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writersblockedx · 10 months

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Sparks

Pairing - Jeremiah Fisher x Fem!Reader Summary - Jeremiah goes to you for everything, and when you give him a vital piece of love advice, it dawns on him that he is, in fact, in love with you. Warnings - None? Slight mention of underage drinking. Words - 2K

Masterlist

As was common, Jeremiah was at a loss for his several hookups. And, as was even more common, he went to you to debrief and to ask for advice. While he had hookups and situation-ships way more than you did (or anyone in Cousins for that matter), he struggled with how to manage them. At least he did until he started asking you for advice.

He threw himself onto your bed, forcing you to shut the book you had been deep inside. There, staring up at the ceiling, he let out a huff. "What, or should I say who, is it this time?" You raised your brow at him, watching as Jere's wide pupils stared up to the ceiling as if he were replaying some memory over and over.

"Luke." He let the name out in a sigh. "And, And!" He suddenly added as if he had almost forgotten in his daydreaming gaze, "Abi."

He finally sat up, staring at you with them puppy eyes you could never resist. "Two?" You questioned.

"Yes." He said, barely embarrassed by such fact; at this point, it was to be expected. "Reframe from any criticism please."

"I'm not gonna criticise you, Jere." You told him, a sweet smile gracing your lips. "If anything, I don't see what the problem is here."

He took a second before shrugging, "I just- I feel wrong, you know? Guilty." He explained. "Like I'm going behind their backs."

"Okay then, well you either need to tell them both the truth or pick one."

Jeremiah thought about the options for a moment and ran both scenarios through his head until making his decision. "I have to pick one." He said before looking at you, uncertain, "Right?"

"If that's what you want." You comforted him.

At that, he let himself fall once more. This time, right into your lap as he made a dramatic sigh as if this decision was a life-changing one. "What if I don't know what I want?" He questioned, gazing up at you, his sea-blue eyes catching you into his trap.

You let a sniffle of a laugh as you looked down at him, "Oh, trust me Jere, you've no idea what you want. But, that's okay too, sometimes you have to experiment with different people until you know what you want." You went on.

That seemed to spark another question for him, one of which wouldn't leave his head for the next few weeks: "How do I know? Like, how do I know that this is someone who I want a relationship with? A proper relationship, not just a hookup."

For that, you needed to think. As much as you gave Jereimah advice after advice, that was a question he had never asked. "I suppose it has to be someone you feel that spark with. But not just a sexual spark." As you were certain Jere sometimes mistook it for. "A spark that reaches to a deeper, emotional level. Where you feel safe but excited at the same time. A balance, I guess." That was what you assumed anyway. You hadn't had many successful relationships yourself.

But your words had seemed to prompt something for Jere. His eyes washed away, his mind sucking him into his thoughts. Until, after a long moment, he sat back up and with furrowed brows, asked, "How do you know all this? It's not as if you're happily married."

"No need to remind me." You giggled, slapping the side of his forearm.

Of which he chuckled at and defended himself, "I'm serious! You talk all this wise shit and can't even get yourself a date."

You could have scoffed, "I can get myself a date, thank you."

"Really? When was the last time you went on one?"

Then you did scoff, grasping the pillow from behind you and chucking it at Jeremiah's head, only erupting more laughter from the both of you. "You are so rude!"

Only once your mini pillow fight died down and Jeremiah returned home, did that question take over his whole mind. He strolled into the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of milk as he thought over it: how did he know? The only time he felt a spark that wasn't sexual- well, he couldn't quite remember. Everything you had described, the safety but excitement, the emotional connection (and the sexual), well the only person he could ever even suggest he had felt that for was you.

"What's up with you?" His brother's voice broke him from the glare he had been giving the countertop.

His eyes widened, "Huh?"

Conrad and Belly, who had been trailing behind him, both giggled. "You're just a bit...out of it, you know?"

"Thinking."

"That's a first." Conrad laughed.

Jeremiah snapped, "Hey!"

"Go on then," Belly pushed, "What is it you're thinking about?"

The boy sighed, replaying your words once more. "A spark."

"Why's a hookup causing you an existential crisis?" Questioned Conrad, watching his brother in such a focused state that it was becoming a concern.

"It's not a hookup." Jere admitted. "It's Y/n."

Suddenly, that name peaked Belly's interest. She leaned closing, placing her elbows on the kitchen island as she watched the boy carefully, "What about her?" She prompted.

"I went to her for advice, as I always do, and now I can't get it out of my head. She was explaining how for love, you need a spark, an emotional connection, safety..." He stopped there, ever so stunned by his recent realisation.

"And?" Belly pushed on, one brow raised.

Jeremiah sucked in a breath, not making eye contact with either of them as he said, "She basically just described everything I feel for her."

He looked at his brother and his best friend. It was silent. At least for a moment as he took in their unreadable expressions; were they stunned? Embarrassed? Futile? Then, breaking the silence came Conrad's laugh. "You have a crush on Y/n, great." He shook his head. "It took you long enough."

Jere's brows instantly furrowed as he straightened his back, "What? How did you-" He couldn't get his words out.

Conrad looked to Belly, "Come on, back me up. It was obvious."

Jeremiah looked to his friend and Belly could only shrug. "It sort of was." She agreed. "But, now you know, you can ask her out!" Excitement was painted on her words. Belly had been waiting for this for almost longer than yourself.

"I can't do that. She's- She's Y/n. She's my best friend. It'd be weird." The idea was so foreign that it was unbelievable.

"She's your best friend who you're in love with!" Belly argued. "Think about it, please."

With that, she and Conrad left Jeremiah to his thoughts. Once more, you never left his mind. He had been trapped.

For weeks, it was all he could think about. He'd gaze across the other side of the pool at you. Shades covering your eyes as you bathed in the sunlight. There he was daydreaming of everything you would do as a couple. Granted, it was pretty much the same as how things were now, only littered with kisses and hugs and greater smiles than either of you had ever made before.

It came to the point where he was just bursting to tell you. But he waited. He had to wait until the right moment. He couldn't do it by the pool, with Steven and Belly watching. He would wait for the perfect moment. And when the group of you arrived at a local party, he knew maybe tonight would be the night.

A few drinks down, he caught you by yourself. You had wandered to the backyard, sitting on the stairs that led to the porch. He lingered by the patio door, watching you as you sat alone for a moment. Your curious expression was emphasised by the fairy lights which tangled over the wooden fencing, flashing pinks and purples across your cheeks.

You didn't even know Jeremiah was there until he came and sat next to you, your shoulders nudged up against the others. "Enjoying the party?" A smooth smile hung from his lips as he grasped the red solo cup in his hand.

You nodded and glanced over at him, "Yeah, yeah, just needed a break." You excused.

Jere smiled, looking back through the patio doors and the booming party he could still overhear. "That's understandable." He gazed back at you and fell, once more, into your eyes.

"What about you?" You nudged his shoulder playfully. "You're never one to miss a moment from a party. Shouldn't you be looking for Luke? Or, or Abi!" You spat out their names as they flooded back into your memory. You had lost count of all the people Jere had hooked up with.

His smile faulted at the mention of their names, "Erm, no, no. I actually ended things with both of them." He admitted.

"Oh, why?" You raised a brow. "Ended up telling them the truth?"

"No, no." He answered before he looked to the ground, licked his lips and questioned if this was the moment. Something in his mind said fuck it, and he did. "But it was actually because of something you said." Jeremiah couldn't tear his eyes away from you as that curiosity built on your expression once again. "When you were explaining it to me, everything that love made you feel, all the sparks and the connections. That you should feel safe with them but it should be exciting all the same. Well," He took a breath and ran with it. "You're the only person that makes me feel that way."

The air soon became thick with Jeremiah's words as they floated around your mind. This was Jere, your friend, your best friend. The one who had talked non-stop about her and him all while you were nothing but a bystander. Yet, here you were, sitting away from the party the boy was usually the centre of as he professed his love. And you could never deny your feelings in that it wasn't reciprocated.

This time, it was your turn to look to the ground, lick your lips and say: Fuck it. "Jere, I can't deny that you aren't utterly brilliant. I mean, you're incredibly beautiful, and you know it. You're charming and comedic, you bring a room to life. And I love being at your side for all of that, I want to be there in the future too." You took a breath, wondering if your next words were about to ruin that smile that was glued to his lips. "But, it's because I want that, that I want to be your friend. Just your friend." Like that, the smile dissipated. "I can't be some other hookup that you start complaining about because they get too attached, or too clingy. I won't let that be me."

He jumped to take your hands in his. What used to be a simple gesture between the two of you, had suddenly become complicated and you questioned if you should let go. "That's not what you are to me. I would have already tried that on you if that was what I wanted, trust me." He admitted. "This isn't me asking you to kiss me, or to have sex with me or whatever I do nowadays. I'm sat here asking you to be my girlfriend."

The word had been said. It was in the air and it was up to you what you did with it.

And so, you tightened your grip on his fingers and said, "I want you Jere and I trust that you want me to." From there, you leaned in before he could respond, securing a yes with a kiss.

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baeshijima · 9 months

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there’s an undeniable serenity which follows your voice. how it traverses within the room’s dome-like structure, reverberating through the surrounding space before ultimately touching the hearts and souls of those who hear your solo piece. it captivates and impassions, an underlying force woven beneath layers of harmonies forged under years of dedication holding one’s attention as they await in baited breath for the forthcoming emotions which swirl and soar at the mercy of your voice.

having never missed one of your performances to date, neuvillette believes he would know this best.

in his life, he has found there are many difficulties which arise when overseeing trials of various levels of severity — some being a life-defining case whereas others may delve into a more… menial aspect of things.

(“to bring some entertainment for once!” …is what he would usually hear in response to his unvoiced thoughts before having to reprimand a certain archon for levity in the court.)

but in spite of the blurred lines between professionalism and public entertainment, neuvillette finds himself at ease once he steps into the grand hall, finding his seat as stated on his ticket, waiting patiently as the chatters die down the moment the lights dim and the curtains draw, watching in content as vocals and instrumentals resound until the lights dim once more to signify the end of the opera.

amidst his day-to-day life, he has come to anticipate the dates which mark your performances.

ever since he first started attending, he has discovered that when sitting amongst the crowd enjoying your voice and performance, he is neither the iduex nor the chief justice of fontaine; he is simply neuvillette — a man who finds peace and respite in your presence, regardless of how near or far you may be from him.

he claps just as everyone else does, watching as you stoop into a bow on centre stage once the final note dissipates into the air where rounds of applause take over. there’s an ever-present smile stretching your lips, the corners of your eyes crinkling as you wave to the crowd surrounding him.

neuvillette recognises this expression as one you’d wear after a performance you deem satisfactory and finds his heart fluttering at the glow in your expression. (your smile doesn’t reach your eyes if you think it is anything less, despite his internal thoughts believing otherwise.)

he remains seated as the orchestra begins to arise and gather their instruments, as the conductor steps down from their podium, as the singers line up and shuffle off stage, as you turn and take your leave in close pursuit.

he glances at the bouquet settled atop his lap. oddly enough, the colours he chose coordinate with your attire, and he cannot help but to think this is some twist of fate playing with his convictions.

no matter, he thinks to himself as he rises from his seat, the bouquet cradled within his hold. with brisk steps, he makes his way past the crowd. it’s easier once people step away the moment they identify him and opt to gawk at his presence, allowing an easy passage for a quick escape.

it is not much later when he finds himself walking down a familiar hallway, the bright lights illuminating the name plaques hanging on the dressing room doors. his feet naturally come to a stop in front of a dressing room six doors down, the words [name] [last name] neatly engraved into the stainless steel nailed to the door.

his eyes trace over your name a few times, the flowers in his hand seemingly heavier than they were mere moments prior.

perhaps this time…

neuvillette attempts to push back the lump lodged within his throat. there’s a slight trepidation which hangs overhead as he gently raises a fist to your dressing room door, one which is all-too familiar in the way he hesitates and rethinks his actions over and over when in regards to you.

he stops before his knuckles touch the door. before he knows it he falls back into his usual routine: place the bouquet in front of your dressing room door, gently knock three times, turn and walk down the hall, disappearing before you can see him loitering around and make the connection of him being the anonymous bouquet gifter after each performance.

rounding a corner, neuvillette comes to a halt. with a glance over his shoulder he watches you peek your head out the door, looking around the hall in search of who knocked. when you take note of the bouquet he left, he fights back a smile of his own when you beam and thumb at the petals as he wills himself to turn and resume his exit.

perhaps after your next performance he will finally gather the resolve to speak to you.

if you enjoyed this, then reblogs with/or comments are greatly appreciated !! <33

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#favoniuslibrary #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #neuvillette x reader #genshin impact x you #genshin x you #neuvillette x you #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact imagines #we know next to nothing abt this man but its okay bc i have the power of having a consistent type and being delusional on my side

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futbol16 · 1 year

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Lost Her? • Barcelona Femení

Request: can we get one where the barcelona female team always joked about Y/N being so quiet and alexia’s little sister. they forget her in the city of one of the away matches. all girls feeling terrible but its like very light angst with an insanely worried alexia and mapi. and ends with the girls making it up to y/n

Word count: 1,5k

You almost feel giddy as you skip off the stairs of the airplane with your teammates and you take in your surroundings with a smile gracing your face. An arm is quick to make its way around your shoulders and you’re pulled into Mapi.

“Are you excited for the game?” the defender grins down at you curiously. The team has just landed in Italy for the champion’s league match against AS Roma, to say you were looking forward to it would be an understatement. You nod at the blonde enthusiastically who chuckles at you and then pulls you along, her arm remains around your shoulders, knowing you wouldn’t say much more.

As you take your seat on the designated team bus you’re quick to pop your earbuds back in and submerge in the waves of your favorite song. Your gaze is set on the trees outside as the bus drives to the hotel, barely even picking up on the fact that some of your teammates seem to have gone insane as they jump around to the music coming from one of their speakers.

“Y/N!” Pina’s voice falls on deaf ears and the brunette nudges her friend next to her.

“Y/N!” Patri is much louder and the girls laugh as her shout makes you jump in your seat. You catch your earbud just in time as it falls out from your ear and you turn to the girls.

“What?”

“Join us!” the youngsters are all eager to have you join them in their dancing and horrible singing but you softly shake your head, a small apologetic smile on your lips.

“I’ll just watch” Patri rolls her eyes though with a fond look as she leaves you be but Jana is quick to voice her thoughts.

“Damn she really is just like Ale!”

That statement is probably the one you’ve heard the most since joining Barca last season. There wasn’t a training that’s gone by without one of your teammates commenting on how alike you and your captain were. It didn’t bother you, technically they were right.

You were just as shy as Alexia if not even more and the girls couldn’t remember the last time they’ve heard you speak louder than average unless it was games. And that sounded impossible because the Spaniards were known for not being able to keep an appropriate voice level.

But they loved you, really. The Barca team wouldn’t be complete without having two shy superstars like Alexia and yourself.

It is why your captain can’t fight off her own smile as she notices your cheeks turn red at Jana’s words yet again.

The following day the team take their ‘tour walk’ of the city. You stop by several tourist attractions and monuments, you listen to Irene and Caro read fun facts about certain things and you take pictures for the fcb media when needed. Eventually the team makes their way to one of their last destinations for the day and you slow down to walk at the end of the herd of footballers.

Your eyes take in the architecture and the style of the buildings you pass by and the streets you walk. Your eyes widen as you recognize the small shop on the corner of a busy crosswalk and before you can think about it your feet carry you away from your friends.

The group is loud as they roam the streets of Rome and the girls smile at the people who recognize them. It’s only when they finally come to a stop as they reach their destination, that Marta and Jonatan start counting if they’ve got everyone.

“22?” Jonatan mumbles in confusion and Marta’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets as she whips her head back towards the coach. “Who’s missing?”

It takes her one look to realize that you’re nowhere to be seen. She hastily jogs back to the front of the group. “Ale! Alexia, where’s your little sister?”

The brunette turns her head with a strange look, wondering what Marta was on.

“Alba’s back in Barcelona?” she squints her eyes as Marta’s mouth remains slightly agape and she continues. “You know the city we live in?”

“Yeah no shit” Marta deadpans and Alexia gives her another weird look as she remains silent. It takes her a second but Marta remembers why she was bothering her captain as Jonatan shouts for her name. “Oh right! Y/N/N, I meant Y/N.”

“What do you mean you meant Y/N/N? Where is sh- are you telling me we lost her?” Alexia’s voice picks up an octave as she rambles on. Mapi is quick to interrupt the two.

“She’s probably just at the back with Pina and the rest. I swear those two have something going on by the way. Like yester-”

“Mapi!” Irene’s stern voice is what breaks the defender out of her thoughts and the three all look at her. “Marta’s right, Y/N isn’t with us. We lost her”

“Do we know where she is?”

“No, Mapi, lost means we don’t know where she is. Think chica” Patri rolls her eyes at the blonde.

“WHAT!” Alexia screeches, catching the attention of other people visiting the Colosseum and she gives them a sheepish look, lowering her voice just a bit. “What! How could we lose her?!”

“I swear she was right here just a minute ago, I remember when we passed that house with the many windows. The one where they were all painted blue” Mapi is confident in herself as she nods along to her words, almost convincing the rest of the team that has now huddled around her.

“Mapi that was half an hour ago” Pina mumbles in fright, leaving the blonde speechless. Alexia is on the verge of a mental breakdown as she stands with her hands on her head.

“We lost my little sister, dios mío”

The girls pull out their phones in sync as they dial your number one by one, only to have it ring out. Alexia is pacing up and down in front of the group, Mapi is sitting on the ground contemplating how this could have happened while Pina and Jana are trying to get their mobile data to work as they check for your location.

“Come on dude, pick up!” Bruna frustratedly lets out as she pulls the phone away from her ear when you don’t answer and she shakes her head at Jonatan.

“She’s all on her own in a foreign country. What have we done” Mapi speaks in despair as she shoves her face into her hands, relishing in the small comfort that Ingrid provides her with as she rubs her girlfriend’s shoulders.

The group of football players stand around in tense silence as everyone tries their own way of getting ahold of you. Worry is evident on their faces as they helplessly look around for you.

“Why are you guys so quiet?” a voice speaks up and Alexia’s pacing comes to a halt as she recognizes your voice. She rushes towards you and she gathers you into her arms once she’s close enough.

“Oh hermanita, where were you?! We were worried sick, why didn’t you pick up your phone?!” Alexia holds onto your shoulders as she rambles again, a mixture of relief and worry in those hazel eyes of hers.

“I just got myself a little treat” you shrug at the group of women gaping at your answer and you hold up the cup of slushy in your hands. “It’s blue and red like Barca but also because those are the best flavors”

“Y/NN we thought we lost you!”

“In a foreign city!” Mapi is quick to add on and you tilt your head at her.

“I think you’ve all forgotten I practically grew up here.”

“YOU’RE ITALIAN?!” Patri booms and you flinch at the sudden loudness. Claudia smacks her forehead from next to her best friend and she answers before you can.

“No, she spent her summers here. She literally told us yesterday on the plane”

"Patri, we play for the same team"

“Oh”

Mapi and Marta take a breath of relief, happy to know you were safe and okay.

“Bebé just don’t wander off on your own next time, sí?” Alexia still takes her role as captain and big sister seriously as she smooths your hair back.

“Sí, claro” you nod at her, a bashful look on your face as your cheeks darken in embarrassment. Alexia smiles down at you in adoration before she pulls you into another hug, careful to not hit the cup out of your hands. Mapi is quick to stand up and she eagerly joins the hug, sneakily taking a sip of your slushy.

“Aww” the team coo at the sight of the three of you all cuddling up and just as they’re about to join the group hug they’re interrupted.

“Chicas, now that we’ve got everyone, let's get ready for a group photo please. This day has been way too long.”

#barca femení x reader #futbol16 #woso imagine #woso x reader

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earlgreytea68 · 2 months

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Many years ago now, when I was a very unhappy and depressed lawyer, I went to see a therapist. The therapist diagnosed that I was suffering from severe levels of stress and asked me to keep a "stress journal": for the week between appointments, I was to write down whenever I felt my stress spike.

When I returned to the next appointment with my stress journal, the therapist was shocked I'd actually done the assignment. He said nobody actually keeps a physical journal. I suspected that maybe he didn't fully understand my personality type and the fact that some of my stress was the result of PEOPLE ASKING ME TO DO THINGS THEY APPARENTLY DIDN'T ACTUALLY WANT ME TO DO BUT I WAS RESPONSIBLY DOING THEM BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I AM.

Anyway, I digress, that's not the point of the story. The point was that when we looked together at my stress journal, we diagnosed that a recurrent source of spiking stress was receiving an email. This was so many years ago that it was before the smartphone, in the age of the BlackBerry, and every time my stupid BlackBerry vibrated, my stress skyrocketed. Having figured that out, the therapist was like, "What happens if you miss an email for an hour?" And that was hard to articulate. Probably nothing, tbh. Like, realistically I could go without checking my email if I was too busy with work, so why couldn't I when I was home watching TV? So the therapist suggested I confine my email checking to a set schedule. Only at the appointed times would I check my email and deal with whatever had come in.

And you know what? The world never ended, and it WAS a huge relief not to feel like I had to immediately be available for every email. To this day, my work email does NOT come to my phone and I only check it at my appointed times of day. (Actually, I resisted getting a smartphone until very late because after I left the law firm I thought the most glorious thing in the world was PEOPLE COULDN'T REACH ME.)

Anyway, I was thinking about all that today because I had a bad day at work and I realized that I was dreading checking my email and it just made me think that I have lingering issues around email. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I was like, ...no, I probably have lingering issues around WORK because of that job experience I had. Like, was it really about what emails I might have, or was it because I spent the day feeling manipulated in an unpleasant way that made me wary and suspicious of certain things around me, and then THAT made me think, like, I was overreacting because of the way that previous job experience was and the fact that the way it manipulated and abused me will never actually fully leave me, but THEN I was like, OR is it that I honed excellent instincts for that kind of situation happening and I should listen to myself when I feel that way, or or or--

Which is all to say that I wonder sometimes how I would have developed as a professional had I not had that career experience so early on in my life. But then I am in a weird way grateful for it, not because it forever kind of messed up my head in some ways but because I learned SO MUCH about those messed-up situations. Like, it was awful, don't get me wrong, but I did learn a bunch of coping mechanisms I still use today. Like limiting my email exposure. And I think I am warier than a lot of other people I know who didn't go through a workplace that mentally abused you the way that mine did, but I'm not so sure that's a terrible thing. I think it makes me touchy about work-life boundaries and i think there are way worse things to be in our capitalist society.

And also, every once in a while I think about the fact that I didn't think I was going to make it through those years but I did and I am pretty proud of myself for that, so also that. I made it through the other side when I honestly for real didn't think that I would, and every once in a while I have a day that reminds me of how I felt all the time back then, and it makes me remember to be grateful how many days I've gotten to have without that feeling.

#personal #stress #therapy #work

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nightswatchdisbandmentera · 5 days

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Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red eyes staring up at him. “Hungry again?” he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. His brothers and sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told himself he was fortunate in that too. His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke. He swallowed another gulp of wine and watched his direwolf devour the chicken. Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls. One of them, a black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a scent of the chicken. She stopped and edged under the bench to get a share. Jon watched the confrontation. The bitch growled low in her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent, and fixed the dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge. She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not move. He stood over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his fangs. The bitch tensed, barked again, then thought better of this fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last defiant snap to save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal. Jon grinned and reached under the table to ruffle the shaggy white fur. The direwolf looked up at him, nipped gently at his hand, then went back to eating.

Jon I, AGOT

It's interesting that GRRM would dedicate several paragraphs to a seemingly unimportant exchange between a boy, his wolf, and an unfriendly third party. But there's just something about this passage that has continued to nag at me for years since I first read it because, considering how heavy handed GRRM was with the foreshadowing in AGOT, this feels important.

Jon is sitting at table full of squires - aka would be knights. We don't really know who they are or what families they belong to, but it's safe to assume that they come from a certain level of privilege; this is considering the fact that it cannot be financially easy to be a squire. And these boys already have a slew of tales detailing all their previous knightly exploits regarding "battle and bedding and the hunt" which suggests that they have some capital. So you have boys who will soon be men. And they will, presumably, become men of some power.

These lads eat their fill of the chicken until only half remains, which Jon then gives to Ghost. The direwolf's name is not so important here but what he represents is. Throughout the series, we're told that Ghost is reminiscent of the weirwood trees (because of his red eyes and white fur). He's stated to be of and from the Old Gods and since he's a personification of the weirwoods, he might as well be one of them. It's almost as if Jon is presenting whatever is left on the table to the Old Gods (Ghost). He lets them devour his offerings while he silently watches. And the motif of watching is so interesting here because it's kind of like Jon takes on a stewardship role - to watch over land/people/etc. He oversees Ghost eating the chicken, so he's overseeing whatever has been given to the Old Gods. This is not new imagery to his arc. As a brother of the Night's Watch and eventually its leader, we have several instances where he leads people to adopting the Old Gods in some fashion. In ADWD, several recruits swear their vows to the Old Gods while he watches on as their Lord Commander. The Old Gods are also primarily of the North and we're told that Jon has more of the north in him than his brothers; interesting that this also includes Bran. So perhaps whatever is being offered to the Old Gods relates to the North.

We must also note that Jon initially thinks to give only a small portion, a leg, before pivoting and providing the entire thing. It feels to me a bit like the process of carving up a kingdom or something similar. The lords (represented by the squires) take what they want and leave aside what they don't; or perhaps they have eaten to their fill and can take no more. Then when his time comes, Jon first considers a small piece of land/group of people before eventually absorbing all of whatever is left behind. The concept of carving up a kingdom rings harder considering that we have several callbacks to the ideals of kingship in this chapter. Robert, Jaime, Tyrion, and even Mance though we don't know it yet, all play into this. And then there's the aspect of Jon letting the chicken slip between his legs which evokes birth/fatherhood, a very curious choice when GRRM could've just had Jon place the chicken on the floor. So land/people are carved up and Jon then uses whatever is left to birth his own type of kingdom. And this kingdom is one for the Old Gods.

This also touches on something that has been quite prevalent throughout Jon's arc. It's the concept of accepting the "others" or "those left over" who live apart from the accepted social norms. Arya (a tomboy), Sam (a gender non-confirming boy), the Night's Watch (criminals, extra sons, and men who have no future left or place to go), and even the wildlings are all examples of this. And Jon takes on a leadership/paternal role to every single one of them. He looks after them as a leader would/should. Sometimes, in the case of Arya and the wildlings, he's equated to a king. He's a steward/shepherd/king. There's messianic undertones to this:

Come unto me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30).

If you're familiar with Judeo-Christian tradition, you'll know that Jesus is often personified as one who spent the majority his time among the outcasts. The idea is that he came to save them too and that anew kingdom (or new earth depending on your translation) would spring up after the end of the world where he would forever rule as king; which presents the idea of a final king after the earthly ones are done away with. Now GRRM isn't so heavy handed with Christian allusions as other authors out there, but he does have a Catholic background and Jon is so overtly a Jesus figure. And in Revelation, Jesus is king and god at the very end....

One last thing: the mention of the mongrel who challenges Jon has always been rather interesting but confusing to me. A mongrel doesn't really relate to one specific type of dog. But it's interesting that Jon notes several roaming about where he is. They follow the serving girls who carry the food to be offered. Mongrels are used to describe antagonist/villainous groups in ASOIAF. Sometimes, they're used to describe slavers in Essos. But what's interesting is that most of the time, they're used to describe Euron's Ironborn especially in Victorian's POV. So I don't think the mongrel who challenges Ghost is a supernatural threat of death (i.e., the Others) but rather a human one. They represent those who are called to the scene once the lords have finished playing their games. It almost feels like a feast for (carrion) crows....

But it doesn't really matter because this mongrel isn't much of a challenge for Ghost. Though the mongrel is much larger, the direwolf is able to fend her off very effortlessly. Given that "mongrel" is used to describe Ironborn raiders, could this exchange between Ghost and the mongrel point to reavers or sea raiders who rise and fail challenge Jon kingdom? There is a historical King Jon Stark who did this....

When sea raiders landed in the east, Jon drove them out and built a castle, the Wolf's Den, at the mouth of the White Knife, so as to be able to defend the mouth of the river.[1][2] His son, Rickard, followed him on the throne and annexed the Neck to the north.

ref.

So this might shed some light not only on Jon's already published arc, but also on what we can expect in the future. We have some foreshadowing through Jon's ADWD dream that he will not only rise with the dawn (thereby live through the Long Night), but will be in a position to lead people (wildings in that chapter) to a new peace after a hard fought war. Also remember that the wildlings, rather enthusiastically, swear oaths to him as if swearing oaths to their king. In this instance, the supernatural (a dream of the war for the dawn) is followed by the natural/human. So perhaps this particular passage (and Jon's dream) can be used to predict that Jon comes out on top, and quite effortlessly too, as a leader. And he becomes a leader who rules by association with the Old Gods; or rules a kingdom for them.

To end, I think it's of note that this passage immediately precedes Jon's conversation with Benjen where he voices his desire to go out on his own - the hero's call to action. This is the adventure that's going to kickstart his growth as a man, warrior and most importantly, a leader. So it looks like before we even began, GRRM telegraphed how it would all end in just three short paragraphs.

#jon snow #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #ghost the direwolf #some random extra thoughts:#the aspect of fatherhood is closely tied to kingship as kings are often regarded to be the fathers of their nations #so we might see a parallel where jon-like dany-doesn't have children of his own physical body #but rather rules a kingdom as its symbolic father #think of how odin-a mythical parallel for jon-is called the all father because he is father to all men/lands #also it's interesting to me how kingship is a theme but it's almost like the actual theme is that of kings coming of going #but jon remaining and prevailing above all #we have robert who is a disappointing/bad king and his rule doesn't last very long and neither will his dynasty #jaime looks like a king and even if grrm didn't go through with his original ideas he was never meant to rule for long #in the new story jaime is symbolic of rhaegar a would be king whose time comes and goes leaving jon to pick up the pieces #then tyrion who stands “as tall as a king” but not quite! he still is not as tall as jon and tyrion also says in a later chapter #that soon he'll be even shorter than ghost + tyrion wasn't hand for long #mance who is hidden also has his time as king but it's very short lived and jon later absorbs his kingdom to make his own #so we have the wolf devouring the “left behinds” in a way but the interesting thing is this happens in reverse doesn't it #might Jon's new kingdom not only be made of remnants of the nw and wildlings but also have those left behind from the rest of the 7k?#it's possible since jojen tells us that once night comes all cloaks become black 🙂#so yeah this is all just more jon endgame king of winter/a new north propaganda lmaoooo

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loveroftoomanyfandoms · 7 months

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Cooking Up Love, Chapter 7

Pairing: Chef!Matt Murdock x F!Journalist!Reader

Rating: T

Story Summary: Here

Warnings/Tags: Hallmark levels of fluffy, cheesy goodness (and speed that their relationship develops, lol), no use of Y/N, Matt is not a vigilante, idiots in love, pining... so much pining

Word Count: ~3800

A/N: As promised, here's the 2nd half of Chef Matt & Reader's Sunday afternoon together! Enjoy!

And thank you as always to @theradioactivespidergwen for the super cute divider she made for me!

Tag List: @yarrystyleeza @hailey-murdock @mattkinsella @bellaxgiornata @danzer8705 @chezagnes @shouldbestudying41 @thepunisherfrankcastle @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment

Where the hell are we going? you wondered as you and Matt headed away from Clinton Church.

It wasn't like you weren't afraid he was taking you off somewhere to murder you -- you truly did feel safe with Matt and hadn't been lying when you had said that you trusted him. "Any hint as to where we're going?"

Matt shook his head. "I know it sounds weird, but I'd rather just show you, if that's okay?"

You nodded. It seemed important to Matt that your destination remain a mystery, so you decided not to push. "Okay."

You continued walking past various shops and storefronts until finally Matt stopped. "Okay, we're here."

You peered at the faded letters on the door.

Fogwell's Gym

You remembered Matt saying that he frequently worked out after service, but couldn't quite understand what was so special about the location that required the need for secrecy. Well, at least that explains the gym bag.

Matt pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door before stepping inside. "Come on in."

You followed him into the darkened gym and waited as he turned the lights on before looking around.

Cubbyholes lined the wall to the left of the door while several punching bags hung to the right. A large boxing ring was situated in the middle of the room, with wooden steps leading up to it.

Matt gestured towards what you assumed was the locker room. "I'm going to go get changed into my workout clothes. Be right back."

You nodded. "Okay."

While Matt was in the locker room, you took the opportunity to look at the flyers advertising various past boxing matches tacked to the wall. Johnson vs Lewis, Conway vs Roberts, Creel vs Murdock…

You sucked in a breath, reaching out to touch the poster. Creel vs Murdock. Now it makes sense.

You heard Matt come out of the locker room and set his bag down.

"This is where your dad trained, isn't it?" you asked, your eyes still on the poster.

You heard Matt sigh. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

You turned towards him and froze. As handsome as he was while wearing his chef's coat and black slacks or a t-shirt and jeans, he was even more gorgeous in a black tank top, gray sweatpants, and tennis shoes.

Your gaze drifted up to his face. His glasses were gone, revealing beautiful hazel eyes that were fixed in your direction.

Matt must've felt you staring at him, because he ducked his head and began rummaging through his gym bag. "I, uh, I started coming here back when I was in culinary school," he explained. "I was struggling during my first semester and thinking about dropping out, so I came to the one place I knew where I would feel close to my dad to see if I could figure out what he would say."

He took out a small bundle of what looked like Ace bandages and began to wrap his hands. "I was having a particularly bad day that day -- there was this one professor who had been giving me a hard time about my need for certain accommodations -- so I began to take my frustration out on a punching bag."

You had found when people started to open up it was better to just let them keep talking rather than interrupt with questions, so you remained silent.

"With each punch I could hear my dad telling me that he was proud of me," Matt continued as he finished wrapping one hand and started on the other. "And that Murdocks never give up no matter how hard things get. So I decided to stay in culinary school and work my ass off to prove that I have what it takes to be a great chef and make my dad proud of me."

Before you could second-guess yourself, you walked over to Matt and wrapped your arms around him in a hug.

You thought for a split second that you might have crossed a line, but before you could let go and apologize Matt relaxed into your embrace, circling his arms around you and tucking his face into your neck.

You held him briefly, then let go and stepped back.

Matt began to redo the wrap that he had begun, keeping his face turned downward. "I've, uh, I've never actually told anybody about that before. Not even Foggy."

Your heart constricted. You couldn't even begin to imagine the hardship that Matt must have had to go through in order to prove himself as a chef. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

Matt paused. "I don't suppose I can ask you to keep that off the record, can I?"

You nodded. "I will, if that's what you want. It'll stay just between us."

Matt huffed out a breath. "Thank you."

You sat on the bench as Matt moved in front of the punching bag. "So, I suppose you're going to show me some moves, huh?"

Matt chuckled. "If you'd like."

You watched as Matt did a few stretches, appreciating the way his biceps flexed as he moved. And if your eyes drifted southward, well… you were only human. Cake, indeed. One could bounce a quarter off of that ass.

Your eyes snapped back to Matt's face, which bore a small smirk.

He reached out and touched the punching bag, found the center, then adjusted his stance, raising his fists in front of his face.

You watched in fascination as he skillfully maneuvered his way around the bag, landing punches as if he was squaring off against one of the greatest fighters of all time. He certainly doesn't fight like a blind man.

Finally he paused, chest heaving.

He steadied the punching bag. "Would you mind handing me that towel, please?"

You resisted the urge to lick the sweat off of his neck. "Oh, uh, yeah, sure."

You handed the towel to him. "So are you sure you haven't had professional training?"

Matt grinned as he wiped his face and neck down with the towel. "Yeah, I'm sure."

He draped the towel around his neck and picked up his gym bag. "I'm going to go take a quick shower and change, but I'll be back in a minute, if that's okay?"

You nodded. "Yeah, of course."

While you waited for him to return you checked your phone for messages, replying to an email from an artist you had featured a few weeks prior thanking you for your article.

You put your phone away and stood, glancing briefly over at the entrance to the locker room before walking in front of the punching bag.

You closed your eyes, curled your right hand into a fist, and swung, missing the bag completely.

You opened your eyes, frowning. Maybe I wasn't close enough.

You moved a bit closer, then closed your eyes again.

You swung at the bag, this time barely connecting.

"...Your stance is off."

You gasped and whirled around, a hand flying over your chest. "Jesus, Matt, you scared me."

Matt stood next to the boxing ring, this time dressed in a dark blue t-shirt that clearly showed off his muscles and dark blue sweatpants.

He smiled softly at you. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

You shook your head, trying to calm your racing heart. "It's alright. I was just… um… just…"

"Trying to figure out how a blind man can hit a punching bag so easily?" Matt nodded in understanding. "I probably should have told you, but I'm not actually completely blind."

"Oh," you replied, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I'm so sorry, I just assumed…"

Matt shook his head. "It's okay. The chemicals that got into my eyes basically fried my synapses, so whatever is directly in front of me looks like a black mass and the rest of my line of vision is what I can best describe as a 'world on fire'."

He tapped the side of his glasses, which you had belatedly realized were back on his face. "The red lenses help neutralize that part."

You huffed out a light laugh. "And here I thought you just wore them because they made you look cool."

Matt grinned. "You think they make me look cool?"

More like slightly mysterious and incredibly hot. Your face heated slightly. "Eh, maybe a little."

Matt shook his head with a chuckle. "Ready to head out?"

You nodded. "Mmhmm."

Matt gestured towards the door. "After you."

"So, where to next?" you asked as the two of you headed outside.

Matt shook his head. "Actually, that was my last errand."

"Oh." You couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed that you had to go your separate ways. "Okay, so I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, tomorrow." Matt bit his lip. "Um, that is… unless you'd like to have dinner with me tonight? My place? My apartment's not too far from here."

You nodded, unable to keep a smile off of your face. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd actually really like that."

Matt unfolded his cane. "Great! I mean, it's the least I could do after you helped me out this afternoon at the soup kitchen."

Your heart sank slightly. Of course he meant it as a thank-you, how else would he have meant it? "Oh. Um, it was no problem. I was happy to help."

Matt turned the opposite of the way you were facing. "This way, then."

As you headed down the street, you couldn't help but entertain the thought of Matt having invited you over for dinner not because he felt obligated to as a thank-you, but because he hadn't been ready for your time together to end either.

You mentally shook your head. It's just as a thank-you for helping him out at the church, that's it.

…You just wished it hadn't been.

Why the hell did I say that? Matt thought to himself as the two of you walked towards his apartment. He'd had every intention of asking you to have dinner with him as a (sort-of) date, but the second you had said yes he had second-guessed himself and blurted out the bit about it being as a thank-you for helping him out at Clinton Church.

He mentally shook his head as the two of you stopped at a crosswalk. Maybe I can fix this.

Before he could say anything, you cleared your throat. "You know, I'm sure you're tired and I don't want to be an inconvenience, so I actually think I'll just head ho--"

"No!" Matt shook his head. "I mean, no, it's not an inconvenience. I was going to make something to eat when I got home anyway, so it's not a problem to make an extra serving."

He inwardly cringed. Way to make things worse. "Actually, what I meant was that I've really enjoyed your company today and would like to have dinner with you."

He could feel you relax. "I've enjoyed your company today too," you admitted softly. "If you're sure it's not a big deal…"

Matt nodded. "I'm sure."

"Then okay. I'd love to have dinner with you."

Matt smiled in relief. "Great. And actually now that I think about it, I do have one more stop before we get back to my apartment. I need to harvest some herbs from my plot at the community garden, but it'll only take a minute."

"Okay."

The two of you continued on as the crosswalk signal beeped and changed to walk .

"So what kind of herbs do you grow?" you asked.

"All sorts of culinary varieties," Matt replied. "Rosemary, thyme, basil, lavender, and mint."

"Oh, cool."

Matt nodded. "Unfortunately I have to outsource my herbs for the restaurant since I don't have the space to grow the amount that we would need, but this works for my own personal use."

He slowed as you reached the garden. "Welcome to the Hell's Kitchen Community Garden."

"Oh wow," you said. "I never even knew this was here."

Matt led you down the center path then to the right, following along the fence line to his plot in the back corner. "It hasn't been here too terribly long, maybe six months or so."

"And you said Claire from the farmer's market runs it?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah. She petitioned the council to turn the property into a community space and keeps track of who has which plot and everything."

You hummed. "I might have to talk to my boss about covering the community garden for the paper too. This is really neat."

"That would be great. It definitely would raise more awareness and hopefully bring more funding for upkeep." Matt stopped in front of his plot. "This is mine."

He knelt down and felt his basil plants before picking a few leaves and placing them into a small storage container he kept in the side pocket of his gym bag. "All set."

He led you back out of the garden and down the street towards his apartment building, frowning at the distant rumble of thunder. Well, there goes my plan to have dinner on the roof. "Sounds like it's about to rain."

"Yeah, it does seem like it's getting a bit cloudy," you replied. "Is your place much farther?"

Matt shook his head. "No, it's just up ahead."

"Oh, okay."

You walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence.

"Okay, here we are," Matt said as you reached his apartment building.

He led you to the elevator and pressed the button for his floor, the sound of rain beginning to fall as the elevator began to ascend. "Sounds like we made it just in time."

"Yeah, thank goodness," you replied. "I wasn't expecting it to rain so I didn't bring my umbrella with me."

You can always just stay the night… Matt shook his head. "I have one you can borrow if you need to, or I can call you a cab if it's still raining hard when you leave later."

He took his keys out of his pocket as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. "This way."

He led you down the hall to his apartment and unlocked the door, then opened it and ushered you inside as another roll of thunder rumbled overhead.

He closed the door and dropped his keys into the bowl on the side table in the entryway before folding up his cane and setting it next to the bowl. "Come on in."

He tried to ignore his sudden nervousness. It had been a long time since he'd had someone who wasn't Foggy or Karen in his personal space and hoped you wouldn't judge how barren his apartment was.

He turned on the lights then headed to his refrigerator. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Oh, um, sure," you replied. "Whatever you're having is fine."

He heard you walk over to the large window in his living area as he pulled out 2 bottles of beer along with a block of pecorino cheese and some pancetta. He had gotten an incredible deal on his apartment because of the gigantic neon sign that was situated on the roof of the neighboring building, so he was sure that was what you were looking at.

He quickly washed the fresh basil he had picked and patted it dry, then set the cheese and pancetta down on the kitchen island before popping the tops off of the bottles and walking over to you. "Here you go."

Your fingers brushed his as he handed you the bottle, a now-familiar tingle coursing through Matt's veins. "Thank you."

Matt swallowed and took a sip of his beer. "Quite the view, huh?" he said, gesturing out the window.

You huffed out a laugh. "It's very, um… picturesque."

Matt shook his head with a grin. "Funny, that's exactly how the real estate agent that sold me this place described it." He leaned in conspiratorially. "I have a feeling she might not've been telling me the truth though."

You laughed again. "Okay, it is a bit obnoxious."

Matt chuckled. "I really do keep meaning to get some blackout curtains, but since it's just me it's never really been a bother."

You hummed. "I honestly don't mind it. It gives your apartment an interesting glow."

Matt could imagine the two of you together on his sofa, the glow of the billboard the only light in the darkened room as he gently caressed your cheek, your lips inches from his own--

He mentally shook his head and gestured to his kitchen island. "Have a seat and I'll get started on dinner."

He heard you sit as he began to gather the rest of the ingredients, placing the eggs he had taken out of his refrigerator that morning into a bowl and setting it on the island before washing his hands and filling a pot about halfway with water.

He set the pot on the stove and seasoned it with some salt, then turned the burner on high to let the water boil.

He crossed back to the island and roughly chopped the fresh basil he had picked, then quickly whisked together 3 egg yolks and an entire egg before grating a generous amount of cheese into the mixture, giving it an additional stir before setting it aside.

He could feel you quietly watching him as he unwrapped the pancetta and began cutting it into small cubes, unable to help but wonder what you were thinking. You'd had the same focus the day before when he had made your crepes, but you had been recording your conversation then and had asked questions about his culinary process. This felt… different. More personal, like you were deep in thought.

He cleared his throat. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"What?" You startled slightly. "Oh, sorry, it's nothing. Just trying to figure out what we're having for dinner."

You were lying to him, but Matt couldn't figure out exactly why or what about. "Oh, I'm making spaghetti carbonara. It's traditionally made with guanciale, but my supplier was out, so pancetta will have to suffice for today."

"Your supplier… Oh, right, Frank, wasn't it?"

Matt shook his head then moved back to the stove, dropping the spaghetti into the pot of boiling water before moving the pancetta to the pan. "He doesn't do cured meats. I get those and other specialty items from Nelson's Meats."

You made a curious sound. "Nelson… as in Chef Nelson?"

Matt nodded as he stirred the pancetta around. "Foggy's family owns it. Best capicola in the tri-state area."

He finished cooking the pancetta and turned the skillet off, then scooped some of the pasta water into a measuring cup before draining the pasta and adding it to the pancetta. "Dinner's almost ready if you want to move to the table."

"Okay."

As you moved to Matt's dining table, he gave the egg mixture another stir before pouring it into the pan, adding a bit of the pasta water and using tongs to mix it all together.

Once it was a perfectly smooth consistency, he added some freshly-ground black pepper and separated it into two bowls before adding an extra sprinkle of cheese and some chopped basil on top of each serving.

He placed a fork in each bowl, then brought them over to you, setting yours in front of you and his in front of his spot across from you. "Dinner is served."

You gave a slight gasp. "Oh my goodness, Matt, this looks amazing."

"Thanks." Matt quickly grabbed two wine glasses and gave them a quick rinse before taking a bottle of Pinot Gris out of his refrigerator and pouring you each a glass.

He set your glass down before sitting across from you. "The beer we were drinking doesn't really go with carbonara so I've selected a wine pairing, if that's alright?"

You gave a hum of affirmation. "Of course it's alright."

Matt nodded. "Okay, well, enjoy."

He waited nervously as you took a bite.

You let out a pleased sound. "Oh my goodness, this is so good."

Matt grinned in relief. "Yeah?"

"Yes, absolutely. Everything you've made for me so far has been amazing."

"I'm glad." Matt took a bite of his own carbonara, the silky smoothness of the sauce pairing perfectly with the crispy pancetta and al dente noodles. "It's not quite traditional carbonara but it's very close."

"Right, you said it's traditionally made with guanciale."

Matt nodded. "And no herbs are usually added, but I like the flavor a bit of fresh basil adds to the dish."

"Mmm. Mmhmm. Yeah, I like it too."

You both continued eating and once you were done, Matt stood. "Here, I'll get this for you."

"Thanks."

"I'm afraid I don't have any dessert prepared, but would you like another glass of wine?"

"Yeah, I'd love one."

Matt grabbed the bottle of Pinot Gris and refilled your glasses. "Care to go sit on the couch?"

"Sure."

You took a sip of wine as the two of you sat together on Matt's sofa. "I really like your apartment, by the way. It suits you."

Matt shook his head with a small smile. "It's not much, but it's home."

You huffed out a laugh. "It's not what I originally expected, but to be honest, neither were you."

"Oh?" Matt turned towards you. "And what did you expect?"

"About you or your apartment?"

"Mmm, both, I suppose."

"Well, had I based my idea of what your apartment would be like on my first impression of you it would've been cold and industrial with no heart."

Matt winced. "Ouch."

"However, having gotten to know you over the past few days I would say warm and inviting with a certain charm."

A smile spread across Matt's face. "You think I'm charming?"

"Your apartment? Very. You? Maybe a tiny bit."

Matt smirked at the teasing tone in your voice. "A tiny bit? I guess I'll just have to work harder on charming you then."

You let out a light laugh. "No need, I'll send you a copy of my article before publication anyway."

"Okay, thanks." Although that's not the reason I want to charm you.

You finished your glass of wine. "And speaking of my article, I should probably get going -- I have to be at the Bulletin early tomorrow for our weekly staff meeting."

Matt nodded and stood. "Here, I'll walk you out."

"Thanks for inviting me along today," you said softly as you reached the door. "I had a really great time."

Matt nodded, unable to keep a smile off of his face. "I did too."

"I'll see you tomorrow evening?"

Matt nodded again. "Six o'clock?"

"Yeah, that sounds perfect."

"Okay, great."

The two of you stood there for a moment longer. Finally you reached out and gave Matt a brief hug. "Goodnight, Matt."

Matt hugged you back, committing what he could of you to memory. "Goodnight."

He waited as you let yourself out, an idea forming in his mind.

…He just hoped he was able to pull it off.

#lotmf writes #Cooking Up Love Masterlist #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x fem!reader #matt murdock x female reader #matt murdock x you

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adrift-in-thyme · 7 months

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Whumptober Day 14: “Feed me poison, fill me til I drown”

Read it on Ao3

- Time & the Chain

- Summary: Time grows ill by no ordinary sickness

CW for poisoning and all the horrifying symptoms that come with it (including vomiting and severe shortness of breath) and kidnapping

———————————-

The inn has become outrageously loud.

Time isn’t certain when it went from the usual hubbub of gathered humanity to an overwhelming cacophony of noise. All he knows is that he needs to get away from it. Now. Before he gives in to the urge to curl up on the floor in fetal position.

Strange. He can’t recall the last time he yearned to do that.

It has been years, to be certain. Years since a small child hid in a Castle Town alleyway because it had all, very suddenly, grown to be too much.

Time drags in a breath that doesn’t fully fill his lungs and pushes himself to his feet. If he steels himself, perhaps, he can look purposeful rather than panicked.

“What’s up, old man?”

Legend is staring at him from where he sits on a bench, wedged between Wild and Hyrule. He raises an eyebrow.

“You heading to bed already?”

Time tries to smile. It comes out feeling more like a grimace.

When had it grown so cold in here?

It feels as though the winds of Snowhead have swept in through the swinging double doors. He shivers slightly and the small movement makes the pounding in his head a hundred times worse.

“I’m actually headed outside,” he says, his own voice sounding strangely far away. “I just need a bit of air.”

They’re all watching him now, varying levels of concern on their faces.

“Are you alright?” Sky asks.

Time nods. “Don’t worry about me. It’s just a bit stifling in here is all. I’ll be back in soon.”

Most of them still look worried, but he can hardly afford to stand here, assuring them of his good health. The room is closing in now and blurring slightly at the edges. If he doesn’t get out soon…

With a desperate sort of abruptness, Time turns on his heel and heads for the door.

The main streets of Castle Town are still busy. The inn is relatively out of the way, though, situated snuggly in the back of the town. Few people come down here and Time is glad of it. With a sigh of relief he leans back against the wall.

…only for his legs to give way seconds later.

The ground tips beneath his feet, his stomach lurches, and suddenly he finds himself on his hands and knees. He stares down at the cold cobblestone, trying vainly to comprehend what has just happened. He had been fine a half an hour ago — he had been fine mere seconds ago, save of course, for the sudden onset of a migraine and the dizziness and cold and the way the room had surged and shrieked like a monster let loose…but those had been…

Time’s eye widens slightly. A series of shives rage through him, sudden and unbidden and terrible. They make his teeth chatter so hard he has to grit them together to keep from biting his tongue.

Something is wrong, he realizes, somewhat dazedly. Very wrong. He has suffered enough illnesses, enough injuries to know this one is not normal.

But his head has begun to feel heavy, his thoughts as sluggish and thick as the fog of the Lost Woods. And though he grasps for it, the answer he seeks hovers just out of reach.

Then, it flees entirely, replaced instead by sheer panic.

He can’t breathe.

He tries, fighting to draw precious air through airways that suddenly feel too tight. But he only manages a half-breath that leaves him feeling dizzy. Desperately, he inhales once more.

But his lungs don’t expand to welcome the air he craves. Instead, the pounding in his head intensifies. And in the next moment, his stomach rebels violently. He pitches forward and vomits.

There’s blood in it, he notes, blearily. That’s more than a little worrying.

Or it would be if he could think past the immediate conglomeration of dizziness and pain and a hazy sort of directionless fear.

A shudder rages through him. His body decides it no longer has the strength to hold itself up. He collapses sideways and his surroundings tip with him, streetlights smearing golden light across a navy sky, buildings elongating unnaturally.

For a terrible moment, he is certain that he’s falling. And maybe he’ll keep falling, down, down, down into endless darkness and he’ll be trapped again, imprisoned in a world that won’t remember him, a world destined to be destroyed.

But then his shoulder connects painfully with something hard and he realizes he is lying on the cobblestones.

Still fighting to breathe. And now to swallow. It feels as though his entire throat is closing itself off. Soon he won’t have any air at all.

This has all escalated rather quickly, he thinks with an absurd, giddy sort of mirth. And to think all he had wanted was fresh air. Unfortunately, for him there is none to be had.

Another round of shivers come, tearing his aching body apart, stealing what little breath he still has. It drives away the odd hilarity, brings back the panic of before.

He needs to get up. He needs to find help. But even speaking seems an insurmountable challenge.

Time squeezes his eye shut. His fingernails are sharp against his palm, but the pain grounds him, keeps him awake. And somehow, he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that he has to stay awake.

Nausea roils in him again. He gags, tasting blood and the remnants of dinner. Dimly, he wonders how long ago it was when he sat with the other heroes, listening to them laugh and tell stories over bowls of warm stew. It feels like an eternity has passed since then. But he doubts that that is true.

Either way, the thought of food makes his stomach protest. There is nothing left in it now to expel. Yet his body tries anyway, violently. Clearly, it wants whatever is inside of him, out.

Poison.

The realization finally breaks through. But it’s too late to entertain the fresh wave of panic. He is fading now, the taste of blood pungent on his tongue, stones cold against his skin. Even if he had the strength to do more than lie here and attempt to breathe, it wouldn't do him any good. He doesn’t know how to deal with poison. He’s never had to learn.

Footsteps sound now. He registers them, distantly, through a fog he can’t find his way out of. Then, voices reach him, muffled by the whirring in his ears.

“Is he dead?”

“No, he’s still breathing. I can hear his wheezing from here. Pathetic.”

“Besides, we never wanted him completely dead, remember? Just very, very close. Now, come on. You know what to do.”

Hands grasp his arms and roughly haul him up. Ropes snake around his wrists and pull tight. A cloth finds its way into his mouth. And all the while his every instinct screams at him to run, to struggle, to fight. But his limbs are leaden, unable to even keep him upright. He slumps heavily in his captor’s grasp.

“He won’t last much longer without the antidote.”

“Well, we don’t have much longer before the others worry and come to check on him. We go now. He’ll last until we get where we need to be.”

They begin to drag him. His feet are uncooperative, unable to even catch on the stones as they move forward. Darkness dances tantalizingly before him. He tries and fails to take another breath.

“It’s better this way,” he hears them say faintly, in the moments before he plunges into oblivion, “to keep him in this state. The Hero of Termina…he isn’t one you should underestimate.”

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heavenlycloud · 1 year

Text

vintage chanel: jennie x fem! reader

warnings: suggestive, swearing

a/n: i was gonna post this the night of the event but school and time got away from me so here it is a few days late. there might be some typos.... sorry

the met gala wasn’t a new occurrence to you after your first invitation when you were freshly eighteen. back then, your attendance made headlines as you had become the youngest guest to attend that year. even more headlines followed when you were handpicked by karl lagerfeld as a muse for the house of chanel. over the years you became a known figure within the fashion industry while dominating the western music industry. the level of success you’d reached in a few short years was recognized by numerous awards, accolades, and several gold and platinum album titles to your name. even with the musical success, you never forgot that fashion was really your claim to fame many years ago. hence why you graciously accepted a met invitation every single year.

to many, the met gala is a star studded night where you get gussied up in clothes from top designers in high fashion, meet other A-list celebrities, and do whatever the hell you do inside because nobody seems to know. in reality, it was waking up at six in the morning then getting ready all day, walking a red carpet, answering the same 5 questions from reporters who hopefully remembered your name, then sat through what felt like the world’s longest and most awkward dinner. the only highlight of the event was finding out that one of your friends was only two tables away from you, rather than the usual five or six. overall, the real fun started at the afterparties which you always ended up being roped into attending then drunkenly leaving hand in hand with some supermodel you met that night.

you sat in a suite on the 15th floor of the iconic Mark Hotel as your stylists, makeup artists, and management and PR team bustled around to make sure you were ready for tonight. the theme was Karl Lagerfeld, the designer that picked you as his muse years ago. your outfit was a handpicked piece designed by the esteemed german courtier. originally worn by linda evanglista in the Chanel Ready to Wear Fall/Winter 1991-1992 in Paris Fashion week. the entire morning was doing small interviews for Vogue and other fashion media outlets that get most of their press from this event. there was a smile on your face as you told the camera before you, “i’m super excited for this evening because i don’t think many people know i’m attending the event. i’ve been trying my best to keep it on the down low, but i think people are going to figure it out before i get to the carpet.” there was a small laugh followed by your words that trailed off on the end, specifically because you knew of a certain someone that was hoping just this once you wouldn’t show.

“unnie, did you see the headlines?” the thai idol asked with urgency in her tone that made her member’s heart race. the older woman hesitated to answer, but she went silent as she read the headline that appeared over the banner at the top of her screen:

UPDATE: Y/N TO MAKE APPEARANCE AT THE 2023 MET GALA

jennie stared at her phone and lisa cautiously prompted, “are you okay?” jennie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before saying, “why wouldn’t i be? it’s whatever. she gets invited every year, i don’t know why this would be any different.” she paused for a moment then abruptly commented, “i have to go. i’ll talk to you later.” the younger woman gave a weak smile, “okay bye, i’ll talk to you later.” in a sudden bout of frustration jennie tossed her phone across the room onto the bed then brought her hands to her forehead as she mumbled, “fuck…” there were light taps on her hands as her makeup artist silently chided her not to mess up her perfectly made up face. for the next hour she remained silent until she had to put on a smile for the cameras and fans that swarmed the porte-co·chère of the hotel down below.

the car ride to the carpet was dead silent as jennie tried to soothe her nerves before enduring the next eight to ten hours on her own. through the deeply tinted glass jennie could see her security team waiting for her to step out of the car. one of the staff members assigned to her for the evening warmly assured her, “take as long as you need, miss kim.” she gave a curt nod and a hushed thank you before holding the door handle for a moment. one of the security guards pulled open the door and held a hand out to assist her out of the large black SUV.

cameras flashed and fans shrieked and screamed as they desperately tried to earn jennie’s attention from their barricaded sections that flanked the entrance of the carpet. the idol waved and smiled for the cameras as she’d been taught to so many years ago, her smile turning genuine when she laid eyes on a familiar petite brunette. the young influencer passed jennie a mic and asked enthusiastically, “how are you?” with her eyes glued forward for a moment too long, jennie replied, “i’m everywhere. this is my first Met…” emma asked in slight surprise, “first Met?” the korean singer nodded and continued answering the quick questions on her current feelings. she laughed as the younger girl somewhat awkwardly yet genuinely shared the same thoughts of being nervous and anxious before such a large event. for just a moment jennie glanced to her right thinking she saw someone she knew. her blood ran cold when she realized she did know the person- you looking her way with the same narrowed gaze that dripped of venom and honey that had her spellbound from the first time.

a smirk tugged at the corner of your lips after seeing the affect you still had on her after she supposedly stopped caring about you. for the fun of it, you shot her a wink before turning around and kissing the cheek of the interviewer that was speaking with you. jennie flinched ever so lightly then laughed awkwardly in a futile attempt to play it off. she quickly thanked emma for the interview then rushed off to the usher that was to guide her along the carpet. the remainder of the carpet went by in the blink of an eye. largely in part to the fact that she disassociated for the entire thing, only regaining awareness of her surroundings as she was ushered inside.

jennie followed the usher to her table where her placecard was sitting daintily with her name handwritten in elegant calligraphy. she sat down gracefully beside another supermodel she’d yet to learn the name of then introduced herself politely. as more guests filed in, she couldn’t help but scan the room in search of you. the open seat beside her with a placecard that read a simple RESERVED made her stomach twist into knots. underneath the white tablecloth she bounced her leg anxiously, desperately hoping nobody around her noticed the soft clicking sound around the table. another usher made their way to her table and she took a breath of relief when she saw dua lipa approaching with a warm smile. however, the feeling was short lived when the albanian singer bent down and kissed her cheek with a slight pout. she explained quietly, “hi love, i wanted to come over and tell you myself that they’ve moved my seat this evening. but i’ll catch up with you later, alright?” jennie tried to answer as quickly and politely as possible to get in her question of who was taking dua’s place.

the question was answered before it could even leave jennie’s lips when she heard you speak from over her shoulder, “thank you so much for understanding, babes. have a great evening and we’ll chat later!” you sat down beside jennie and greeted the other guests at your table which you were seemingly familiar with to some extent. the idol shifted beside you and you gave her what appeared to others as the warmest and welcoming smile, “jennie it’s been a while hasn’t it?” the woman saw through you as if you were made of glass, yet she refused to cause a scene at the Met Gala of all events. so, she plastered on a smile and hugged you back, “it has, how have you been?” she humored you in conversation and did her best to wiggle her way out of exclusively talking to you by roping the other table guests into the conversation. however, no matter how much she tried, you always managed to turn the topic exclusive to the two of you. jennie wondered how nobody else around her could see the lack of genuinity in your eyes, that you were intentionally toying with her like some game. but then again, why would anyone suspect you, a known sweetheart, of such a thing.

you smiled to yourself as you did small things to get under jennie’s skin and give her the attention you craved. wether it be a hand trailing along her thigh or lightly hitting her foot with your own beneath the tablecloth. seeing her clenched teeth and smiles that faltered for just a split second were all the reward you needed to spur you on further. the moment that you all were dismissed to look around the museum exhibit, jennie was on her feet and eager to leave your side. you made no effort to follow her immediately, instead you found a handful of familiar faces and did your rounds to those you both did and didn’t care for…you did have a reputation to uphold anyway. an hour passed and you finally had eyes on jennie once more, she stood alone in front of a mannequin with yet another vintage Chanel piece. you watched her from afar, taking in the way she stared at the clothing with a genuine admiration and curiosity. the sight made your heart flutter as she reminded you of the first time you both met years ago.

the feeling of warmth that bloomed in your heart ran cold when you saw some random man approach her. from his outfit alone you knew that he was someone’s plus one or an influencer that purchased his own ticket for the event. the way he stared at jennie with almost a sense of hunger and desperation made your skin crawl. you slowly made your way across the floor, wondering if she would actually need someone to intervene. her smiles were polite but you could see the way her eyes flitted from his with nearly every word she spoke as if she was searching for an escape. the stiff mannerisms of hers came to a halt when the guy attempted to place a hand around her waist, making her flinch out of surprise. without hesitation you rushed to her side in less than three strides.

you slipped your arm behind her waist with ease, the familiar feeling bringing a genuine smile to your face. turning towards her you kissed her cheek, “hey beautiful i thought i lost you back there.” she looked up at you, a flash of fear still lingering in her gaze prompting you to pull her closer to your body. the guy in front of her tried to continue his conversation but you cut him off, “she’s with me. i expect that you’ll be returning to your table now, yes?” if looks could kill the young man would have been gone yesterday. he grew nervous with you, of all guests, standing over him, so much so that he couldn’t even utter an actual apology before literally running off.

jennie continued to stand in your hold with her hand toying at the heavy gold belts wrapped around your waist. you remained silent as you lightly took her shaking hand into your free one, “jen?” she continued to stare at the same spot on the ground as you prompted once more, “jennie?” the idol snapped out of her trance and pulled away from you, “thank you for that…” she watched as your features softened in a way that made her heart beg that she cave into you and give you the type of attention she used to. your tone changed with the next words you spoke, this time they were genuine, the same way you used to speak to her, “yeah…of course, Nini.” her heart raced at the last word, so familiar and nearly made her crack but she internally put her fist down. she wasn’t about to start this, not now and especially not here. she backed away from you as if you were a burning flame that was moments from losing control. the singer straightened her posture then said coldly, “don’t call me that.” she turned on her heel then hurried off to go talk to another A-list supermodel that probably didn’t remember what group she was actually from.

throughout the entire rest of the night jennie avoided you like the plague, no eye contact, no words exchanged, it was like you were invisible to her. the main event ended and the after parties were getting ready to begin. one of your managers found you and rushed you to meet your stylists where you were changed for the second look of the night. keeping with the theme, you wore a long sleeved white tweed top, black pants, and a large gold chanel belt. the look was worn by beverly peele in the chanel spring 1993 show. chunky gold bracelets adorned your wrist while the belt quite honestly felt like wearing a weighted hula hoop. nevertheless, you were guaranteed to be the talk of the night once again.

TipToe by Jason Derulo blasted over the speakers in one of the many rooms within the multi-million dollar mansion owned by some uppity tycoon on the Upper East Side. the lights were off with the exception of burnt orange neon lights that barely lit a damn thing in the room. despite the windows being open, the entire house felt hot as hell with all the sweaty bodies of drunk and high supermodels, singers, and A-list actors. you watched who danced alongside you, trying to avoid meeting strangers with wandering hands and lustful gazes. as you skimmed the crowd around you, a tall blonde dragged a small black haired woman to dance with her. once again your interest peaked at seeing jennie in the perfect place for you to make another move.

the bass of the music thrumed throughout your entire body as you danced your way over the now cluster of girls with jennie. you threw an arm around one of the women’s shoulders and shouted over the music, “Kenny!” the supermodel turned to face you and her face lit up as she pulled you into a hug, “Y/N!” jennie slowed her movements to the beat of the music as she watched you talking to the girl next to her. the nerves only lasted a minute because a second later she was pressing herself against Hailey Baldwin with her head resting on her shoulder and wrapping the blonde’s arm tighter around her torso. the unsuspecting model simply laughed and kissed jennie’s temple as she swayed to the beat jennie set. just as you began to look away, jennie opened one eye and smirked when she saw your dissatisfied expression and pretended you were invisible all over again.

you grew impatient and slowly slipped between Kendall and Hailey which they welcomed without question. jennie tried to keep Hailey against her but your arm slid between their bodies and Hailey switched positions with you to dance with Kendall. jennie began to make a move to leave but you pulled her back flush against your front. the gentle touch of your fingers ran down her arm making goosebumps form on her skin. you chuckled lowly and said into her ear, “come on now, dance with me.” the warmth of your body against hers was a feeling she thought she’d forgotten but now it was as if you’d never left. she turned to face you, gaining some control back before she attempted to make her leave, “i don’t want to dance with you.” her voice was saying one thing while her mind and body said another prompting you to ask, “are you sure because the way you’re holding my arm on your waist is telling me otherwise.”

jennie glared at you through those cat-like, chocolate brown eyes and thick black lashes with a gaze that made your heart race. she watched as your eyes crawled over her body with such a hunger that she would have gagged if it was anyone else. you pulled her closer to you, closing the gap between your bodies and for just a moment she almost gave into your touch. once again she backed up and swallowed thickly, “i’m doing just fine with my friends here.” you stared at her unfazed then glanced over to Kendall and Hailey who were lost in their own offbeat two step to Alone by Kim Petras. god, jennie wished she could kiss wipe that stupidly perfect, coy smirk off of your face. a few people around you both noticed that you were no longer dancing and instead standing in a confrontational position before jennie. she looked at the hand she was still holding to her body and sighed as she turned back around, dancing against your front, “i’m just not trying to cause a scene.” you laughed lowly into her ear, “whatever you say, angel.”

you held her slender waist to your body and the hand that rested by her leg into your own, lacing your fingers together with a smile. jennie slipped her hand out of yours and you tsked quietly, “and about your friends- you know goddamn well none of these girls give a fuck about you, they just care about the title you carry. they’re all up on you just to take a picture and use it to get an extra million likes and comments. you’re wasting your time staying around them because after tonight it’s gonna be like you two never met.” the idol hated to admit it but you were 100% right. when it came to western celebrities, they heard the name BLACKPINK in tandem with one of the members names, and they were immediately trying to befriend them for clout. it was evident in the way they called jisoo by the wrong name, never pronounced rosé with the proper accent, just plain forgot lisa’s name, and how at least 12 people tonight called jennie ‘jenna’ instead. despite that, she was completely used to it by now and expected ingenuity from the celebrities that she met overseas.

the singer shot you a side glare and you frowned to mock her, “don’t give me that face, just admit the fact that you know i’m right.” jennie rolled her eyes and asked in annoyance, “and what if you are? why should i care about any of that?” you answered simply, “because you and i both know you aren’t enjoying this right now.” jennie swallowed thickly as your breath ghosted the shell of her ear and she lied straight through her teeth, “i don’t know what you’re talking about, y/n. i’m having a good time.” this time your tone was slightly harsher but in a way that made her stomach erupt into butterflies, “jennie cut the shit, i know more than anyone what you look like when you’re enjoying yourself.” heat rushed to her cheeks at the implication of your words, memories filling her head only making her blush deeper.

you felt the way her body began melting into your touch and she slowly started giving into what she both desperately wanted and knew she shouldn’t do. she shook the thought from her head and turned back to face you, once again fighting internally with herself to walk away. the way your eyes transfixed on her was no help but then you uttered the words, “come on mama, let me show you a good time…for old time’s sake.” jennie clenched her jaw and you leaned your forehead against hers, without even realizing it her arms ended up over your shoulders. the feeling of your fingers trailing up her mini black dress made her stumble, making you wrap an arm around her waist once more. her voice was weak when she tried to reply with confidence, “i-i don’t think-” all you had to do was raise one eyebrow and give that same damned smile to get her to cave, “just for tonight.” immediately you smiled the million dollar smile the world fell in love with as you led jennie through the crowd to find a place in the 32 rooms of the oversized mansion. she held onto your hand until you rounded a corner and pushed it open before pressing it closed with her back against. she hated how easily she gave into your wishes but she couldn’t help it with the way you felt her up with ease, making her get lost in all that you were, making her feel like you did all those years ago.

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actual-changeling · 2 months

Note

TW // SA mention

What’s the difference between emotional manipulation and just being desperate? You said Aziraphale “speed-runs an emotional manipulation checklist” after he called Crowley back, but I didn’t get that sense at all…he just sounded confused and desperate to me? How is his “i need you” different from Crowley’s kiss, for instance? I think those are their respective most desperate moments. Can emotional manipulation be unintentional? I can maybe see it but it feels like the equivalent of calling Crowley’s kiss sexual assault. Like yes it was, but it feels like too extreme of language to use in this specific context with these specific characters, even if it does invoke an uncomfortable personal feeling (at least for me).

Hi anon!

Lots of difficult questions but I'll do my best to answer them—it won't be in chronological order, just going based on vibes and the easiest way to make it coherent. This will probably get very, very long, sorry in advance.

(side note: I will be discussing manipulation techniques in detail, so tread with caution if this is something that squicks you out or triggers you)

Can emotional manipulation be unintentional?

Short answer: Yes, absolutely!

The important thing here is that there is a gigantic difference between emotional manipulation as such and on-going emotional abuse; the latter is not something you can do on accident, it requires a certain amount of intent and power.

Emotional manipulation, on the other hand, can mean everything from the small actions we do pretty much daily to malicious attempts to influence someone else.

Appealing to someone's emotions is an average part of communication, you can see it in advertisements or when you talk your friend into doing something because "it'll be fun, trust me", and it's not necessarily bad! We're a social species, and that low-level emotional communication is a part of that.

This is commonly referred to as emotional influence or persuasion, it's generally harmless.

There is, however, a very big grey zone, and you reach that once the other person finds that they are uncomfortable or crossing their own boundaries without wanting to.

E.g. if you have a friend with a phobia of clowns and you talk them into going to the circus with you event though they do not want to, they will probably end up feeling like they have to go or you will be upset with them/it will impact your friendship.

At that point, it's no longer completely innocent, it's what most people would understand as mild (to severe depending on the situation) active manipulation.

You want someone to do something so you use what you know about them to get them to do it.

Manipulation is about control, it's about achieving your own goal without having to compromise while convincing the other person to cross whatever boundaries they need to placate you.

So, to summarize, the important questions to consider are:

what is the relationship of the people involved?

what situation is it about/what goal does one party want to achieve?

are there any relevant outside influences (e.g. a time limit)?

what is the emotional state of everyone?

are boundaries being crossed?

has this happened before/is there a pattern?

Now, I could use this checklist and comb through the entire conversation, but I will focus on that final part I mentioned.

The "status" of their argument is as follows:

Crowley has ended the conversation and wants to leave

neither of them changed their mind or has expressed any interest that they want to do so

Crowley is very hurt and no longer feels comfortable around Aziraphale (-> he put on his sunglasses)

This should have been the end of it, but Aziraphale follows him and stops him from leaving—this is not manipulation but it shows a lack of respect for Crowley's needs (and not for the first time either). Keeping an argument going when the other person actively wants to get out of it is not just unkind, it also harms the relationship you have with them; it's not like he storms off either, there is a proper ending to it.

Aziraphale's actions here made me uncomfortable too, and I can explain why!

While there are different vulnerabilities someone can exploit to manipulate someone, Aziraphale uses Crowley's biggest (and more or less only) vulnerability: his emotional connection to and dependency on Aziraphale. It is the reason Crowley has caved time and time again in the past, he loves him and does not want to lose him, and that makes him willing to hurt himself if it means keeping Aziraphale by his side and happy.

Let's go through it one by one.

Crowley! Crowley, come back, to Heaven!

He is using Crowley's name, which is the second time he does it after "nothing lasts forever". Using someone's name in a conversation is an attempt to make it more personal, to make it more 'urgent', so to speak. There is a big difference between, e.g. "I love you" and "I love you, Crowley".

Work with me! We can be together!

Here Aziraphale uses Crowley's own language against him. Earlier, Crowley said

I mean, if Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it, go off together, then we can.

It's a phrase he uses a lot, be together, do something together, go off together—and Aziraphale knows that, so either consciously or subconsciously, he uses the same language Crowley used to appeal to him. Copying someone's wording can have a bunch of reasons and effects. In this situation, I think it's simply meant to rile him up again, to make him more emotional.

Aziraphale says 'together' to make it seem like they actually want the same thing and that Crowley is in the wrong for wanting to leave the bookshop & not coming with him to heaven. It definitely hits Crowley quite deeply because he looks like he got punched and then turns away.

Angels… doing good!

Not going to linger on this one long because that alone is worth a big post. It's a moral imperative. We can do good together, don't you want to do good? Be good? Good is the superior moral option to bad, so why would you not want to do good?

It works for Aziraphale because he has his own issues around the good/evil and angel/demon dichotomy, but it does not work on Crowley because his moral compass is far too complex; he knows that 'doing good' means absolutely nothing here.

I… I need you!

Pretty much the clearest example for the emotional manipulation taking place here.

I need you.

You love me, you want me to be safe, you have always protected me in the past, so do it again. I NEED you to do this.

Openly admitting to 'needing' Crowley puts more pressure onto him to act.

How dare you not give the person you love what he needs? Do you not love him enough? Are you that selfish? Would you leave him alone and weak on purpose and deny him the support he is asking for? Aziraphale loves you, he needs you, he wants to do good things with you, why are you being mean and disagreeing? You are the bad guy here, look at how sad you are making him. He needs you—give yourself to him.

This is also known as guilt-tripping.

In the past, threats along these lines have worked. He came back to help him with Gabriel, he did not leave earth, he returned no matter how mean Aziraphale was because Crowley wants to keep him safe.

This time, Aziraphale has pushed him too far and it doesn't work, so he resorts to the next item on the list.

I don't think you understand what I'm offering you.

You don't know what you are doing but I do, so you should listen to me and follow me in what I do.

Everyone always gets caught up on Crowley calling him an idiot (which imo is perfectly justified here) but no one ever talks about the fact that Aziraphale's line here is incredibly demeaning and condescending.

CROWLEY does not know what you are offering him? The angel who fell TRYING TO CHANGE HEAVEN? You are telling him that you know better than him what that is like?

It's insulting, it's a blatant attempt at manipulation, and it is the one thing Crowley responds to.

I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.

"I understand" is a fact. He does understand. Even after all of this, Crowley does not say "I know better than you". He says I think, giving Aziraphale an opening to disagree with him, to explain his position and why he thinks he knows better than Crowley—but Aziraphale ignores it because he knows he's in the wrong.

Which brings us to the grande finale.

Well… then there's nothing more to say.

Exact mirror to their argument about Gabriel.

You're at liberty to go. If you won't, you won't. Do what I want and if you don't I will kick you out.

We can go back even further than that because Aziraphale has used this threat with a very similar wording before and had success with it.

It is essentially an ultimatum: Agree with me or I won't talk to you again. Same contents with a slightly different package. I think Crowley saw it coming this time plus Aziraphale has emotionally wrung him out already, so it does not have the desired effect.

Aziraphale still tried to use it though.

Saying Aziraphale attempted to emotionally manipulate Crowley is simply calling it what it is. It does not make him a villain or a bad guy, it does not mean that their relationship is somehow abusive.

You are right, Aziraphale is desperate and confused, he's feeling out of control, and that unfortunately makes people more likely to try and manipulate others to regain said control. I think some parts are intentional, others are unintentional and a consequence of his complete lack of self awareness and reflection, but it's manipulation nonetheless—and it's not alright that he does it.

Crowley—who is arguably even more upset and shocked—doesn't fall back on emotional manipulation.

Being upset, traumatized, in distress, mentally ill, whatever you want to list, nothing gives someone else the right to emotionally manipulate someone and abuse their known vulnerabilities. I could go through many of their conversations and write down in detail how exactly Aziraphale is trying to manipulate Crowley because this is really just the tip of the iceberg, but this is already wayyyyyyy too long, so I will save that for if anyone else has more questions.

I hope this helped clarify things, anon!

#alex answers asks #alex talks good omens #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable husbands #ineffable wives #ineffable spouses #ineffable divorce #the final fifteen #alex's unhinged meta corner #good omens meta #good omens thoughts #emotional manipulation

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6-2-aestheticsofhate · 4 months

Text

I keep thinking about which machines belonged to which countries. Which sides of the war. Who controlled them, especially.

A lot of the time in robot media robots are humanized, given wills and personalities and dreams. And while that's not necessarily untrue for Ultrakill, the flashes of personality V1 shows and how V2 acts and how the Mindflayers chose and wanted their own forms and weren't programmed to, sometimes it does hit you that they were all made to be weapons.

Very few had purposes outside of combat. Very few could be repurposed when peace was reached until they discovered hell.

I've seen people point out which countries each weapon belongs to, which languages each has printed on them. I've seen attempts and have done some myself to compare each machine to a certain real life weapon.

Before the end of the war, were there factories pumping out machines non stop? Had they repurposed factories where guns were mass produced and used them to make machine parts and weapons once human soldiers became obsolete?

How many were produced? How many made it to full scale conflict only to fall to the ground, adding to the pollution of earth that blotted out the skies?

Weapons caused the climate crisis, and this version of humanity had only ever known conflict for so long that the only way they could think to solve it was more weapons.

A facsimile of flamethrower soldiers, made to purify the air it's predecessors had tainted.

A peacekeeper to protect humans who had the same design as their most cutting edge war machine who never made it to combat.

A giant, beautiful and horrible machine that could level cities being the last resort for humanity to live on.

Humanity seemed to have recovered from the Final War and several terminal entries had mentioned peace being established after the war and, like mentioned earlier, even attempts to purify the air. One specific terminal entry says it succeeded and the earth learned to breathe again.

I have to wonder what happened for humanity to finally die off afterwards. They'd reached peace, right? They'd repurposed their machines for peace, and under their control they wouldn't be able to deviate from that, right?

Minos points out the machines crimes against humanity, and I do not know if he means the Final War itself or if the machines were the downfall of humanity.

Or if something else took control of humanity's weaponry.

I mean, it could teleport husks into human bases right?

It took humanities weaponry and grafted them onto their own, right?

It took control of old mining equipment humanity left behind, right?

It could control the terminals, right?

It was inspired by humanity, right?

It wants to be entertained, right?

A S I F H U M A N I T Y H A D A C H O I C E

#ultrakill spoilers #hhh this is probably stupid and nothing and just reiterating things in the story but i wanted to talk abt the new layer. :]#i also HAVE been really curious about what exactly caused humanity to die out if they reached peace #very very very excited to learn more context about the downfall of humanity! hope my special little guy is there #Y O U K N O W W H O

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togglesbloggle · 1 year

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Free Will is a Value Statement

When I was a kid, we had a dog. It didn’t go well.

This particular dog- one of several in my childhood, and the only time it went awry- loved us very much, and we loved him too. But when it came to strangers, he was very aggressive, and very dangerous, and not fully under our control. We’d have to lock him up when there were visitors to the house, and even then it was less ‘barking’ and more ‘baying of hounds’, and unlike some animals he didn’t suddenly turn nice when he was in the same room with them. And he was large, much too large for this to be safe. Things came to a head when my mom was taking him for a walk and he started threatening a small kid playing in their own yard, and she came back terrified that if he ever got out, somebody would be badly hurt.

I remember quite clearly the conversation where my parents told me we couldn’t keep him. They’d made the unfortunate choice to feed me cookies at the same time, to make the bad news go down easier; the net result is that there’s a specific brand of cookies that, to this day, I still can’t eat. They just turn to ashes in my mouth.

(The good news is that, against all odds, it seems the ‘farm upstate’ that they sent him to was actually real. They literally saved the receipts, so that when I got old enough to realize what that kind of story usually meant, they could give me proof that they hadn’t lied. He did live what I believe to be a happy life in what was, more or less, a wild animal sanctuary. Not all dangerous animals are so lucky, but sometimes, they are.)

The reason to dredge this up is to notice how unthinkable it was for any of us to call him ‘evil.’ Even when he was straining at the leash as hard as he could snarling and growling at a three year old, he wasn’t evil. ‘Dangerous’, yes. ‘Violent’, certainly. But not that, not ever.

And that’s how it works, right? We recoil at using the E-word for pets, young children, anyone that’s enough weaker than we are. Evil-as-an-adjective is for peers and superiors, things which present a genuine threat to us. You can watch this change for the natural world in real time- us moderns watch nature documentaries about predators avidly, and not as horror films, but our received culture still has ancient fairy tales about the ‘big bad wolf’ that date from before our conquest of Earth’s ecosystems. What a difference a little power makes! What was once a real and imminent fear, and a central figure in the atlas of evil, has withered away to a narrative archetype with no material referent, while the wolves themselves become objects of admiration and wonder, or a focus of conservation efforts, in direct proportion to our own sense of security against them.

And maybe you’re not the sort of person who thinks about evil much at all, which is honestly a pretty good strategy most of the time. It can often obstruct thinking more often than it clarifies. But even if you don’t, I’ll bet you still think about ‘justice’ a fair bit- and that follows the same rules, for about the same reasons. The punitive and remunerative kinds of justice, anyway. Was it some kind of punishment, to have that part of my family broken away when I was a child? Was my dog’s loss and confusion something he deserved? Of course not. It was just- disharmony, I suppose. We couldn’t find a way to put the world right, and so we suffered instead.

And yet when we reach a certain level of direct personal injury or threat of injury, especially by human causes- political enemies, alien people, angry mobs- then, almost without fail, we find ourselves reaching for this idea of justice. (And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?) Show me, anywhere in the world, where a person has in all sincerity called for justice- and I’ll show you someone who feels weak.

Now, I can point at sentences like ‘my dog was not evil,’ and it should be pretty clear that I’m making a value statement, rather than expressing mundane factual belief in the same mold as ‘grass is green.’ That is, I’m not disputing any mechanism of action, or trying to explain why events occurred as they did. I’m not giving you information you could use to prevent this from happening to you too, much as I hope you can. I’m telling you how I feel, about what I want, about who I am. I’m telling you about my grief.

Loosely speaking, you can imagine beliefs falling along a spectrum. Don’t take this typology too seriously, it’s just a useful distinction to make for present purposes. The first extreme of our spectrum is just the observational set of beliefs- the ‘sky is blue, grass is green’ category. These are especially good for making plans that work, since they model a system that we usually want to work with in some capacity. If you don’t want to fall off a cliff, it helps to have a good map. The second type is imperatives or value statements, beliefs about how to direct our efforts. ‘Murder is bad’ is a belief like any other, but instead of telling us how to accomplish a goal, it tells us what goals we ought to have and what ends we should work towards. (Moral realists will think of this second category as being a subset of the first; that’s perfectly reasonable but orthogonal to my point.). Both types of belief are absolutely necessary for acting in the world: the means and the end, if you like.

Here’s where I reveal my thesis: When, honestly, was the last time you used the concept of free will to make a plan?

“People have free will” sure feels like a factual belief, from the inside. It’s a description of who we are, right? Like saying we usually have two legs, like saying the Earth goes around the Sun? Only… it isn’t doing any of the things I do with factual beliefs. It doesn’t make predictions, it doesn’t expand my capacity to act on the world. If anything, ‘free will’ as a concept has a weird twisty negative definition (often something like ‘nonrandom indeterminacy’) that resists analysis of the reductive kind we usually use for this sort of thing.

And if we look at how it’s positioned in the grand constellations of human thought, it’s awkwardly conjoined with a lot of the other things I’ve been talking about here. Good, evil, justice. I use my belief in free will a lot when I’m talking about culpability or praiseworthiness, when I’m deciding what to act towards, when to cheer and when to boo.

I use it when I’m feeling weak.

Or, less personally, think about where ‘free will’ crops up in our court system. And it does, in more than a few guises. For example, altered states that compromise our volition are taken into account, and might even qualify as fully mitigating circumstances that tell the court not to punish the transgression. (“I was not negligent on that construction site, your honor, I’m a diabetic and I was having a blood sugar crash.”) In other cases, such as in murder charges, malice aforethought or planning the crime carefully might upgrade the sentence to be more harsh, whereas a crime ‘of passion’ might net fewer years in prison. (First-degree versus second-degree murder.) What all of these have in common, notably, is in assessments of culpability, relevant to the question of how strongly the community wants to punish or condemn the situation. But when it comes to the presentation of evidence, the chain of material observations that we use to establish confidence in the story of ‘what happened’, we invoke ‘motive’ instead- that is, we ask what benefits, inducements, insults, or other circumstances might have led the defendant to commit the act. “Your honor, the accused is ordained with free will and is capable of choice,” is, notably, not considered sufficient to establish motive- but “your honor, the defendant was listed in the victim’s will as a primary recipient, and they were seen to have a large argument two days before the murder,” very much is. Interesting discrepancy, no? When we ask whether we should condemn others or show mercy, we care deeply about the defendant’s capacity to exercise free choice. But when we ask material questions about what happened, trying to get a clear picture of the world as it is, we instead ask where the defendant is positioned in a causal web of material and social circumstances.

It’s hard, really hard, to reliably tell when our beliefs are about facts, describing things other than ourselves, and when they’re doing something else, paying rent in other ways. But I notice, when I was a little kid crying in the car, I never once asked whether any of this was my dog’s fault. It’s not that I didn’t know whether he had free will or not; it’s that it didn’t occur to me to ask. I asked if it was my fault, certainly. I’m sure my parents did too. But we never asked if it was his, whether he’d decided to be this way. That’s just not what ‘free will’ as a concept was for.

So, am I saying there’s “no such thing as free will” in the sense that I’m saying humans are fully deterministic and mechanistic? Nah, not really. To reiterate: I’m not saying that I have any confidence whatsoever that humans are deterministic, mechanical agents. I think there’s plenty of room for consciousness to complicate the story of causality in ways I can’t anticipate; there’s every chance that human brains aren’t just billiard balls bouncing around in a universe running on linear algebra or whatever. But I don’t think that ‘free will’ as currently discussed is in any sense an alternative to that model, either. What I’m trying to say is that ‘free will’ isn’t really a claim about what the world is like at all.

The opposite of a belief in free will isn’t ‘I assert humans are chemical robots governed by deterministic electrochemical reactions’. Instead, the opposite is ‘I am not angry at you for hurting me.’ Free will is a value statement.

Remember that ‘rate my dog’ parody account, and the central joke was that all the dogs got scores of like 12/10 or whatever? And the punchline to it all, when somebody tried to call them out on the uselessness of a rating system that always stayed maxed out: “They’re good dogs, Brent.” If I were at a high enough perch- strong enough, wise enough, safe enough- then that same optimism, I think, is the only part of my need for justice that would survive. True power doesn’t rank humans from best to worst, or spend time blaming us for outcomes that cause suffering to ourselves or to others. It doesn’t need to.

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bihanarms · 1 year

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Here's chapter 2! If you want to read the first one, don't hesitate to go to my blog ;) Feel free to correct me or suggest some ideas, happy reading~

Chapter 2 : Dilemma

Do not be fooled into thinking that las plagas are merely tools for creating powerful bioweapons. Their true value lies in their ability to control. No matter how hostile the subject, a single injection can turn anyone into a faithful servant. Who needs spies when you can turn yesterday's enemy into today's ally?

Can you imagine if Saddler had that much control? Six billion loyal servants at his sole command. There would be no opposition, no war.  Maybe for the first time in human history, the world would know peace.

But I know how Saddler and the others have oppressed the people of this island for generations. I know how he treats them. That's no way to live. And because of that, I won't let it happen. »

A drop of sweat fell on the right side of his notebook.

Luis released his pen with a trembling hand, his pulse abnormally high. All that he had witnessed on this island was too much, and he could not continue to work and support these atrocities without doing anything. Being a mere spectator to all this was destroying him bit by bit, day after day...But where to start?

He had already figured out a way to remove the parasite from a body until a certain stage, but most of the inhabitants of his former village and this island were at an advanced stage, and nothing was possible at this level of infection, except... execution.

The best thing to do was unfortunately to get out of this place while he still could, safe and sound, to save his skin.

"I'm going to blow myself up," Luis sighed with a completely overwhelmed voice, his arms hanging on both sides of his desk chair. He took a deep breath before raising his head and trying to regain his composure.

You’ve got a new notification, the sound came from his computer.

He hastily slid on his chair to reach his keyboard.

There was actually a solution...This woman named Ada Wong had just replied to his email. She came from an organization whose name he vaguely remembered and offered to get him out of this island safely, in exchange he gave her the sample called the amber he had recovered.

But could he trust her? In any case, there were few options...

Count on me, I'll bring you the amber, but you'll get me out of here, right? Ah, and if you could take a pack of cigarettes on the way... any brand will do.

With his right hand on his lighter and his left hand on the end of his lips holding his last cigarette, a cloud of smoke emanated from his mouth...

Who to trust?

His eyes suddenly opened wide, and a snap of his fingers resonated in his brain. What about (y/n)? How could he forget about her? Months had passed since then, months spent in her presence, learning more about her, personality, tastes, etc... Even though the mystery surrounding her face had still not been solved, he had become attached to her in a unique way. And as he had felt it from the beginning, she was much more than a mere woman his ego dictated he should conquer.

They trusted each other, or... was it really the case?

Luis replayed the scenes in his head, but he had never heard her express her opinion on what was happening on this island. He had tried to fish for her opinion on Saddler several times, but she had never been receptive to it, no negative or positive answer. Her response was limited to "these are things that do not concern me, Luis. My job here is to protect people like you and your work."

The poor researcher had such a tormented mind, a real headache settling in his head. He really didn't know who to believe...

Knock knock knock

His heart skipped a beat.

"Just a minute! Just a minute!"

He rushed to his notes, hiding them in drawers, closing all the tabs on his computer, and hurried to open the door.

"(y/n)?"

"What? No nickname today? You seem stressed. Something's bothering you," (y/n) said gravely.

Her tone was drier than usual. Something was wrong.

"Everything's fine, cariña. What brings you here?" Luis forced a smile.

(y/n) briefly scanned the room before turning her attention back to Luis. "Hope you are ready for big trouble. You have two hours to meet me at this location. And if I don’t see you here exactly in time, I'll come back to drag you out. »

Normally, Luis would find her authoritarian attitude a bit thrilling, but all he felt now was fear. Was Saddler ordering (y/n) to eliminate him because he suspected his betrayal? Would she take care of him in the village? After all, (y/n) used to work for Saddler before becoming his friend, from what he knew.

"See you in two hours then," Luis replied, trying to appear calm, even though he was anything but.

He closed the door and slumped against it. In any case, the place that the charming military woman had indicated was right next to where he was supposed to meet Ada.

Why not see what was waiting for him there?

hope you liked it !! chapter 3 will be out soon, be ready~ and dont worry romance’s coming back in the next chapter :p

#luis serra x reader #luis sera #resident evil #luis sera x reader #luis serra navarro #luis serra #resident evil 4 #resident evil remake

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rainstormcolors · 2 months

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1, 5, 6, 11 for Yuugi, Mai, and/or Pegasus, as it suits you :')

Thank you for the ask, and I apologize for the delay in answering. Thank you for the unique character choices too.

1. What Pokemon would you compare this character to? (may be replaced with “what Digimon” or other such monsters / critters)

I confess I’m primarily familiar with the first generation of Pokemon, and have passing knowledge of the second generation, and then all the other generations I only know of through osmosis. So my choices here will be skewed by this.

Yugi reminds me of an Eevee some – the idea of inner potential and growth and open future in a seemingly cute package – and maybe of a Nidoran and of a Paras some and even a bit of Venonat (those colors and that Kuriboh-like body). Yugi reminds me of dewy-eyed basic-level Pokemon who will grow.

For Mai, a Sensu Oricorio is what comes to mind. I saw fanart of this lavender bird Pokemon several years ago and it was the Pokemon that sprung right to mind for me as suited for Mai. The lore of this Pokemon doesn’t precisely match Mai, but she seems to seek escape and the tropics and this is a tropical bird.

Pegasus reminds me a little bit of Persian. I think a psychic Pokemon may be a solid choice too but visually Persian fits better. I do think Pegasus, while not exactly being comparable to Psyduck, would on a personal level adore Psyduck. The cartoony comedy of this suffering psychic exploding duck.

5. What is a gentle memory they might have?

I think of Yugi’s grandfather taking little Yugi to the zoo. I think of Yugi’s grandfather showing little Yugi new games that have arrived at their family’s game shop, and sometimes they’d play one together.

For Mai, I think of the fanfiction I wrote for you that mentioned Mai’s father giving her a souvenir sand dollar when she was a little girl before he died.

I think for Pegasus, the memories he harbors of his time with Cyndia dimly glow like embers. He’s lost who he was and those times are faded and dim and surrounded by the dark now, but they’re still there. What is he even doing and why? He lost the “why” a while ago.

6. What part of themself might they resent?

Yugi fears being unable to keep people -- even his friends -- interested and he hates how he feels helpless and so weak, at the beginning of the manga. I think he allows Atem to step up for him a lot because of these fears. He’s afraid of being alone but he also feels selfish for wanting people to stay, most sharply in the case of Atem.

Mai resents how she can’t be as strong and independent and confident as she projects herself to be. She holds herself to a standard she can’t reach and it’s part of the core of her insecurities. She wishes she was strong enough to stand all on her own, without anyone to lean on. She’s lived and breathed that way, and it’s like roots trapped inside a small pot that couldn’t expand, and in turn she struggles to find her footing as she finally maybe begins to want to be friends with others.

I think Pegasus doesn’t really care “who he is” anymore. He doesn’t let himself think about it.

11. What’s a superficial thing you enjoy or dislike about this character?

I like the silly little desk clock that Yugi keeps in his bedroom.

Mai can be very pretty in some of the manga panels. I like her Duelist Kingdom jacket.

Younger me liked in a certain way the “edginess” of Pegasus’ death in the manga. I don’t mean in a gleeful way – rather the bite of it.

Thank you again for the ask and thank you for your patience.

#mai kujaku #pegasus j crawford #yugi mutou

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abyssal-ali · 8 months

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The Best Bat (?)

R: T+

WC: 1.8k

TW: There is a discussion about death and could be seen as having suicidal undertones.

The small gathering of low-level Justice Leaguers crowded the two more magical members anxiously.

"I wish for the best Bat to come," chanted the one leading the teleportation/summoning.

"Wasn't that a little open-ended? And are you *sure* that won't summoning, like, a flying mammal?" Inquired a Leaguer nervously.

The chanter stared at the asker. "My power is luck. We will get the Bat we want," said the chanter confidently.

Several Leaguers seemed uneasy about leaving Bat-picking up to such a fickle thing as *luck*.

In a poof of smoke a tall figure appeared. Choking, the Leaguers brushed away the smoke...and groaned. "Uh, you're not a Bat...and we wanted someone useful..."

The summoned form glared around the room. "Firstly, rude. I am too a Bat," they rasped, gesturing to their chest piece. "Secondly, rude. The 'real' Bats are useful, but of course I'm Villain and only good at decapitating people and shooting my Jericho. 941's. Well lemme tell you something, 'kay? Villains are people too, and *some* of us are a little more competent than others. So why'd you summon me, I mean, a Bat?"

"We have two different species of alien warships heading for us, and we were hoping for maybe...Batman? Red Robin? *Someone* trusted their luck and asked for the 'best Bat,'" one of the Leaguers explained.

The Red Hood laughed long and loud at that, though the laugh came out rather scratchy and unsettling through the voice modulator.

"Hah, that's a good one. So you were hoping for a hacker or maybe a diplomat? This may surprise you, but I'm not always shoot first, ask questions later. I'm a tactician, and since you asked so nicely, I'll help out of the goodness of my heart."

A Leaguer snorted. "You call getting beat by Batman *tactician planning*?"

Hood fixed his stare on them. "Yes. There's a reason you can't reach any of the Bats right now, and it's because I shut down the city two days ago, the last step in my 10-month 'screw with Batman' plan."

Everyone exchanged uneasy glances and were immensely relieved when Wonder Woman walked in.

"Ah, you are...here to...help?" She asked, sizing up his defensive stance and the Leaguers who weren't terrified, if not a little wary.

"Yeah, I got summoned so I figured I may as well help. Never hurts to be in the JL's good graces," drawled Hood.

He turned to the leader of the little group of Leaguers. "So, what are the aliens and what exactly do you know about the situation?"

Wonder Woman watched carefully from her corner as Hood took charge and began commanding everyone around. He was orderly and aware of issues, he seemed to be skilled in delegating and not overwhelming his subordinates, and his diplomatic interactions interested her greatly.

As ambassador from Themiscyra, she had experience dealing with issues like these and so, once the connections between the ships and Watchtower were set up, she sat beside him to help.

Hood turned in surprise as Diana joined him, not expecting her to do anything more than watch and maybe drag him to a cell once the negotiations were over. She smiled and motioned to the setup. He nodded and they began.

●○●○●○●

Once the negotiations were completed Diana pushed her chair away and stood, extending her hand to Hood.

"Would you like a drink?"

"I wouldn't mind a stiff one, but I don't think certain people up here would appreciate seeing my helmetless face."

"...why not?"

"Well, when blood isn't getting pumped everywhere for several hours, your skin tends to get pale and your features don't look the greatest..."

"What?"

"I was recently revived from a sliced jugular just before I was yoinked here, so my circulation isn't quite back to normal yet."

"You were dead," Diana said flatly, and Hood nodded. "And now you're alive?"

He nodded again and shrugged.

"Just happens sometimes. I always come back--Death seems to enjoy flirting with me more than she should."

"You...die...regularly?" Piped up Superman, the eavesdropper.

"Not clockwork regular, but often enough that it's a mere inconvenience."

Clark and Diana exchanged looks.

"Anyways, aren't you going to haul me off to jail or Arkham or something?"

They looked back at him.

"Well, you did save the planet, so I'm sure that earns you a pass this time..." said Diana slowly, unsure of how to proceed.

"Yes, we appreciate you helping out, Hood. But, why?" Clark added.

"Contrary to what Bats would have you believe, I'm not a complete boor with no regard for human life. I simply exterminate the scum that the law lets away. In Gotham, especially, it's a problem, but I do it for the innocents and victims, for *their* lives, so they can live peacefully, or at least with closure. I'm not so uncouth and careless with life that I'd condemn the whole planet to die-- just the guilty. But I had to save the innocents."

Instead of sounding angry or even passionate, like Diana and Clark expected, Hood simply sounded...tired. Defeated, maybe? Of course, that could be after effects of dying and then being summoned and helping an organization that isn't exactly friendly with you.

"...so, what should we tell Batman about today?" Wondered Clark.

"Tell him whatever you want. Bruce will probably just believe I brainwashed you if you say something good. Say you forced me to help in exchange for looking the other way this once, or you tried to bring me to the Hall of Justice after, but I escaped. He won't believe that I helped you of my own free will. He refuses to see that I am capable of good and I'm not a complete monster."

Clark noticed that *this* rant got Hood a little worked up, and at the mention of Batman his heart rate picked up.

He looked meaningfully at Diana, hoping years of working together would help her figure out what he was trying to communicate.

Diana looked thoughtfully at Hood.

"How did you die, most recently, if I may ask?"

"My showdown with Batman. I forced Bruce to pick between me or the Joker. He picked the clown, like he always does, and he bataranged my throat."

Hood lifted his chin and tugged down the neck of his jacket and underarmour to show a thin scar neatly across his neck.

The two superheroes gasped.

"Batman killed?"

"He has no problem with it if they're already dead-- vampires and zombies are both fair game. I'm part both, I guess, so I don't count."

"I think you need a spar," suggested Diana. "Friendly."

Hood led the way to the empty training room, strangely quite familiar with the Watchtower's layout.

Diana and Hood squared off and they began, after agreeing to no weapons or powers. Finally, Hood pinned Diana, using an Amazonian technique with ease.

Clark announced Hood the winner and Hood got up, offering Diana a helping hand.

"Good spar," she commented. "How did you know that move?"

He shrugged dismissively. "I've had many teachers, so I know many groups' styles and moves."

"You trained for a long time before baiting Batman. Why?"

"I needed time to plan, to research, to prepare. I needed to be better than the Bat. And now that I have broken him, my work is done. I'm not sure if I'll wear this again," he looked down at his getup for a minute, "but if I do, I will only be the Red Hood to protect the innocent and avenge the victims, not play with Bruce. I may have taken his old alias, but I will *never* be like him," he muttered the last part, but both heroes still caught it.

"What did Batman do to make you hate him?" Asked Diana compassionately.

Hood laughed shortly, startled. "Hate? No, I don't hate him. I thought I did, but I don't, at least not anymore. The problem is that I loved him. He doesn't deserve any of my attention anymore, so I have relegated him to my 'indifference' list. It's pathetic to waste your life over a man who will never change. Now that I've made my point and accomplished my goal, I'm done with him."

"I'm sorry," Diana said slowly, not quite knowing what she was apologizing for, but Hood seemed to know and understand.

"It's okay. I'm going to my mom's island soon for some R+R. It'll be good to see her and the twerp. Sometimes I think he's a demon brat, but then I remember a lot...I'll raise him okay, though."

Drawn out of her memories of how a curly-haired boy in bright colors would chatter away about anything and everything like Hood seemed to be doing, Diana looked at him in surprise. He was younger than she'd thought. She changed her mental estimate of late 20's/early 30's to early 20's.

Then Hood took his helmet off and kissed her cheek.

"Goodbye, Aunt Di. You were always my favourite."

In shock, Diana let him disappear.

"Jason?" She whispered to the air.

●○●○●○●

Five years later, Robin came onto the Watchtower, insulting everyone and everything quite creatively.

Wonder Woman came to greet the poky child. He deigned to let her hug him and in her ear he whispered, "My brother says to treat you well, for you are a true queen and his aunt. He told me to tell you he is happy and to call him. Here is his number," in Ancient Greek, which Diana was pretty sure even Batman didn't know.

The spiky child slipped a paper into her pocket, then proceeded to detatch himself with colorful insults.

Diana smiled fondly at her nephew's brother and left to make a call.

Over the years she had received packages randomly, with letters, new baking, books (self-annotated), random objects/weapons from around the globe, all signed, "With love from your favorite nephew to his favorite aunt."

The last one had been two months ago and held a patch for a lab coat which said "Dr. J. Todd".

The short note with it said he'd graduated medical school and was helping treat trauma/trafficking victims.

Enclosed was a glossy 3x5" grad photo, which she promptly framed and put by her bed.

Bruce had never been able to figure out why Diana and Clark treated him colder. All of the Leaguers around that day had been sworn to secrecy even though it was likely they knew nothing, but the big two were concerningly different around him. He never figured out why.

#ali writes #the best bat (?)#immortal jason #good aunt diana #bad dad bruce

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draconicsparkle · 1 year

Text

It’s da Nagizuru! The SCP Nagizuru to be exact!

So this is going to be something different for me. I have written angst before, that is for certain. But not extreme angst. At least, not to the level as the following.

But I want to give it a shot! Especially cause @karugoround wanted to see something like this. And I got curious and visualized a story for it. So you can consider this a (very belated) birthday gift, Karu! Mega angst!!!

So before we start, I want to say this first.

Trigger warning for suicide.

And this message goes out to everyone. You are not alone. The dark clouds will pass with time. And there are people who care for you and care about you. And if you need someone to message, my inbox is open. Please stay safe.

“Ah, what a wonderful day. Wouldn’t you agree, Hajime?”

“Uh… wonderful is not the adjective I would use.”

“Oh? And why not?” Nagizuru asked as he squeezed the hand he was holding.

“Let me think. Perhaps the fact that we are wandering the halls of a highly secret location in the middle of a containment breach?” Hajime replied with exasperation, gesturing to the flashing red lights around them.

Nagizuru lifted a finger to his chin, pretending to contemplate. “Ah, I didn’t notice. I wonder who got out this time?”

Hajime rolled his eyes. “You mean besides yourself?”

The SCP smirked before tugging the human closer. “Well, that doesn’t matter. Let’s see all the sights this place has to offer! It can be like a date of some kind!”

Hajime’s face turned beet red. “A-a date?!”

Nagizuru raised an eyebrow. “Date. Noun. Definition is a social or romantic appointment or engagement.” He leaned into the other next to him. “And I’m sure you can accurately guess which of the two I would classify this as.”

The human buried his face into his free hand and groaned loudly. It made the SCP smile wider. “Oh, I do love your reactions. You are so easy to tease. It provides limitless entertainment for myself.” He tilted his head so that he could whisper into the other’s ear. “Though that fact does not make the previous words any less true.”

A high pitched whine escaped from Hajime as his emotions skyrocketed. Nagizuru smirked with satisfaction before pulling away. That would be all the teasing for now. “With that being said, come along. Let us continue. Perhaps we can find some interesting possessions left behind by the staff.” He tugged the hand he was holding gently, guiding his treasured one down a hall.

Hajime remained silent as they walked, most likely trying to regain his composure. He had more or less returned to normal by the time they had reached a larger room. There were several desks with papers and other objects scattered around. There was even a staircase on the side leading up to more offices, separated by panes of glass and a large height. “Have you been here before, Hajime?” Nagizuru inquired, picking up a small cactus that someone had decorated their desk with.

He looked back in time to see the brunette shake his head. “I mostly stick to the areas near your containment room. I don’t feel confident in my navigation skills to wander around and correctly make my way back.”

The SCP put down the cactus and teleported behind the human, hugging him tight. “You have no need to worry. For I would come find you and bring you back home safe and sound.”

Hajime made a surprised noise at the sudden embrace, but relaxed into it. “Yeah, I know you would.”

The hug kept up for a few minutes, Nagizuru enjoying this a lot. But he let go eventually, grabbing his hand again. “Now then, let’s conti-”

“Halt! Neither of you move!”

Suddenly, a horde of heavily armored soldiers stormed into the room. Each one covered head to toe in protective gear and aiming their firearms at them.

Nagizuru recognized them. They were the special force the foundation used when containment breaches occurred. The Nine-Tailed Fox force.

But he felt no fear. Nothing these humans could do were capable of harming him in a significant way. “Run along now. There is nothing for you to do here,” he stated, pulling Hajime to stand close by him.

“SCP-49878. You have broken containment. Return at once,” the leader of the squad barked in a commanding tone.

Nagizuru tilted his head. “How about… no? My date with Hajime is still in progress. It is quite rude of you to interrupt us.” He scanned the room, taking note of everything in their vicinity. And the sniper taking position in the offices above them on the other side of the glass didn’t escape his notice either. They thought they could kill him with that? How cute. “Leave us be. Go contain the others. Before you do something you regret.”

But to his disappointment, none moved. “This is your final chance. Return to your containment.”

Nagizuru grinned. “I’d like to see you try to force me.”

The leader paused. Then he uttered a single word.

“Neutralize.”

A shot rang out along with shattered glass. But strangely, he didn’t feel the impact. So where had it…

“Ah…”

Hajime let out a small sudden noise. And right after, he toppled forward, falling face first towards the hard metal floor.

Nagizuru caught him before he hit, though. He began to turn him over to see what had happened. But his eyes caught sight of something. A small hole in the side of the human’s temple. And a small stream of blood trickling down.

A heavy weight seemed to fall into his stomach at the sight. He had been shot. The sniper hadn’t been aiming for him. He had been aiming for Hajime.

His eternal smile disappeared as he finally rolled the human to see his face.

Hajime’s eyes were glassy and unseeing. His body was limp and flopped in his hold. There were no breaths being taken in and no heartbeat was audible.

All life functions had ceased within the brunette.

He was dead.

“No… no… it can’t be possible…” Nagizuru muttered, checking again and again. But every time, he reached the same conclusion.

Hajime Hinata was dead.

And there was nothing he could do to bring him back.

Once he came to that conclusion, he released a piercing, inhuman shriek that made all of the force clutch their heads in pain. And while they were distracted, they were torn apart one by one. Painfully and viciously. And the one who had taken the shot? Nagizuru made sure he felt every nanosecond of his death. Torturously slow and unbearable. He deserved it for the act he had done.

He would have kept it up for years if given the opportunity. But he couldn’t. He needed to return to Hajime. So he left the eviscerated corpse behind to return to his beloved’s side. He kneeled down, making sure to shake all the blood and gore off his claws before touching his human. He didn’t want to taint him.

He stared into the dead eyes, searching once more for signs of life. But there was none. He was gone. Gone from the world and from him.

For the first time in his existence, he felt a sharp pain rip through his soul as he held his beloved’s body in his arms. Tears began falling from his eyes, a sensation that also had never occurred. But he was not able to marvel at this, as grief clouded everything.

“Please… please don’t leave me,” he begged uselessly. “I finally found meaning. Found something I could love. Hajime… don’t go…”

He knew the rambling was pointless. Even he, with all his abilities, could not bring the dead back to life. It had not bothered him until this. What a fool he had been. He had gotten too confident. And that had resulted in the worst possible situation. He may have been invincible. But in the moment, he had forgotten that Hajime was not.

And it resulted in the greatest loss of his existence. The most painful wound. The heaviest guilt. And the most unbearable feelings of grief. And it tore him to shreds inside.

He thought no place was out of his reach. But Hajime was now in a place he could not go to.

Nagizuru then paused. An idea forming. No, he could follow Hajime. There was a way.

He stared at his claws, harder than diamond and sharper than even the finest of needles. He felt his tears begin to lessen and a smile began growing again. “Ah, how blind I was. The answer was so simple.”

Carefully, he rearranged the body he was holding, propping it up against his chest. He also closed the sightless hazel eyes. Now it simply looked like Hajime was sleeping. It eased his mind to see this. Now he could begin.

He raised his left hand up, placing the claws on his own temple. And with a quick movement, he shattered his own skull. His hand wrapped around the object inside, pulling it out.

His own brain was now in his hand, pulsating with activity. But not for much longer.

He didn’t feel any of the pain, instead looking one final time at his beloved. “Life has no meaning if you are gone from my side. So I shall readily give it up.” He kissed the cold skin. “Hajime, I’m coming to find you. No matter where you are in the afterlife, I shall not rest until we are together again. Wait for me, darling. I’ll see you soon.”

He crushed the organ in his hand. Then all faded to black.

…

Nagizuru’s eyes shot open, sitting straight up on the bed he shared with Hajime. As quick as he could, he looked to his side, praying that would not find what he had just witnessed.

And to his immense relief, he saw the human under the covers, breathing deeply with a peaceful expression. The SCP felt his heart calm and his own breathing slowed as well. It hadn’t happened. They were both alive and well.

Feeling compelled, he reached over and placed his hand on the other’s cheek. The skin was warm and was subtly moving with signs of life. He also internally scanned him. Everything was as it should be. He was healthy. He was alive.

That confirmation settled his panicked mind even more. The white haired creature laid back down, moving so that he was hugging the brunette tight. Hajime made a sleepy noise, but visibly relaxed at the feeling.

Nagizuru’s thoughts raced through his mind. What had that been? A nightmare? Or had it been a vision of future events? It could have been either. But the end result was still the same. He knew what would happen if the human was to die.

Nagizuru knew a lot. He had acquired so much knowledge throughout his existence. But he knew frighteningly little about what happened once life expired. He hadn’t cared all too much, as he was an immortal soul. Death was never a concern. But now he was faced with the fact that his one source of true happiness was mortal. And once he was gone, that was it.

So he made his mind up. And he whispered it to the quiet room and sleeping Hajime. “I swear upon my existence this oath. I shall not fail you as I did in the vision. I will keep you safe. I shall make sure you are alive. No matter the cost.”

The SCP finished, taking a deep breath. He then buried his face into the brown hair, joining him in slumber once more.

Masterpost

#danganronpa #nagito komaeda #hajime hinata #komahina #au #fanfic #drabble #nagizuru au #nagizuru #scp au

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