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p1utofairy · 2 months

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PICK A CARD: “when i look into your eyes, i know it's real.”

★ which romantic tropes will you and your fp embody?

DISCLAIMER: 18+ mature themes. take what resonates leave what doesn’t. this was such a cute idea – thanks for requesting this anon. 💞 i hope you all enjoy!

— PILE ONE.

tropes → star-crossed lovers, forbidden love & opposites attract.

there’s a distinct polarity in you and your fp’s personalities & backgrounds, pile 1. you’re more reserved, cautious and patient and they’re more free-spirited and spontaneous. they say whatever they want and deal with the consequences later; this isn’t in a bad way either, i’m more so picking up that they like to stand up and fight for what’s right. they could be an activist of some sort. they’re confident and brave, and you’re really going to admire that. as far as finances go, this person has MONEY, like big money! they either come from money or they are in a profession that pays extremely well and that’s where i see the forbidden love trope coming in to play.

remember how allie in ‘the notebook’ comes from a wealthy, privileged background, while noah is portrayed as more working-class? the contrast in their backgrounds and personalities added depth to their relationship and created a lot of tension and conflict, but ultimately it made their love story more compelling and dynamic – that’s what i see here with you and your fp. you’re tired of over-working yourself for low pay and working jobs that don’t fulfill you financially, mentally and emotionally. you feel stuck…wondering when things are going to change. i see someone looking out of a window in a house, there’s a strong sense of longing and their eyes look sad. they’re waiting for someone or something to arrive, but when? you’ve been telling yourself to keep going and keep pushing through, and then you will see progress and reward in the long run – very saturn/saturnian energy.

it’s interesting because you’re looking for a way out of your situation and your person is looking for an adventure. your fp is very comfortable financially, but they’re lacking in their love life. right now they’re very much single and they’re fine with that, but that fiery energy that burns inside them can’t be dimmed for long. when they cross paths with you they’re gonna be awestruck like “whoa! who is that?” lol. your fp might have some sagittarius/fire sign placements, or they just carry themselves very pompous and matter-of-fact, which might throw you off at first. that’s why i was also picking up on that opposites attract trope because princess belle & the beast from ‘beauty and the beast’ immediately came to mind. belle loved her books and independence, which was a stark contrast with the beast’s initial gruff and hot-tempered nature. you might think they’re a bit arrogant at first, but once you get to know them you’ll understand that there’s layers to them.

their family plays a big part in their life, which ties into the forbidden love trope because i’m ngl their family lowkey can be a lot to handle. as i said before, some of your fps come from money so some of their families might be a little snooty and strict like allie’s mom from ‘the notebook’ but i think with patience and time – you and your fp will learn to not give a f*ck what their family or anybody else thinks. this relationship is destined and you’re meant to show each other the different aspects/complexities of life and love. the energy is very reminiscent of mr. darcy and elizabeth from ‘pride and prejudice’ like remember how much longing and yearning it took for them to finally be together?! it was sooooooo worth it.

additional messages → wealthy, 2 years from now, ego, aries, very lowkey, the blackest day by lana del rey & cultural differences.

— PILE TWO.

tropes → second chance & age gap.

your fp is dominant af, pile 2. they possess everything within reach, and they’re admired by many. you may establish boundaries with them from the very beginning and they will respect that, they value you and wouldn’t dare do anything to hurt you. however, despite the love, passion, and devotion that will be present in this relationship, there will also be a need for compromise. it seems that this relationship will fulfill your hopes and dreams, but it will also come with its share of responsibilities. in the early stages, both you and your fp will feel a strong urge to make your relationship official and commit to each other. whatever you need or want – they will provide for you. you may not have expected to fall for them, but you couldn’t fight the obvious chemistry between you two. i picked up on the age gap trope mainly because they have provider energy. for some of you, they might already have a kid/kids? your energy feels a little bit more flighty and young. you like to be in your own personal space most of the time, and not everyone understands that, but your fp will.

actually, i think the idea of compromise i was picking up on earlier has to do with your personal space. you might be a bit of an introvert and the idea of constantly entertaining someone 24/7 and not having a moment for yourself is a bit jarring to you. now i’m not saying this person is taking your autonomy away, what i’m saying is that there has to be some sort of balance with the give and take in this connection. it’s reminding me of olivia pope and fitz from ‘scandal’ like one minute he’s showing her the house he had built for them in vermont and then the next scene she’s crying that she needs space and they can’t be together – like OLIVIA what’s it gonna be?! it’s like your heart is saying yes but your mind is saying no.

you’re gonna have to use your discernment and figure out if this is what you want – true commitment. it’s gonna take trust and dedication to make this work, pile 2. it might get to a point where y’all take a break and you choose to see someone else, and then you realize how much of a greater difference your fp makes in your life. they’re your home. that's the second chance trope coming into play. wow, pile 2. this is a very dynamic and complex relationship, but that’s what keeps you two going and loving each other through thick and thin.

additional messages → infrunami by steve lacy, you will meet through friends, extremely dedicated, workaholic, ass kisser, there’s someone in your inner circle you need to cut off, moving abroad, younger sibling & love drought by beyoncé.

— PILE THREE.

tropes → high school sweethearts & enemies to lovers.

your fp is the life of the party, pile 3…sometimes to a fault lol. they’re capable of being responsible and making good decisions, but sometimes they just say f*ck it and wild out. they can be impulsive and unpredictable at times which is quite the opposite from you. i’m picturing haley and nathan from ‘one tree hill’ and kat and patrick from ‘10 things i hate about you’ AND no by meghan trainer just randomly started playing in my head. i’m honestly so amused by this energy cause you’re like “nope! you’re not gonna fuck my life up.” being all dramatic 🤭 and they’re like “what?! me? i would never!” lol there’s gonna be a lot of witty banter between you both. your friends are gonna encourage you to just give them a chance, cause it’s obvious that you do like them — you just can’t stand how “friendly” they are.

your fp is extroverted as hell and loves a good social outing, whereas you on the other hand, rather curl up in bed with a good book or binge-watch your favorite shows/movies in the comfort of your own home. there’s this energy of “been there, done that.” the party scene just isn’t it for you anymore, and you’re content with that. this connection will really help your fp mature and get more in tune with their emotions, instead of masking them behind reckless behavior and nonchalance. that high school sweethearts trope really comes through strongly, not in the sense that y’all are actually in high school, but that nathan & haley vibe – that puppy love! once y’all are together, nobody can tell y’all shit. you and your fp will RIDE for each other.

nathan and haley definitely had their ups and downs, but they always found a way to make it work once they put their egos aside. haley brought out a side of nathan that nobody else got to experience but her. sometimes butting heads is necessary, it helps you confront things within yourself that you don’t always want to acknowledge. you’re so nurturing pile 3, you bring water to their fire. i don’t see you immediately jumping into this relationship, but that’s the beauty of it. that’s where the enemies to lovers trope kicks in, you’ll have to warm up to them first before you truly understand who they are at the core. your fp is used to fast-pace, hot n’ heavy, fleeting relationships but this is stable. this is pure. they’ll realize you can’t rush true love like this, it’s the journey and build-up that makes it so magical.

additional messages → 1st house placements, sagittarius, very soon, get out of your head, nice and slow by usher & family feud.

— PILE FOUR.

tropes → friends to lovers & forced proximity.

your fp has very high-energy, pile 4. i feel out of breath like i just got done doing 8 different tasks at once lol they might be very athletic or they just like to keep themselves busy. you and your fp are opposites, but the more you get to know each other, you will begin to realize that you have a lot in common – i’m hearing that you two will have a lot to talk about. sometimes you might find yourself holding back from saying things that you want to say in fear of judgement but with this person that anxiety goes out the window. they want to hear your thoughts and ideas, because they truly value your wisdom and knowledge on certain topics that they might not have been aware of. i’m hearing that they want to know your lore lol this is too cute. maybe you’re really into movies? marvel? fashion? idk there’s something very specific that you could go on and on about for hours and hours.

that’s why i picked up on that friends to lovers trope because i feel like they will show immediate interest in you and want to pursue something more, but you’ll be like WOAH hold it there…let’s build on this and see where it can go, no rush. i’m ngl pile 4 they might have a bit of a reputation or vibe of being a player…which will make you hesitant as to whether or not you want to take this seriously. i don’t even think you two normally run in the same circles – this is more like a chance meeting. yup here goes that forced proximity trope, you’ll probably meet them in some sort of unconventional way and be “forced” to spend time together.

you and your fp kind of remind me of holly and eric from ‘life as we know it’ which is a very underrated but amazing rom-com. i don’t think you’ll initially hate them per se, you’ll just be a bit cautious of them and wonder if they’re actually being genuine. however, by spending time with your fp, you will develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for them; which will then lead to you falling for them and establishing a close bond. you two might’ve gotten off on the wrong foot and then after a proper conversation with them you’ll be like: huh…you’re not so bad after all. there’s this flirty energy that comes in the form of sly/sarcastic remarks, and you’ll come to realize that it’s their own way of saying “i really like you.” it’s giving 2000s rom-com lol hot n cold by katy perry just came to mind.

the sexual tension between you two will be palpable, your friends will be like just f*ck already!!! this relationship will have it’s fair share of ups and downs, but that’s what will make it worth fighting for; nothing and no one is perfect and you will learn that in this relationship. no one could ever compare to you in your fp’s eyes – they will always have love for you even in the moments where you two don’t see eye to eye. the difference in you and your fp’s personalities will be what draws you two together even more.

additional messages → jealousy, jealousy by olivia rodrigo, lots of traveling, you manifested this, different lifestyles but we’ll make it work, your angel guides got your back & when one door closes, another one opens.

#pick a card #pac #pick a pile #tarot reading #p1utofairy

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grunckle · 2 months

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Qualia and Ascension in Rain World

(To clarify I'm mostly talking about base-game lore and not including Downpour, but honestly most of these things can transfer over)

Qualia

One thing that’s relatively hidden in Rain World’s text and subtext is the concept of qualia. Qualia is described as being, “sensory experiences that have distinctive subjective qualities but lack any meaning or external reference to the objects or events that cause them.” It’s a personal sensory experience that cannot be comprehended by another person other than the individual themself, and are often hard to convey via language.

Qualia is a reoccurring motif in Rain World, but what’s more important is the way in which it’s conveyed to the player. The picture that’s painted is that of a world or civilization that placed a great importance on the individuals’ experience, and it’s shown through pearls or environmental details.

Here are some examples of qualia appearing in the text through pearls.

“It's qualia, or a moment - a very short one. Someone is holding a black stone, and twisting it slightly as they drag their finger across the rough surface. The entire sequence is shorter than a heartbeat, but the resolution is extraordinary.”

“A memory... but not really visual, or even concrete, in its character. It reminds of the feeling of a warm wind, but not the physical feeling but the... inner feeling. I don't think it has much utility unless you are doing some very fringe Regeneraist research.”

“This one... is authored by Five Pebbles, when he was young. There has been an attempt to scramble the data, but it's sloppily done, and most is still somewhat legible. It's written in internal language, or thoughts, so it is hard for me to translate so you would understand.”

But the most prominent examples of qualia and it’s importance in this world are the Memory Crypts and possibly ancient naming conventions. The deep purple pearl (shortened) found in Shaded Citadel states,

“In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids (…) Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel nobly decided to ascend in the beginning of 1514.008, after graciously donating all (ALL!) earthly possessions to the local Iterator project (Unparalleled Innocence), and left these memories to be cherished by the carnal plane. The assorted memories and qualia include:”

Ancients likely mutated their own neural tissue into the cabinet beasts we see in Shaded, which were used to store their memories and qualia before ascension. Even james said once "how 5 pebs got the rot is a good hint here" in response to someone asking how cabinet beasts work, and how they're made.

Adding on to this, ancient (and iterator) naming conventions seem to be built off of the concept of qualia, with them focusing on individual images or experiences.

Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections

Droplets upon Five Large Droplets

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets

Looks to the Moon

Generally, this all points to a world focused on the expression and preservation of the individual experience. You could even consider some of the echo dialogue as more evidence for this running motif, but I already have too many quotes lol.

Ascension

So now time to talk about my interpretation of ascension. In short, you turn into a worm, but I should probably explain more than that.

So its been surfacing on rw-tumblr that the light in the end of the game is called the egg in files. Although file names shouldn't be taken as fact or canon, it is pretty obvious given the birth imagery.

But something a little lesser known is what happens to the worm that takes us down to the void-sea depths. Void worms normally have a bright glowing effect, on their body, which is present for ours as well. But after it unhooks us, it swims down, and when it passes us on it's way back that glowing effect is gone.

To be honest, I don't really think this can be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious one and the one I personally subscribe to is that the worm laid the egg. Biology and spirituality really aren't that different in Rain World, it's implied that karma is stored in the brain through Five Pebbles's slideshow. Adding on to that, we see voidspawn after eating an iterator neuron. One's spiritual state is innately tied to their mental state, and that dictates what and what they can't perceive.

And for that reason I decide to take a more biology leaning approach to what happens in the ending. At face value, we are fertilizing the egg of a void worm to be reborn into a voidspawn.

Not only do void spawn and void worms have multiple characteristics in common, (worm like bodies, tendrils/tentacles, glowing heads, void spawn look microbial and void worms are likely some of the oldest "life" in game)

but voidspawn are seen inside egg-like coverings and share the same egg light seen in the end of the game, confirmed to be the same thing by Videocult in a livestream they did.

I believe that all this points to ascension being re-birth into a voidspawn, which eventually undergoes metamorphose into a worm. Higher-dimensional beings, who manifest and give birth to a new world.

So how does this tie in with qualia? Another thing you might know is that the area in which void spawn are most plentiful is Shaded Citadel and areas in Shoreline near Shaded. And shaded is absolutely packed with Cabinet Beasts, even outside Memory Crypts. I believe these qualia-storing creatures are what manifest voidspawn.

From what we see in ascension, it still looks physical and largely based around the real world. Hunter still has his scars and see's an iterator, survivor sees the slug tree in a more mystical and formless state, and monk sees survivor frankly just looking like a normal slugcat. I think that ascension is a product of qualia. We transcend our earthly knowledge via the egg, and our own qualia is used to give birth to a new world. This is why voidspawn appear most in Shaded Citadel.

Now I won't be getting into Void-Worm theories too much here, I'm mostly focused on ascension but I can't ignore the Gnosticism parallels. For those who don't know, Void Worms heavily resemble the Yaldaboath from Gnosticism, along with sharing some similar celestial motifs.

and running with that some people theorize that, like the Yaldabaoth, void worms are responsible for manifesting the material world. Ascension seems to be a mix of the concepts of Gnosis and Nirvana, but I believe it might lean more on Gnosis.

From my limited knowledge, Gnosis is a few things, some of which being a state achieved from experiences or intuitions, and an essential part to salvation is personal knowledge. While researching a bit, I came across this text by Peter Wilberg called "From NEW AGE to NEW GNOSIS" which brings up some comparisons between Gnosticism and qualia as well.

"Gnosis is subjective knowledge of an inner universe made up not of matter, energy, space or time but of countless qualitative spheres or ‘planes’ of awareness – a knowledge obtained directly through inter- subjective resonance. It is the subjective science of this inner universe."

One thing though that has been brought up when discussing this is how this can be consolidated with the tone of the ending. It is pretty un-ambiguously happy, but if we're going with the Void worm Yaldaboath theory then that would put a bit of a sour twist on it right?

I agreed with these for some time, but now I actually think it ties in perfectly with Rain World's core themes as stated by the devs, "overcoming differences and finding empathy." I don't think the void worms are "evil" or malevolent, but I think they (and subsequently us after ascending) play a key role in demonstrating this theme.

By manifesting the physical world, we allow these souls to experience life and develop their own qualia so one day they can ascend themselves. We are shown compassion, and pass it forward.

#rain world #rain world lore #lore #rain world spoilers #gnosticism #gnosis

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moondirti · 10 months

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7. PROPOSITION

CHAPTER SEVEN OF ANIMALIC | MIGUEL O'HARA X F!READER

↼ chapter six / chapter eight ⇀

summary: a proposition is made in hope for new beginnings

mature | 4.7k words warnings: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, apocalypses, death, decay, blood, injury, sexual tension, angst, no use of y/n notes: I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE ORIGINAL. anyway repost lol

During the liminal period between detonation and your understanding of it, you’d been convinced of your own fatality. Dead girl walking; the shell-shocked mantra playing in an unremitting loop as you navigated the flattened planes of your once-home.

New York was a ghost town. Or – town isn’t exactly the proper verbiage, not when it comes to describing the hollowed locale. It’d been flushed of all its previous pomp; skeletal buildings with their windows blown to bits, light posts bent at the root, central park a glorified bonfire pit for skyscraping flames. In truth, when you’d awoken, you couldn’t recognise your whereabouts.

That was the basis for which you told yourself it was a dream. Everything existed as a distorted reflection of what you were familiar with, a fucked plane capable only of occuring in feverish delirium. The bite, you’d accepted – nodding to yourself grimly. You must’ve gotten sick again and passed out before the speech, transported to some stuffy hospital that pinned you with needles full of hallucinogens. How else could you have explained your occult ability to phase through walls, or the complete absence of people?

(In hindsight, it was denial more than anything.)

Yet time progressed on a tortoise’s shell, marching with all the leisure of reality. It didn’t jump like it would’ve had your consciousness been in charge, with its aversion to the mundane and grotesque. No; you’d started to see the faults in your logic when the substance that perpetually fell from the sky proved to be human ash, or when – the further down you travelled – maturating flesh increasingly marked your path. You’ve never known your mind to be so cruel.

So, dead.

If so, then you’d settled on purgatory. A state where souls atone for their unforgiven sins and are purified. It was an interim solution; you weren’t the religious type, anyway. But maybe that'd been it. Maybe you’d been given a last hope at redemption, thrust in a distinctive nightmare to comprehend how much worse hell could be. At least you lacked pain, at least you were dressed – clad in the silk of your gala gown. But the sky had been red, covered in a sheet of dismal smoke, and you couldn’t see the stars at night.

It was a sign; you’d failed at reaching them.

The notion had paralysed you for days, tearing at the false comfort you’d wrapped yourself in up to that point. You’d weeped, and tested the limits to your intangibility with lacking enthusiasm. Blotchy faced, snotty nosed – passing your arm through rubble, succeeding, then trying the same with your feet, which abraded against the rough surface instead. The inconsistency was hard to keep up with, but the task at least distracted you from a profuse existentialism.

You’d heeded no patterns; some days, you were completely nonphysical. Or, parts of you remained that way, while others shifted back to palpability. It’d been a tug of war, dependent entirely on your mood and a greater scheme you had no part of. With your limited comprehension, it’d only guaranteed the purgatory hypothesis. Not mortal, nor spirit. Stuck in a great between.

(What heaven was worth this? Who deemed it so?)

The guessing game got old. You’d needed something else – more than water, or a fresh change of clothes; good, honest science. Truth. You couldn’t move on until you’d had reason to believe the outcome could justify this.

You turned to the cosmos then, impartial as ever, despite their discernible absence. They were still there, you knew. Just beyond the firestorms, the sun burnt bright enough to penetrate smog. Its hazy glow provided an alternate reminder of something for you to still pursue – wherever it was, wherever you were. You couldn’t be sure that an afterlife meant nirvana or elysian fields, yet fulfilment looked to be the common denominator. An underscore.

To you, that would only ever be one thing.

Deep space, your stars – your Sol.

(It was hope in the one way you could define it.)

The threads started to converge in an instant of poetic cognizance. The Phoenicians had done it, and so too had ancient sailors. Stars for navigation, for reasoning. Of course. All that entailed for you was to certify you were worth it.

You’d started by cleaning. Little things, far from where you’d originated. A neighbourhood of collapsing houses, nested in beds of fine porcelain and dust. The times where you could use your hands, you’d sweep the debris onto them and deposit it in a hole, harrowed from a singed lawn at the end of the row. When you were immaterial – a state that had begun gaining rarity the better you were able to cope – you’d focus on mentally tallying inventory. Some to set aside, for whatever poor individual would visit next, and the rest for you. A diet of canned beans and bottled water was better than nothing.

Then, you’d dealt with the bodies.

There were none within the city, nor the suburbs. It was only when you’d ventured outwards did they start to crop up; thin corpses with leathery skin still stretched over their frames, starved or burnt or both. The smell had been putrid, reeking of pure rot, and you’d surmised that perhaps they’d taken too long to find salvation. It’d motivated you to keep working, burying them in marked graves with a plug fastened over your nose. You didn’t want to end up like them, as a chore for the next.

It was near impossible to keep a timeline of it all. Now, you estimate it as months, though it had felt longer. You’d gone through it with no milestones, or any inclination as to whether you were finally getting close. Cleaning the entire expanse of purgatory seemed too big a task to ask of anyone, immortal or not. Yet as the weeks crawled by, you’d started to reckon that was exactly it. You’d felt nothing special, no sweeping message from God alerting you of your success. Just more devastation, more labour.

(Were you wrong?)

You’d started to get sick again. Irritated sinuses, a scratchy throat. Every breath you took was more useless than the last, oxygen unable to circumvent your system. Smoke inhalation, likely. You’d searched for ventilators to help treat the symptoms, alongside pain relief for the sores spotting along your palms. There’d been nothing, and that wasn’t to say it had always been that way. Empty, orange bottles decorated every barren street, purged by apocalyptic gluttons.

(You couldn’t trick yourself – the dead had no use for medicine.)

Some fate must have willed it, though. It was there, in the seventh hospital you’d scavenged, that it’d happened.

A… being, no taller than five foot four, decked in a bright yellow suit and a hazmat mask. Loitering the entryway with a trash bag full of salvaged goodies. It hadn’t noticed you, preoccupied with routing the way back home – so you rushed into a nearby room to change into your gown. It was wrinkled and torn in places, having been the outfit you’d initially spent weeks in, but it was far better off than the grimy cargoes you’d adopted in its place.

You’d kept it for this; your day of judgement.

It – he, as it turns out – lived in a bunker, deep beneath the catastrophic surface of the state. You’d followed him there. A perfectly normal thing to do, candidly, for someone who’d forgone social interaction since death. It couldn’t dawn on you that he was surely in the same boat; isolated, cornered like an animal on its haunches. If it had, you would've made an effort to approach him with caution.

So, it certainly shouldn’t have come as a surprise when your ecstatic hello was met with an axe to the face. Naturally, it’d phased right through you, a feat which only furthered the old being’s terror.

God had turned out to be more skittish than you’d expected.

(“Blimey, whit the hell are ye supposit tae be.”

“I’ve been waiting so long–”

“Ye're gonnae get yourself killed wearin tha’ flimsy thing, lass.”

You’d felt so stupid. You should have surmised that the occasion called for modesty.

“Forgive me,”

“Whit is it ye want? I don’ have any food for sharin’.”

“Redemption, if you please. I promise I’ve been good, I just want to see the stars.” But of course he’d know that. “Sir. Lord, sir.”

“Is somethin wrong wi yer head?” He’d huffed. “It's tha’ radiation, I'm tellin’ ye. Or maybe I'm dead an’ seein’ things.”

Dead? Another lost soul?

“Are you not God?”

“God? Ha!” The human scoffed. “Trust that I wouldn’ be livin’ in this rat’s ass if I was.”)

It turned out that he did have food, and plenty – stuffed cans stacked in rows atop rows of nourishment. Medicine too, an age old ventilator that he’d tapped with a knuckle to spur into function. He’d agreed to let you replenish if you’d take a gander at his malfunctioning radio, of which you had limited knowledge on but were willing to give a try. You’d no idea what he needed a radio for in the afterlife, anyway.

(“The battery contacts are corroded, I think.” You had spit through a mouthful of corn. It’d tasted like pure sugar to your neglected tongue. “If it matters to you this much: baking soda to neutralise the acid, then a bit of vinegar over it to help wipe off the gunk.”

“Smart one ye are,” He’d pulled a cigarette from one of his various pockets, lip curling at your inquisitive gaze. “Don’ give me tha’ look, I ain' got none for ye.”

“I’m okay, thanks.” After a bit of deliberation, you’d added, “I’m afraid I don’t understand something.”

“Whit is it this time?”

“Why’d you set up permanent camp here? Don’t you want to leave?”

“An’ where wad I go?” His lighter had taken several starts to sputter a flame.

“Heaven. Hell – if that’s your thing. The cosmos?”

He’d barked another one of those sturdy laughs. “Ye one o’ them fanatics? That say wha’ happened wis for good cause?”

“Huh?” Tentatively, you’d placed the radio back on its rickety stool. “What happened?”

And all humour had drained from his face, his pupils hardening to flat beads. If it hadn’t been for the sudden shift in mood, you’d have gone forever traipsing on a fantasy. No; it was the tremor, the breaks in his once haughty inflection – idiosyncrasies that could’ve only been described as sympathy-triggered. It’d built upon your doubt, your already wavering faith, to strike you out of your mental regression.

“The Alchemax bomb, lassie.”)

He had a bucket for you to throw up in, slick with panicked sweat, unable to hold on to anything as your body oscillated between materialities. He’d made no comment on how your hands fell through the floor, or the knees that started to sink alongside them. Your fault, your fault. Any thought besides blame hadn’t time to develop, recycled for fuel to keep the cognition running. Your fault. Your fault. All this time.

(Who could you have turned to? You’d been praying to deities who’ve long since left.)

Night bled, and the man had retired. You’d stayed plastered to the ground, crouched over a slosh of your purged innards. The foulness hardly moved you; it’d felt good to punish yourself in that way. You’d taken to being your own arbiter, and such was one of the many reparations to come.

(You’d shunned the voice that insisted you deserve none of it. If you hadn’t been so ambitious, so blind to the flaws–)

You’d wanted to leave. So desperately that the wish had seized every cell in you, shaking them with a vigour unparallel to even celestial fury. You’d wanted to leave. There’d been nothing for you to divert your efforts to after learning the truth. Nothing you could have done to fix it. You’d wanted to leave. To anywhere but there.

Please. Please. Please.

Just this one thing.

The air warped.

You hadn’t noticed it immediately, still wrapped in your own misery. Scratchy skin accredited to grief, you kept rocking in place, bathing in muggy sobs. But it’d only grown worse, like a fraying fabric chafing along every appendage. Your dirty nails dug into your palms.

The friction peaked, rubbing you raw. You’d heaved in large gulps of oxygen, pulling at your flesh like it could’ve stopped it. Your jaw had unhinged, teeth clamping down on your thumb to muffle the overstimulated scream that’d threatened to break. Tears sealed your lash lines shut.

Almost a second later, it stopped, interrupted by the blare of car horns.

And, when you’d opened your eyes, you found that you were someplace else entirely.

Your fingers graze along something rough. At first, it’s easy to mistake as your jeans, the denim hardened in places with lack of care.

The space seems to have shrunk since Miguel fell asleep, slumping inwards, its rock walls poking your elbows and curved spine with a clinical brutality. It’s difficult to imagine how he feels; twice your size, unused to fitting those muscles through tight squeezes. Disastrous still, the low creak of the steel arch above puts a timer on your misfortune. The topic of your demise is of increasing relevance.

Perhaps he drifted off for that exact reason. To hinge on ignorance; an avoidance of this waiting game. Or, more credibly, to force you into a figurative detention. Think about what you’ve done, and what I’m asking of you.

In any case, it’s working. The trauma you’ve tried repressing thus far rushes through your conscience, carving gaping canals of remorse, lapping at its banks to keep it fresh. You’re convinced your heart could give out, wrenched in innumerable directions, the only respite afforded being the glitches that rip through you. You deserve to stay here, but he doesn’t. He’s always only sought what was right.

(You can fix it, do this one thing.

Though you can’t grasp where to begin.)

You pinch the fabric, tugging at it in a nervous tick. You don’t feel the tension across your calf, an observation that grows stranger the harder you pull. Reaching over with your free hand, you smooth over your pants. They’re still level with your shin bone, unmoved.

Huh.

There’s a mortifying moment where you fear that it’s Miguel’s suit you’re fiddling with, before taking into account that it’s impossible to twist the nanotechnology.

And it’s too close in to be a wall.

You delicately trace the surface with your pinky, searching for any discernible edge, intent on mapping out the overall shape to deduce its origins. Your arms wave about in a frantic fashion, but to your bewilderment, you find no real boundary. Weirder yet, it appears to slice through your shoe and a portion of Miguel's thigh.

Feels like–

Your stomach lurches, broiling in a bold concoction of thrill and trepidation. It throws you off guard, your brain lagging behind the reality your body already accepts. You know what it could be, having undergone the phenomena in several situations similar. An answered prayer during your lowest points – back at the man’s bunker, a few times since then.

Nerves humming with electric fervency, you tamp your hope into something more manageable, unable to handle another blow should this turn out poorly. Or – comparably – should you succeed; if this is, indeed, a portal. Your resolve trembles with the strength of a baby bird's wing, missing the survival instincts that once bolstered it.

(What would it mean for you?)

Biting your lip, you plunge your fist through to the other side.

It comes in contact with something cold, unlike anything in your little cave. Cold, glossy and… crinkly. A plastic bag of sorts, packed full of a pulpy filling. You’re tempted to draw away, disgusted, but redirect that intensity into inspecting instead.

The bag rests upon an uneven floor, marred by pebbles that lend a sense of ruggedness to the place. Outdoors. Downright filthy, too; judging by the clammy residue that sticks to your knuckles. Bile nudges up your oesophagus, inspired by the unidentified refuse you’re granted access to. Squalid; a dumpster, probably. Decorated in bursting trash bags.

But then–

Mooring yourself upon Miguel’s abdomen, you dip your forearm further in. The static off the portal’s perimeter sings with discordant vibrations, its intensity bordering on painful. It prickles the fine hairs along your limb, scouring any goosebumps raised with a grating ferocity. You stifle the whimper that arises as a consequence.

Your fingers dip under the trash, grazing something that makes you pause. Rubber. Ring-like.

The day pass?

Swallowing, you jerk it towards you. It doesn’t budge, stuck under the refuse.

(It occurs to you to give up. The moral dilemma its purpose poses is abundantly clear.)

Hooking all four digits around its circumference, you pull harder. The portal eats at you, hostile to the foreign intrusion. Any longer and you’re afraid it’ll cut your arm clean off, right under where that gutter almost did the same. Your adrenaline had been enough to numb the torturous incident then, both physically and in memory – and though you lack that direct threat to your life now, the setup is much the same. A situation where you’re finally in control, a reclamation to the morality you’ve long since lost. It’s personal – the scolding he’d given you like a knife to old wounds.

The prospect fuels the surge you need, distending through your biceps, reinforcing their efforts as you finally yank the bracelet out. The portal makes no noise when it zips back shut, but you feel the lull, its energy abandoning you to wallow, alone again. Or, not alone; you gently settle between Miguel’s legs, careful not to disturb him.

There’s a stark silence that passes afterward, a line of astonishment keeping it intact. You allow it, needing time to process the staunch implications of the day pass sagging upon your lap. Its lilac hue gives a faint light to your surroundings, illuminating the cranny you’ve only been able to picture so far. It’s about what you expected – save for the resting face of your companion.

He looks good. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t usually, but the peace that graces his features compliments him, rounding out any harsher edges. You trail your gaze up his neck, to the jaw that points to a pronounced chin. Lips that pout even over retracted fangs. An aquiline, masculine nose. It fits him, you think. Lends itself to the fluffy hair that frames his sharp cheekbones. You linger on it probably longer than you should.

That is, until you catch sight of the blooming discolouration marring his temple.

It’s partially obscured in shadow, yellowing along the ends and purple in places you don’t have the advantage of properly observing. Yet, the bruise communicates all it needs to, loud and explicit. You’re not in a position to procrastinate any longer; you’ve already spent a year running from fate. It might make you sick, your organs tying together in a nauseating knot – and every impulse in you might scream against it. To run away; to leave him here for dead. Live the rest of your life in peace – it’s only right, it’s only right.

Then, you remember what he’d said to you.

(“Explain this to me, O’Hara – what just providence made me spider-woman to a barren land?”

“It’s not fair.” He didn’t skip a beat, tone laced with a hard understanding. “But it’s fact.”)

You really hate him sometimes.

Bracing yourself, you shake his shoulder. He’s up in an instant, snatching your wrist in one warm palm. You wait for the tired mist over his awareness to melt, a stone lodged in your throat.

“¿Qué es?” He whisper-shouts. “What?”

“I–” Your voice warbles. Pathetic. “I have something for you.”

He squints.

(Rightfully so.)

Breathing through the hesitation that strikes the rungs of your ribcage, you hold up the day pass.

He doesn’t realise what you mean immediately, flicking back and forth between the bracelet and your furrowed brows. Realistically, his doubt can’t have lasted longer than a few seconds, yet you’re eternally paralysed within the anticipatory dread – a fossilised mosquito captured in amber. Even when he does eventually catch up, you stay still, letting him pilfer the key to your freedom and watching as his drowsiness sharpens into a pointed resolve.

And you don’t stray, not for the entire stretch during which he tinkers with its components. It’s not his aforementioned allure that encourages it, nor the sudden flashbacks to your earlier breakdown. Ridiculously enough, it’s satisfaction – a contentment at having finally defied your self-interests. You look to him like you had the sun back home. For validation on the path you’re headed towards, a small hint of a job well done. You’re too cautious of your own pride, betrayed by it more often than anyone else, but he–

He knows what it means to be a true spider-hero.

You hope that one day, you will too.

“Lyla?” Miguel demands into his watch, testing to see whether the spare parts of your contribution resolved its issues.

“You’re alive! Huh,” A miniscule projection of his LYrate lifeform approximation blinks into existence, tilting her heart-shaped glasses down as if to punctuate her disbelief.

“I came across a few obstacles, but I’ve got the Wr-” He catches your wince. “Our target. Set coordinates for 928. I’m coming home.”

“Gotcha. Can you wait until Reilly coughs up a twenty, though?”

“You bet on my survival?”

“Silver linings!”

“Lyra.”

“Okay! Alright. Home it is, boss.”

“And tell Jess to be on stand-by with an empty cell,” He adds, lowering his pitch to one more understated. You can’t lie and imply your appreciation – no matter what he does to soften your circumstance, it retains its somberness. You’re going back to that desolate wasteland, and this time, you have no will in ever leaving.

“Figured you’d want to get her in the go-home machine as soon as possible. No?”

“No.” He asserts, the decision rumbling from deep within his chest. You steel yourself against the shiver that wobbles through you. “I’m not done with her, yet.”

“Explain something to me, would you?”

You smell of lemon antiseptic and dirt, arms wrapped in fresh bandages from shoulder to wrist. It’s an unpleasant combination, exacerbating the headache that gnashes on your skull under these fluorescent lights – darkness having been an ally to your concussion. The acetaminophen they’d given you at the med-bay has done nothing to aid your pain, and you’re convinced that the only thing that would work is a long, hot bath.

That is to say, you’re not ready to have this conversation.

When you don’t respond, Miguel stands from his seat, exercising the prominent muscles in his legs. His sweats do their best to conceal them, but you’d been in close quarters with him for far too long to have forgotten the way they bulge and shift with every move. If you focus, you can sense them now, pressing against your ass, pinning you in place.

He huffs. You doubt your glassy-eyed ogle is doing you any favours.

“Can’t make any promises.” You murmur, before deciding against it. It probably isn’t the best time to test him. “I’ll try my best.”

It’s the first time you see him in casual clothing, which changes him – much like sleep does. Outside of his suit, he looks younger, on a pedestal closer to common man. A white t-shirt stretched taut across his chest, loose pants. Lighter colours, in complement to his bronzed complexion.

Get a hold of yourself.

“For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve managed to weasel your way out of responsibility.” He starts. Wrong, you want to say, because your breakouts have always been based on pure luck. “You threaten falling into floors, to phase through walls. Except, when we were trapped back on 15. You silently accepted our fate, despite having every means to prevent it. It’s telling, in my opinion.”

You nod, already aware of what he’s getting at. “Sounds like you don’t need me to explain, so–”

“You can’t control your powers, can you?”

“Bit late in figuring that one out.”

“Then how’d you come about the day pass?” He presses, not so much questioning anymore.

As it stands, you have two options:

To lie. It’s easy, natural after a full year of it. Your interrogator doesn’t need to know the truth if all he’s going to do is send you back, and with his newfound revelation about the nature of your abilities, it could prove advantageous to keep their full scope from his knowledge. You don’t owe him shit.

That’s Wraith talking, of course.

The you you want to be, however, beckons for candour. There pervades the confessional once more, a box drawn around you, prompting you to relieve yourself of all your secrets so you can be cleansed. Religion – a fickle thing, but it feels right, here.

Besides, who knows when you’ll be able to talk to anyone again.

“I’m not… entirely sure.” Your frown tucks underneath your teeth, and you suck on your lip while trying to formulate a coherent answer. “It’s happened previously. It’s like a portal, except it’s invisible and appears on the irregular occasion. I was thinking of ho– my earth when it materialised by my hand.”

His forehead creases, drawing in incredulously.

“You can create gateways into other dimensions?”

“Not quite. My working theory is that, somehow, the boundaries between worlds are thinning. I think I mentioned how my intangibility works?” He gives an affirming blink. “My atoms find the quickest way through something, so maybe they’re able to do the same through, ya know, the literal fabric of space-time.”

It really does sound idiotic to put out loud.

Miguel cups his face, rubbing away the weariness gathered in his wrinkles. There’s a plaster over the contusion on his forehead, overcast by rowdy tresses of wet hair. You do your best to suppress the image of him in the shower, steeling your expression into one of indifference.

“That holds up. This started a year ago?”

“Yeah,”

“There was a thing with a super-collider.”

“A… thing.” The scientist in you cringes. Though, you have no room to talk.

“All I’m getting from this is that, if I were to send you home, you could just high-tail out of there whenever the opportunity arises.”

His distrust shouldn’t shock you as much as it does. You ponder the best way to go about this, yet your tongue betrays you, speaking before you can lasso it back under command.

“In theory, yes.” You pause, waiting for it to sink in. “But I won’t.”

Some grand gesture of faith that was, you imbecile.

“Sure.” He stresses, unconvinced.

Taking a step forward, you crane your neck to meet his eye. Patchouli catches the office draft, clouding your head until all that comes from you is unintelligible nonsense.

“I’m sick of this game of cat and mouse. I don’t want to be the bad guy any more.” Your thunderous heartbeat drowns the effect of your proclamation. It’s hard to tell whether you come across as genuine or not. “All my life, I’ve only ever done what was wrong, what was selfish.” You rephrase his earlier reproach. “Let me be right, just this once.”

Your conviction sways when he tenses. No; this doesn’t feel honest, not even to you.

You want to be good. With all the fire of every star in this goddamn universe, blazing hot and colliding to expel devastation upon its neighbours. It shrinks up in your core, skyrocketing in temperature. It verges on explosion; a supernovae, life-giving. You want. You want. You want.

But, you’re afraid you don’t know how.

“We can make a deal?” You offer, plummeting to new depths of uncertainty. A deal requires mutual credence; for every skipped vow, you’ll lose out on something too. “Let me stay, just until I learn how to be the hero you need me to be. After that, I’ll go home – I swear it. And you’ll never have to worry about me again.”

He gives no blatant indication as to whether he’s seriously considering it. His head dips, and he turns his back to you, likely calculating collective factors to form the best solution. The way you perceive it, though – this elongated reticence:

He sees no other choice.

chapter eight

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fantasy-anatomy-analyst · 3 months

Text

Making Humanoids Less Human

I did make a small post on this, but now I've got the art for a much bigger and more detailed post! so here we go.

I had several anonymous asks that all came in quick succession weeks ago. Every single one of them was basically just a variation on "how would you take (typically humanoid) fantasy being, and make them look less human?"

This blog does not exist for me to just give people original designs for free, my goal is to show off my own personal thoughts about fantasy design and help people figure out how to adjust their own designs to fit their vision better. That means when people ask me questions about how to do something, I want to give them things to think about so they can come to their own conclusion. I don't mind making original designs to illustrate concepts, but a whole flood of "show me how to make this specific thing look different" all at once like that was too much. I'm not answering them all individually, it's just not what I want to do.

But what I can do is show my own thoughts and ideas about how to take any fantasy design and push it further away from "human", and you all can look at my ideas and figure out your own way to do things!

So here are the main 4 methods I've come up with to make humanoids look less human.

(image description: a simplified drawing of a humanoid face surrounded by four altered versions of the same face. clockwise starting from the top left, they are:

Speculative, drawn as a cat person. Additive, drawn with horns, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and a second pair of eyes. Subtractive, drawn with blank eyes, no nose, and no eyebrows. Exaggerative, drawn with a long face and huge eyes, as well as a wide mouth, narrow nose, and big ears.

end description)

I am personally a fan of the speculative route, which means exploring an alternate root of evolution to create a new design. Through this method, I've created monkey elves, frog goblins, and pig orcs.

the additive option is the most common, I think. adding new feature or doubled features to a humanoid form is a very intuitive way to change the design and make it look less human. you see this in most fantasy and scifi designs, like star trek aliens and the dnd player races.

subtractive and evaggerative are the most common options for people that like the uncanny valley. it's really easy to make uncomfortable designs by removing or exaggerating recognizable features, and they're often used together. Slenderman, for example, removes all facial features and skin color but also exaggerates the limbs and body.

Combining the four methods will give you a really interesting design as well! So for practice I decided to explore an alternate design for Tieflings, the part-demon player race in dnd.

(image description: four examples of differnt tiefling designs using the previously described methods. the additive example is just offical dnd art of a tiefling woman with purple skin, horns, and a long tail.

the subtractive sketch looks very alien, with a bald head, empty eyes, and no other facial featuers aside from a small mouth. it has three fingers per hand and two toe per foot.

the exaggerative sketch shows a hunched humanoid figure with huge eyes and big ears. the neck, limbs, and digits are all long with claws at the ends of the fingers and toes, and the limbs are also quite muscular.

the speculative sketch shows a bipedal figure with features similar to a giraffe, including a long neck, ossicones, and hooves.

end description)

now, because tielflings have such a distinct look to them, obviously my new sketches don't really look like tieflings, do they? the only one that comes close is the giraffe. relying only on one type of alteration to the human form has left the designs rather empty and lacking in the more iconic traits of the original concept. so i tried a sketch that combined my ideas! it came out looking like a completely different creature lol, like it could be a kobold or something, still not really a tiefling.

(image description: a sketch of a creature with a giraffe-like head, long tongue, and sharp teeth. it appears to be roaring at something and stands in a half-crouch. it has long limbs with hoof feet and clawed hands, as well as a long tufted tail curled behind it. end description.)

didn't work out. too far into the animal side of the speculative evolution, I think. so I tried again and got a design I liked much better!

(image description: a digital painting of a tiefling leaping back and casting a glowing orange spell. she is wearing a tunic with a corset and detached sleeves, as well as several pieces of jewelry. Her skin is purple with dark patches like a giraffe's spots, and she has a giraffe's ossicones as well as hoof-like hands and two-toed hoof feet. Her tail is long with a tuft at the end. She has glowing eyes and a flat nose, and there is a single sharp tooth visible poking out of the side of her mouth. end description.)

Brought the face back into slightly more human proportions and that helped a lot. Sometimes designs just take a few tries! that's normal.

and hopefully this is helpful to all of you! there are so many ways to alter humanoid designs to come up with something original and unique to you!

#humanoids #making humanoids less human #altered humanoids #non primate humanoids #tiefling #long post #my designs #and btw ai cannot do this #does not matter how detailed you prompt it #it can't really get things to look this original and unique #it can't really blend different features like this in a way that makes sense #you have this power #the computers cannot replicate it

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siilvan · 7 months

Text

proximate

characters: rodolfo “rudy” parra

summary: an undercover operation goes awry, leaving you and rudy in a tight spot – literally.

prompts: 3. "first one to make a noise loses" & 19. "the choice is yours"

genre: general, fluff, fem!reader (no desc.)

warnings: not proofread (i'll do it later </3), cursing, brief mentions of canon-typical violence, classic stuck-in-a-closet situation 😏, like two spanish words since i'm still a beginner lol

word count: 1.9k

note: RAHHHHHH RUDY MY LOVE‼️‼️🗣️ once again, shoutout to @glitterypirateduck for curating this event!!

also wrote most of this while fighting off sleep so if it's bad, i'm sorry, i have another rudy fic on my WIP list <3

things can't get much worse than this, right?

right?

"a simple mission," he said. "just a quick in-and-out." he said.

you swear, you're going to to kick alejandro with the heels that you're wearing if you come out of this alive.

as you go to round a corner, a few voices make you stop dead in your tracks and tuck yourself back against the wall. it's a small group, no more than four men, and you hold your breath as they stroll right past you without even sparing a glance in your direction.

if there's anything to be thankful for, it's the lack of discipline in the guards. they're all too worried about getting drunk at the party still raging elsewhere than catching the "agent" in attendance.

you let out a soft sigh as you watch them disappear down the corridor, until footsteps quickly approaching from behind make you jump and spin around, preparing to face the would-be attacker.

before you can even turn, though, a pair of gloved hands grab ahold of you, one coming up to cover your mouth as you let out a surprised yelp, and the other pressing you into the wall again. it's an instinct when you fight back, lifting your foot and stomping on theirs, praying that the heel of your shoe is enough to force them to loosen their grip and give you a chance to escape.

the grunt that leaves them – him, you realize – sounds all-too familiar. you hesitate, which gives the man enough time to yank his foot back and lean closer, mumbling something into your ear despite the pain lacing his every word.

"it's me—!" he says through a pained groan. the dots finally connect in your head and you crane your neck to look at him over your shoulder.

the man stares at you through a black balaclava, but his eyes are unmistakable. it's rudy.

"what are you doing here?" you ask, voice slightly muffled against his palm. rudy pulls his hand away and steps back, giving you space to face him properly. you mutter a quick apology upon seeing him stumble a bit, obviously sore from your attack, but he brushes it off with a casual wave of his hand.

"heard about the situation over comms, figured you could use some help." he shrugs as your gaze drops, dragging over the dark suit that sits snugly on his form. "we need to move quickly. the security's scattered right now, but it won't be long until they find the body." he adds, tapping your shoulder gently as he moves past you.

you follow close behind as he starts down the corridor that the group of guards came from earlier. "i'm assuming you mean the guy who's clothes you're wearing – did you not hide him well?"

rudy pauses at another intersection, holding a hand up to signal for you to stop behind him. "didn't have time to. i was more worried about you."

with the way he says the words so casually, you know that it's nothing more than work to him. helping a fellow soldier, assisting you in the field for the sake of the mission, doing his job as the second-in-command. still, you don't miss the way your heart skips a beat at the thought of rudy rushing to your aid for a different, more personal, reason.

after a mumbled "come on," he's continuing down the hallway with you right behind him, the distinct sounds of your heels clacking against the floor with each step and his leather oxfords echoing off the walls.

you nearly slam into his back when rudy suddenly stops in the middle of a hallway, opening your mouth to protest, until you hear aggravated grunts and conversation coming from further down the corridor. before you can react, though, rudy's grabbing your shoulder to guide you as he swings open a nearby door and hastily shoves you inside it.

he slips in with you and lets out a heavy breath as the door softly clicks shut behind him, leaving you in almost total darkness. you press your back to the wall and flinch when the handle of a broom brushes against your spine, making you shuffle forward a bit to get comfortable in the cramped space.

unfortunately, "comfortable" equals standing so close to rudy that you worry about him hearing the rapid beating of your nervous heart.

you're in a small room, some kind of broom closet, with one of your superiors confined and standing just inches away from you. the shadows obscuring your face end up being your saving grace— if he could see the way you're reacting to the close proximity, you'd probably die from sheer embarrassment.

"they were heading our way?" you manage to ask, whispering through the pitch blackness.

you can make out some movement in the shadows akin to a nod. "party guests aren't allowed in this area. it's safer to hide and let them pass by." rudy mutters in reply, shifting. his hand, covered by a dark leather glove, grazes your arm lightly, his touch leaving behind a faint heat that slowly spreads through the rest of your body.

he lifts his arm fully and finds something that you can barely make out: a string, hanging in the air between you two. rudy gives it a single tug and suddenly you're squinting, eyes adjusting to the dim, artificial light that fills the small space from the bulb at the center of the ceiling.

seeing him semi-clearly again is enough to make you stare, eyes greedily drinking up his disguise as he keeps his attention trained on the little bit of space at the bottom of the door. you manage to tear your gaze from him after admiring the way the balaclava clings to his focused expression, clearly outlining strong features that you know will make you melt all over again once the mask is removed.

fleeting shadows obscure the light coming in from the crack, signaling that the group from before is passing by. you remain quiet, practically holding your breath as you watch the last person's silhouette appear and disappear under the door, the group's conversation gradually fading as they continue down the hall without a single alarm raised.

rudy goes to open the door, hand firmly wrapping around the knob, but when he tries to twist it open, you're both a little shocked at it not budging. he twists it again, but to no avail.

"mierda," he whispers harshly, fidgeting with the doorknob. "it's stuck." he adds, shooting a glance in your direction.

you briefly meet his gaze and blink at him, swiftly understanding the implications.

you're alone, very lightly armed, and trapped in a stuffy closet with your second-in-command whilst surrounded by enemies. somehow, things did find a way to get worse.

the two of you fall into a tense silence as you take in the situation: rudy, testing the strength of the door once more, and you, carefully listening for anyone nearby with an ear pressed against the wall. catching a guard's attention isn't ideal, but two or three men shouldn't be too difficult to take out discreetly.

you don't hear anything for what feels like ages. no footsteps, no voices, not even a peep from your ally. with a frustrated huff, you pull back from the wall and settle for staring into the minimal space between you and rudy.

at some point, he pulls off the mask, allowing you to drag your gaze up to his uncovered face. you can see thoughts swimming behind his dark irises, plans being formed off the cuff, preparation for any and every possible outcome. if rudy's anything, it's meticulous and levelheaded, even in a bad situation. he's everything a leader should be, and you commend him for it.

the silence lingers heavy in the air, settling like an uncomfortable weight on your shoulders. you swallow down the lump in your throat awkwardly, wracking your brain for an excuse to break it.

"first one to make a noise loses," you mumble, sending him a cursory glance.

rudy chuckles softly, his shoulders drooping slightly. he meets your gaze and seems to relax, lips twitching into a small smile. "i think you lost when you said that."

you roll your eyes half-heartedly. "that doesn't count." you lean in, mirroring his smile. "you lost by responding, though."

he concedes, lifting his hands in a mock surrender. "you got me, i guess you're the winner." he says, before letting his hands fall to his sides once more.

you're left staring at each other again. the tension dissipates with those few words, however, and you let yourself bask in the warmth of his gaze. it isn't special, you know that rudy looks at all of his allies with the same warmth, but a part of you clings to the hope that his affection is reserved for you. it's silly – juvenile, even – to think of your teammate like this. what you have is just a schoolgirl crush, feelings that he'd never reciprocate—

"you look beautiful," he utters, nearly inaudible despite the lack of other sounds. "i, uh... wanted to tell you that before the mission."

did you hear that correctly?

you keen under his praise, muttering an equally soft "thank you" before mentally kicking yourself for the awkward response and opening your mouth to speak again. "you look handsome. maybe you should've been on this mission instead." you add with a laugh.

"you were handling yourself just fine." rudy says, eyes narrowing when you shake your head.

"there's a reason why you had to step in. besides—"

"—besides, why would i miss out on this view?" he asks. you stop short, jaw practically going slack. again, did you hear that correctly?

you blink at him, dumbfounded. "that's bold."

another mental kick makes you flinch at your own reply.

gloved hands wrap around your own, guiding your hands to sit between yours and rudy's bodies. he squeezes them gently, a comforting gesture that sends a shiver coursing down your spine.

"maybe this isn't the best place to say this," he starts, thumbs rubbing soothing circles into your skin. "and, maybe that's exactly why i finally can say this, but... i've always thought that you're beautiful." he continues, voice dropping from a quiet timbre to a whisper.

"i want to be more than just teammates, if you'll have me." he quickly says, his grip tightening as his eyes search yours for an answer.

"rudy..." you trail off, before he speaks – again.

"the choice is yours. i'll respect your decision, no matter what it is."

if you didn't know better, you'd tell yourself that you're dreaming. it's not an ideal confession, not in the slightest, but there's something about it that's so very him. your chest tightens in the best way as you slide your hands from his, fingertips dancing up his arms until you cup his cheeks and bridge that final gap.

the kiss that follows is chaste and saccharine sweet. strong arms circle around your waist, drawing your body closer to his, grounding you in the moment as you threaten to slip away in the pure bliss of it.

after a few moments, you manage to pull back enough to give a verbal answer. "if we get out of here, then it's a date."

rudy chuckles, warm breath fanning against your lips. "keep your weekend open, cariño."

#fall4rudy #call of duty #cod #cod mw2 #mw2 #call of duty x reader #cod x reader #mw2 x reader #rudy x reader #rodolfo parra x reader #rodolfo rudy parra x reader #cod rudy #rodolfo parra #rodolfo rudy parra #sylph.writes

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barb-l · 5 months

Note

Isn't a writer question but was curious; How does wenclair different from other ships you've enjoyed?

Is it solely due to having been a lifelong Wednesday Addams fan, or is it specifically the Netflix's Addams world that you find intriguing?

I ask mainly because I recall you once saying that your wenclair comics--specifically the Next Gen Au I believe--are written and made with a lot of intention in regards to dialog and the discussions had between characters.

Is this due to a greater insight into the characters or simply a mark of growth in writing comprehension?

I like to think I put as much thought in all ships I've been hyperfixated on tbh. Wenclair isn't even the one I've been obsessed with the longest. So far it's actually Trimberly, for which and I was hyperfixated with for like 3 years.

But yeah ok I get ur point lol The intensity this time feels different, I suppose.

I think it's a mix of both being a long time Wednesday Addams fan and how cute of a ship Wenclair is both in concept and the canon execution of their dynamics.

As some of you are aware, I've been a fan of The Addams for a while now. All incarnations of them are great in their own way, but one of the many reasons why the animated 2019 movie is my favorite is because it didn't give Wednesday a bland ass male love interest. I don't think the B/W series did it(because Wed was like six in that) but the 90's movies, musical, and netflix series for some reason found it necessary to give Wednesday male love interests so painfully boring and i hate it. This isn't even about making Wednesday attracted to boys. I personally headcanon her bi, as the ol' stereotype that all grumpy/angsty female characters must be lesbian isn't my cup of tea, and also because I like to think all Addamses just don't give a shit about gender when it comes to romance. I woulda been fine with her getting a boyfriend so long as they're not boring af and goddddd canon incarnations still haven't delivered. Joel was sweet but he was too much of a wimp, not even Gomez is that pathetic. Lucas' thing with Wednesday was just portrayed in such an icky way in the musical that I couldn't finish watching by the time their sexually charged duet came on, and don't even get me started on the boys Netflix gave her. I expected better of Gough and Millar...(unless the blandness was on purpose like it was with Lana Lang--)

Anyways, because of all said canon love interests, I've been desperate for Wednesday to have a love interest that is both not painfully het or boring for once. Crossover shipping with Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice the Musical was fun but was ultimately a very niche fandom. I could only draw and write for an audience of twenty or so people for so long. Parker from the animated movie would've been great, but the cop out with her mom dating Fester just made it too weird for me to be fully on board with the ship.

So when Enid Sinclair was introduced as a character I was absolutely ecstatic. On paper alone she already seemed great. She has a very distinct appearance (even if her "design" was inspired by Harlequin and it shows) that goes so well when she stands next to Wednesday, whether it's in the actual show, fan arts, or even in official merch. Her being Wednesday's complete opposite in so many ways makes her being paired with Wednesday so dang interesting too.

And I don't just mean aesthetic or personality wise. I'm talking about how one of Wednesday's struggle stems from having too much smothering love from her family as someone who gets overwhelmed too easily, and Enid's loneliness and insecurity coming from her own family's lack of love and attention where it matters most. Or how Wednesday's just girl who, deep inside worries about being an actual cruel monster like the very bigots she hates, while Enid is a supposed beast who resents herself for only being a scared little girl. Even the fact that Wednesday is an older sister to a soft-hearted younger brother while Enid is the youngest daughter to a bunch of rough-housing older brothers feels very on purpose.

Everything about Enid feels deliberate. Like she IS supposed to be paired with Wednesday, platonically or romantically. She's the best person to stand beside Wednesday as a character because they have enough differences and similarities to have interesting conflicts but also significant character growths sparked by each other. She's not bland or boring like the canon love interests because even without her attachment to Wednesday, Enid is still such a compelling character. The mere fact that she's as popular as she is despite an eight-episode series being her debut in a franchise that's been iconic to generations is already pretty amazing, and only a character as impressive deserves to smooch somebody as iconic as Wednesday Addams.

And their on screen chemistry is just *chef's kiss*

#asks #wenclair #wednesday netflix #the way i wax poetic about this show you think it's a masterpiece #lmfaooo #god istg if wenclair were on purpose it'd be the best love story ever #but alas

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hiraganasakura · 3 months

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Hi so me being me I've decided to hyperanalyze the conversation Qrow and Raven had in Higanbana practically line by line bcus I have Many Thoughts and this is the best way I can think of to get them all out. If you can't tell I'm absolutely obsessed with these two. Btw.

Thanks to the RWBY wiki for providing transcripts for every episode, otherwise I definitely would have missed smth despite having just watched this scene recently lol

I put it under the read more for easier scrolling due to how long this post got!

I immediately noticed smth in the very first lines of the interaction:

Raven: "Hello, brother." Qrow: "...Raven."

You'll notice throughout the whole conversation that Raven never calls Qrow by his name, only condescendingly referring to him as "brother" this one time and never calling him anything else. Meanwhile, Qrow directly refers to Raven a total of three times throughout the conversation, and only one doesn't call Raven by her name (which we'll get to shortly)

On the other hand, Qrow doesn't bother with even so much as a greeting beyond simply stating Raven's name

It's different ways of communicating their distance. While Raven holds her relationship with Qrow over his head — never once, even outside of this scene, does she call him "brother" with affection iirc, only derision and condescension — Qrow doesn't seem to rly know how to greet her. He hesitates before saying her name and approaching her, as if trying to assess the situation before acting

Qrow: "So, what do you want?" Raven: "A girl can't just catch up with her family?" Qrow: "She can, but you're not. Now how 'bout we get on with it? Unless you plan on keeping these [drinks] comin'."

Again, Raven seems to bring up her familial ties with Qrow as a tactic to get him to do what she wants — in this case, stick around to talk to her despite him not seeming to rly want to. Frankly, it feels manipulative. We're gonna put a pin in this for now and come back to it in just a moment

Additionally, Qrow already knows that Raven's not just here for a friendly chat between two siblings, and sees right thru her facade that it is. Raven is here bcus she wants smth from him. But interestingly, it is Raven in V5 that says, in an almost frustrated/disappointed tone, "Family. Only coming around when they need something." There's another pin; keep both in mind

Raven: "Does she have it?" Qrow: "...Did you know Yang lost her arm?" Raven: "That's not—" Qrow: "Rhetorical question, I know you know. It's just obnoxious that you'd bring up family and then carry on like your own daughter doesn't exist." Raven: "I saved her." Qrow: "Once. Because that was your rule, right? Real 'Mom of the Year' material, sis."

Qrow dodges Raven's question about the Relic and instead brings up her hypocrisy in how she treats family. And it's a good point. Here she is lording her siblingship with Qrow over his head while simultaneously defending and upholding her rule that she is only obligated to help her own daughter a single time. Another pinpoint on our little conspiracy board

Also, here's the one time in this conversation Qrow refers to Raven as "sis". Like Raven's use of "brother", Qrow's use of "sis" is very pointed and with intent. But it's not to manipulate Raven, it's a snarky jab meant to rly hammer home Qrow's point

Raven: "I told you Beacon would fall, and it did. I told you Ozpin would fail, and he has. Now you tell me. Does. Salem. Have it?" Qrow: "I thought you weren't interested in all of that." Raven: "I just want to know what we are up against." Qrow: "And which 'we' are you referring to?"

A few things of note here. At some point in the past, Raven expressed an outright disinterest in Ozpin's inner circle, at least to Qrow. Qrow also feels excluded in the "we" Raven mentions being against Salem. To me, there seems to be a distinct possibility here that it wasn't that Raven felt personally disinterested in Ozpin's operations, but that she somehow felt excluded and feigned a lack of interest in order to protect herself. An idea that is further supported in my eyes by the following dialogue:

Qrow: "You should come back, Raven. The only way we'd beat her is by working together. All of us." Raven: "You're the one who left. The tribe raised us, and you turned your back on them." Qrow: "They were killers and thieves." Raven: "They were your family." Qrow: "You have a very skewed perception of that word."

And there it is. Raven's problem is laid out here for us, loud and clear: She feels like she was the one abandoned, not the one running away. She says it outright! "You're the one who left." To her, Qrow is the traitor, the one who left their family behind. If you ask Qrow (or, for that matter, Tai, Yang, and even Summer based on the scene in V9), it's the opposite

Bcus they have different definitions of family

Another thing to pin (I promise this will all become clear soon)

Raven: "I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival." Qrow: "I saw. The people of Shion saw, too." Raven: "The weak die. The strong live. Those are the rules." Qrow: "Well, you've certainly got someone strong on your side. I've seen the damage." Raven: "We couldn't have known the Grimm would set in as quickly as they did." Qrow: "I'm not talking about the Grimm. And I'm not talking about you, either."

Notice Raven's shift from "the tribe" to "our people". More of that guilt tripping!

Additionally, Raven is *obsessed* with rules. One save. The weak die, the strong live. Raven lives and breathes rules, even seemingly arbitrary ones. Guess what this is? Another pin!

Raven: "If you don't know where the Relic is, then we have nothing left to talk about." Qrow: "I don't know where the Spring Maiden is, either, but if you do, I need you to tell me." Raven: "And why would I do that?" Qrow: "Because without her, we're all going to die." Raven: "...And which 'we' are you referring to?"

Qrow's "either" here implies that he also doesn't know where the Crown of Choice is, which is... interesting. He's one of Ozpin's closest lieutenants, and is in the dark on where Beacon's Relic is? Wherever it is, it is such a closely kept secret that even Ozpin's best spy doesn't know where it is (maybe so that in the event Qrow gets captured by Salem he can't be forced into giving her the information?)

Meanwhile, Raven's "And why would I [tell you]?" implies that she does know who the Spring Maiden is (obviously. Raven's the Spring Maiden lol) but refuses to disclose to Qrow

A lantern sputters out after Qrow says "Without [Spring] we're all going to die." Now, I genuinely can't remember if this is headcanon or canon, but iirc Misfortune seems to act up when Qrow's upset. He's clearly tired of this little game of dancing around topics that Raven's been playing with him

And once again, Raven indicates a feeling of exclusion from Qrow's life in the iconic final line. She gets the final word in before leaving

We've finally reached the end of the conversation. Now what does all of this tell us?

And here is where all of those pins I wrote down are relevant. As I mentioned, the twins view family very differently

Qrow's view is pretty obvious: he views family as the ppl in his life who matter most to him. Unlike Raven, he does not view the tribe as family despite the fact that they raised him, disgustedly referring to them as "killers and thieves". It's implied that he was, in fact, neglected and/or likely abused by the Branwen tribe, saying in V6C4, "No one wanted me... I was cursed..." further explaining his distaste for them. Furthermore, despite not being related to Ruby by blood, they clearly consider one another family throughout the series, and he even seems closer to her than he seems to his niece who's actually blood related to him (I personally headcanon that he keeps more of a distance from Yang bcus she reminds him too much of Raven, who he feels abandoned and hurt by, but that's neither here nor there). Bloodlines and debts are secondary compared to loyalty, if they're considered at all. He is obviously furious that Raven only insists on saving Yang once and never directly interacting with her beyond that, despite Raven constantly guilting Qrow over abandoning his so-called "family" of the tribe. And yet. And yet. He still offers Raven a place back in his life, even if only to unite against Salem

Raven's view, to me, has been an enigma for a while. But after hyperanalyzing this conversation, after noting down all of those points of interest, I feel like I've finally cracked the code. Raven views family as an obligation, an exchange that always has an ulterior motive behind it. She seeks out Qrow only bcus she desires smth from him despite showing distaste when someone does the same to her; condescendingly calls Qrow "brother" more than his actual name and calls the tribe their "family" to try guilting him into doing what she wants; and feels fierce loyalty to the tribe but barely interacts with her daughter, only seeming to count one of the two as true family. She views the concept of family with cynicism and seems to feel an obligation to the tribe, as if she "owes" them for raising her

I think the two's perceptions of what defines family are all to do with the way the tribe treated both of them. This crosses a bit into headcanon territory, but as you can see by the above quotes and analysis, I rly don't think I'm just making it up entirely

As I already mentioned, I think it's implied that the Branwen tribe neglected/abused Qrow. In fact, we could probably blame their treatment of him for the deep self-loathing he has due to his "cursed" Semblance. But what about Raven?

Well, it's simple: I think she was abused, too, just in a different way. While Qrow was likely shown and told on a consistent basis that he was unwanted, unloved, undeserving of good things, Raven may have been shown and told she was wanted, loved, and deserving of good things... if she did what the tribe told her. If she repaid them for raising her and her brother, for being her "family". The way she uses her familial ties with Qrow as almost blackmail may be exactly the way the tribe treated her. Her obsession with following rules may stem from the fact that she had to follow the rules the tribe set for her in order to be accepted and deemed worth smth

As for her distance from Yang... honestly, I wonder if Raven is aware that Yang deserves better and keeps her distance as her way of doing that. When Summer confronts Raven in the V9 scene, Raven says, "...You're better at that life. Better than I was." She seems to have a fear and insecurity about being a good family member, a good mother, and maybe that's why she fled. Maybe she was scared of being like her abusers due to how she emulates them as a self-preservation tactic in so many other ways. Not entirely sure about this point tho

And I think too this is why the twins don't rly understand one another. They may have been unaware of the different ways in which the other was treated. Qrow, constantly unwanted and loathed, can't understand why Raven sticks around with the tribe; Raven, who obeyed the tribe and, in doing so, garnered enough of their favor to even eventually become leader, can't understand why Qrow can't just be "good", earn respect, and stay

This dissonance between the two experiences may also be completely intentional on the part of the tribe; abusers will often eliminate their targets' support systems in order to make them completely reliant on the abuser, so it's highly likely that the wedge was intentionally driven between the two siblings so that they could not find support in one another. This would also tie into why the twins seem to feel excluded from one another's lives and abandoned by one another: bcus they were made to feel that way by their common abusers, and did nothing to challenge these assumptions bcus they saw no reason to — and only seemed to keep proving one another right if they did

Which rly has some disturbing implications about how the Branwen tribe works. Like, do they just pick orphaned kids up off the street and abuse them into being perfect little bandits, molded to be of the greatest possible use and discarded if they're deemed worthless? Plus Qrow says his Semblance is how he got his name, which implies that the tribe also renames the kids they scoop up (possibly as a form of control or a way to make sure they can't be tracked down by any remaining family)? Plus there's the whole thing where Qrow and Raven were originally sent to Beacon to learn how to kill Huntsmen, which carries with it the implication that the Branwen tribe grooms literal orphan children into becoming stone-hearted murderers? What. The heck.

And if I'm right, if the Branwen tribe is that severely abusive, then like... wow, no wonder Qrow and Raven are Like That. They're both very deeply hurt people expressing it in different ways

I was considering adding their conversation at the Battle of Haven to this post, but I think that would be better as its own thing. Also I haven't gotten there on my rewatch yet so I may miss some details if I try to analyze it rn; it's better to wait overall methinks

But I have reached the point of my rewatch where we see Weiss and Whitley interact, and I think it would be very efficient to sum up what Qrow and Raven's relationship seems to be by using those siblings as a point of reference. Qrow = Weiss, actively trying to break free from and fight back against their abusers in different ways, while Raven = Whitley, continuing to do as their abusers want and have wanted as a method of self-preservation. Only, unlike Weiss and Whitley, Qrow and Raven have yet to come to a point where they can understand one another. I think that's a good way to briefly summarize the uh. Absolutely massive post this is.

In conclusion, I may have cracked the majority of the Branwen twins' pre-Beacon backstory purely by hyperanalyzing a single conversation. Oopsies

#original post #'hey hira why are you so obsessed with these two—' autism. i hope that answers your question!#ok but srsly. i've genuinely worked rly hard on this post for the past like. 3 days?#i didn't think it'd lead to me deducing all of this about the twins' pasts but here we are lol #this'll probably flop due to the length but like. i don't mind tbh! this is mostly to satisfy my own silly brain [affectionate] anyway #i'm genuinely looking forward to seeing them in v10 #since the storyboard for the scrapped v9 epilogue had raven in it #i hope they somehow reconcile and come to understand one another like weiss and whitley did #tho. i have a bad feeling that even if they do it will end in one (or both?) of them tragically dying before the other's eyes #but that's not rly relevant lol #anyhow i am not sry for inflicting you all with my branwen twin brainrot. it will happen again #i'm having sooo many thoughts on this rewatch and they just keep on coming #rwby #qrow branwen #raven branwen #branwen twins #rwby9 spoilers #i hope there's no glaring errors here. i read thru this post multiple times to be sure but it's so huge i may have missed smth irjnfbpbne

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wisteria-cherry · 8 months

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in which you get drunk and it’s indirectly james’ fault

(mentions of alcohol, reader is drunk lol)

“quidditch game tonight!” james announced, walking into the boys’ dorm in his quidditch uniform. “be there or be slytherin!”

“slytherin? never!” peter snickered, reading one of sirius’ muggle magazines.

“then i guess i’ve no choice, then.” sirius, who was laying sideways on his bed, scribbling something down, perhaps prank ideas or a new way to make his family mad.

“we’ll be there.” remus hummed, reading on his own bed as you leaned against his shoulder, reading along as well as you could— remus was a fast reader.

“who’s it against?” you ask.

“slytherin.” james gagged, making a show of bracing himself on his broom like a cane and pretending to vomit at the sound of the slytherin name.

“if you’re going to be sick, do it outside.” remus said sarcastically, not looking up from his book.

“yeah, we don’t wanna clean that up!” peter chimed.

“gross, prongsy.” sirius snickered.

“least i don’t smell like wet dog.” james stuck his tongue out. sirius grinned. a challenge. he instantly jumped up and caught james in a headlock, rubbing his fist against james’s scalp.

“oi, the hair! watch the hair!” james protested, laughing as he tried to squirm away from sirius.

“take a nice, long whiff! i smell fantastic, thank you!” sirius declared, messing up james’s already messy black hair.

“alright, alright!” james groaned.

“say it!”

“you smell fantastic.”

“there we go.” sirius released james, who promptly fixed his hair. it was now medium messy instead of extremely messy, but still very messy.

“well, the game’s in an hour, so you’d all better be there.” james declared.

“we will be.” you grin. “signs and all.”

and you were. james was amazing— he was an incredibly skilled chaser. it was particularly amusing, though, because you could tell from james’ expression and body language that he was trash talking and taunting the slytherin relentlessly. the slytherins seemed pissed off, whether it was because of james’ taunting or just slytherins being slytherins.

“how’s it feel having such a terrible team?” sirius sniggered at a slytherin nearby in the stands.

“stuff it.” the slytherin snarled, glaring fiercely at sirius.

“i’ll stuff it once your team— YEAH, JAMESY!” sirius immediately cut himself off with a roar of triumph as james scored a goal. you immediately cheered as well as peter decided to pick up where sirius left off.

“we’ll stuff it once your team wins.” peter laughed, cheering along. even remus smirked to himself as he clapped.

“they got the snitch!” the commentator screamed. “gryffindor’s got the snitch!” the crowd went absolutely ballistic, shaking people by the shoulders as they hollered in delight. you turn to sirius, positively glowing.

“they did it!” you exclaim.

“we absolutely crushed it!” sirius cheered, lifting you up by the waist and spinning you around.

“sirius!” you laugh, holding his shoulders to keep yourself steady.

“did you see prongs? he absolutely killed it!” peter laughed.

“prongs will be insufferable.” remus cast a glance towards towards you and sirius, then to james on the field, who was getting hoisted up onto the team’s shoulders.

“without a doubt.”

there was a distinct lack of non-alcoholic drinks in the gryffindor common room, but you hardly noticed. they were all beginning to taste the same anyway. the room got blurry, too, and it was harder to single out people. luckily!! you saw sirius!! …you think.

you shuffled your way over, feeling yourself wobble a bit but it’s fineee you’re fine.

“sir’us…” you murmured, your words slurred as you set your hand on his shoulder. oh, it’s a her… it’s not sirius.

“oh, love,” the girl giggled. “are you drunk, sweetie?”

“oh, no…” you giggle. “‘m not drunk, that’s silly.” the girl’s expression changed and she seemed skeptical. skeptical. that’s a funny word.

“honey, were you looking for someone?” the girl asks slowly, taking your hands in hers.

“sir’us..” you murmur.

“sirius? sirius black?” the girl confirmed. you nod, feeling very wobbly. she releases one of your hands in order to lead you through the crowd with one hand and make space with the other. she must’ve been magic because she found sirius so quickly.

“she’s drunk, black,” the girl announced to a very curious sirius. he looked so pretty in the lighting. far too pretty. so elegant, like a raven but a good one because sirius is good. “she’s been crying for you.” you wonder who the drunk girl looking for black was.

“now that won’t do.” sirius’ eyebrows lifted in a show of curiosity and amusement. “well, i’ll take care of her. thanks, angie.” angie? must be that girl. the girl left, though, and it made you really sad because you really enjoyed her company.

“oh, love, why are you crying?” sirius broke into a grin, laughing but also seeming worried as he wiped your tears away.

“she— she left?” you sputter.

“yes, darling, she left because i’ve got to take care of you now.” he grinned. you grabbed his wrists as he wiped your tears. when did you start crying?

“do— do know where sirius is?” you mumble, hiccuping.

“i am sirius, love.” sirius hummed. oh. you’d forgotten.

“okay.” you manage to say. sirius’ hands leave your face and it’s sad, but then one of his hands takes yours and the other is on the small of your back. he guided you away from all the people and tasty drinks. “wait, no, but the drinks..”

“you’ve had plenty.” sirius snickered. “merlin, you are absolutely smashed.”

“smashed? what’s smashed? i didn’t do it, i didn’t break it-“ you ramble, wobbling slightly and deciding to lean into sirius for support.

“mm, i know you didn’t, love.” sirius snickered. “i haven’t even had time to get beered up myself, i can’t believe you’re already like this.”

“like what?” you struggle to focus your gaze on sirius as he opens a door. a dorm door, surely, because there are four beds. sirius leads you to one of them.

“c’mon, dove, sit down.” sirius patted the bed, standing beside it. you do as you’re told, swinging your legs curiously.

“whatcha doin’?” you chirp.

“hold still, sweetheart, we’ve got to get those shoes off.” sirius took one of your ankles gently, sliding off the shoe and then the sock. “people who sleep in socks are psychopaths, i can’t in good conscience let you do that.”

“who’s a psychopath?” you ask curiously.

“snivellus.” sirius replied solemnly. you nod along, assuming that snivellus must be a very solemn subject. “we caught him sleepwalking, once, and he was in socks.”

“oh.” you watch as sirius takes off your other show. “i’m cinderella.”

“are you now, princess?” sirius grins up at you, now standing since your shoes and socks were off.

“i’m sleepy, too,” you inform him, yawning. “a sleepy cinderella.”

“sleepy cinderella, huh?” sirius sniggered.

“mhm~” you hum and stretch your arms out to him. they didn’t reach at all, because you were sitting on the side of the bed and sirius was very very tall. “i wanna sleep with you, too, my prince~”

“i’m a prince, am i?” sirius’ grin widened. what a nice smile.

“yes!” you beam and stretch your arms out horizontally. “i love you thiiiiiis much!”

“i love you this much, too, lovebird,” sirius laughed, sitting next to you on the side of the bed and taking his shoes and socks off. not snivellus.

“i’ll sleep next to you only if you promise not to puke on me.” sirius bargained. you nod happily.

“okay.” you reply. you were hot, very hot, so you decided to take off your shirt. you struggled but managed to undo three buttons. sirius’ hands grabbed yours and stopped them.

“oi, oi, careful, now, you haven’t got any clothes on under that.” sirius said quickly. “you need to change, love.”

“oh.” you frown. “change to what?”

“wanna borrow a shirt?” sirius jabbed a thumb towards his trunk. you nod.

“from who?” you ask.

“from me, silly.” sirius hummed, opening the trunk and pulling out a dark grey t shirt with some sort of rock band on it. why’s it a rock band, anyway? do they play rocks instead of drums? he tossed it over to you and it hit you in the face. you splutter before pulling it off.

“my bad.” sirius laughed. “merlin, it’s so odd seeing you like this. all drunk and cuddly and whatnot.” sirius seemed less startled when you undressed this time, but instead of stopping you, he turned around and looked the other way. he seemed to be changing, too. you managed to change shirts, but paused taking your bottoms off to watch sirius. his back was totally bare, and it was a very nice back, thank you. he was in different pants, now, too, and they were shorts, not pants. he turned back around and the front of his bare torso was even better than the back.

“like whatcha see, princess?” sirius smirked. you beam.

“yes!” you answer earnestly. sirius’ smirk grew bigger as he flopped down on the bed.

“i’ll be keeping that in mind. hop in.” sirius went under the covers and so did you. you don’t remember much after that, though. only that sirius was holding you and you were holding sirius and that someone was trying to get in but the door was locked.

#marauders drabble #harry potter marauders #marauders #marauders era #the maraunders map #marauders oneshot #peter pettigrew #james potter #sirius black #remus lupin #sirius black x reader #moony #padfoot #wormtail #prongs #moony wormtail padfoot and prongs

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super-paper · 1 year

Text

MVA Appreciation Post? MVA Appreciation Post.

Rereading MVA with the benefit of some hindsight really makes me appreciate just how well-crafted it is as a story arc. Like, pretty much every aspect of it was tailor-made for the sake of exploring Tomura (like....!! even the conflicts & themes explored thru other characters are still ultimately written to service Tomura's character in ways that only a completely insane person can appreciate, lol.)

Mostly just listing some observations and things I like abt MVA that I feel lay the groundwork for Tomura's entire character + arc:

There's a lot of significance to Tomura fighting quirk based cults back to back in the same arc that delves into his own upbringing under AFO, I feel! There's also significance to his indoctrination into villainy under AFO mirroring ReDestro's indoctrination by the Meta Liberation Army. Both Tomura and ReDestro are framed as believing that they made a personal "choice" to walk this path, when in reality they were both groomed into their respective roles by predatory adults.

Underrated and potentially devastating detail that I (a known sicko) enjoy : Tomura and ReDestro aren't even allowed to choose their own villain names after being baptized into villainy.

This part is especially glaring when you contrast it with the earlier chapters, where Class 1A is actively encouraged to *choose* their own names and really think about what sort of hero name best represents them. Even when the kids ultimately choose names that others gave them (Izuku), and even when they resolve to take up the mantle of their family names (Iida)-- the distinction is that they are still very much naming *themselves* and not being named by other people. They are all allowed to assign their own meaning to their chosen hero names. There is a choice.

In contrast, Tomura and ReDestro's villain names are not an expression of their identity, but a suppression of it.

The idea of inheriting a "will" or "name" that completely consumes your own is already in play, and it only gets worse from here!

Masks are also a big theme! MVA literally opens with the LOV wrecking a group of fantasy bigots who hide behind masks.

Spinner doesn't hide his own identity behind a mask, rather, he hides his lack of identity through cosplaying as someone else.

Jin and Himiko have their "masks" forcibly removed during their respective battles-- Jin is able to verify and assert his own identity, which allows him to discard his mask for the remainder of the battle. Himiko instead scrambles to put her "mask" back on in response to Curious claiming that she's secretly miserable.

Compress gets half of his mask shattered at the same time that his aloof "we're villains not a friendship club!!" façade begins crumble, and he becomes more and more vocally concerned for Tomura's safety. This bit of symbolism is repeated again during the PLW, where the whole mask comes off once he finally admits he loves the LOV and very nearly kills himself in an attempt to save them.

AFO's face is constantly obscured by shadows, but it otherwise remains completely uncovered-- indicating that the "kindly face" he shows to Tomura is, in fact, a mask in itself.

And here's where Hori's brilliant art direction comes into play! Tomura decays Kotaro's hand-- the very symbol of his own rejection and suppression that he has worn as a mask since his debut-- but he does not embrace his identity as Tenko. The blood from Tomura’s head injury now creates the visual of a mask as he instead embraces his identity as "Shigaraki Tomura", the symbol of fear who exists to beckon acts of mourning into the world. (and the blood mask also resembles the dark shading that constantly obscures AFO’s true face in the flashback chapters! ...as does the creepy permasmile Tomura has for the rest of the arc! :D )

Visually, it also resembles the way ReDestro's (stress-powered!) quirk starts spreading across his face like a mask whenever he starts vomiting up MLA propaganda and ranting about the """glorious""" burden he inherited from the original Destro. (😬)

The mask imagery is even more explicit in the anime, where the red really makes the whole thing pop:

lowkey it's hilarious that a good chunk of Tomura's story is told through a mix of visual story telling and symbolism, but he also happens to spend half his screen time shirtless and distracting ppl from said symbolism with his eight-pack.

Seriously tho', it's little stuff like this that really cements MHA as a story that's even more enjoyable when you reread it. Moving on!

Curious 🤝 AFO, Being creepily affectionate with the victim whose story you plan to rewrite and exploit for your own gain

Toga’s failed/rejected martyrdom at the hands of Miss Curious foreshadowing Tomura’s successful martyrdom at the hands of the PLF and AFO-- the inherent dehumanization that comes with martyrdom and turning others into a "symbol", the lack of actual care for the martyr/symbol as an individual, and the idea that Tomura has always been a sacrificial lamb that's lurking just below the surface of every aspect in this narrative. Curious wants Toga to die to fit the MLA’s narrative, AFO wants Tenko to die to fit his own personal narrative— neither Curious or AFO care about Toga or Tomura as individuals, nor do they care about saving them from their circumstances. Because to Curious and AFO, their only value lies in fulfilling a certain narrative-- and that narrative is only fulfilled through their deaths. Both AFO and Curious WANT these stories to be tragedies, and you only beat someone like that by refusing to follow their script.

"Let's turn your death into a tragedy! You'll become a martyr whose tale serves as a parable for the ages!" "I'll shape him! Mold him! He will be a symbol of fear who lusts for destruction!" Toga and Tomura are both depicted as lacking agency in how their respective stories are told-- Toga manages to lash back against Curious' attempts to commandeer her narrative, but Tomura ultimately finds himself written into a corner by AFO.

The manipulation of media and the '"truth" being a reoccurring theme in MVA through both Curious/Skeptic, and this being foiled with the way Tomura’s own memories/perceptions of his past are called into question multiple times throughout the arc. In the same chapter where Skeptic discusses his plan to edit the footage captured in Deika to make the LOV look like they're the aggressors and the MLA look like brave heroes, we have Tomura lamenting how his memories are like a busted movie recording. He compares his memories to film snippets at the start of the arc, too.

Tomura's perception of his past being directly influenced by his traumatic upbringing under AFO is something that goes without saying at this point, so I won't beat that dead horse any further-- but it's legit fascinating how Hori lays out the groundwork for the readers so that we naturally reach the conclusion that Tomura's recollection is something that we are meant to doubt.

Yet another notch on the long list of Tomura wearing clothes that other people chose for him, reciting words written by others as if they were his own (.....l-literally reading from a cue card lmfaoooo it could not be any more on the nose if it tried 😭😭😭)

but seriously i could write a a ton on how Tomura's lack of agency with his own clothes is Very Much a Thing in The Story, and how him no longer bothering to self-style after MVA and just letting others dress him up however they want (or y'know... just not bothering with clothes at all!) is one of the best stealth indicators of where his mental state is actually at.

(tl;dr tomura asserting that he's "definitely his own person" and that he "controls himself" when he doesn't even have the agency or energy to dress himself the way he wants and is constantly getting treated like a life-sized dress-up doll by other villains is another one of those understated parts of the series/tomura's character design that makes me Big Depressy)

But!! When Tomura DOES actually add his own flair & individuality to his fashion, he generally accessorizes with things that tie him to the hero side and his identity as Tenko (red shoes as a connecting thread to Izuku, long flowing capes that connect him to heroism)

What "liberation" does to a mfer

As an aside: ReDestro feeling liberated from his stress as Tomura starts laying waste to the MLA/Deika (but still failing to break free from his grooming despite this!) serves as a dark parallel to Tomura “breaking free” from vestige!AFO during the final war, but still insisting that destruction is all he wants. Both Tomura and ReDestro have been prisoners their whole lives, and thus, have no frame of reference for what true freedom is. They both come so close to having a Realization About What They Truly Want™ only to immediately fall back into what they’re familiar with (ReDestro has always been a follower of cult forced to masquerade as its leader, Tomura still thinks that he wanted his family to die and takes the catharsis he felt from destroying his abusive home as evidence that he was always secretly bad). Hori is horrifyingly realistic in his depictions of the hold that grooming has on people.

Like. It's also the way that Tomura and ReDestro’s quirks are both powered by their misery, but they're surrounded by people who fail to see this as a bad thing and instead choose to romanticize their strength as something they can use to make their "dreams" into reality (and the unspoken question: is it really a "dream" if chasing after it makes you completely miserable? We have a different word for dreams that hurt you, boys!).

I'll stop here bc this is already too long, but man, every time I revisit this arc I notice something new (and horrifying) about Tomura's character. It's literally the gift that keeps on giving.

#shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #yotsubashi rikiya #toga himiko #league of villains #long post #every time I see a post complaining that hori ''can't write'' i start blasting.#mha.txt

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tangarang · 10 months

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So any word of Coupon Kids or are you unsure/trying to keep quiet about it for right now? I like quat's redesign. It's more visually distinct than the original.

tldr: I am trying to pick back up on Coupon Kids, reworking the story (yeah , the actual story) with a lot more intention! Idk how long it will take, but just know that I'm taking it seriously.

If you want the LONNGGG story of it, here it is!

Last time we left off in the comic, I was in quarantine with my niece and sister! I was helping to raise my niece so my sister could get out of a horribly abusive relationship. I was a full time nanny which was tough! Cause I had to still make rent from home on commissions, but no one was buying them because we all became RLY RLY poor all at once.... go figure.

I turned to Coupon Kids for support because umm I was kinda fucked tbh 6_6. I had run out of money and had no time to make more, but I SQUEEEZED out the last of the Halibut Jones arc! (which, even at the time of completion, I knew it was an underwhelming piece of work, but I finished it and I'm proud I did!) Thanks to everyone's support, I had enough financial padding that I could rely on Patreon's passive income and refocus on supporting my sister/niece as well as plan to make the move down south to continue my schooling once the quarantine let up. So thats where I had left the comic for the time being in terms of story, with a sprinkle of short strips here and there, but nothing plot related, because the plot was horribly fucked right from the get-go.

I had to take multiple severe hiatuses with Coupon Kids because I got my ass handed to me on several accounts through ought. Horrible breakup, friend break up, severe mental illness, best friend got cancer, best friend died, quarantine, unexpected parenthood, gallbladder disease, then school. All the while Coupon Kids was something I made in the deepest pits of my depression.

I absolutely hated my self, my work, and my art. That all looped back to being a strange source of peace for me to make stuff w/o fear of judgement. No one could hate Coupon Kids as much as I did. I was the #1 Coupon Kids hater and I ruined it by making it. (this is a retrospective pov obv... I dont think my work is worthless anymore thx wellbutrin lol)

Coupon Kids was very liberating to write in that I had no standards, but the lack of structure kinda eventually lead to its own downfall once I started to get better. I had a very loose idea of what I wanted the story to be, but I was so disoriented by chemical imbalance and weed (I smoked SOOO much weed) I didn't rly care about the ending because tbh I thought I was gonna be dead before I got anywhere near the ending. But then Kira died, So I officially abstained myself from death's sexy loins and committed myself to giving life another go.

Sorry for the autobio dump: its kinda hard to convey Coupon Kids development w/o getting into the nitty gritty of what I was going through at the time of making it. The point is this: I made Coupon Kids with the intention of it being a stain on my legacy- but then I ended up loving the stain and it's inhabitants. Its made coming back to it difficult, because I want to put genuine effort in it but that clashes with it's overall tone. Instead of creating in spite, I'd like to create it in celebration of my artistic short comings and to do that is to completely rework the entire moral of the story and all of the characters. If I'm gonna do it right, I'd like to take my time.

Not sure how many people made it to the end of this one! Sorry I'm so quiet about my process. tbh the last 4 years have been the best of my life despite holding a lot of dread. I'm doing a lot better now and am really excited to work on what I love and be grateful I have the power to do so ! So thank you for reading if you are still interested, it means a lot!

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transmutationisms · 4 months

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Do you have a perspective on why stimulants aren’t currently widely prescribed as weight loss drugs? Im guessing it’s related to it being a ‘controlled substance’ and ‘scary drug’ but drug marketing in pursuit of pharmaceutical profits is pretty powerful… I wonder why I haven’t seen (effective?) efforts to try to ‘overhaul’ the image of stimulants as only associated with “addiction”, “hyperactive children”, finance bros, and “lazy adults”.

I know vyvanse is also prescribed for binge eating but I get the sense most people are unaware of that. I tried many stimulants and I had the most rapid and “easy” (found food repulsive) weight loss on vyvanse. Granted all of the many prescribed stimulants I’ve tried all greatly suppress my appetite.And I’ve seen it described as a benefit by some people who have it prescribed for adhd (I understand why people do and I sometimes see it as a very depressing benefits because lack of food security despite). Binge eating disorder and prescribing for general weight loss aren’t too far from each other in the fatphobic society we live in but I guess I’m curious how it hasn’t had the ozempic treatment already/ when will it happen. People already look down of folks who can’t function by society’s standards in certain contexts and I see that similarity in how people talk about people who take ozempic for weight loss (admonishing and a moral failure).

stimulants absolutely still are prescribed for weight loss lol, in addition to Vyvanse for 'binge eating' (v unreliable diagnosis that many people receive when they are in fact dealing with subjective loss of control around food as a direct result of restrictive behaviours...) there's also Desoxyn (methamphetamine) and Phentermine (a substituted amphetamine), which are both still FDA-approved for short-term weight management. and yes that's Phentermine as in half of fen-phen. you also have to keep in mind that off-label prescribing is hard to track but is probably still occurring at not-insignificant rates (i know it happens with Ephedra and Clenbuterol, for example). and then there are also patients who use stimulants for weight loss without a doctor's knowledge, either by obtaining them on the black market or by simply getting a doctor to prescribe them for something else.

anyway in regards to pharma marketing strategies i think there are a few things going on here:

weight loss has never actually been the sole market for these drugs, nor was it the first. amphetamine was first synthesised in 1929; it was put into asthma inhalers almost immediately and by the late 30s was being sold as a kind of generalised wellness-producing drug, used by, for instance, college students as a 'pep pill'. the Allies used quite a bit of amphetamine in WWII to keep soldiers alert (the US military was still doing this in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s; afaik they have not stopped this practice). by the late 50s stimulants were also marketed as pick-me-ups for unhappy housewives and for a dizzying array of depression 'subtypes' (postpartum, old age-related, disability-related) and 'modern miseries' (atomic anxiety, economic and political unrest). it wasn't until the 50s and 60s that stimulants really started to be marketed as diet pills, with 'overeating' configured as a symptom of depression. even those formulations also had other use markets: professional athletes, for example. i'm sure pharma companies would love to have the stimulant dominance they once did in weight loss, but it's not really necessary in order to move product: these days the ADHD diagnosis will generally do the job just fine. nicolas rasmussen's book On Speed has more on this history.

speaking of the ADHD diagnosis, i have observed that in the last two or so decades, it has increasingly been invoked in bioessentialist narratives of either 'chemical imbalances' (usually dopamine, norepinephrine) or distinct 'neurotypes' that are said to cause, worsen, or be susceptible to 'overeating', which can therefore be treated by the use of stimulant drugs. i strongly suspect an effect here is that 'overeating', weight gain, or 'obesity' are de facto being used as diagnostic criteria for ADHD, or for other psychiatric diagnoses considered to have high overlap in behavioural presentation. this is not dissimilar to the formulation in the 60s of 'overeating' as a result of depression; in both cases the narrative elides the appetite-suppressant effects of stimulants and presents them as aiding with weight loss by treating an underlying bio/psychiatric pathology. an interesting historical note here is that Adderall is simply a rebrand of the second-gen formulation of the weight-loss drug Obetrol.

presently, weight loss is largely marketed using the language of health rather than aesthetics. although pharma companies are certainly not morally above lying, i do think it would be a tough pill to swallow (pun intended) if they tried to convince anyone that a stimulant prescription is part of this sort of 'wellness' scene. that could change in the future, ofc; these perceptions and associations are socially and historically contingent. in the US even as recently as the 90s, people were definitely still presenting fen-phen as health-promoting (tautologically, because it caused weight loss!), at least until the valve disease scandal.

glp-1 agonists like ozempic are, i think, getting a lot of extremely credulous coverage, from both the medical establishment and health journalists, that is obfuscating the fact that they basically also work by suppressing the appetite. whether it is 'healthier' to do this with a substance that alters endocrine function than to do it with a substance that acts on adrenergic receptors is unclear to me. certainly there are many 'side effects' of the glp-1 agonists that are simply the results of rapid / significant weight loss (fatigue, weakness, osteoporosis, hair loss, gallstones, 'ozempic face', &c). that a process that causes these things can be marketed as health-promoting is a whole other topic lol. but i think the perception of the glp-1 agonists as healthful weight-loss agents has to do with certain misunderstandings of diabetes, metabolism, and body weight, as well as a degree of... not quite blackboxing, but something adjacent, on the part of pharma companies in their promotional materials. which is to say, it wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, people looked back at glp-1 agonists as also being risky drugs to use for weight loss, and only being worth using in specific, limited circumstances.

#drugs

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autumnaaltonen · 1 year

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Could you do NSFW headcanons of welcome home sex, for lack of a better term, with reader after one or both of them has been apart due to a lengthy mission/assignment?

My parents have put a Carrie Underwood Christmas Album on the Chromecast, so writing this with "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" in the background is definetly not a vibe 😂 I hope you're okay with an androngynous reader for this one, since there was no specification. I'll let everyone have a piece of this mans. First request! So it's lengthy lol.

Rating: M

WARNINGS: nsfw (obvs), pain-play, oral (receiving), penetration.

you had both been apart for well over a month, Alucard's recent missions sending him all over the island, and your own work requiring several weeks in the USA.

to say Alucard was "agitated" after the first couple days without you would be an understatement. Most of the time, he had the leisure of bringing you along on missions for logistical supervision, as well as to help give Seras moral support when she became overwhelmed by the violence and her Master's pushy manner of tutoring.

But this time, mans was strictly business with no pleasure the entire time he knew you were continents away from him. It unsettled Seras to see her Master so anxious to finish work with a punctual timestamp, rather than taking his time and embracing the chaos of shooting down ghouls and impaling whatever vamp had the balls to upend an entire innocent community.

In short, Alucard wanted you back ASAP. Not just for the knowledge that you were home safe and in his arms, but because your mere presence had become such a vital part of his daily patterns, and disturbing this schedule greatly put him on edge.

After 5 weeks, your paths finally aligned again at Hellsing Manor. You shivered knowing what was waiting for you when you entered your and Alucard's shared domain in the basement, giddy with excitement to be in his loving embrace again.

By the time you had reached your shared dwelling, every ember of light had been shut out. You couldn't even see your own hand in front your face.

You knew the game your beloved was playing, and acted dumb as you fumbled around to find a light source.

You knew exactly where you were going, having been living in this dreary dungeon with the world's most fearsome creature for a long while, but Alucard enjoyed it when you acted like a little lost lamb. It triggered the hunter in him, and you were more than prepared to be devoured.

You finally feel the distinct plushness against your thighs of the bed you had moved down here, more so for your own comfort than Alucard's.

You lay down on the bed with a sigh, sore from the long flight and tired from the jet-lag, but you knew that your day was nowhere near over.

Out of nowhere, a familiar weight materializes itself on top of you. A head falls on your chest, arms wrap tightly around your middle, and a muscular frame squishes your lower half into the mattress like a weighted blanket. Once upon a time his little jump scare startled you, but now it was an expected and welcome surprise.

Your arms automatically embrace your lover, grabbing handfuls of his coat, while your legs wrap around his waist like a koala. You hold him as tight as you possibly can while inhaling the familiar scent of his hair. Smokey ash and sulphurous from gun fire, your favourite.

Alucard's chest rumbles deeply in appreciation of your embrace before reaching his hands upwards, grabbing both your wrists from around him, and pinning them above your head atop the pillows.

You exhale out of satisfaction with being restrained by him, your safe place, trapped under him and defenceless to his will.

A heavy and open-mouthed kiss is forced against your lips, which you return with fervour. It's slow, but messy, filled with longing and relief to be back together again, where you belong.

You pull away for a breath, to which he whispers, "Mi-ai lipsit, dragostea mea."

"I can tell," you laugh. Big mistake.

You hear him scoff before diving back in, tongue headier and far more assertive, reminding you of your place. He then delves into the crux of your neck, biting down firmly, fangless, but hard enough to make you moan out in pain and bliss. His pelvis digs into your own, grinding against you, where you feel the hard ordeal in his pants. It makes you ache with longing, regretting your sass that has ultimately lengthened the teasing that he was already prepared to serve. You attempt to remove your wrists from his grasp as you push your crotch against him, but he's quick to pull away, the grip on your hands holding tighter to the point where it stung.

"I'm sorry, dearest, m'sorry," you gasp, "I've missed you so much, I just miss playing with you and pushing your buttons. You know how much I love your laugh—please." You beg, as he grinds into you again, appreciative of your loving words.

You feel him kiss up the side of your neck to under your ear, before trailing along your cheeks, on both your eyelids, and then finally back to your lips. To return it with fervour, before he replies "I know, dragostea mea, I'm here now."

An invisible force keeps your wrists bound above your head, whether it be one of Alucard's familiars or your own hypnotized submissiveness to his will you don't know, as Alucard sits up and begins stripping you of your clothes.

As desperate as he is to have you here and now, you've chastised him one too many times for destroying your garments in his fits of passion, so he's careful to not tug too hard on the seams, while still testing the limits of the fabric.

By the time you are finally bare before him, you don't even have a moment to shiver from the chill of the basement before he's on you again.

He hands, his tongue, they're everywhere. He ravishes you like a last meal, pulling you by your legs to force you against him as he squeezes, fondles and bites. You're in pure bliss, loving the mixture of quick pain and fervent pleasure. Return-home sex was always messy with Alucard, and there is not a spot on you, he leaves bare from his touch.

"Alu—please, w-want-" you stutter out, unable to find a coherent sentence in your vocabulary. Usually he would continue to tease you, he loves pushing your buttons too, but it's been far too long a wait, and he was growing just as impatient.

He kisses you again, pecked and loving, "M-am gandit la tine toata ziua," he says against your lips, before you feel a gust in the air and a tickling against your skin, indicating the dematerialization of his clothing.

He dips between your legs quickly, his long black hair tickling your inner thighs as you try not to twitch away. His long and warm tongue is delving inside you in an instant, laving heavily as to prepare you for him. His arm holds your hip down automatically, knowing you could never keep back your movements when he was down on you. It fills him with pride, knowing he is the only being who ever gets to grant you such pleasures, and he devours you with satisfaction, missing the taste of your essence on his tongue.

You nearly scream from the intensity of his mouth on you, breathing heavily and tears streaming down your cheeks. He growls in appreciation of your noises, sending a satisfying vibration into you.

Once he feels you are wet enough, he finally seats his hips between yours as you feel the familiar and long awaited pressure of him entering you, hard as steel and thick as the barrels of his guns. Despite his preparing you, it's always a tight fit, not that either of you were complaining.

Finally, joined as one, Alucard lifts one of your legs over his shoulder and begins to rut against you with zeal, careful to not overdo it with his vampiric strength and harm you, but just enough to feel the pleasurable squeeze of his intrusion every time he pulls out and slams back into you with a slick smack.

You're all over the place at this point, the invisible grip on your wrists gone, allowing you to palm and scratch Alucard's firm chest and stomach.

His moans and groans are hellish noises that sound like your own personal salvation, deep and unholy. You can barely make a sound at this point, whatever noises coming up your throat die with every thrust.

Like every homecoming, you lose count of how many times the both of you release that night, always ending with you sticky, shivering and glued to Alucard's chest as he covers you with his coat and keeps you close for warmth. He swears it's the last time he will be away from you for so long, but duty always calls you apart again eventually.

At least the wait is always worth it.

#alucard #hellsing #alucard x reader #hellsing ultimate

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wetcatspellcaster · 17 days

Text

very kindly tagged by @cursedhaglette, thank you for giving me a chance to talk about my writing :)

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

11! :)

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

lmfao. 985,659. That's nearly ten thesises (theses?) in the time of my PhD programme, so I'm going to just go quickly walk into the sea.

3) What fandoms do you write for?

the majority of my fic is for videogames with love interests and OC potential (BG3, Dragon Age) but I did briefly fall prey to the darklina disease, which I have to admit to here in order to answer some of the other questions

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1- Pieces Still Stuck in Your Teeth (bg3)

2- Party Favours (bg3)

3- A Bleeding Heart (bg3)

4- The Stars Don't Shine, They Burn (shadow and bone)

5- An Honest Lie (bg3)

5) Do you respond to comments?

as best as I can, I typically clear out a previous chapter just before I post something new (so that's one way to monitor or predict my posting activity lmfao)

6) What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Lmao. Sunblindness (shadow and bone) which takes an 'eye for an eye' approach to an amnesia AU. I actually wanted to end on a major character death but my pal's response was "jesus Emma, this is something people read for fun" so I watered it down :')))))

7) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Party Favours currently!! Happier endings incoming, IMO.

8) Do you get hate on fics?

yes, occasionally, I'm still in single digits thankfully. i always find it so funny bc nobody is more critical of my fic than me. you think you can hurt me? babygirl, we're in the 5th dimension of insults in my brain, your surface level comment barely touches the sides.

9) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope! call me the Astarion!spawn ending, the way I fade-to-black :')))))

10) Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I crossovered Stardust and Shadow and Bone, but it was not a straight crossover it was more a chewed up, swallowed, and digested version of both premises. I similarly wrote a Wintersmith/Shadow and Bone crossover that I never posted bc the sickness left me.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

lol. lmfao, even. :)))))

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have had requests made of me and given permission for that to happen, but I do not know if it was ever posted!

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, it's not for me unfortunately, I was that horrible kid in group projects who just wished she could work alone :')))))))))))

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

honestly there are many but the two that are indelibly written on my soul are Howl/Sophie and Spike/Buffy like the simple bitch I am.

In terms of things I've written? zevran/surana, hands down.

15) What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Anything I post I will eventually finish, out of social anxiety alone. At the moment I'm worried about the stuff sitting unposted in gdocs.

16) What are your writing strengths?

hahahahahahaha i don't fucking know i think i can make character voices distinct so you can usually tell which POV I'm writing from once the perspectives are established?

I have been complimented on my dialogue.

I think I'm usually brave enough to take a risky decision, even if it doesn't pay off. These decisions also land more than they used to so it's a skill I've built with time and one I am proud of.

My jokes don't seem to just be for me anymore, I like it when other people say I made them laugh.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

If there's something that can be said straightforwardly in a sentence, you know I'll say it in three paragraphs instead. I wouldn't be surprised if people think I'm a purple-prosed motherfucker.

Smut and lack thereof

the repeat of 'conversation, stage direction, eye contact, expression, repeat' is not a weakness but it is something I become intermittently self conscious of.

18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I am a fan of it and I appreciate it when its done well (pour one out for Naomi Novik's fic/writing where the language work is cringingly poor), but not something I can personally do. Admirer in others, of the skills I lack.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

*dabs* Dragon Age, the OG. It was the pandemic, and I didn't want to replay Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts bc I hate timed sections, so I wrote a fic instead.

20) Favorite fic you’ve written?

I feel bad writing this on the blog that's currently 99% BG3, but The Stars Don't Shine They Burn. It was my first time plotting something that diverged greatly from source material, and I was going through some stuff at the time that I can feel viscerally when I return to it and read the words. It is a work of personalised comfort. There's one scene in it that still gets me, every single time.

I don't know, it's funny to see Pieces get attention and I'm very, very proud of Pieces, but some of what I'm thinking through in that was in its proto-form in the other fic, which is finished and I'm really proud of it... so let's see if anything comes along to bop it off the top spot once I have a critical distance and am not in the writing trenches lol.

Tagging wise, I actually want to do an open call on this one!! this was a really pleasant exercise, so anyone seeing this who wants to talk about their writing or celebrate their achievements can take this as my personal invitation :)

scared? do it anyway x

#tags #tag games #my writing #personal tag

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oncedied · 4 months

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about the pro shipping post you are so fucking right. when i was 16 i had proship dni on an aesthetic blog that i ran and i had multiple people harassing me for it over months. i've also had them call me ableist and homophobic slurs and sexually harass me when i was 16-18 for untagged unsearchable posts that they had to have scrolled back months in my blog to find. i was in a fandom at the time that had a LOT of people like that and there were many other people who got worse and had proshippers being wildly racist to them. they say curate your online experience and then throw a fit when you actually do.

Hi i'm sorry I didn't respond to this sooner! I was most likely absorbed entirely in skyrim Once Again.

Yeah, the proship movement has a tendency to harbor the absolute worst people in fandom circles and when you say "Hey if your movement is Truly Safe for victims/people of color /disabled folks/kids/etc then why the fresh sam hill fuck are you harboring Actual Racists, Actual Pedophiles, And Actual Horrible People" they take it as "kys lol go die" and not a request to Actually examine how their stances on something as terminally online as shipping discourse and the culture that it founded has sheltered these types of people.

And it's this inaction and refusal to address it in favour of perceiving it as a siege in a war that isn't actually happening (for lack of a better way to word it, no, people aren't out to get you they're asking you to examine your fucking community and WHY so many people feel unsafe around it aside from other reasons) is why I, and so many others, are in dislike of proshipping culture aside from. well. gestures wildly to the rest of it.

They take it as a blow to their egos rather than a genuine honest "Hey if what you ship Truly Is Inconsequential why does the culture you cultivate harbor, say, Actual Offending Pedophiles or Those Pedophiles That Label Themselves As "No-Contact" For Some Reason As If That Makes It Less Bad that are utilizing fandom space and proship culture as a quick and easy way to get targets within their reach?"

Side tangent/note here: Over the years many people have said that I cannot be pro-dark media and anti-proship. These things are not mutually exclusive and many, and I mean MANY people in circles focussing on dark and transgressive media are FULLY AWARE of the connection between reality and fiction (and how they both affect one another, the best way I can word it is that if you focus on one color pallet soon your world will be monochromatic, you gotta learn to focus on all the colors. If you saturate your life with too much "dark" or distressing content it will color your worldview and that is not what life is about) and often emphasize the importance of this distinction.

They also do not go out of their way to overly-romanticize the content they read (the public perception/general society's consumption of Lolita [vladimir nobokov] has been a disaster for the human race. if u think lolita is supposed to be a cute romance story you're misinterpreting the book and need to step back and examine just why you think that way and actually sit down and analyze the book and humbert as a character dear god stop turning it into a cutesy coquette aesthetic, shanespeare has a fucking amazing video talking about it and as an added bonus it's shorter than the typical 4+ hour video essays I often indulge in) as they often know better to do so and shun the people who do, ESPECIALLY when you're talking about books like The Slob (Aron Beauregard, even though that novel is essentially misogyny, homophobia, gore porn, a lot of fatphobia and shit like that and is all-around poorly written)

proshipping culture also relies a lot on a fanfic/fanart medium which is a VASTLY inappropriate place to explore these things (on top of, well, the type of people the culture has a tendency to attract n shit vs transgressive/dark media corners) and People Do Not Want To See Headcanons About Their Favourite Characters Being Rapists And Shit Like That I Promise You You Aren't "Coping" You're Just Making (some not all) People Around You Uncomfortable And Fucking Miserable Because You Decided That Their Comfort Character Is A Shotacon Or Some Shit (and that is before I get into how unless that character is canonically a piece of shit, making x character into a freak is a gross mischaracterization).

People come into fandoms for escapism, or to enjoy characters and stories with people and, yes I am speaking from personal experience here not only as ex-proship but also someone who's been 'round the block when it comes to fandoms.

There is a difference between transgressive lit i.e Lolita and someone writing a fanfic about a father/daughter relationship and not in the wholesome familial way we all know and love. That is knowing your place, understanding that fandom is a WILDLY inappropriate place to explore these things (seriously people, just write an original book! you got it in you clearly! i believe in you and maybe if you do it right you'll write something that's very touching and profound and opens up a lot of conversations!) and that fiction and reality do in fact impact and shape each other in more ways than you'd initially assume.

anyways rant/tangent over, sorry I went on for so long, I'm Very passionate about this discussion despite everything that's happened to me at the hands of it.

#caydeposting #thanks for the ask + happy holidays #sorry for rambling i have a LOT of thoughts on the matter #i actually want to write an essay/video essay about like.#the differences between proshipping culture and transgressive media circles #i'm thinking primary research #actually going out and interviewing people who identify w/ proship circles #HOWEVER that is risky as I'll never get an honest answer considering proshippers are like #fucking religious about getting people to take on their stance and every #question i'd ask would be met with this biased veneer of trying to look like they're poor innocent #people being atagonized by big mean bullies #and not honest cut-to-the-facts answers to my research.#because I want to treat fanfic/fanart as an Actual Derivative Art Form for the sake of it (if that isn't what it is already)#i'll have to polish my english honor roll off for it though lmfao #but yknow.

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drabbles-mc · 1 year

Text

Over and Over and Over Again

Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff

Fic for @the-slumberparty Week 3 Challenge: Something New. The trope I got was time loop!

Warnings: 18+, blood/injury, canon-typical violence, angst, hurt/comfort, technically character death??? it's a time loop idk if it still counts lol

Word Count: 6.5k

A/N: Sooo just like the challenge title says, this was very much something new for me! I've never written a time loop fic so I hope this came out alright. I've been wanting to write more for Bucky and Nat and this felt like a good opportunity for that. Hope you enjoy! xo

MCU Taglist: @garbinge @artemiseamoon (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

He came-to, rattled by the pervasive feeling that he’d just been falling. His heart was racing in his chest, breathing labored which had him wondering if he really had fallen. His limbs felt heavy, and he could feel the sweat and grime on his face. The more he registered everything around him, the more familiar it all felt. The problem was, that though it felt familiar, it also felt wrong.

He finally made a point to look around the room he was in. It was abandoned, filthy, and almost completely empty. Craning his neck, he looked upward and was met with the sight of a shattered skylight. That would explain the falling sensation that had ripped through him.

Everything in his body felt just a little out of alignment. He went to roll his shoulders when he caught a glimpse of his arm and froze. That wasn’t right. He hadn’t been branded with a red star on his metal arm in years. That part of his life was long since over.

Once he realized that, all the other realizations came in rapid succession. He felt the mask covering the lower half of his face, his long hair stuck to the back of his neck with sweat. It was all wrong. He was all wrong. And he was wrong in a way that he hadn’t ever felt before, and until that moment he thought that he had felt every single kind of wrong there was. This was a body he no longer belonged in, a part of his life he had completely moved on from. He knew that because the rage that came with this body, the lack of control, none of that was there. He didn’t know what was happening, or why, but he wanted it to be over.

Reaching up, he went to tear the mask off his face, but it wouldn’t budge. The more he fought against it, the harder it became to breathe, one problem feeding right into the other. For all the mental control he had now, there was nothing he could do about the physical. He was stuck like this, in whatever place he was in, until he figured out how to undo it. Fix whatever was broken.

Once his breathing was as normal as it was going to get, he reached down and grabbed the large gun off the floor, slinging it across his body with ease before heading to the door that would lead him to the rest of the building.

He carefully made his way into the hall, scanning and his hand ready to reach for the handgun strapped to his thigh. He could hear chaos and gunfire outside. None of the voices were distinct enough to clue him into wherever the hell he was. Wherever it was, it wasn’t Brooklyn, that was for damn sure.

There were only two flights of stairs left between him and the exit when he heard another set of footsteps, these ones too close for comfort. He grabbed his handgun, flipping the safety off as the footsteps got closer. Whoever it was, was coming up the stairs towards him.

Then he saw her, the first real shred of relief he had in the center of this whole mess. He lowered his gun as he looked at her. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who had been thrown into a past version of themselves.

Natasha had gone through countless looks over the years to go with her countless identities. He’d know her no matter what though. She couldn’t see it, but there was a small smile of relief on Bucky’s face as he continued down the stairs closer to her.

“Nat,” he said, his voice slightly distorted between the mask and the fact that he still hadn’t really caught his breath. He went to holster his handgun as he spoke. “I’m so—"

He was cut off by her shooting at him. He brought his metal arm up just in time to keep from getting shot in the head. His reflexes weren’t failing him yet. Even so, he couldn’t hide the shock on his face, in his eyes, at what was happening.

Bucky tried to think logically, but it was difficult when she was trying to put a bullet between his eyes. Maybe she didn’t really think it was him. Maybe she was just as lost and confused and assuming the worst. After all, Black Widow and The Winter Soldier didn’t have nearly the same kind of rapport or relationship as Natasha and Bucky. Two different sets of people, two different sets of lifetimes. He just had to prove to her that it was him.

Every moment they’d ever shared was running through his brain at warp-speed, but he couldn’t articulate any of them as he blocked each blow she tried to land. He couldn’t get any words out as he watched the rage in Natasha’s eyes, an anger that hadn’t been directed at him in so long, he almost forgot what it looked like.

He had been so focused on the intense look that he almost didn’t hear that she was talking. She wasn’t talking to him, even though she was looking at him. It took him more effort than he cared to admit to register what she was saying.

“Target acquired,” she grit out as she continued to try and take him down.

His heart plummeted into his stomach as he continued to try and fight her off. He still wasn’t trying to hurt her. He didn’t want to do that. The two of them had spent so many years at odds, through no fault of his own, and so many years after that rebuilding everything that was broken there. He didn’t want to go back on all of that now because of whatever new Hell he had been thrown into with her. He didn’t know if he would have it in him anymore.

So, he stayed on the defensive. He blocked and dodged and did whatever he could do not let her walk him down the last two flights of stairs. She was fighting with everything that she had, and it certainly wasn’t an easy fight for Bucky at this point either. It had been a long time since he felt so lost.

He deflected one of her punches, aggressively swiping her arm away. He pushed her, pinning her between his body and the unforgiving concrete wall behind her. He gripped her wrists, pinning her arms above her head, each movement rougher than he wanted it to be but there was nothing else he could do.

“Nat, it’s me,” he said desperately as she struggled against him.

Her expression didn’t soften at all at his pleading tone, no recognition in her eyes as the two of them continued to stare at each other. She took a deep breath, not breaking eye contact with him as she said, “I know,” before leveraging her weight against him, bringing her leg up and slamming her foot down on the top of his knee as hard as she could.

Bucky winced, his grip on her wrists loosening just enough for her to wrench one hand free. Bucky’s eyes went wide as he realized what she was doing. “Natasha please don’t—”

His words fell on deaf ears as she reached and grabbed one of the knives that he kept strapped to him. She brought her hand up and was about to bring the knife to his throat. Panic surged through him in a way that he thought he would never feel again. He didn’t know that he was still capable of feeling it. Sheer instinct took over, his body moving independently from his mind as he grabbed her wrist, cranking it harshly and turning it back on her, driving the blade directly into her chest.

They both fell to the floor in tandem, Bucky’s arms slipping around her as they both went down. He was making sure that her head didn’t smack off the concrete floor, like it would make any difference now, like she would even know why he was trying to show any shred of kindness.

He was trying to hold her, just as much for himself as for her, but with what little strength she still had left she was struggling against him. He kept apologizing over and over, trying not to think about the blood that was starting to drip from her body onto the floor. It didn’t stand out against her black clothing, but he could feel the tackiness of it beneath his fingers. The more he apologized, the more confused she looked.

“Natasha, please.” He reached for the blade that was jutting from her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

She reached up, her hand wrapping around his wrist. It would’ve been a vice grip if she hadn’t been bleeding out on the floor. He knew that. But for the moment, he was just soaking up the warmth that was bleeding from her palm into the thin strip of his wrist that was exposed. He could hear the footsteps getting closer as her grip got weaker. He didn’t even care about what was going to happen next.

Her hand fell to the floor, her body going limp in his arms at the same moment the door on the first floor got kicked in. He shut his eyes tight, dropping his forehead down so it rested against hers. He held onto her, waiting for the hits, the pain, everything that wasn’t coming.

Then he jolted awake on the cold concrete floor. He was gasping for breath as he lied there flat on his stomach. He coughed a few times, forcing himself up so that he was braced against his palms and his knees for a moment. Taking a deep breath, he stood upright, looking straight up at the ceiling. That’s when he saw the shattered skylight.

For a brief moment, he felt like he was going to throw up. He fought against it, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to pull the mask off his face. He tried to take a few deep breaths to try and steady himself, not that he was successful, not that they would do that much good anyway. None of it was making any sense.

He grabbed the gun off the floor again, and made his way to the door of the room again. Despite the fact that he’d done it before, he didn’t feel any more confident or in control as he walked out of the room and out into the hall. There was the same cacophony erupting outside as he made his way down the stairs. He stopped at the top of the same flight that he had last time, listening for what he now knew where Natasha’s footsteps. He was ready this time. Or, at least, he was as ready as he could try to be given the circumstances.

Then she was there. Just like before. He didn’t let himself get floored like he had the first time. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t let himself have any feeling of relief. He was only going to grant himself that when she recognized him. Which, with the way she was already firing her gun at him, clearly hadn’t happened yet.

They grappled, Bucky taking her to the floor in the hopes that it would make it easier to force her to stop for a second, to really look at him and listen to him. He just needed to make her really see him. If he could get her to set her rage aside for a moment, they might actually be able to get somewhere. He wondered how many times in the past someone had that same thought about him. He didn’t have the luxury of time to be able to think about it.

“You’re okay,” he grunted out as he fought to keep her pinned to the floor. “It’s me.” She was still struggling against him as he said, “It’s Bucky. I promise.”

Turning her hips slightly, she got him to shift just enough so that she could pull her one leg up, bringing her knee towards her chest for all of a moment before kicking him harshly right in the middle of his sternum, sending him backwards. Jumping up, she reached and pulled the other gun that she had holstered to her. She brought it up, firing one shot after another directly at his head, and he managed to block every single one. He almost didn’t want to, though.

He wondered for a brief moment if her killing him would be the only way to put him out of his misery. He didn’t want to keep doing this over and over again. He wasn’t strong enough for that kind of repetitive torture, not anymore. If him killing her didn’t do the trick, maybe her killing him would.

But then her gun ran out of bullets. Bucky knew for a fact that she had more ammo on her. In all the time he’d known her, Natasha had never gone anywhere underprepared. He found it curious, then, that she threw the gun off to the side and charged towards him. She was on him fast, and all Bucky could bring himself to do was shell up and try to block her blows. He was fighting every reflex that he had that was telling him to loft her off him and down the remainder of the stairs. He didn’t want that. He just wanted to get through to her.

The hits stopped for a moment. Pulling his arms away from his face so he could try to get a look at her, Bucky saw that she was, once again, reaching for the blade that he had on him. If there was a next time, he would be getting rid of that immediately. As it was, though, he allowed her to grab it and then promptly knocked it from her hand. It clattered against the concrete, both of them watching it for a moment before going back to looking at each other.

The anger in her eyes intensified as she grabbed the handgun from his thigh. Reaching up, he closed the hand of his metal arm over the barrel of the gun. His vice grip rendered the gun useless after she pulled the trigger the first time.

The sound of frustration that she let out as she ripped the gun out of his hands was something from deep in his memory banks, in one of the boxes that he tried to keep closed at all costs. She changed her hold on the gun, instead of using it for its intended purpose, she brought it down hard, cracking it against the side of his forehead.

He grunted in pain as he finally pushed her off him. “Natasha!” he yelled as he jumped to his feet, trying to back up a step to put some distance between them. “Please, just listen to me!”

She let out a sharp breath, shaking her head. “I don’t care about anything you have to say.”

“Don’t make me do this again.”

Confusion flashed across her face for a moment at his statement, but it was gone as quickly as it arrived as she charged at him one more time. They fought, nearly going right back to the ground again. Bucky managed to get a grip on her, his vibranium hand wrapping around her throat as he pinned her to the wall, keeping his arm extended and some distance between them. He wasn’t squeezing hard enough to kill her, not yet. He saw the panic in her eyes even it was something that she wouldn’t ever cop to.

“You know me,” he said with ragged breaths, “and I know you. Come on, Natasha. Look at me.”

She kicked at him, not that it did her any good. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it. Because I told you, I don’t care what you have to say, what lies you want to tell me.”

“Nat—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence as she called out, alerting the rest of her team to where they were. He sighed, his head dropping, hair falling in front of his face. As much as he didn’t want to, he forced himself to look her in the eyes as his grip around her throat tightened.

“I’m so sorry.”

He woke up again. And again. And again. Each time he woke up in the same spot, with the same means. Each time he tried to change his tactics just slightly, hoping for a different outcome. He tried letting her just put a bullet in his skull. He was hoping that even the worst case scenario was that he would just die for real, even if it wasn’t the most optimal solution to getting out of the hell loop that he was stuck in. But it didn’t even do that. It didn’t free him, didn’t kill him. It just reset him.

He tried waiting for her to make it up all the stairs to get to him. He thought that maybe it would make it easier to get her to listen, but it didn’t. He tried getting her to follow him out of the building and into a different one. He tried to play the hand he’d been dealt every single way that he knew how, but none of the plays ever worked.

They all ended the same way: with Natasha dead, because of him. Over and over again he had her lifeless body sprawled across his lap, clutched tightly in his metal hand, strewn across the floor. Time after time he saw her bloody and bruised because of things that he had done.

For a moment he wondered if this was the universe making him pay for all of the things he’d done before. All the years of killing and violence finally catching up to him. The universe let him have a beat of happiness, of love, and now they were going to use it against him. Now that he knew how to love someone, how to let someone love him, the universe was just going to make him kill that person over and over again until, well, he didn’t know.

Bucky was sitting on the floor of the room he woke up in when Natasha came slinking in, her gun at the ready. He was sitting with his back against the wall, knees bent and his elbows pressing into his thighs as he raked his fingers back through his long hair.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said, calling out to her from the opposite side of the room.

“I think it does,” Natasha answered calmly, already reaching for her gun.

“Every time we do this, it never gets us anywhere.”

“Every time?” She clicked the safety off.

“I don’t want to keep killing you.”

She laughed and shook her head at that. “I know I’ve never come out on top, but come on, Soldier, you haven’t been lucky enough to kill me yet.”

“Natasha, please.”

“You don’t want to keep killing me?” Her sarcasm stung him in a way he hadn’t been ready for. “Fine. Let me kill you.”

He shook his head, looking up at her as she stood over him. There was enough sadness in his eyes to fill an ocean but she couldn’t see it, too blinded by her anger and desire to put an end to this. His head rested back against the cold wall behind him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he told her helplessly.

“Let’s find out.”

He locked his eyes with hers. “If I tell you about this next time, will you believe me then?”

She shrugged, her tone flippant as she answered, “Sure.”

He woke up gasping like he had just broken the surface after being underwater. He was in no rush to get himself upright this time. He was so tired. He almost wished that with each reset, he’d forget about the previous one. But he didn’t. Instead, he was just being crushed more and more under the weight of each unsuccessful attempt to free himself, to make Natasha see him the way that he knew she could.

When he got out of this, if he got out of this, he wondered if he was going to be carrying all those memories with him still. He wondered if he would have to look at Natasha at home, in their kitchen, in their shared bed, sitting with her feet on the dash of his car, and remember killing her over and over and over again.

Bucky knew that he shouldn’t put any stock in what she had told him. It had been made painfully clear to him that he was the only one out of the two of them who remembered anything that happened each time the loop reset. Still, though, if he didn’t cling to the tiny glimmer of hope it provided, he would have nothing at all left to cling to.

He stripped himself of all his weapons. No more guns or blades or anything else. He still wished that he could pull the mask off the bottom half of his face, but this would have to do. He knew that he didn’t have much more time before Natasha came through the door again. He pulled the door so that it was open at a ninety-degree angle. It allowed him some cover for a split second when she walked into the room, and hopefully that’s all he would need.

When he heard her footsteps getting close, he stood with his back against the door, completely hidden from her view. He kept his eyes trained on the ground, and the second that he saw the toe of her boot peer past the edge of the door, he moved in. In what felt like one fluid motion, he knocked the gun from her hands, shut the door so it was just the two of them in the room, and pinned her against the wall.

He made quick work of gripping both her wrists in one hand, and covering her mouth with the other. She was struggling against him but it wasn’t getting her anywhere. He could see the defeat creeping onto her face. It sent a wave of pain through his chest to know that she could already envision him killing her, and that in his reality he might not have any other choice. He wished that he could tell her it wouldn’t come to that and mean it, but he just didn’t know anymore.

“You need to listen,” he spoke quietly, harshly. His chest was pressed against hers and she could feel the dramatic rise and fall of it as he breathed, never really having gotten it back in order since the first time he woke up here. He tried to ignore it. “You promised me you’d listen, that you’d believe me.”

Her brows drew together and she mumbled something against his hand. Bucky couldn’t hear what it was, but judging by the look on her face it wasn’t anything that he would really want to hear anyway. This was all a longshot. It was all futile to him at this point, but he couldn’t phone it in just yet.

“We keep doing this,” he told her, adjusting his legs and hips as she tried to wriggle free from him. “I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done this. It always ends the same. You kill me. I kill you. Then I wake up right here again, waiting for you to come up those stairs. Over and over. Nat, you need to listen to me. We can’t keep doing this. We’re never going to get out if we keep doing this.”

Her breathing was ragged too as her eyes darted back and forth between his. Bucky could tell that she was trying to figure out if he was serious, or if he was just trying to manipulate her somehow. He waited a few more seconds before pulling his hand away from her mouth, giving her a chance to say something, anything about what he’d just told her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you really wanted to get out, you should’ve left before I got here.”

Bucky wanted to shake her. He wished that he knew what to say to make her see what was going on. That had to be the key. That had to be how he got out. He could only get out if he was taking her with him. It was the only thing he could think of.

“Do you believe me?” he asked, already having a feeling about the answer.

“Does that matter? You’re going to kill me either way, right?”

He shook his head, fighting the urge to scream. “I don’t—” He stopped himself and leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers as he shut his eyes. It was a gesture that used to be a source of comfort, but he could feel how it wasn’t the same, how she was confused, tense. He understood that but he wished he could change it. “I don’t want to. I can’t keep doing it. I just, I need you to believe me.” He pulled away so he could look her in the eyes. “I need you to believe me so that we can get out of here.”

“We?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know who you think I am, but—”

“I know exactly who you are,” Bucky told her. And he was right. He knew nothing about this world he was trapped in, but he knew about her. Natasha was the one thing he could be confident about, even if she didn’t know that anymore.

“You shoot me once? Outrun me a few times? And now, what, you think you know me?”

He cupped her chin with the hand that wasn’t holding her wrists. His grip wasn’t gentle, but he wasn’t hurting her, either. “I know who you are, Natasha. I do. And you know who I am.” He wanted to hold her for real, but he couldn’t. He knew her well enough to know that if he let her go, they would end up right back where they ended each time. He didn’t want to do that again.

“What happens if I believe you?” Her tone conveyed that she didn’t believe him, not yet.

But Bucky was willing to take her curiosity as a win. It was more than he’d ever gotten from her in the past. “I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “You never have before.”

“Why would I?”

He didn’t have a good answer for that either. “I don’t know. But I don’t, I don’t have any other options.” He paused. “You’re all I have.” That statement, he knew, was true no matter where he woke up.

There was a long stretch of silence, that in reality was only a handful of seconds but it felt so much longer than that. He spoke up again. “If I wanted you dead, Natasha, you would be. I,” he hesitated, “I’ve done it a million times already.”

She didn’t say anything, but Bucky felt the way the tension in her body changed. She wasn’t fully relaxed, because who would be? But he saw the way there was the tiniest drop in her shoulders as a bit of the tightness went away. That was a win.

Figuring that the worst case scenario was that she would kill him and they would have to start all over again, he let her go and stepped back. She dropped her arms to her sides, immediately rubbing her hands over her sore wrists. She fought to catch her breath as she kept her eyes locked on Bucky. She still didn’t trust him, still didn’t know what his plan was, but she believed him for some reason when he said that if he wanted her dead, she would be.

They were locked in a stalemate. Natasha waited for whatever Bucky had to say next, Bucky waited for the world to come crashing down around him now that he’d made a tiny step forward with Natasha. But nothing changed. It was just the two of them in an empty room with the world falling apart outside.

Looking around, she saw the way that he’d piled all of his weapons on the opposite side of the room. That seemed like a dumb move to her, but then again, nothing that he had said or done made a lick of sense to her anyway.

Bucky followed her eye-line and saw what she was looking at. He wondered if she was trying to figure out how to get her hands on it. Maybe it had all been for nothing. He wanted to have the right thing to say, but whatever train of thought he had been trying to put together was cut off by the sounds of other footsteps coming up the stairs.

The two of them looked at each other and Natasha asked, “What now?”

He shook his head, eyes wide in disbelief. It was the most genuine she’d sounded with him this entire time and yet he didn’t know what his answer was. “I…I don’t know.”

She reached and grabbed the gun that was holstered on the back of her waist. Bucky’s heart plummeted into his stomach when she raised it in his direction. Something in him told him that he wasn’t going to get this lucky twice. If he didn’t make it work this time, he didn’t think that he was ever going to get out.

He took a deep breath, ready to try and plead with her, not that that had ever done him much good in the past. But, just as he opened his mouth to try and make his case, the door was kicked open behind them. For a split second he regretted not keeping his weapons nearby, but regret wasn’t about to do him any good.

Much to his surprise, rather than pulling the trigger and killing him while he was completely unarmed, Natasha quickly spun around and started firing at the men who were coming into the room after him, the men on her team.

Bucky froze up for a fraction of a second before getting himself back into gear and going for his gun. The second his fingers wrapped around it, he turned and started shooting. He still didn’t have a clear idea of how many people she was working with—the two of them never lived long enough for him to get a headcount. For now, he was just going to keep shooting until he was either out of bullets or out of people to shoot.

Eventually, the stream of people stopped. Bucky and Natasha were both out of breath, the smell of blood and gunpowder thick in the air. She turned and looked at Bucky, uncertainty all over her face, like she couldn’t believe what she had just done. Bucky couldn’t really believe it either.

Part of Natasha wanted to ask him what happened now, but she could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t have an answer for that. She reached to put her gun back in its holster when her legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground. She barely braced herself in time to make sure her head didn’t collide with the concrete.

Bucky was by her side in an instant. He frantically looked her over, and then he saw it, the blood on the floor coming from a wound in her side. He could tell that it wasn’t all that far from the place that he’d shot her before. There was no end to the layers of cruelty in this universe he was trapped in.

He reached and put his hands on her wound, pressing hard. She let out a groan of pain, but the pain of the pressure was still a better alternative than bleeding out. His breath was shaky, but this time it wasn’t because of the fear he had for himself, but the fear he had for her. Having to kill her all those times was horrible, but having to sit idly by like this was a new and different kind of pain.

“Natasha…”

“If you’re going to get out,” she said, her voice already starting to weaken, “you should go. They’ll send more.”

He nodded, knowing that she was right. He also knew that he wasn’t going to leave without her. He looked her up and down, and Natasha could see it in his eyes that he was trying to figure out the best way to pick her up and move her. He could carry her easily, that wasn’t the issue. The issue was trying to find a way to do that that wouldn’t make her wound any worse than it already was.

“Without me,” she said. “Go without me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. You’re…all of this is about you. I can’t leave alone.”

“You said it yourself, you’ve done this a million times. You’ll just have to…do it again.”

Bucky let out a shuddered breath. He didn’t know if he had it in him to do it again. He couldn’t keep getting this close only to have it ripped away from him. He looked her in the eyes. “Will you believe me again?”

She gave a small, weak shrug as she laid there. “Maybe.”

He shook his head, not able to resign himself to the reality of the situation. “There’s gotta…gotta be another way.”

“Doesn’t look like there is.”

He lifted her torso just enough so that he could press his forehead to hers again. She didn’t pull away from him, didn’t push him like he expected her to now that she had the freedom to do so. He doubted that she found any comfort in the gesture but it was all he had now.

His eyes were shut tight as he said, “I’ll see you soon.”

One of her hands came to rest on the cold metal of his arm. He could hear the slight trace of sarcasm, of mild disbelief in her voice as she said, “I’ll see you soon.”

Bucky snapped awake, heart pounding in his chest. He didn’t fully take in the room around him as he listened to the sound of glass clattering to the floor, of feet thudding up the stairs and closer to him. His hands were balled into fists, the rest of his body rigid and frozen. It took all he could do to even be able to turn his head to look around.

Natasha came flying into the room, her hair still a damp mess from after her shower. Her eyes were wide as she asked, “What’s wrong?”

Bucky opened and shut his mouth a few times, unable to force out words to answer her. He finally began to realize where he was. This was his room. Their room. There was no more mask stifling his breathing, no more hair sticking to the back of his neck. Glancing down, he saw the more reassuring black and gold arm at his side, one that was plagued with far less memories of torment.

He looked over at Natasha. The Natasha that knew him. The faded blonde ends of her hair hung over her shoulders, leaving wet spots on the fabric of the shirt that she’d stolen from his dresser. She was still lingering in the doorway, unsure of whether or not he wanted her to come any closer, unsure of whether or not that was the right thing.

She took one step past the threshold of their room. “You screamed my name.”

“I did?” he finally got a few words out.

She nodded, walking over to his side of the bed. “Yea.”

“Sorry.”

He shook his head as he sat upright. He didn’t even know where to start. There was no way it had all been a dream. He felt it too much. It went on for too long. It had to have been real. Somehow. He studied Natasha’s face, trying to figure out if anything similar had been plaguing her. She seemed so unbothered, though.

Reaching forward, he grabbed onto the bottom hem of his shirt that she was wearing. She tensed slightly, but she didn’t flinch away from him as he lifted it up. His eyes traveled over her skin, quickly spotting the scar by her hip that he’d left there so long ago. He looked a few inches higher, looking for any sign that what he’d gone through was real in some way. And, sure enough, there was another scar there, a little larger than the one left behind by him.

He brushed his fingers against it, the light contact causing goosebumps to break out over her skin. Natasha swallowed hard. “What happened?”

He looked up at her, exhausted and confused. “Where did this one come from?” he asked her, thumb tracing the skin right below the scar.

Her brows knit together as she tried to think of it. There had been so many fights, so many scars. It was hard to keep them all straight sometimes. Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t remember.” She paused. “Why?”

“I, uh,” his voice was hoarse, “I think it was my fault.”

“Your fault? Bucky, no—”

He stood up off the bed and pulled her into him, arms wrapping tightly around her and pinning her body against his. For the first time in what felt like far too long, she returned the embrace. She held him tight, hands splaying across the expanse of his back.

“I’m never gonna hurt you again,” he mumbled against her neck.

She couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t a little confused by it all. “I know.” She pulled away from him so that she could look him in the eyes. She cupped the side of his face for a moment before leaning in to kiss him, getting caught off-guard when he pulled away.

He placed his hand over hers, trying to find comfort in the touch, but he couldn’t. All he could think about was what he’d done to her, the countless times he’d hurt her, killed her. He couldn’t allow himself that softness from her. He didn’t deserve that.

“Natasha…” his voice trailed off, not really sure what he wanted to say to her at this point.

“We’re okay.” She pulled him in so that his forehead was pressed against hers. “I promise.”

Now it was his turn to feel his body flooded with tension at what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. All he could think about was the way she fought against him, the way her body locked up at his touch. But he didn’t know how to say that to her. She didn’t remember, didn’t know. The pain was exclusively his own.

“We’re okay,” he repeated her words, his voice hardly above a whisper.

She nodded. “We are.”

She pulled him into another embrace, and he let her. He tried to ease into it, tried to allow it to comfort him despite the memories that were now going to be engrained in his mind forever. She held him tight and he attempted to focus on the warmth seeping from her body to his. He played her promise that they were okay over and over again in his head, hoping that one day, he’d actually believe it.

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