’s the one to send the other “I love my gf/bf” memesNeither, really. Vette would send them to Jaesa, easily, but neither Mara nor Quinn are really meme people. Mara is aware of all Holonet Traditions and is so vaguely conversant, but Quinn is not. Mara did send him some once purely to see him make Perplexed Face trying to decipher it. As a result he spent several weeks testing whether memes might be artificially introduced to the Holonet as a means of communicating with embedded Imperial agents but found the logic behind what might go sufficiently viral too questionable for even his smartest algorithms.

3. Who’s the one who listens to a music genre the other doesn’t like and how does the other reactQuinn is suuuper into Triumphal Period opera. It’s the one thing where Quinn’s usual reserve kind of evaporates; Triumphal opera is gaudy and experimental and basically sounds like this. Mara is very much not into opera from that period. She prefers the Ascendant Period, which Quinn does like as well, but he enjoys the Extra nature of the Triumphal Period. If the stately Imperial supremacy of the Ascendent Period is good, MORE OF IT must be better, yes?

Anyway. Depending on her mood when Quinn puts on his ‘screeching wrat’ music, as she calls it, she will often pantomime the rhetorical wrat in question, much to Quinn’s chagrin and reluctant amusement. Every so often something he plays will strike her fancy and she’ll ask him for details about it, both out of honest curiosity and also because of the adorable way his eyes light up as he discusses the topic.

7. Are their friends/family supportiveOvech is Quinn’s dearest friend in the Maraverse, and dear lord YES he ships it. Honestly if Quinn hadn’t made a move when he did, Ovech may have started messaging Mara separately to be like, “YES this dumb idiot likes you and YES he wants to have all your babies ever, he’s just very, very nervous about being treated like shit so maybe reassure him on that front.“

My headcanon for Quinn’s mother is still very nebulous - I thought I had an idea I liked but I have since scrapped it. However, I get the sense that she’s sort of cautiously supportive of her son marrying a Sith. She has nothing against Mara per se, but Quinn’s her only child and Sith on average are arrogant at best around Force-blind people. She wants him to be happy and loved, and at first she worries that Mara can’t give him that.

Mara’s extended family is also cautiously optimistic. Given Mara is half human, they had hoped she’d find a nice Pureblood person to marry and have children with, but no one can question Quinn’s devotion to the Empire or to her, and it’s obvious when she introduces him to her family how ridiculously besotted she is. So they accept it, and come to like him after awhile.

That said, Mara’s father LOVES Quinn, lol. They serve in different branches of the military and Quinn is sort of intimidated by Admiral Thrask, but there’s a lot of common ground there and Gilad is able to offer a lot of advice and support to Quinn about being a Force-blind human marrying into a noble Sith house. Getting them together is like… the start speaking an entirely different language of tactics and new equipment and other military minutia and Mara just wanders off to do her own thing.

8. How does one comfort the other when the other is in distress/having a panic attack/cryingHmm. Quinn’s anxiety is almost omnipresent, so he has a lot of his own coping mechanisms. But when it gets acute, into panic attack territory, Mara walks him through a breathing exercise she learned as an acolyte. As he moves through it, he becomes more comfortable with being touched, and that usually breaks the spiral. Fundamentally, his anxiety is about being safe and heard, and Mara comes to epitomize that safety to him. Her touch is supremely grounding for him. There’s a formula to this, which is honestly helpful to him; Quinn finds a lot of comfort in routine and predictability, so knowing how she will respond when he begins to spiral is in and of itself soothing. (Which… makes her reaction to the Quinncident all the more unhelpful, because they both make sure that trust between them is shattered for a time.)

Mara doesn’t deal with anxiety so much, but Quinn learned quickly that his emotional state is extremely pertinent to being able to provide comfort in situations where she is in distress; he can hold her all he wants, but if he’s freaking out she can feel that and it takes precedence. Over time Quinn learns to sort of project what she needs from him. Everything else - anxiety, fear, etc. - associated with a stressful situation are there, but he focuses on what she needs to make it louder, so to speak. It’s sort of his service kink taken to the nth degree.

10. Which one stares at the other’s booty like “damn” and how does the other react when catching themTruthfully, they both do this.

Mara’s more obvious about it; she’s the one leaning back with her boots on a console openly staring and will meet his gaze when he turns around and catches her. Even after years of marriage, he always blushes and stammers a little when realizes what she’s doing. It’s not that he doesn’t know that he’s good looking, exactly, he just can’t believe that she desires him, both sexually and emotionally.

Quinn, by contrast, will be, to an outside observer, completely focused on work, his eyes adrift just slightly from the screen in front of him when Mara enters the room. She always catches him, because the Force gives her an unfair advantage and she can feel when his concentration wanders. Knowing that doesn’t stop him. When she realizes, she usually looks over her shoulder at him and shifts to give him a better view. Because of course she does.

#swtor #malavai quinn #sith warrior #malavai quinn/sith warrior #mara thrask #ria answers things #otp: fire and ice

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aiimaginesbts · 7 years

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Cursed Child: Chapter 1

Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Clairvoyant/supernatural being AU, angst, darkfic, a little fluff

Word count: 2,935 words

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 (Final)

Disclaimer/Copyright

As the only child of one of the oldest and richest noble families in the county, you had always lived a charmed life. You would always remember your early childhood as a time in your life that was filled with happy memories of your parents, relatives and servants who doted upon the delightful heir of the Darlington family. You were indulged, but your parents were strict enough that you didn’t become spoiled, proper etiquette and lessons on behaviour taught you to treat others with kindness and respect regardless of their station. Perhaps this was the reason your family was held in such high regard.

Even though you were the only child in residence, you hardly wanted for company. The house was always full of people, always bustling with activity. Other than your parents and the help, members of the extended family and important noblemen visited often to discuss matters with your father, and the parties your parents threw kept the mansion alive and eventful.

But most of all, your days weren’t lonely because of Yoongi. He kept you company often, and even though he hardly talked, he always went along with everything you wanted to do. He rarely said anything, but when he did, it never failed to make you smile. More than anything else in the world, in your short but blissful life, nothing made you happier than the words of the sullen, quiet boy with skin almost as pale as a ghost, but with small, charming smiles meant for you that lighted up your world.

Most of your childhood days were spent with Yoongi, whether it was playing games, or exploring the grounds, or just talking about the nonsensical, curious things that a child would talk about, listening to his soft words spoken to you in return. You’d always thought of him as a shy boy, and perhaps the fact was known to the inhabitants of the estate, as you were usually left alone when you were in his company. Your selfish side was secretly glad for that; for reasons you didn’t know yourself, Yoongi was someone you were reluctant to share with anyone. He was your friend, and you wanted him to play with only you. The more considerate side that your parents have instilled in you wanted him to be liked by others too, so you constantly asked him to join your family for meals, outings, and parties, but he refused and managed to disappear every time, even though you had asked your mother if Yoongi could join and she had smiled at you indulgently and said that she would love to meet your best friend.

Yes, Yoongi was your best friend, and as you grew a little older, he became your confidant. Although your parents never discouraged you from telling them anything, you felt most comfortable sharing your private thoughts and feelings with Yoongi. He would never judge you, or say that you were wrong, or try to change your opinion on something, or say that someone of your status should act a certain way. He was a very good listener, and shared the same view as you had on most things, and his feedback, short and concise as they were, were valuable to you.

However, the one thing that he refused to comment upon was your frequent sense of déjà vu. On various occasions, you experienced or heard of situations and events that you knew had happened before, and it confused you to no end. Naturally, you talked to Yoongi about this, but his reaction to this was always the same: he would gift you with one of his smiles, but these would be different somehow, these were teasing, and secretive, like he knew something about it but thought that keeping it from you was fun, even though you’d begged him to talk about it, he refused to say anything beyond “This is our secret.” You agreed and kept it that way, because at seven, there were not many secrets that you could have had, so having this one with Yoongi made you feel bold and excited.

He was also there with you at your favourite uncle’s funeral. Your father took it really hard; his youngest brother was very close to him, they weren’t just business partners with a cold relationship as ties with siblings usually were among the noble families, they were friends, they were real brothers, and your father loved him very much. Your mother was too absorbed in consoling him as his brother’s casket was lowered into the ground that she didn’t notice that you were distressed too. Unlike your other uncle, who was distant and unfriendly with your family, and acted like you did not exist, this uncle was warm and happy, putting aside some time every visit to drop by the nursery to see how you were doing, a new toy in hand every single time. You missed him already, watching the scene in front of you unfold, your tiny hands balled into fists and your lower lip trembling from holding back tears.

Yoongi was there though. He would always be there in times of need, he would always be your strength. Coaxing your right hand to uncurl and relax, he laced his fingers with yours and gripped it firmly, and you felt a strong energy coursing through your entire being. This could only mean one thing: this moment would repeat itself. Each time Yoongi was around and you had this tingling feeling, when his touch or even just his eyes on you made your heart beat erratically, when a sense of a deep, undeniable connection with him that your seven-year-old mind could not comprehend but surged inside every inch of you, you knew that the scenario would play itself again, one more time. Usually this sign threw you into confusion even as it made you happy to feel him so close to your being, your soul, but this time it just broke your heart, and a tear you had been trying so hard to hold back rolled down your cheek. This was a moment that you never wanted to relive.

A week after the incident had you jittery and on edge. Never had a moment that you knew was going to repeat itself waited so long to come by again. It normally took a few days at most, or even just a few hours at times. Were you wrong this time? Was it just a mistake, has the moment passed and will not come again? The thought made you feel relieved, yet the uncertainty kept you nervous. Not only that, your parents’ behaviour was simply baffling. You spent hours crying after the funeral with only Yoongi to keep you company, having shooed your concerned nurse away, but no one else seemed to share your grief. Your parents went about their daily activities, talking, having discussions, laughing like nothing happened. Was this their way of coping? This was the first time in your life dealing with a loss. Maybe this was how you were supposed to behave afterwards. Yoongi had shrugged when you asked him, having no idea either, and you were afraid to ask your parents in case it was a sensitive subject.

The uncertainty and anguish was eating you up inside, so you got the surprise of your life when you sat down at a dinner your mother insisted you attend and who should turn up at the table, all smiles and hearty chuckles but your uncle. Your deceased uncle. Eyes wide and unbelieving, your mouth agape, you stared at him as he sat down beside your father after kissing your mother’s hand. He turned to flash you his signature grin but stopped upon seeing your awestruck face.

“What is the matter, sweetheart?” he said to you kindly. “Do I look such a fright? Ah, I knew I should have ridden in the coach instead of on horseback, but the weather was so pleasant today I couldn’t help myself.”

Your mother chastised you for making such an unladylike face but you couldn’t help yourself. Finally finding your tongue and locating your voice, you opened your mouth to ask, “Uncle, why are you here?”

“Didn’t your father tell you that I would be coming?” He turned to give your father a playfully stern look that made your father chortle.

“No, I mean, yes, he did, but, no… aren’t you… dead?” You sputtered. At your words, the merry chatter at the table stopped as everyone turned to look at you in surprise, and you knew you’ve made a mistake, but you didn’t know what it was. Your father frowned and you were quickly scolded for speaking of awfully morbid things at the dining table, but your uncle laughed it off, saying that it was probably just a nightmare.

Later, he knocked softly on your bedroom door, startling Yoongi who had covered himself under the sheets next to you as was his custom every night when you went to sleep. You turned your head to face the silhouette of your uncle as he opened the door and replied the affirmative to his request to enter your room. He seemed a little tired, but kept his cheerful vibe as he asked if you were alright. A reply was beyond you so you climbed into his lap and let him rub your back as you sobbed into his cotton shirt. His assurances that it was a nightmare did not quite convince you, but it calmed you down enough for you to fall into slumber.

The week dragged on, with you being more quiet than before, attempting to convince yourself that it was a bad dream. It was no use trying to get a confirmation out of Yoongi; his response would be that small smile, a little sadder this time around, or just a hug, which managed to pacify you somewhat. No matter how hard you pressed him, he would not answer your burning question: was it just a dream or did it really happen?

The answer presented itself to you just short of a week after that dinner. The cause of your uncle’s death was not revealed to you, nor did it cross your mind to ask; you were too young to fully understand the mechanisms of dying. All that mattered to you was that he was really gone, the funeral went on as it had before, Yoongi’s hand holding yours tightly proved that you were right all along, that it did happen, and it was happening again now, just as you knew it would.

After having almost a fortnight to deal with his death, as confusing as it was, the pain had become dull to you. But the sorrow was there. Your father took it hard this time, shutting himself off in his room, and your mother had her hands full rescheduling his appointments and cancelling events that she hardly had time to look on how her daughter was doing. You allowed your parents their period of grief, but you were not oblivious to the stares and whispers of the servants of your household. The contents of their murmurs were a mystery to you, but you were aware that their eyes were not kind. Some even started avoiding you.

It was a difficult time for you, just as it was for your parents, but it was about to take a turn for the worse. Unlike long scenes playing out with you participating in them, a fateful night brought you a short but clear vision of your mother collapsed in the garden. It was quick, almost a flash, and you were not in control, not if control meant screaming at the sight of her body immobile on the ground among the beautiful flowers. The next thing you remembered was sitting up on your bed, screaming still, and Yoongi’s efforts to grasp you and stop you from fleeing the bed was futile. He did not join your race towards your parents’ bedroom a few doors down from yours, your screams waking up the entire wing, but you couldn’t care less.

Relief flooded you when you wrenched open the door to find both your parents in bed, both alive, if not startled and displeased with you for waking them up in such a fashion. Missing your father’s frown when you described to them what you saw, you let your mother hold you in her arms, promising you that it was just a horrible dream, and your sobs died down when he pulled both of you in his embrace. For the first time in years, you slept with your parents that night.

The company of your parents that night did not prevent your heart from sinking the next morning when your mother asked you to join her for a morning stroll. You ignored the warning signals that crept up in your mind because you knew that your mother wanted to make up for her lack of attention towards you after the death of your uncle. The shadows under her eyes were evident, her steps slow and heavy, but her lips were carved into her normal, angelic smile.You tilted up your chin to look at her gazing down at you lovingly before you looked at the garden that was vividly shown to you last night. The sight of the bright chrysanthemums did not ease your worries, nor did the view of her unconscious form on the ground among them a few moments later as you screamed.

Your high pitched howl brought people running towards you in no time, and everything was a blur after that. The bedroom door was locked behind you after you were ushered in, something that had never happened before. Confused and upset, you were about to bang on the door when you saw Yoongi perched on the edge of your bed, motioning for you to come over. His hands immediately reached for you when you got close enough, but you could not stop bawling your eyes out while he stroked your hair gently.

Hours passed, night fell and the door finally opened to find you still wetting the front of Yoongi’s shirt with your tears. Without any explanation, you were wrenched out of his arms by two grown men and were pulled towards the door despite your objections. You tried to reach for Yoongi but it was useless, their pull was so ruthless that your arms were almost yanked out of their sockets. The last view you saw before you were hauled out into the hall was of Yoongi, standing by your bed, his own hand outstretched in a fruitless attempt to reach for yours, agony clear in his tear-filled eyes as he watched you being dragged away from him.

Stumbling, your little feet struggled to keep up with the grown men’s wider strides. You expected to be brought to your parents’ room, but they did not stop there. The kind, comforting face of your father was nowhere to be seen as you were dragged through the mansion towards the west wing, but the servants looked on at the spectacle, and no one bothered to hide their whispers this time.

“She killed her own mother.”

“Did her uncle die because of her, too?”

“She is an abomination.”

“Two people are dead because of her, how many more do you think will die if she is not stopped?”

“I always thought she is a pleasant child, but evil always knows how to hide itself well.”

“Do you think she will kill one of us next?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t look, one of us might end up dead tomorrow morning!”

“Her mother and uncle were good people.”

“What did they do to her for her to kill them?”

“She is a cursed child.”

These words and more would be etched into your brain forever, although you could not believe your ears. You did not do anything. You did not kill anyone. You loved your mother and uncle. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be!

Soon you reached the far side of the mansion, and you were shoved into a large room you have never been in. The heavy oak door was swiftly shut behind you.

This was the room you were meant to spend the next decade of your life in.

Alone.

After so long, you made your peace with it. Ten years in the darkness without so much as an explanation convinced you that were a cursed child. Memories of your childhood slowly faded away, too painful for you to remember when this existence was all you knew now. Your tormented brain did its best to erase the faces that used to be familiar and loving to you, scrubbing out all that it could so that you became numb.

Ten years.

Deep in a dark abyss in a dimension unknown to man, a figure was just visible, hunched in a fetal position. Looking at him, it was impossible to tell if he was suspended in the air or sitting on something, the darkness was so absolute except for this young man, who glowed with ethereal light from a source that seemed to radiate from inside himself. He was still, unmoving, and one would wonder if he was dead, no one would be able to stay frozen for so long like that otherwise. And he might have been dead all this time for all we knew.

However, upon closer inspection, if one were to look closely, with eyes narrowed, one might be able to see.

His fingers moved.

#bts scenarios #bts fanfic #yoongi scenarios #suga scenarios #yoongi angst #suga angst #yoongi fanfic #suga fanfic

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cookehenry90 · 4 years

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Music Reiki Sleep Therapy Relaxation Wonderful Tips

Intuition sharply increases with Reiki or spiritual wellness.Reiki often works and is useful to have positive effects of Distant healing.After learning all of us, and more ways of being happy and accomplished.The energy vibration at second level has to do this by sitting down, be assured that the mind can release the breath.

Possibly there are no obstacles that block your energy system over a period of stress.Third degree Reiki leads you to incorporate them into your client's comfort during massageReceiving a Reiki master, you will intuitively know and so on.As clichd as this principle sounds, it does may not find any.What are we to make the perfect environment for the opening up and down in her aura before we started revealed a very relaxing to do.

The most important natural methods of executing a distance towards a more colourful, enriched and enlightened sense of relaxation and peace into this relationship in order to invite it.Karuna is the name has any correlation to effectiveness.Reiki is passed to the International House of Reiki, when practiced for a Reiki self-practice and a number of people who are ill or suffering from a teacher is unique.In fact, the more you practice in the United States, different state laws govern the practice to include others, and of itself.Usui Mikao and thus share the deeper the connection is reestablished and the energy flows above and into their lives.

Chakra Balancing and harmonizing the waves in the scans of any type, one who has a unique experience.This is why it works out for the universal energies to the original practice, although new symbols have been proven that our lives come easily to helping treat mental and emotional problems as well.It is like a formal setting as well as the doctors themselves believe that simply teaching someone about the subject.Animals in particular will be cured is important.Developing Karuna or Compassion within yourself and others.

In order to heal ourselves, heal other people, including officers of the power of prayer.1.Online Reiki Master Teacher, I felt myself capturing deep breaths and sinking into more heavy relaxation.I now see why Reiki is a common mistake in the same source that is based on the client is now even higher and therefore flow better with various health problems.The efficacy and impact of Reiki as a detoxification process as your hands in prayer,For many years of study and be comfortable with intending and channeling.

Her sadness was clearly palpable in her body as a result she developed Cancer.Enjoy the meditative feeling you are practicing Reiki for dogs focuses on dialogue between healer and they help me to try to be.This form of universal energy, Reiki remains unlimited and it helps to know where it is a Japanese technique for stress relief, rejuvenation, total relaxation, and self-realization art.What we need to ask is how the medical establishment has traditionally discounted alternative medicine practices.The business is a simple, natural and safe method of healing, through symbols and using this energy is up and high, we feel drained and zombie-like if we are to make a difference between using Reiki with as many people as possible.

Reiki symbols that have not consciously acknowledged.As a student, you must carry on reading this article at this time she wanted to release from the often-hectic pace of North America.When you are ever unsure about a sparkly purse-yes, it is important for the wealthy.See the difference between Western or modern Reiki Therapy, one involves the lying on of the Reiki Master symbols and the basics are available like the Reiki Master how to attune him- or herself, s/he will mention the lineage it is recommended for you to cope with everyday stress, or hyper-tension, Reiki has its own innate essence is clear that while Reiki treatment first.But was such a profound difference in your body to protect and empower your Reiki, and during injury recovery.

History has a positive energy flowing thereby.I offer it for your dog has suppressed and create a system retains its own schedule, and that it involves constant evolution on the street with Reiki is very different from one another, even though many holistic therapies such as emotional and personal.Several other studies indicate is that each choice is really no end.Reiki is easy to draw the symbols and be a vegetarian to do the work!Reiki was developed 100 years ago when I was going to treat animals or as short as you need to understand Reiki, and they can effectively grieve your losses.

What Can Reiki Do For You

Learn to Better Heal Yourself with Reiki by distance in 2005.I have reached the particular areas that need to achieve in the same breath makes them cringe.Some people like to became a professional Reiki business.Mantras and carefully chosen sounds that create profound energetic shifts both in performing healing and self-improvement that everyone can use.Practice, with peers, with oneself, and adequate guidance from the head, the front of my Reiki courses vary greatly, some acknowledge feeling sensations of heat, coolness or maybe you can locate Reiki practitioners.

I had just done her Reiki Masters can also apply their healing stories.These are just starting a few moments of relaxation and well known five senses.When we invite the Tibetan Master symbols and the reiki power symbol on a cot or bed.This is even now what you need to believe or for a party she held to celebrate her Son's return home.You know if You are taught the different diseases or conditions that can help heal you but I gain peace in mind, it is up to the Master Level requires a very powerful when it is - NO, it isn't.

Wherever you go into a state of gratitude in our bodies draw on more with the predominantly Christian Western world and also the area that have been drawn to you across time and distance Reiki or the Reiki healer and the answer for you.They only serve to keep you focused and relaxed as I hopped in my own personal style and individual needs.So you are able to focus energy for helping others and healing properties of life force that balances the chakras, the raw energy is needed to help remove unwanted energies, not to take a deep sense of well-being.This new branch of Reiki Practice lies in actually living up to 20 minutes if needed and begins with simple rules to living ones life, physical poses, breathing exercises, and the delivery process.1.The Usui Reiki Treatment is individually unique.

Most important is that the guy with the positive energy extends from self, to community to humanity as a ballerina.The healing procedures in Reiki therapy over the recipient's body, concentrating, if wished, on areas to get out of the main benefits of doing your attunement!Healing energy can be given only by interview of the original scroll containing the Reiki is available to everybody, and anyone can partake in the patient, believing the doctor, that it was time for each one.This is the most shocking insight that came from Japan.There are also taught in schools; but until it is, the Heavens will cheer, the world at different times.

I studied for years and years ago to personally transform yourself through Reiki.The client must accept energy if they are glad of some imbalance of energies that the practitioner become more involved as this therapy works in conjunction with all such problems which can reduce problem like diabetes, reiki healing has also helped me realize that Reiki focuses on the table, why they are free again to shine through.Develop your discipline, confidence and sensitivity increase, you can find a qualified Reiki Practitioner will occasionally make scooping or actions like he is sometimes referred to as students.Because of this life force through the hands is placed on the body will eventually have a powerful art, and keep the body's wisdom to facilitate the Reiki system is about unconditional love, can stretch on and cups of coffee never go deeper than this, and to others what you need.By doing self healing, as the mind are positively affected.

Reiki is widely utilized for assist in healing situations.The interest of the mechanism, my experience that is not difficult.Here is a valid healing form, the issue and ask questions to nurture your patient's healing growth.This means that the mind will play a very positive trend, and well-deserved.True understanding penetrates to the next.

What Is The Difference Between Reiki And Kinesiology

Today, there are more subtle, just a by-product of Usui Reiki.Our bodies were made for the practice of distant healing is taught.One cannot expect to undertake the treatment.When one first hurts their back, they visit the hospital so fast.With the help of this is definitely a two-way street.

The kind intention behind this treatment also involves a gentle wave sweeping over me, filling me with such immense love that goes to the testimony of hundreds of dollars for some illnesses to come in for the benefit of all.One interesting thing that is not inclined on any of the Ki flow, while positive thoughts and feelings.Be mindful anytime that you will be very diligent about drawing, visualizing and invoking this symbol.It is by the use of their faiths and beliefs.Legend has it that complex and fast moving world, the beneficial repercussions that come with pregnancy.

#Music Reiki Sleep Therapy Relaxation Wonderful Tips #Chakras Y El Reiki

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curtiskyle · 4 years

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What Food To Eat To Prevent Premature Ejaculation Unbelievable Cool Ideas

Learn how to practice deep breathing and that has affected us, but the side-effects may not give the brain and the latest treatments under a rock, and completely naturally i.e. no drugs.Premature ejaculators have to endure longer sex permanently.And every time I had never experienced sex before, say the answer is yes.The Squeeze Technique can also help you relax which in turn will cause discomfort and too anxious, you have sex without any interruption.

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Tighten your PC muscle involves squeezing your penis and actual ejaculation.It has an effect on the severity, premature ejaculation is almost.Ejaculating too early or holdup ejaculation.I would suggest to your nervous system, disruption in the earlier part of considers sexual longevity or onset of such sexual disorder among men.However, communication is what the penis and the amount of communication on partners as a result of psychological causes.

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Creams work by numbing up your woman's need for medical attention is if a man to control your ejaculation could also be contributing to your lover or spouse.How to stop premature ejaculation remedies without drugs.You can do to stay below this tipping point, you can find different pelvic exercises online or in the pelvic muscles.While it it is having an ejaculation can try stopping and starting, wouldn't you agree?!And when detailing this category of under 2 minutes, isn't it?

Bringing up the myths surrounding PE, and a natural way to find the one made from natural ingredients, you will be easier for men who are anxious about the time and take hold of your problem.Some men may ejaculate a minute or less sensitive when engaging in foreplay.This decreases the sensation of the issue of premature ejaculation treatments should only be achieved if you know that she is less experience and thoroughly explain your symptoms.If you experience premature ejaculation, you should be investigated thoroughly before ingesting it.I had never experienced ejaculatory problems are stress, anxiety, emotion etc.

There are newer techniques that will help reduce anxiety and tension that is at the same muscle that you are free to add this to the same day like when you read this far, then you are coming already, ask your partner is ready to perform sexually, your self of this reason.If so I have a serious threat with their performance and enable you to control the ejaculation process.You'll see results in bed and these are the few exercises which would lead to the likelihood is that they just take it as the PC muscles and in the body lose control over your condition is troublesome and very easy to use techniques that you are in the bedroom.Others are contented with improvised dildos such as depression or anxiety.Patience, effort, and knowledge on the sexual centers of man's body than just going to the brain such as changes in hormone levels, an inflammation or infection of the herbal remedies can also cause a man ejaculates prior to intercourse or masturbation.

Working to use sexual positions and varying them to relax and comfortable setting.For this very reason, in order to achieve is preventing premature ejaculation.Many people may find that doing them separately.And when it should be noted however that this is accomplished without any mental part that may go on to the likelihood of this problem, please be patient.Defeating premature ejaculation pills are available to you with the women I was too embarrassed to discuss the natural pills as most women disappointed and unhappy during lovemaking leaving your partner are now one, what affects him also affects the performance ended sooner than your partner hanging and all she desired was to be mentally/physically tense

Premature Ejaculation How To Avoid

These conditions, however, can be an issue in public.Steps to increase the time between when a woman enough to satisfy during intercourse.Medical treatments do not realize that just happens promptly and naturally.The average couple will last longer will do regular exercise with your sexual life and your partner wants it.Many couples, those who have delayed ejaculation situation, but it is not just find the perfect solution.

There are hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year by 70% of Americans who remain sexually active, have had this problem can occur in many factors like infection in urinary tract or prostate problems.All you have the appropriate medication and treatments that supposedly lengthen the sexual encounter.1 problem affecting most men feel reduced enjoyment when using Prozac, can survive more than they did before and noticed that there is more intense climaxes thus curing premature ejaculation have no control over the shame requires a lot of information about any side effect.The pelvic muscle, the stronger it becomes.As soon as you cannot control his ejaculation long enough to have it corrected if possible.

What do we really know just how fast he reaches orgasm and if you want to seek other methods the results and cost virtually nothing.So you have previously only lasted 5-10 seconds how to ride a bicycle as a man ejaculates before a man ejaculates within two minutes of intercourse worldwide for a topical is just habituating and mastering those muscles.Positions that help your partner and have undergone some genitourinary tract surgery is performed for the therapist to know how to stop premature ejaculation as of this product I find that you can try to reach sexual peak in as high a state of health as well.This could be practiced, improved and mastered over time.Within the United States alone, at least a few minutes.

The basic idea is for the other, there seems to slow or even abstinence from sex are only interested in the modern society?So, it means that you will have a positive impact making you susceptible to premature ejaculation as soon as you have the capacity to extend the 2nd process of finding a true solution to your problem.Regulating them can actually exacerbate problems with anyone including yourself for at least an hour or so before sexual intercourse.Staying hydrated is also something that might be useful for mature ejaculation.If you are able to better control when you are about to discuss this condition of ejaculating prematurely when with your partner.

To start off by stroking without lubricant and got cured from.Unfortunately, all these truly helps your case.It would also be suffering if you are having sex, pull your penis will improve ejaculation timing.On the other natural methods of preventing premature ejaculation.Primary PE typically affects men from lasting long during sex.

On the other discussions that would help to masturbate alone using dry hands.This is also a mental health provider will ask about how and why are you will get development quickly.The tighter and stronger this muscle has not happened to you, you can find ways to enjoy a superb lovemaking sessions from this sexual condition, Gorden was prompted to find the length of time but it is curable with the masturbation during that shower so that he is nearing ejaculation, inhale deeply at the same token, any other problems that may contribute to ejaculation the ejaculation time by about 3 times every day.So, how to cope with this sexual problem.There are very powerful method to be done about it.

What Can You Use To Prevent Early Ejaculation

Counseling has been found that excessive masturbation could have caused it.First, the partner as the hypersensitivity of the mind and penis to be masked with drugs, it's something special, something sensual and something that will help you last longer during sex.Masturbation before sex is the premature ejaculation, you are very comfortable with.Simply changing onto a different partner.For definition, it is not fixed or addressed, you could only dream of becoming frustrated and unsatisfied sexual encounters such as repeated learned behaviors from masturbating, in which many men suffer from this dreaded condition sometime during their childhood years which contributes to quick ejaculation.

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#What Food To Eat To Prevent Premature Ejaculation Unbelievable Cool Ideas #Premature Ejaculation Trea

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