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singingcicadas · 5 months

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The beginning of the Decepticons according to Megatron:

The beginning of the Decepticons What Actually Happened:

That it could ever be called a revolution of the oppressed is a joke. Megatron's philosophy is purely pugno ergo sum. I fight, therefore I am. His first recruitment speech was a promise for power, made to the most bloodthirsty audience he could dig up from the dregs of society. Those people were there because they thrived off the bloodsport. They wanted audition to join Megatron in the pits. Megatron offered them something even better: turn the entire planet into our gladiatorial arena, and we take.

Ever since the beginning Megatron viewed the Decepticons as nothing but a tool, to be used and thrown away. He wanted them to be as ruthless as possible in order to wipe out all opposition, but once his end goal's achieved, well, there's no place for ruthlessness in a perfect society under his absolute control. Therefore, remodelling and recreating. It doesn't sound like he wants to rule over actual people with individual personalities, he wants a bunch of mindless drones programmed for obeisance and peace and hardcoded to Do What Megatron Says.

Ravage and Tarn. It's interesting how they both use the word "emancipated" when lauding Megatron's accomplishments, when it's clear that Megatron did so for the practical purpose of bulking up his army. He overthrew those in power because he wanted to be the one in power. The only one. The people he "emancipated" were just exchanging one set of shackles for another, as they had no choice other than to join the Decepticon army. Not fighting was not an option. Cowardice was punishable by traitor's wheel. Going neutral was also not an option. Soundwave had specific anti-neutral pogroms for those.

I wonder if they knew what "the Megatron they loved" had in mind for the Decepticons after they won the war. The remodeling and recreating. Or maybe they thought that's just for the lowly genericons. That they would be exempt from such treatment because they were confident of their privileged places at Megatron's side. After all, if you're rooting for someone whose motto is peace through tyranny, you'd do so with the expectation that it's only Other People who are going to get tyrannized.

It's true that he did rise against an oppressive government, despite it being the goal to replace it with himself as the tyrant.

But he also thought the single admirable quality about Zeta was his ruthlessness. As in trying to kill an entire city of his own people to fuel his vamparc ribbon. And he said that in front of Hot Rod, who was forced to bomb his own city to stop Zeta from winning. Even disregarding the twisted values here, this is still fifteen levels up the insensitivity lane. No wonder Hot Rod didn't want to join up.

Torture's for fun and domination. It takes a special kind of sadistic streak. And this is before the war even officially started.

Thundercracker's view on the Decepticon cause, when he defected to save humans from the nuke:

"Everything we have done here" - Just here? He'd either been living under a rock for the entirety of the war or has some serious misunderstandings about what the Decepticon name is.

Or just been willfully blind for four million years and the deaths of a hundred billion lifeforms until the day he decided to grow a conscience. Same with Soundwave.

Tarn's a really good case study because he's the poster boy of Megatron's Decepticon propaganda. Megatron probably spoonfeeds him the stuff by the gigabytes and he regurgitates them with twice the zeal and tenfold the pretentiousness. He's also the embodiment of the vices and tragedy of the Decepticons as a whole, as created by Megatron. A sadistic hypocrite, a glorified thug, a delusional fanatic, a customized tool for use and dispose. Crippled by the blinkering desire to be superior, to be part of a greater cause.

Megatron cares nothing for Tarn, just like how he cares nothing for the Decepticons. During the war they were a means to an end. After Megatron's defection, their "toxic loyalty" became a personal burden, a blemish from his past that he would like to cast aside and move on from but annoyingly refuse to leave him alone.

The road-sweepers and the haulers. The miners. What were they to Megatron during the war? Disposable cannon fodder. A pretty banner to hide behind. For a movement that likes to justify itself as a revolution of the oppressed, the emancipation of the disenfranchised, there's certainly a distinct lack of those classes among the upper Decepticon ranks. Megatron said in his recruitment speech that he wanted strength and power. Then where did that leave the weak and sick, the empties on the streets?

Nowhere but the smelting pool, to be recycled into something useful for the great Decepticon cause. They should be honoured, really.

Freedom fighters? No, freedom won't be missed. Probably has something to do with the remodelling and recreating part.

Starscream's only partially right. It was absolutely Megatron's intent to tap into that well of rage and resentment, and he meant for the riot to happen. Of course it got away from him in the end - that's what happens when you cobble an army out of bloodthirsty power-hungry degenerates, half of which were on board for the violence, half for their own scheming agendas, and the rest stitched together by charisma and fear - but he'd shaped the events enough to come a hairsbreadth away from winning multiple times. People like Shockwave and Scorponok were treacherous, but they weren't the reason that Megatron lost the war.

It was his own blind arrogance that led to his downfall.

No he didn't lose his way. He's exactly where he set himself out to be, from the moment he gave that speech in the arena. Perhaps even earlier, to that gradual slide when killing his opponent in a match no longer felt like a guilty burden but instead brought him the sweet rush of satisfaction. There was no revolution. There was no righteous cause. There was no for the people and never has been, because he did not care about other people. Four million years and countless deaths, and it was only really about one insanely self-centered person and his deluded ambition of peace through tyranny.

Hence his breakdown, because he'd just been hit in the face with the realization that he was Wrong. And has been wrong for the past four million years. He wasted everyone's lives. He wasted his own life, wasted it on anger and destruction and hatred, with nothing but regrets to show for it.

I believe that Megatron believed he's telling the truth here. I believe that he meant every word he said, except for that one "we" on the second last line.

Because that "we" should really be "me".

The Megatron who wrote about pacifist rhetoric, who was compassionate enough to share his fuel with the injured, who cared about others and had genuine friendships, that Megatron died a long time ago in the pits. Ever since then, every murder, every atrocity he'd committed in the name of "the people" was just facist rationalization.

I'm sure that he likes the sound of "emancipation of the people" or "freedom of choice" as a concept. But when it comes down to individual people? With actual, real choices that conflicts with his desire for absolute rule? Nope. He's the only one who should get to make choices. The only one who should have choices. Because he knows best.

Form dictates your function ❌; Megatron dictates your function ✅

Function dictates your fate ❌; Megatron dictates your fate ✅

Great minds must think alike, because Megatron and the Functionalist council in the Functionalist universe did a lot of the same stuff. Massacring the Senate. Recycling people who are deemed useless burdens. Remodelling and recreating. Imperalism and genociding organics. Killing all dissenters. The Functionalists even got pretty close to Megatron's ideal of peace through tyranny with 99% of the planet fitted with brain bombs and kissing the ground at their feet. They even managed to do it while maintaining a habitable planet and full population. And Megatron took one look and was disgusted.

Megatron wasn't a misunderstood revolutionist who had his heart in the right place when he started his war. The Decepticons didn't start out well-meaning and turned bad somewhere along the way. At no point in their movement were they ever true freedom fighters. They were always Facists, through and through. They were worse than the Functionalists they hated and the Senate they overthrew. And it's important to acknowledge this because (other than it's weird to see such an obvious Facist analogy being associated with freedom fighters) otherwise you don't get the whole depth of Megatron's redemption arc, especially in the Functionalist universe.

Like the impact of this scene wouldn't be fully apparant unless you take into account that when Megatron first formed the Decepticons, all he cared about was their fighting strength. He did not care about his troops, he did not care about individual people. He considered himself above everyone and everything. He would have sneered at such a weak, ineffective form of protest. Now he's actually being supportive and seeing people as people, instead of pawns to be used.

Here he's genuinely happy to see the Decepticons, even those in the very bottom of the pecking order, taking enough care to greet them each by name. And also Fulcrum, who he sentenced to death twice.

For once in his life he's actually trying to do the Right Thing instead of focusing on himself, either on his ambitions or his remorse. The people in the Functionalist universe have nothing to do with him, yet he wants to help anyway. And he's finally appreciating the value of self-determination for what it is, instead of trying to twist it to serve his own purposes or turn it into Megatron-determination.

"No one can decide how you live your life except for you." Back before, he was going to remodel his entire army to achieve his peace through tyranny. Autonomy and free will were considered things that won't be missed.

Megatron learned to care about other people! Peace through empathy is such a groundbreaking step for his character because he used to have no empathy! He stayed true to his ideals for eight centuries despite the hardships, despite his personal losses, despite the AVL being driven to near extinction and not knowing if he would ever return to his own universe. During all those years he could have had ten million chances and excuses to break his vow of pacifism or leave on the Last Light, taking the easy way out, and there would have been no one to stop him.

But he didn’t.

#transformers #idw transformers #maccadam #megatron #also he tossed his Decepticons out the back door at first chance in exchange for his freedom and legacy #the trial on Luna 2 #his frowny face when reading the surrender speech wasn’t for letting the Decepticons down it was for his own humiliation

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hero-israel · 5 months

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Let me tell you being a former Christian this shit goes so much deeper than a lot of born Jews realize. The Christian worldview (specifically Calvinist/Puritan) seeping into and pervading all of modern leftism is honestly frightening. But also it's very funny.

They believe that there are Good people and Bad people, and that any mistake or lapse in judgment or instance of not being educated is a Mask Off moment, showing who is a member of the Elect and who is not. If you fuck up, that's not just a fuck up, it's Revealing. You are damned, were always damned, you were just good at hiding it, and now we know the truth and are doubly angry because not only are you evil, you lied about it. The only recourse is to shun you, and if that leads to your death, so be it. Anyone who's seen any micro celebrity get canceled saw this in action.

And the only way you can prove you're a member of the Elect is to operate as if you have nothing to hide. You have to loudly and proudly proclaim your righteousness. If you don't have anything to hide why would you be worried? Privacy is suspicious. You Must Speak on everything they deem important or else you obviously agree with the Bad People. There is no room for discussion or healthy debate. There are no loopholes or subclauses or other points of view to consider. You're with us or against us. If you don't constantly go around saying you're with us, you're probably secretly against us. The only way to convince your neighbors, whom you inherently distrust, that you're one of the Good Ones, is to perform righteousness, parrot righteous words. The only way to redeem yourself is by grandiose acts of self flagellation, perhaps being the right demographic, or by accusing others of Heresy.

The goal is not to bring good into the world, it's to recruit more people into the same thought patterns (that's kind of all Christian denominations though). Because if you can convince your community that you're one of the Elect, that means G-d preselected you for Heaven, and you're golden. No repercussions or consequences baby. The only material benefit for you is that you "get" to proclaim you're going to Heaven and everyone has to agree with you. If anyone doesn't they're probably going to Hell anyway. You're on the right side (of history), so why should you ever self reflect or grow? Why should you question anything? Why should nuance or empathy exist? This is about Right and Wrong. We know where we stand, where do you stand?

Every single aspect of American culture and politics, right and "left" alike, was planted by the pilgrims, and it is so fundamentally antithetical to true Leftist thought. Remember all the actually successful Western Leftist movements were started in Europe (and Israel cough cough)... because they kicked all their fucking psychotic Calvinists out. Those people went to America and that's a big big big reason why we don't have any near as much of a robust Leftist movement as even socially conservative European countries (and Israel cough cough). And what's funny is I still find myself slipping into these thought patterns, which is so not compatible with Jewish philosophy or theology. It's been years and I'm still not done.

It's a hell of a drug to kick, so I definitely don't trust white goysiche college kids who've been antitheists for about 6 months since they left their Republican parents' homes to have any great success in unlearning and unprogramming from this. Which is kind of obvious in that I see them acting just like their conservative Christian parents every day on every social media platform, swap out a gun toting white Jesus with some noble savage idea of Palestine, absolving the West of its sins against the Global South.

It is a cult structured around spiritual isolation, antisocial behavior, and it is inherently against any kind of political movement that centers and celebrates the Community. It is designed to tear communities apart and foster obedience to whatever authority can force itself on them. And this has been going on for almost 500 years, there is nothing we can do about it.

Thank you for the insightful look. Their "purity culture" approach definitely had to come from somewhere.

#Leftist antisemitism #Christian antisemitism

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wickedusername · 1 month

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Apple Red

Curse!Reader x Mahito || 18+ MDNI

Synopsis:

In which our favorite shape shifting psychopath discovers the wonders of sex with someone equally fucked up in the head, all under a philosophical motif of the Knowledge Argument/Mary's Room, a thought experiment posing that certain mental states can't be known unless you experience them yourself.

A/n: Bringing this over from AO3! It was brought about in my annoyance at every Mahito fic being non-con and others yet thinking the man is illiterate. Listen, he may have been born yesterday but he's read more philosophy than you and me. This has an overarching Mary's room motif, skim it over, your enjoyment will be increased threefold. Just like your cl- Wikipedia article if you can't watch.

Tw: dead dove: do not eat, body horror, sadomaso, asphyxiation/choking, blood kink, double penetration, p in v, anal, murder kink, necrophilia mention, shapeshifting. However!! praise kink, body worship, dirty talk, consensual sex, size kink, no actual murder takes place.

Word count: 6,1k words

Epigraph:

He lowered his abs over your back again and got close to your ear. Licks, pecks and bites peppered your back, popping up in places you know mouths shouldn't be. “The pleasure of your wet, gorgeous pussy, deep and clenching for me… No dead or unwilling thing has it. You'll come for me again, won't you, dearie?

"Absolutely feral” is not enough to describe what was going on between you and Mahito. He groped every part of you, your ass, your thighs, your breasts, the fat on your hips. Arms scratched and pinched at the muscle and fat on every part of your torso with his fingers. All while his tongue licked all over your mouth and lips, swirled around yours, elongated down to your throat. His jaw took in more and more like he would gobble you up. You had your hands way up under his poncho, scratching his back to raw flesh.

This had started as a conversation. You were barely a sketch of a curse, not rivaling the strength of the other ones you knew, but shapely enough to pass as human to those who could see you. You tried your best to mind your own business and stay in hiding, fully aware the persecution of sorcerers could end you in one fell swoop. The unfinished subway station you liked to call home was where you spent most of your time. Nestled between the decaying scaffolding, the staff room was where you sat with him, the only furnished room among the many half-finished nooks of the construction site. The bare surfaces didn't bother you, and the room had remained thankfully untouched in the two or so years since construction was halted and abandoned.

You, however, neglected none of the room. Whenever you had the chance to be around humanoid curses, you made a point to invite them over. You loved to banter and befriend, but just as much as you loved to occasionally hit the jackpot for one that you could sleep with. You didn't care to investigate your origins, but you weren’t born of anything family-friendly, you knew that much.

You'd known Mahito for a while. He was introduced to you by Kenjaku, an annoying body-hijacker who'd seeked to recruit you for his revolutionary cause. You wanted none of it, especially keen on self-preservation, but the two of you had hit it off. Two curses of the psyche had plenty to commiserate about, so you often hung around each other. And you'd just now managed to have him in your nest. Of course it wasn't every time you dragged someone to your staff room that you wanted to fuck them, and you certainly wouldn't mind if it led nowhere. But he was the most human of all curses – maybe of all there were – so of course you wanted to ask him about sex. To your surprise, his opinions were less than satisfactory.

“It's not as good as murder, to be honest.” He tapped the arm of the couch he was slouched on, staring you down with conflicting feelings. It was definitely not what he was here to talk about, but it did leave him curious.

“Are you serious? You've been doing it on things that don't move, haven't you?” It was the explanation you could conoct for why he would think that.

“I can make them move, you know? I've put the parts together, it's just not all that.” He retorted.

“It's about more than the parts. It's the entirety of the person you're with.”

“I've tried full, intact humans. The first one I, uh… killed them by accident. Another one I killed beforehand and they start going cold and don't feel as nice. I kinda gave up after that, I really don't see how it's so hyped.”

“Yeah, that's not the fun way to do it. You're trying to get on the level of fragile, puny humans.” You looked to the side in pure contempt.

The disgust for human weakness nearly seeped out of you. You'd tried humans, and as good as sex was with anyone, you also boasted similar results. You had no need to kill or force, like he likely did. They flocked to you. It was easy, it was your nature. But it always ended in a body to discard. You did wonder, partly, if it was in the inherent fact of being a curse that your drive to fulfill your desire ended in human death. But killing wasn't the drive you yearned for, and you were more than happy to have something that would live to fuck another day. It was the whole reason you enjoyed other curses much more, anyway.

“Alright, I'll bite.” Mahito smiled. “What's the fun way?”

Your lips curled into a smile worth a hundred bucks. Now here you were, gripping his hair, licking his teeth and waiting eagerly for what came next.

Mahito lifted you up into his lap with what seemed like two arms wrapping around your thighs like thick belts. Two others squished and pulled on your asscheeks, torturing them, digits slipping forward to tease your clothed entrance from below. You wrapped your legs and arms around him, even though you didn't need to make much strength to be carried around. Against your belly, his hard-on pushed a tent on his leather pants. He pulled away from you with a laugh.

“This really isn't bad!”

“We haven't even started.” you leaned into his ear, scraping your lips against it before biting hard at his earlobe. “The fun part is that you can fuck me up”.

His eyes gleamed with fun and desire.

“How?” He pinned you against one of the walls. His smile was unnaturally wide, tugging at the muscles of his cheeks, pushing them up against his lower eyelids that squeezed against his fiery wide glare.

“However you want.” Your own stare burned with passion, knowing the idea of destroying you would fuel his fire to the maximum.

His dick twitched in his pants, achingly hard. A fifth arm stretched out of his stitched, toned right shoulder. His hand caressed the side of your face, combing your hair slowly back, tucking it behind your ear, before gripping your face roughly and pushing your head against the wall. He deformed it, veins and muscles bulging and pulsing in waves through your face and down your neck, while you healed up, undoing his damage and rolling your eyes back into your head. You savored his torture. His mismatched eyes burned with glee and he laughed, near maniacally, at your enjoyment.

“You-! You are too much fun!” He licked his lips and continued to cackle, like he had a front seat in the world's best joyride.

“More from the inside.” You teased. You lowered your hand to his pants and wrapped your fingers around the outline of his dick. He hissed as you stroked him, making you bite your lip at the sound.

The hand that was deforming your face stopped its transfiguring and moved to the top of your head, where it pulled your hair. He pressed your body further against the wall, giving you enough stability to bring both your hands to his pants, unzip them and allow his cock to spring free from the leather. You wrapped your hand around it and stroked him. Starting at the base, where it sprouted through the patch of brown fur that framed it, all the way to its pink round head. Your other hand caressed his abdomen, circling and clawing at the stitches in his cum gutters.

Mahito moaned and bucked his hips into your touch, squeezing your ass and thighs harder, pulling on your hair tighter. His eyes fluttered and his mouth hung open, before his sight landed on your chest, rising and falling under your tight fit shirt.

You encouraged him with a hum and the hand that was pulling your hair moved downwards, where its forearm split into halves. They promptly scrunched the cloth at the neck seam, one on each side, and ripped it apart, turning it to a cluster of circular tatters hanging from your waist and arms. His lips let out a long loud breath with the aftersound of a suppressed moan, almost like he was trying not to drool at the sight. He buried his face in your chest with nothing but nirvana in his mind.

You held the back of his head and nuzzled his hair as you kept stroking him, his pleasure-filled expression hidden between your breasts. Your breaths were heavy, and he would not stop letting out quiet grunts at your handjob. His hands roughly massaged your ass and the flesh belts around your thighs cut circulation to your feet, making them tingle. The arm that had split in two reunified, being joined by a sixth on the left side, and they both fondled your breasts. Mahito squeezed his face between the mounds and placed unrestrained bites and licks on them. When he felt himself getting close, he placed his lips against your ribs and muttered into them.

“You were right. I need the rest of it. I need to get in you.”

Mahito gripped your shoulders and slammed you against the wall once again, making you fumble the stroking rhythm you had. With the other pair of arms he gripped your asscheeks like rough dough and pulled you against him, rubbing his dick over your crotch. His nails dug in to the point of piercing cloth.

He brought his arms down from your breasts to fumble with the string of your pants. Unable to pull them or rip them away because of your legs around him, he turned around and let go of your ass, making you fall head-first into the floor. An unpleasant cracking was heard and blood splattered in a beautiful halo around your head, and you just healed the concussion shut. The only thing off the floor were your legs, still held at the sides of his hips. He stepped back and pulled your pants off with two hands at the rim and the two belts at the thighs, now sliding down to your knees and shins. When the pants were off, he tossed them to the side and recoiled the belts back into his body.

With now four arms, he crawled over you and pressed your legs apart. Mahito ripped the underwear you had like it was made of paper, throwing the pieces to the side. He held his dick in one hand, gently rubbing the head against your labia.

“God, I'm going to ruin you.” He grinned with a sing-sing tune of pure glee.

You grabbed him by the poncho and pulled him down to your level so you could talk.

“Think I'm not already rotten?” You whispered into his ear and licked your bottom lip, awaiting his response.

Instead of a witty remark, he just buried himself into you until bottoming out. He bit his lip and swallowed a big gulp, and you salivated with lascivious anticipation watching the stitches on his neck rise and fall from the movement.

“Fuck… This is good.” He muttered almost resentfully.

He threw his head back and enjoyed the feeling of your warm cunt. It was slicker than whatever he had before. Deeper. Warmer. Everything about the real thing, with the wetness and interaction of a willing participant, didn't compare to what he had done to transfigured humans, or to corpses, or to himself. Snapping back to reality, he started moving, and without much buildup he went right to pumping into you repeatedly. He was not at all mindful of still having his clothes on, of being on the cold floor, or even recalled being able to transfigure you while he was at it. All he could enjoy was the feeling.

You gripped the cloth falling over his back and started bunching it over his stitched shoulders, tucking his hair out of the way. When you got to the rim, you pulled the poncho over his head and he carelessly shoved it aside, shaking it off of the single arm that was stuck in its segmented sleeve. His hair fell forward with the movement and it now hung over you, grazing and tickling your chest. The view of his abs over you as he pounded was significantly better than a damn windowpane poncho.

Your own hands were busy as you tugged forcefully on a strand of his hair and decided to touch yourself, bringing about the familiar buildup of heat and electricity in the pit of your stomach. He noticed your hand and soon had it joined by an extra mouth, sprouting comically forward from his lower abdomen, right through his treasure trail. The mouth licked right with and over your fingers, and soon you were holding your pussy open for him, pressing down on your labia with your fingers. Their occasional twitching, your body's way to dispel some of the tension it was building.

“Do you want to feel what it's like when something comes around you? When they squeeze with you inside?” You teased, coaxing dirty talk out of him.

“I do… Come and scream my name. Fuck, I want to watch your face while you do it.”

“Then fuck me harder…” You mewled. His thrusts got stronger and he brought one of the arms sustaining his torso to grip your shoulder and push you harder against him with every pound. Your back chafed against the concrete, ripping at the skin of your scapulas. The mouth on your clit latched on and flicked its tongue around, catching the bud repeatedly.

Mahito lifted the last arm that sustained his torso from the floor, putting his weight on your thighs with the other pair. It forced them higher. It made your muscles sting. You unfolded your knees and placed your calves on his shoulders, and the position was riveting. He placed that hand on your mouth, where he pulled your lips, pinched your tongue, enjoyed the drool. Mahito straightened his back, lifting his torso away from your face. He ended up gripping your lower jaw like a handle, his knuckles under your tongue and thumb pressing into the soft spot under your chin. His nails cut the bottom of your mouth and he probably dislocated your jaw a couple of times with his thrusting, but fuck if you cared.

Your eyes rolled over as the heat built up higher and your toes curled around nothing. You thrashed your feet about in restlessness and the hands holding your thighs apart just tightened their grip, wavering with the movement of the muscles underneath them. You called out to him as promised and came around him. The pressure washed away in waves, rolling over you one by one in electric spasms. The tongue in the abdominal mouth flattened against your clit and you let it lick a trail slowly upwards. He could barely process his thoughts when the first spasm jolted your lower region.

“Ma- a- Ah!!” you fumbled your attempt to utter his name a second time.

“Ah...! Shit!” His eyes shot open and his mouth hung agape as you clenched around his dick.

He lost the regularity in his thrusting and let his sight glaze over, twitching at the feeling of your slick. The pulse brought him over the edge, and before your orgasm had fully waived he was moaning and pumping sloppily into you, spurting warm cum through your insides. His moans were even louder than yours, and his arms shook from the pleasure. Your half-lidded eyes framed by sweat met his and he had to shut them and turn his head away so he wouldn't be distracted. He moaned with the shivers that ran down his legs, his abdomen spasming and clenching. The abdominal mouth hung and drooled against your crotch, devoid of mind.

“Shit… you got so tight.” Mahito sighed, catching his breath, still coming down from his high.

“Isn't it so nice? You'll have to make me come again if you want more of that.” you giggled, partly trying to convince him to please you harder.

“Oh, I'll do so much more than make you come.” The man shook his head softly and looked down on you with a grin.

He didn't have such an issue as a refractory period. As soon as his dick went soft, he just made himself a new one and pushed that within you instead.

“Ah… More…” you cooed after his first few thrusts and it gave him a brand new idea.

Without ever pulling out, he made his cock a full double its volume. It shifted with delicious waves to the length of his foot and the thickness of a wrist. You bit your lips feeling its growth inside you, expanding your walls tighter. He pulled it out just to tease and even pushing it back took a little effort. The member stretched you open, the friction helped by all the wet and seed already inside. You felt a tinge of pride in your own pussy for taking it. He went right back to fucking. The pounding of this new dick made you feel so delightfully full, and the mild pain of his tip hitting your cervix was nothing but seasoning to your masochism. He wouldn't slide all the way in, instead he just pushed against the spongy back of your pussy until he felt too much resistance and slid back out, again and again.

The hand he once had in your mouth slithered down to your neck, where it was soon joined by the one that held your shoulder. He now had two hands on your thighs and two on your neck. He put his full weight on your trachea, and he seemed to love the feeling of wrapping his fingers around your small chunk of spine and muscle and grip it tight, with full suffocating intent. You couldn't breathe, but you didn't need to. His rhythmic slams against your cunt translated to his fingers digging harder and harder into your flesh, unrelenting as tugs on a zip tie. Pump after pump after pump, the pressure on your neck and on your cervix mixed in your head. They fought for your attention in turns with whichever felt strongest at any given second.

“Ah… I want to kill you so bad. I wanna blow you up into pieces.” Both arms pressed into your neck hard enough to scrunch it thin, folding the skin into rolls. He admired it as its color transitioned in a spotty gradient from pale to pink to red, to near grape under his fingers.

You couldn't talk, but you ran your finger under his chin and up his cheek, up to the stitches near his ear. You gripped the hair at the back of his head with both hands and held the blue-gray strands tight while he rolled repeatedly into you. He hissed in contentment at the feeling of you around him, at the sight of him around you, at the collapsing of your trachea under his hands. It made him way too aroused.

His gaze dropped slowly to your abdomen again and, with an intrusive thought, he decided to push into you until the base of his shaft. The pain stole your attention fully to your nether region. He pushed past any point of comfort into your cervix and gawked at the sight of your abdomen bulging ever so slightly to accommodate him. The sight made his dick twitch with the will to release. The feeling of pushing into your cervix past its intended size put wonderful pressure against his head. He pumped again and immediately had to stop himself because his stomach was coiling in pleasure against his will.

“Shit… I don't wanna come again already.” He let go of your neck and pulled out of you with haste, leaving with a loud sigh.

The curse panted loudly and stood up with laborious effort. He used this break to get his pants fully off. Both gasped for air, though you had much more of a reason. He wormed his legs out one after the other like boneless noodles and threw the pants in roughly the same direction where his poncho sat on the floor.

“You've made yourself such a gorgeous body.” you sat up and reached forward to grip the stitches in his thighs with admiration. You ran your digits over the raised clamps along the scar lines and resisted the urge to lean forward to kiss them. Mahito had kept human legs, even if the hairy patch around his base was still more like fur than pubes. Everything about his body was perfect to you. He snorted.

“You like it?” His smile widened. “How about this?”

With that, he split the dick mercilessly in half and reshaped both semicircles to the same girth as the first. He now had two wonderful shafts of exquisite size hanging from the soft brown fuzziness of his crotch.

“Fuck…” You whined, wordless except for the blushing in your cheeks and the glistening in your eyes. You scooted closer to him and sat up on your knees to get your mouth to the height where it could ghost over the shafts. You held them and fidgeted with their shapes, occasionally running your tongue along them, kissing their sides and cupping his balls. You looked up at him as you placed a hard lick over one of the tips and then the other in succession, tasting the precum that seeped from both. He could swear his balls ached at the sight.

“Get up and turn around for me?” Mahito grabbed both shafts and stepped back to keep you from worshiping them any longer. You bemoaned the loss, but got up and turned your back to him.

He embraced you with care and placed pecks on your neck. Mahito stretched an arm to the side and pushed the small wooden table that sat in the middle of the room against a wall. He walked forward with you until he had your legs pushing against the table’s edge and both of you faced the wall. You watched with wonder and a tinge of horror as a bramble of independent limbs split from his own and wrapped around the table.

Mahito placed a long, breathy kiss on your nape before putting his palm on your back and bending you over. You let him hold your wrists delicately and put them together above your head. He guided your forearms to lean against the wall, where he gripped them tight, making sure your hands wouldn't go anywhere. Two hands stretched from the table only to hold you by the lats, steadying you. Still carefully, the curse rubbed your shoulders and bent over you. He kissed your back and ran his other three hands down your sides, squeezing your anatomy and rubbing gentle scratches on the fats he could grip.

“You are being so wonderful, sweetheart.” Mahito placed kisses all over your back, his hair dragging ticklish paths along your sides. You looked back at him. The mood seemed to shift to something more loving than you ever expected.

“So caring all of a sudden? What's the matter, are you insecure about the b-- ahh?” He immediately shoved the top shaft inside your pussy until the base, shutting up any cocky comments coming out of you. The pain devolved your words into incoherence.

“You don't think I'm some kid, do you? I enjoy your teasing, but I'm inexperienced, not stupid. I'm being nice because I need you to relax if I want them both in.” He patted your butt and rubbed it in circles with both hands. “So you'll just enjoy it for me, yes?”

“I will… Mahito.” The line left you breathless. He was suddenly so much hotter than you'd thought. So far you thought you'd been commanding him, but it hadn't crossed your mind that he knew what he was doing. He knew what he was doing.

As he was standing behind you, he had a perfect view of your entrance dripping for him and he gripped your asscheeks and hummed while looking down at it. The way your back arched so nicely against him when he rolled his hips into you was almost as riveting and the feeling of the bottom dick rubbing against your clit with his back and forth. He pushed a few times, letting his cockhead rub on the hood of your clit, before he reached one hand around your thigh to your crotch. The man felt for your clitoris and then gave his palm a mouth to eat you out with. His fingers sprawled under your entrance, where he kept slowly rocking against you.

“Not that you don't have something I didn't know, but the missing piece was feeling it. I know plenty. It's… a Mary's room situation.” He kept talking, earnest and lost in thought while his hand sucked and licked your clit, mindlessly rubbing and patting your curves in admiration. The second shaft twitched and smeared precum on the back of his hand. “I guess it's just that… I can be too rough for humans to have any of the good stuff, I assumed I just couldn't get it.”

He placed one palm on your back and you felt the most sensitive spot of your clit peek out and expand, becoming bigger, more sensitive. Within your muscles, nerve endings branched and reached, making the pleasure increase threefold. If before you were casually enjoying his eating out, now you spasmed and lost breath as the feeling moved you dangerously up the drop of a roller-coaster. You whined incoherent.

“But you… You've shown me the pleasure in them.” He lowered his abs over your back again and got close to your ear. Licks, pecks and bites peppered your back, popping up in places you know mouths shouldn't be. “The pleasure of your wet, gorgeous pussy, deep and clenching for me… No dead or unwilling thing has it. You'll come for me again, won't you, dearie?”

“Mahito- I'm- Ah, I'm-!” Your breath hitched with the building electricity.

“That's just what I wanted to hear!” He chuckled with a genuineness that felt out of place.

The roller-coaster stopped for only a second at the peak of chilling anticipation before dropping you into a storm of pleasure, washing away. You moaned without thought, the sound echoing against the walls and bringing heat to your cheeks with the embarrassment of your pathetic noises. Your legs shook and threatened to give in, but he had more than two arms holding you tight. As you came off it your heartbeat thumped in your ears, in your chest, in your clit.

He praised you as you came, closing his eyes to enjoy your spasming velvet walls around his dick. You felt like heaven, tight, swollen to all hell, plush, malleable as a squishy toy. He couldn't believe he'd willingly discarded it as literary hyperbole. It could be as good as he'd imagined, and it was breaking him. The red of Mary's apple, sitting right in front of his eyes.

Before your mind was back to the present, he pulled out his cock dripping with slick and pressed the tip softly against your ass. With the hand that ate you out, he gathered as much wetness and he could on his fingers by rubbing them between your folds and brought that hand to your anus, where his fingers entered you to spread it all around.

He now had one hand holding your arms and one in the small of your back angling your ass up at him, another one that thrusted softly into your anus and a final one held his top shaft, preparing it to enter. You had just come off your orgasm when he pushed the shaft inside, slowly against the resistance of your ring. The burn reminded you, what you'd almost forgotten by now, that his dicks were still unpleasantly too big.

You whined and he reassured you with shushes and pats until he was in to the hilt. “You said I can fuck you up and you can't take this much? You're disappointing me…”

“It's not- a complaint.” You clarified. It really wasn't, the noises you produced were entirely reflexive.

Mahito hummed in agreement and held the bottom shaft that peeked between your thighs. He pumped it with his fist to spread the excessive precum that seeped from the tip. It had been dripping, neglected since you last licked it. He curved it towards your pussy and pushed in. You felt stuffed, entirely full, with no space left for yearning, no matter how much arousal had deepened your canal. Especially with both their sizes, it was entirely too much.

“This… is so crazy good. Even when I'm not doing anything else…” Mahito sighed as he slid leisurely back and forth into the holes, fully devoted to feeling. The pleasure of a slick recipient was doubled, occupying more of his mind than anything else had. He gripped the back of your head without looking and felt the sticky matted dirt of blood on your hair.

“Hm? What's this from?” He removed his hand in surprise.

“You… when you got my pants off.” You murmured.

“I like it.” He brought the hand to his mouth and licked the blood off it. “I think I know what I want to do…”

“I don't care what you do, just fuck me… please…” you whimpered, growing desperate at his stalling. You tried remove your hands from his grip, but they were well secured above your head. He ran that thumb over your knuckles in consolation.

“Hm, like this?” He pulled back and slammed into you in mockery.

“Yes! Please…!” you nodded vigorously.

“Is that so? I think I would rather…” He vexed and extended two of his arms forward, where they wrapped around your neck and forehead to pull your head back as far as it could bend. Your neck ached and your mouth opened wide in an effort to relieve his grip on your neck. “Even like that?”

“Anything… please-!” You begged, filling up his sadistic ego.

“Aye aye then…” he cheerfully agreed.

He held your hip with his only free hand and pounded you, over and over, without restraint. The arms that held you stretched unnaturally long to allow him to straighten his posture and pound with his full body. Grunts left his lips that sounded entirely too hot to be caused just by effort.

Mahito kept a steady rhythm and pulled your head back with his hands, forcing every muscle in the front of your neck to stretch taut. Your sight was confined to your forearms rubbing against the unpainted cement wall. His grip on your wrists turned your skin white, outlined by a flurry of red streaks. You spread your pinkies apart, trying to place your fingers on the wall, but barely achieved it, still restrained by his fist.

The hand on your neck twisted your anatomy, sending bulges of vein and muscle through you like shivers, pulsing your entire body with gross transfiguration. Not only that, but it sharpened, the web of this thumb thinning into a blade's edge and piercing into skin with his grip. You gasped in desperation as it started to dig into muscle and tried to heal the cut shut against his hand. He tightened his grip and shook your neck, back and forth, to dispel your effort.

“No.” His hand pierced further. “Let it run.”

Blood dripped down your torso, tickling your chest in its path and leaving sticky ruby trails in its wake. Drips ran down his arm and over your collarbones, contouring the mounds of your breasts, until they could reach your belly and fall to the ground, heavy with accumulated volume, unable to reach any further down and losing their grip on skin from the shaking of his pounds.

The cut burned like fire, stealing your attention from anything else. To get your focus back down, Mahito slammed into you hard and started sliding the shafts in alternating paces. He didn't need to thrust his hips: they pumped autonomously. The feeling was like nothing you'd ever had, either. You attempted to force words out of the hyperstimulating cacophony of sensations he was putting you through, shaking your attention away just to call his name. You bucked your hips backward into his thrusts, helping his movement in the only way you could.

He wrapped two more arms around your waist, gluing his body to yours again, and gripped the softness right below your ribs. You lost count of how many he had. He curved his fingers inward into the middle of your abdomen, sharpening his fingertips into precise blades, piercing at the skin and gripping as if he were going to pull out chunks with his bare hands. He gripped your fat and rammed his hips deliciously as blood ran piping hot down his forearms. The curse moaned and let his mouth hang agape, eyes half-lidded in pleasure, as the inherent eroticism of entering flesh turned him on so bad he thought he might come immediately. The pained cry that left your mouth went from his ears straight to his dick.

“Fuuuuck.” He leaned down and breathed hard against your back. The shaft in your ass twitched, bringing too much tension to his lower belly, relaying the message that with another second his balls would turn blue. You clenched your hole around it, milking it for release, and he couldn’t hold anything back. It pumped your ass full of seed, spewing jets of white inside you. Mahito placed his forehead against your spine and whined, his mouth ghosting over you with a small string of drool below. His fringe caught on beaded sweat and stuck to your back, but still he never stopped pumping. It was all only from the dick on top, the one that had been in you the longest. The one in your pussy still hurt for release, winding a fiery coil in his stomach.

His palms distorted you, shifting your insides so your flesh would compress and release against him. He was using you, making you a flesh toy, providing squeeze in his own terms. It peeved him for being too little effort from you, too close to what he already knew, but just the puffiness of your cunt against him was novelty enough. He didn't care now that he was in despair, pining for a second orgasm that didn't delay much further.

He came for the second time with cries that seemed almost painful and whipped his spine straight, carelessly forgetting himself and pulling on your head enough to snap it backwards. He moaned pathetically with the shakes of every muscle and attempted to rock his hips with faltering success. He let go of the grip in every hand and dropped his sweat-covered frame over you, pushing your body down into the table.

“Ah… ah… are you- alive?” He asked meekly at your limp, unmoving frame. He'd done things that would kill a human a few times, but he wondered if this had been too much.

“I told you I would be.” You replied with equally breathless lilt from underneath.

Happiness painted his perspective in pink and he recoiled all but two arms back while the main pair slithered underneath to hug you tenderly. The sticky layer of blood made his hug that much warmer in the literal sense, giving tangibility to the figurative warmth of his thanks. He pulled you tight into his embrace, and you folded your arms over your shoulders to pat his head on your nape, both waiting for their breaths to settle.

“I know it's been dragging out for long, but still… I don't want it to stop.” Mahito turned to nuzzle the side of your head. “I still wish I had more… more of the things only you can give.”

You pushed yourself off the table, forcing him to slip out of your holes and lift himself off as well. You turned to him and cuffed his chin to bring his lips down on yours, kissing him with sloppy nods, which one could almost mistake for a loving trade of affection. He wrapped his bloodied hands on your back, dragging trails that mixed with sweat to smear more than they should. Your lips separated and your eyes met his mismatched pair, half-lidded and full of wonder.

“Tell me…” you whispered into his lips with confidence he had expected to have snuffed out after all this.

“I want to experience your body more…” He licked his bottom lip, unable to divert his eyes from yours. “Let me find out how much I can dismantle you before you break”.

“If you still have the vigor, I'll give you something that you really never had from your attempts.”

You pushed him backwards, making him stumble with crooked steps and fall on his ass. His smile spread further than humanly possible when you got down and crawled over him, dressed in a stained scarf of blood that licked your entire torso in red.

You kneeled at the sides of his hips and reached down to ride him.

#mahito x reader #jujutsu kaisen fic #jjk x reader #mahito #mahito smut #fanfic #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #smut #dead dove do not eat

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cryptotheism · 4 months

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This is probably a question you get often, but is there like a textual middle point between ‘here are some pagan rituals’ and ‘an ancient fragmented tome that has been encrypted twice?’

Every time I’ve tried to delve into occultism it feels completely unintelligible and nothing sticks to my brain. I just feel very discouraged (which is probably the point)

Is there background knowledge I’m missing? Is there a better entry point? Should I just make myself read the incomprehensible stuff? I’m just lost.

That is an excellent question, and one that I was deeply curious about myself when I first got into the occult.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that yes! There is a middle ground between entry level resources and things like hardcore analysis of primary texts and historical materials. The bad news is that it's philosophy. Like, normal philosophy. Like you have to read Plato.

You can speedrun this process by finding a community to join. Maybe look for people performing gnostic masses in your area. Make friends with other practicioners! Try not to get recruited into a pyramid scheme though.

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vanvelding · 6 months

Text

I'm going to say one of the nicest things I can about a show about Star Trek: Lower Decks

They played us like a string quartet.

(Spoilers for 4x09: "The Inner Fight")

Lower Decks was sold a Star Trek/Rick & Morty mashup from the start. The first scene is a drunken Mariner literally harming her sidekick, Boimler. It practically screamed, "Mariner & Boimler a hundred tours! Double-u, double-u, double-u dot Mariner and boimler dot com!"

But of course, it also had Star Trek references. One of the earliest is "Who would win in a fight? Khan or Roga Danar?" Why would anyone else in The Federation know or care who Roga Danar is? And there's no imagination on display for the oldest referential paradigm, "Who would win in a fight?" Lazy. Bullshit.

Of course before the end of season one, Lower Decks showed us it was more than that. Boimler was gaining the kind of experience he needed. The story hinted very strongly that Mariner had been in Starfleet a LONG time. She wasn't a omnicompotent mary sue; she was a Commander with her own philosophy/trauma that compelled her to remain an Ensign.

It was a good show and it stood on its own. The references were used well to create interesting stories ("Twovix"), as part of the setting ("Hear All, Trust Nothing"), or just as a gag here and there ("Kayshon, His Eyes Open" and, like a dozen others). The references to the setting become the background radiation, remarkable in how deep a cut they really are (Vendorians?). I've described it to many people as "Star Trek, but everyone has watched Star Trek."

What it wasn't, was related to its namesake. "Lower Decks" was a surprisingly heavy episode about the younger members of the Enterprise crew and their perspective on the missions of galactic import that the viewer usually enjoys an omnisicent view of.

Lower Decks mentions our main cast don't have that omniscient view, but Mariner is a stone-cold badass, Rutherford was part of a secret effort to develop artificial intelligence, Tendi is the Mistress of the Winter Constellations, and Boimler--actually Biomler is no more exceptional than any other Starfleet officer.

So when we get our main cast and the senior officers into a room and they mention Nick Locarno, our thought is, "LOL, another reference. This one from TNG. Not particularly deep. LOL, Boimler is a Beverly Crusher fanboy. I guess it makes sense, they have the character model from the episode with Tom Paris. Clearly, Robert Duncan McNeil is happy to do some voice work. We'll probably make a reference to how much he looks like Tom Paris.

"lol"

Look, if you figured it out then pat yourself on the back. Me? I filed away another reference. I didn't realize that Nick Locarno was connected to the episode of TNG that was this entire series' namesake. The characters even say, "Who?" which is one of the first times they don't get a Star Trek reference. Because Nick Locarno isn't a part of the Star Trek universe they view with an enthusiastic fandomness; it's part of their dramatic history, whether they know it or not.

"ha-ha, I guess Nick Locarno is too deep a cut for the show that called back to Morgan fucking Bateson."

But whatever, A-plot/B-plot. Gags about Starfleet habitually rolling up to seedy establishments in uniforms while looking for information, which is subverted by Captain Freeman being fucking genre savvy (also, wasn't she going to be promoted before getting arrested at the end of season two? I guess getting framed for a crime was deemed to be not very 'admiral-able'). Mariner ends up in a cave with a Klingon taking shelter from a crystal rain.

The pieces are there. Mariner was an ensign during The Dominion War. Two to three years before The Dominion War, Wesley Crusher left Starfleet, our Nick Locarno expy Tom Paris was recruited to Voyager, and Sito Jaxa was an ensign.

And Nick Locarno is in play.

We could have figured it out! We're in the narrative and emotional third act of this series (Tendi gave us the "We'll always be friends" speech last week)! Everyone regular just sat in a room trying to figure out how to help Mariner; we were one fruit salad analogy away from an intervention with Dr. Migleemoo!

Mariner escapes from Cardassian interrogation chambers for fun!

But Locarno is just another TNG reference, like Beverly Crusher. Background radiation. The season's story arc is something original to Lower Decks, which it's proven it's unafraid to do at this point. The series has no relation to "Lower Decks"

And then they fucking hit us with it; Beckett Mariner knew Sito Jaxa. They were friends. Then Jaxa died.

That's Mariner's trauma (that and The Dominion War).

And I didn't see it because I came to see Lower Decks as a series that stood on its own merits as a show while calling back to earlier Treks in a light, non-committal way. And I credit that solely to the writing of the show which leveraged both of those qualities to make an entertaining show that I like before, but now respect.

Just amazing stuff.

#star trek #star trek lower decks #star trek lwd #lower decks #lower decks spoilers #star trek lwd spoilers

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iliaclwrites · 2 years

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Ok I have to be honest I am a sucker for scenarios where Jason has a crush on y/n but she's dating Eddie. Eddie getting to rub it in jasons face is just so satisfying. Idk maybe I just really love Eddie and really hate Jason. Soooo I was wondering if I could request that. Maybe Jason is always flirting with her and Eddie is finally just like “fuck it” and kisses her right in front of him?

Tysm I'm in love with your writing btw ❤️❤️❤️

You were sitting with your friends on the lunch table, when you felt a heavy hand land on your shoulder. You look up, already starting to smile at the idea it was Eddie, only to come face to face with Jason Carver. The smile freezes. "Oh. Uh. Hi, Jason," you said, and took a sip of your CapriSun to cover your awkwardness. "What can I do for you?"

He smiled at you, and you swallowed thickly. "Well," he said, shifting his weight. "It's the big game tonight, and I was wondering if you'd like an invite to the afterparty. It's at mine."

You blinked. "What, on a Tuesday?"

"Um." He stared at you. "Yeah?"

You bit your lip. "I dunno, Jason. It's a schoolnight. I've got plans, too," you added. "I've got to do homework. Yeah." You nodded twice. "Mrs. Bryce is on my ass. Maybe next time, then?"

"Definitely next time," Jason responded, and winked at you. "Just you and me, I promise." When he left, your friends closed ranks around you, howling at what had just happened. You caught Eddie's eyes above their heads -- he was watching you, chin in his hand.

"What was that all about," he asked, walking you out of the cafeteria. "Jason wanted to recruit you to his Bible study, or something?" He tucked you hair behind your ear and twisted so he was leaning against a locker, watching you fumble.

"I think," you said slowly, piecing together the encounter in your brain, "he asked me out."

Eddie slipped against the locker. "What, like a date?"

"No, like a multi-level marketing scheme," you retorted, and flipped your hair over your shoulder. "Yes, like a date, Eddie." He crowed, punching a fist in the air. "Uh. That's not the reaction I was expecting."

Eddie grinned, pulling you into his arms. "That asshole has been a stick up my ass for almost my whole life," he exclaimed. "Finally I have the high ground."

You looked at him drily. "What am I, chattel?"

He cooed, pressing your cheeks together between his palms. "Just the prettiest chattel this side of the Mississippi, babygirl." He snuck a kiss from you. "Aw, princess. This made my week. Nothing could make this better."

"Okay," Eddie huffed against your mouth as he pressed you up against the hood of your car, "this could definitely make my week better. Get my lawyer to scratch that from my record."

"Oh my god," you muttered, pulling him between your legs. "Literally, shut up."

"Shutting up."

Eddie threaded his hands through your hair, tugging it gently until your mouth opened against his, sticking his hands in the pockets of your jeans and grabbing. "Eddie!" you gasped, wrenching your head back. "Quit it, we're in school."

"Mmm," he mumbled, nosing at your neck. "It's technically after hours." That was true. You were picking him up from Hellfire, taking him back to yours for dinner with your parents, like you did every Tuesday night. "Is a school still a school if it's not operating as a school?"

"I dropped AP Philosophy," you whispered, entirely too focused on how his hands were snaking up your back. "So I have no idea."

"I don't really care," Eddie agreed, "but we can totally have a Socratic debate about it la-aaaaah the fuck?"

He was hauled away from you by his collar, arms flailing at his assailant. Jason. "The fuck are you doing here, freak?" Jason spat, before turning to look at you. "Hey. Is he bothering you?"

"Uh," you said, intelligently. "No?"

Jason blinked. "Wh-- you? What are you doing here?" he asked you, staring. "I thought you said you had to do homework?"

"Hi," Eddie said, dangling from Jason’s iron grip. "I'm homework."

#eddie munson x female character #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fic #jason carver x reader #lol

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lowfunctioningoptimist · 2 months

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Being a former Schoolteacher in the Van Der Linde Gang

Prompt: {Reader as a Former Teacher in the Van Der Linde Gang}

Fem!Reader x Various

Summary: It’s no secret that the Van Der Linde Gang brought together all sorts of misfits of all sorts of backgrounds. Hosea had been a stage actor, Bill had been a soldier, and Javier was once a revolutionary. However, with all these strange yet vibrant histories, yours always made you stand out. Far to off in the eastern side of the country, you had lived a modest but respectable life as a schoolteacher.

Note: Reader is written as being in her late twenties to early thirties. I only have Arthur, John, Dutch, Abigail, Mary-Beth, Javier, Molly, and Sean in this post. I do intend to write the others, I just didn't want this to be too long. I can also write specific imagines or romantic hcs if requested!

ARTHUR

He’s likely to be the first to develop a crush on you. Honestly.

Arthur finds you comforting. You carry yourself with a warmth and a certain air of confidence that makes him feel safe in your presence. He didn’t have much schooling, so he sometimes gets shy about talking about academic subjects. Still, you do manage to coax him into deeper conversations than just “mornin’” and “lovely day, ain’t it?”

Arthur is softer than he seems and sees more than he’s always willing to say. After cracking through the awkward small-talk phase of your friendship, you and Arthur begin to talk more on philosophy. He’s never considered himself all that smart, but you tell him that he’s insightful. Insightful? Him? It's enough to make him blush sometimes.

As he gets to know you better, Arthur starts to do small favors for you. Nothing too big. Just things like bringing back books from town or little trinkets he thought you might like. If you need help with your chores, he might just join you if Miss Grimshaw ain't around. Certain people in the gang have taken to calling him, "teacher's pet."

JOHN

He hardly paid you any mind, at first.

After you spent a few weeks with the gang, he started seeing you with Jack. Thought nothing of it, at first. Then it became a regular occurrence and despite himself, he got just a touch paranoid. You were brand new to the gang. A stranger. Why would Abigail let you near his her son? He confronted her only to find out that Abigail had asked you to teach Jack as his own private tutor. Needless to say, he felt a bit silly.

From what he can tell, you're not half-bad of a teacher. Jack's learning his numbers, writing his name, and is starting to ask for more books. While a part of him wants to be happy... it only vexes him further. Why would such an innocent civilian such as yourself be all the way out here?

John takes a while to warm up to you, but you proved to be less stuffy than you looked. You have a firm yet gentle way about you. And somehow, you can correct someone without ever making them feel stupid or simple for it.

DUTCH

He enjoys your keen mind and education, but he also resents it.

Dutch won't share with the others how he found you or how you became an outlaw. He likes to say that it's your story to tell. Really, he just like to know something no one else does. His reason for recruiting you was just as simple, he hadn't met someone like you before.

It's not everyday he meets an ex-teacher-turned-outlaw. Dutch found your situation interesting, unique. He does so like to collect outcasts. Especially one as educated and clean as you. Dutch starts to linger by you as you do your chores to initiate a playful debate. Unlike most in the gang, you disagree with some of his philosophies and have counterarguments that make him pause. That's not to say you've ever convinced him to change his mind, oh no. His pauses are more for him to steady himself so he doesn't show how bothered your resistance makes him.

As much as Dutch loves to spar with you mentally, he secretly finds offense in your obstinance. What you see as playful debate may just turn into a case against you as a traitor.

JAVIER

Now, this one may seem odd, but Javier is second most likely to develop a strong attraction for you.

When he first saw you, it wasn’t precisely love at first sight. You were new, having joined just after Charles. Javier agreed with Bill that you wouldn’t last long. Everything about you just screamed, “civilian.” You dressed modestly, wore spectacles, spoke proper English, and seemed clueless as how to survive in the west. The only reason he didn’t outright resent you was because Dutch had been the one to bring you into the gang.

The crush started around the same time you got more comfortable at camp. Sometimes you let your hair down, literally and figuratively, both of which he found very attractive. You have a mouth on you, and you aren’t scared of much. Seeing you stare down Bill for swearing in front of Jack was enough to prove that. He likes how tough but fair you are. How you’re educated but you’re not stuck up about it, unlike some he’s met.

MARY-BETH

Is shy about it, but eventually goes to you for help with her writing.

Mary-Beth finds out that you both like “silly romance,” books and she starts to talk about how she writes her own. With it being so hard to find new things to read, you jump at the chance to read her work. Mary-Beth is quite shy about it, but she lets you read a few pages. Much to her surprise, you praise the work and ask for more. She starts to use you as an editor for some of her short stories. You enjoy her writing quite a lot and encourage her to keep going.

You and Mary-Beth get on very well. You’re both bookworms and not too keen on violence for violence’s sake. Privately, you talk about what you hope your life will be like some day.

SEAN

Finds the fact that you’re an outlaw to be completely hilarious.

As he gets more used to your presence, Sean starts to come to you with questions about the world. He does this because, as a teacher, he assumes you must know the answer to at least some of these. Questions like, “Why do we call ducks and geese different things when they look alike?” or “How’d we even decide what to name things? Did we see an orange’n on a trre an’ tink, ‘Oh now that’s an orange!’ or did we already have the color all sorted out? How’d they name colors to begin with?”

Sean will sometimes follow you around camp to ask you these questions, and the gang finds it quite funny. You’ll just be doing your chores with Sean slinking behind you as his mouth runs a mile a minute. What surprises most is that you usually at least try to give him an answer. Some folks didn’t believe you were really a teacher when you first joined… They believed you after they saw how patient you can be with Sean.

ABIGAIL

First, she was suspicious of you. Then, she trusted you more than most.

Once Abigail was certain you weren’t going to sprint back into town to turn everyone in, she had a favor to ask. Jack was getting older and although Hosea and Dutch offered to teach him to read and write, they hadn’t the time to start. She asked you to teach him whatever you could when time allowed. You were excited to help, eager. Jack being as young as he was, took to your lessons fast. In little time, you were helping him sound out sentences and write his name. This started a new problem for Abigail, however. She never learned to read or write herself. Jack would try to show her his work, or ask her to read him a story, and she couldn’t.

Instead of shaming her, you offered to teach her how to read as well. Abigail refused at first, but relented when you said she could teach you how to sew in return. Through her, you start to feel more a part of the gang.

MOLLY

She only started to have a problem with you once she realized you weren’t some old hag.

When you first joined the gang, you were still dressing like a teacher. Your clothes were bulky and formless, hair all pulled back in a bun, and you were quiet. As you got more into the outlaw life, you started to dress a bit more like the other women. Started showing more of your personality. And more importantly, Dutch started to pull you aside more often.

Molly can’t help but feel paranoid about you and Dutch. When she spies in on you two, all she sees is you both reading or debating. It’s not as if he’s holding your hand or whispering in your ear… but it feels wrong. Dutch talks to you about things he won’t talk to her about. Books, philosophy, world events, the strange and esoteric. It feels like you satisfy him in a way she can’t, and Molly comes unglued thinking about it.

#rdr2 x you #rdr2 x reader #rdr2 #rdr2 imagine #arthur morgan x reader

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introspectivememories · 4 months

Text

what's wrong with data analyst bernard?

summary: tim's a workaholic ceo. bernard is, to put it simply, a down-on-his-luck loser with a kid to take care of. somewhere along the line, they meet. (very loosely based on the 2018 hit kdrama, "what's wrong with secretary kim?")

A/N: for @chamiryokuroi bc this fanart has given me brainrot since the moment i saw it. but also bc, i missed writing and your art helped. i hope you like it. (more notes at the end.)

Today is a good day, Bernard thinks happily, brand new ID badge bouncing on his tie. It's his first day at Wayne Ent. and Mori had sent him off with a hug and muttered, "have a good day, Tou-san." It's been bouncing around in his head all day. Tou-san, Tou-san, Tou-san, he's really a dad now. He's got to make sure Mori has everything he needs and this new job is going to make sure he can do that.

Shaking his head once to clear it, he takes a sip of the complimentary coffee a team member bought him for his first day. His team leader, Young-joon Lee, is taking him on a tour of the building. Young-joon is a wonderful man in his late 30s but it's very clear that he's been consumed by the office lifestyle.

"...and here is our magnificent lobby!" Young-joon is saying as he tunes back in. His team leader spreads his arms wide out as he speaks, "Everyone knows the lobby but it's my personal philosophy that making friends or at least being on amicable terms with the ground floor staff will make your life easier."

Bernard laughs politely, "I know what you mean. I can't tell you how many times being nice to the host at the restaurant I used to work at saved my butt during rush hour."

"A man after my own heart!" Young-joon says, smiling widely as he leads him to the help desk.

Bernard tilts his head up to look at the skylight. It's a gorgeous thing with little animal motifs running alongside it. It lights up the lobby bringing a welcoming feeling into it. With the sunlight pouring into the room, along with the din of busy workers in slacks running to and fro, it really feels like stepping into a movie.

Are you seeing me Darls?, he thinks with a childlike glee, hand coming up to thumb at his badge again, I made it!

"This, my friend," Young-joon says, pulling up to the help-desk, "is our wonder-duo. Tamara and Abhishek. They practically run this building. Lord knows we'd be tripping all over ourselves without them."

Tamara and Abhishek smile as they get introduced.

"They run this building?" he asks confusedly.

"You see, young padawan," Abhishek says, "not only do we help the people that come in here asking questions or for instructions, we also answer any questions the staff has for us."

"Things like, 'What's HR’s number?' or 'Can you page Data for me?' or 'No seriously, I'm calling HR on this man right now. What is their number?'" Tamara says grinning.

Bernard laughs. It feels like that's all he's been doing since he got here. "You have to tell me the story on that one day."

"Sorry," Tamara says, faux-apologetic, "the minimum clearance on that story is half-a-year. Gotta level up."

His cheeks hurt from smiling. This is his and Mori's new beginning. This is where they level up. Nothing's gonna stop him now.

"Do you know the story behind that one?" he asks, turning to Young-joon.

"Of course! But where would be the fun in telling you? You have to stay the six months and if luck comes my way, longer."

"You want me for longer?"

"Of course, I saw the way you worked during those practice problems in the interview. I had to fight the other team leaders for you. It was brutal."

"Get back I say!" Young-joon says, miming a sword fight. A pleased warmth builds in his chest; they wanted him, they wanted him!

Darls you better be fucking watching this. I'm movin' up in the world.

"Ooh, send me that footage. I wanna see our newest recruits skills," Abhishek says.

"You got the data team fighting over you?" Tamara asks, eyebrows raised, "I wanna see it—"

Whatever she was going to say is cut off by the sound of both of their pagers pinging. Immediately going stock still, they start typing on their computers.

Bernard turns to Young-joon confused but his team leader looks like nothing is out of the ordinary.

"The boss is coming." Young-joon says, like that's a reasonable explanation for two people shutting down in the middle of the conversation, "It's always quite a spectacle and they always have to notify the other execs. Just watch."

Still, the boss? Maybe Bruce Wayne will say 'hi' to him and he'll charm the CEO and Mr. Wayne can figure out a way to—

No, no. He's done making those kinds of fantasies. Nobody is coming to help. Bernard is going to figure out his life on his own, he is going to take such good care of his kid, and he is not going to wait for some rich billionaire to swoop in and take care of him. He got this far didn't he? He'll get even farther.

He and his team leader lean against the help desk sipping coffee as they wait for the CEO to come in and sure enough, a black Rolls Royce pulls up to the driveway in the front. The minute the door opens, flashes from the paparazzi's cameras start going off. Out steps a bodyguard in a black suit with an umbrella opened. From below the umbrella he sees a nice pair of brown loafers step out. The CEO seems to be wearing a navy blue suit today. The paparazzi roars and the flashes increase.

"Oh wow," a man remarks a few feet away from him, "the circus is strong today, huh?" His friend laughs.

A woman wearing red heels steps out after the CEO, the paparazzi flashes decrease dramatically. More bodyguards exit after the woman and form a square around the CEO and his assistant/secretary. They shuffle towards the entrance where he sees the elderly doormen greet the executives with a smile. Whatever they say is lost to the sound of the city but the doormen laugh and push the doors open.

Young-joon's been making small talk throughout the entrance and Bernard tries to keep up but whatever the hell is going on at the entrance is way more interesting than anything his team leader is talking about. As they enter the guards spread out and dissolve the square. The woman comes into view first, red heels with a black slacks and a white button down. She's holding a long coat in one hand and a laptop bag slung over her shoulder. She's gorgeous and clearly the one in charge, going by the way she barks orders at the guards.

Young-joon says something and he turns around to respond, grabbing his coffee cup off the desk counter. His CEO's loafers tap across the lobby's marble floor, something about it is comforting. A lull in the room's conversations causes the CEO's voice to carry over.

"...Tam, make sure the quarterly reports are on my desk by at least 4 today and make sure to push back the sales meeting by 30 minutes to an hour, the board wants to talk — Oh Mr. Bardakcı! Thank you for stay—..."

Bernard's heart jackrabbits in his chest. He knows that voice but- it can't be. It's not possible; he chose Wayne Enterprises for a reason. He's not supposed to be here. He's supposed to be at his father's company. Unless... there was a merger? No, that seems like the kind of thing the news wouldn't've shut up about. He would've known.

When was the last time you had time to sit down and read the news, Bear? Darls says inside his head

She's right. With filing for custody of Mori and graduating from college and the job search, he hasn't had time for much else. It's entirely possible that he could've missed one of the biggest mergers of the decade.

Fuck, Fuck.

He wasn't supposed to be here. Bernard was supposed to be moving on. He was supposed to be building a life for himself away from the shadows of his childhood. He was supposed to be forgetting that Tim Drake ever existed.

He has to make sure though. Turning his body around, he prays that it's not the man he thinks it is. But sure enough, there stands Tim Drake, resplendent in a navy blue suit and a golden tie.

Golden ties for golden boys, he thinks absentmindedly.

The suit fits him perfectly, stretching across his shoulders and wrapping around his waist. Even the tie looks knotted perfectly. How long did it take him to learn, Bernard wonders. He could never get it right back in high school. Does his assistant Tam do it- no, no! This is why he didn't apply to Drake Industries. Bernard can't do anything around Tim and Tim is never going to care enough about him to stay.

Tim's head seems to be turning in his direction and Bernard whips his head back to make sure Tim doesn’t even catch a glimpse of him. His hand twitches violently enough that the coffee cup falls out of his hand and spills all over the floor. The cup rattles deafeningly on the floor. Bernard can't fucking breathe.

"-ernard? Bernard!" his team leader's voice cuts through the haze in his head. Young-joon looks concerned, "Are you okay?"

He blinks slowly, "...What?"

"I said, 'Are you okay?’ You look like you've seen a ghost?"

No, Bernard thinks, seeing Darls would be preferable to whatever level of hell I've found myself in.

"I'm—, I'm fine." he says rather unconvincingly. His eyes dart back to the spill, "What am I saying? There's a large puddle of coffee on the floor. I—, I should get some paper towels for that."

"Do you have any paper towels, Wonder-Duo?" he asks, trying desperately to ignore Tamara and Abhishek's concerned looks.

"I already called the custodial staff," Tamara says slowly, like she’s trying not to spook him, "but if it makes you feel any better," she pulls out a huge stack of paper towels, "go crazy, I guess."

Bernard takes a handful of paper towels and gets to work. The cleaning is meditative and with each swipe of the paper towel, the puddle gets smaller. Bernard pretends the puddle is his feelings for Tim. Swipe, forget about the 4pm milkshakes and his laughter when Darls snorted milk out of her nose. Swipe, don't think about the way he used to smell. Swipe, he left and never looked back; you don't look back either.

The tap, tap, tap of loafer on marble is getting closer to them for some reason. Why is it getting closer? Does it not have staff meetings, market research, and people to leave behind?

"What is going on here?" Tim asks.

"Nothing much, sir." Abhishek responds, "Newbie just spilled some coffee."

Abhishek, no!

"Oh is that all? And he took the initiative to start cleaning instead of waiting for the custodial staff. You made a good choice, Young-joon."

"Thank you, sir!" Young-joon says, "I was taking him on the tour when you came in. Most newbies love the show so I thought we'd stop here for a little bit."

Tim laughs. Bernard hates that his heart still skips a beat at the sound.

A pair of brown loafers and a wool-covered knee slowly appear in his vision. Why is Tim crouching in front of him? Why won't this man leave him alone?

"This looks like quite a lot of work, let me help."

You can help by leaving me the hell alone, he thinks uncharitably.

"I hope you found the facilities to your liking," Tim continues, like he hadn't heard Bernard's thoughts, "My name is Tim Drake-Wayne, CEO."

I know, he wants to say. I know you're Tim Drake. I know you like to skateboard and that you stared at Tony Hawk's photo for an hour every day in high school ‘cause didn't want to be one of those people who didn't recognize him. I know you struggled with your dad not really being there. I know you loved Mrs. Winters as much as you loved your mom. I know that you like history more than any other subject even though your best was always math.

Bernard says nothing instead.

Tim laughs awkwardly and Bernard knows he isn't helping the conversation along but whatever, he's allowed to be petty, right?

"I assure you, whatever you heard in the tabloids and the news, isn't true. I promise I won't bite…," Tim’s voice trails off as Bernard lifts his head.

"...Bernard?" Tim whispers, he looks like he's seen a ghost.

Bernard tries for a smile, he's pretty sure it comes out looking like a grimace.

"Sir," he says nodding curtly, hands still moving to sweep up the coffee puddle.

Tim's hand reaches out to touch his face, as if to make sure Bernard is really there. Bernard recoils as Tim's hand grazes his cheek. Tim's hand hangs in the air uselessly.

"Bernard?" Tim says again, as if to make sure his eyes aren't playing tricks on him.

"That's my name, Sir," he says through clenched teeth, "don't wear it out."

He can feel Young-joon and the Wonder-Duo's confused stare but he says nothing. What would he even say, really?

Hey, this is my old friend Tim Drake? Hey, I used to know him like the back of my hand? Hey, our best friend died and it feels like I'm the only one still grieving? Hey, in my junior year, five different gangs shot up my school and my best friend died in my arms and he left and I had to pick up the pieces by myself? Hey, I'm the idiot that's still in love with Tim Drake?

The clack of Tam's heels comes as a welcome distraction.

"Tim!" she says, grabbing his arm and pulling him away, "What the hell do you think you're doing? We have to go talk to the board. Build rapport with your employees later."

Tim stumbles to his feet, "Yes, but—, I—, This is—"

He sounds like he's glitching. Bastard. Is it really such a surprise to see Bernard in a well paying job? Even Tam is starting to look a little concerned now.

"Explain later," she commands, dragging Tim behind her. Bernard keeps his head down and continues wiping up the coffee puddle. Sneaking a glance upward shows him that Tim keeps turning back around to stare at him.

For a moment their eyes meet, brown against blue. 'Bernard?' he sees Tim mouth. Bastard, saying his name so many times. Doesn't he know what that does to Bernard? Why does Tim insist on breaking his heart again and again and again? Was once not enough?

He's tired of putting these walls up and just for a second, he lets them come down. Let Tim see the entirety of his brokenness. Tim already has his heart, he can have this too.

'Tim' he mouths back, smiling sadly. Tim looks stunned and the rage that had been simmering in his gut begins to boil over.

Do you see what I've become? Do you see how thoroughly Grieves ruined me? Is this not your doing too? Why did you leave? Have you ever visited Darla? Why was it so easy for you to not look back? Was I not your friend? Or was it just a time pass? Why wasn't I enough for you to stay?

He watches until the elevator doors close, separating him from Tim once again. His body sags like a marionette cut from its strings and his fingers clench uselessly around the coffee soaked paper towels. A hand lands on his shoulder and he flinches.

"Hey, hey," Young-joon soothes from where he's crouched right next to him. When did Young-joon crouch down? How much time has he missed? "It's just me, Bernard. Are you okay? What was that? Does our CEO know you?"

He exhales shakily. He needs to get out of here. He needs to sob hard enough he throws up. He needs the steady press of a knife on his back. He needs things he's not allowed to have anymore.

Bernard shoots up so fast the world spins around him. holding onto the desk for support, he tries to smile at his team leader. It stretches across his face misshapenly.

"I'm—, I'm sorry," he says stumbling over his words in a rush to get them out, "I have to—"

He has to what? Pretend to not see Darls out of the corner of his eye? Pretend like his hands don't have blood on them? Pretend like he isn't seeing bullet wounds every time he closes his eyes?

"—go to the bathroom," he finishes lamely. Gathering up all of the paper towels, he walks away dazedly, ignoring Young-joon's calls behind him. He shoves the towels in the nearest trashcan, letting his feet lead him to the nearest bathroom.

The bathroom is thankfully empty when he enters and he locks the door behind him. Sliding down the door, he exhales shakily. There's not enough air in this room; he can't breathe. The fluorescent lights hum above their coverings. The one on the left flickers. Who's bright idea was it to install school lights in a business office's bathroom?

The world outside the bathroom rushes on too loudly. Somebody is talking about their vacation. Someone is bemoaning their presentation today. His chest is getting tighter. His hands come up to tug on his hair. Why can't he breathe?

The exhales are coming quicker and quicker. Something comes tapping down the hallway. It's the gunmen, it has to be. A quick glance down tells him all he needs to know: he's covered in blood.

It's Lila's, he thinks dazedly, I had to carry her into the office. Or no, it's Olu's. I held him when he died. He said, he said, what did he say?

Why can't he remember? He hits his head with the heel of his palm.

Think he tells himself, we have to tell Olu's parents what he said. He said—, he said—.

His body sags.

Oh now he remembers. He said, "I don't wanna die Bernard."

A whimper tears itself out of his throat and he slaps a palm over his mouth. There's blood smeared across his face now, he must look like he walked out of a slasher film. He has to be quiet. if he's too loud, the gunmen will find them and then they'll all be dead.

Cry quietly, he tells himself, Darls doesn't need—

Darla! How could he forget about Darla with a hole in her gut? He needs to get to her. Lurching forward, he scrabbles across Mrs. Castillo's linoleum floor. He's smearing Olu's blood everywhere. Why won't Nikhil stop fucking crying so loudly? Goddamn freshmen and their hysterics. Where is Tim? Is he safe? He can't lose both friends today, please Lord, please.

BANG!

A violent flinch tears through his body. He sobs audibly this time, gagging on his spit. It's the gunmen, it has to be. He hasn't even held Darls' hand or counted Tim's moles for the last time. Where are the Darls? She shouldn't be alone. She doesn't like violence like this.

"Why didn't you save me, Bear?" a voice asks from behind him.

He freezes. Slowly he turns around and nearly yells in shock. Falling back on his butt, he stares up at his friend.

(He has to be quiet, he has to be quiet, he has to be quiet-)

Darls is standing behind him still in her crop top and cargo pants. Her once smooth midsection, bloodied and warped. The bullet wound still drips blood.

Plink, plink, plink.

Bernard hates the scent of iron.

"Why didn't you save me, Bear?" she asks, her voice echoing, "I thought we were friends."

There’s blood dripping down the side of her mouth. Now he remembers, the blood on him isn’t Olu’s or Lila’s — although there is that too — it’s almost overwhelmingly Darla’s. He’s covered in it. Elbows deep in it. It streaks up his arms like a macabre tattoo. He wore a white shirt to school today. The stains will never come out. He is Carrie at the end of prom, mortified and humiliated.

He crawls backwards until his back hits the wall, the impact knocking him out of the worst of that night. He's back in the bathroom. The lights hum loudly overhead. Darla hasn’t left yet.

She tilts her head, “Why didn’t you help me, Bear? I thought we were friends.”

“We are,” he rasps out, “we are friends.”

“Are we?” her eyes have no pupils. His Darls had eyes that shone in the sunlight. His Darls is dead. “Then why am I still bleeding? Why am I still hurting? Why is there a bullet in my stomach, Bear?!”

She’s shouting by the end and he flinches. His hands can’t seem to stop tugging at his hair. The blood must’ve smeared all over it. Talk about taking strawberry blond literally.

“I swear I did everything I could Darls,” he sobs out quietly, voice cracking, “I followed all of Mrs. Castillo’s instructions as best I could. I put pressure and tied the dressing as tight as I could.”

“You thought that was enough?” she snarls, hands coming down to grip the wound. It twists grotesquely; he gags, “You think any of that matters when I’m dead and you’re still alive?”

“Please, please. You know I wouldn’t leave you to die, Darls. Please, please, please believe me.”

“Liar, liar!” she screams, blood dripping out of her mouth onto her pink LOVE shirt. It darkens as each drop hits it. Soon it’ll be completely drenched and she’ll be drowning in it. Where did his smiling friend go? “I’m dead, Bear! I’m dead, dead, dead and it’s all your fault! Why didn’t you save me?! Why didn’t you save me?!”

He keens, body curling in on itself. One hand goes down to press on his throat; he’s making too much noise. Nikhil’s just a freshman. He shouldn’t have to die just because Bernard couldn’t shut up for once in his life.

“Please,” he whispers raggedly, “I tried, I tried. I swear I tried, Darls.”

“It hurts, Bear,” she sobs. Darla’s too young to be sounding so wrecked, “It hurts so much. Please help me.”

All of sudden, it’s too much. The taste of iron sits heavy on his tongue and Darla won’t stop sobbing. His fingers fumble for his phone and he presses one. It rings once, twice and finally on the third ring does a voice answer.

“Bear?” the other side says groggily.

“Ty please, I can't do this anymore,“ he sobs.

Tyrone suddenly sounds a lot more alert, “Bear what’s going on?”

“Darla won’t stop crying and she keeps on screaming that it’s my fault she died.” he wails, “I know I should’ve done more but please, can you tell her I tried? That I stayed with her until the end? She won’t listen to me, Ty. She won’t listen to me.”

There’s a muffled yell of ‘Babe!” on the other end. “Yeah,” Ty breathes out, “I’ll tell her.”

“You put me on speaker, okay?” Ty instructs, “And you gotta tell me if she’s nodding or if she’s gone or if she said anything, alright? I can’t see her.”

“Okay,” he whispers, pulling the phone away from his ear to press the speaker button.

“You tell me when to start, Bear,” he says, voice filling the bathroom. Darla looks up from where she’s sobbing.

“You can start now Ty,” he rasps out, holding the phone out.

“Hey Darla,” Ty says, “Bear told me you said a lotta mean things about him. Stuff like, ‘he’s the reason you died’ and that ‘he never cared’. Darla, you gotta believe me when I say Bear never stopped caring. He held your hand the whole way through. Told you stories about all the things you two were gonna do once you got out of that nurse’s office. He tried, Darla, honest. I’ve never seen him as focused as when you stopped breathing and Mrs. Castillo had him give you CPR. He couldn’t stop sobbing the whole time.”

“But I’m still dead,” she says.

“But I’m still dead,” he repeats.

Ty inhales sharply, “Yeah,” he says thickly, “you are. And I’ll never stop being sorry about that. But you can’t take that out on Bear. He’s just trying to live his life.”

Darls’ face twists up like a childs, “But it hurts,” she cries.

“But—, but it hurts,” he repeats, voice hitching.

Ty curses, “Oh, fuck. I can’t do this. Babe, can you—?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Hey, Darla. It’s me, Jimmy from the football team. I don’t know if you remember me but I remember you. After high school, me and Tyrone ended up getting married. Somewhere between shitty weed brownies and bad college parties, we fell in love. Isn’t that nice?”

Darls nods; he tells them as such.

“We visited you after the ceremony. I hope you felt that wherever you are these days. But the point I’m trying to make is that from all I’ve told you just now, you can probably figure out that Ty and I didn’t go pro like we planned. The shooting fucked up Ty’s knee and and my arm. After the hospital stays, playing football for a whole bunch of people just didn’t sound appealing anymore. We’re high school teachers now. Ty teaches math and I teach gym. When it rains or gets cold, my arm and Ty’s knee hurts like hell. But Darla, it doesn't hurt forever. It gets better, I promise.”

“Darla,” Jimmy says, voice unusually serious, “you’re right, you are dead and it does hurt. I’m sorry, I’ll never stop being sorry. I don’t know if it’ll ever go away for you; I’m not too much of an expert on the supernatural. Ty’s the smart one, after all. But I love you, Ty loves you, Bear loves you. I hope that when it hurts the most you can use that as a balm.”

“Auntie Bea loves you too!” Ty’s mom hollers from the background, “Aunt Betty, too!”

Ty laughs wetly and Jimmy snorts, “Does that sound okay?” they ask.

Darls smiles, her teeth stained red from all the blood that built up in her mouth. Bernard misses her with an ache he feels in his bones. Darls nods.

“She nodded,” he says quietly. He blinks once and she’s gone. Where did she go? Doesn’t she know that the gunmen are still at large? She needs to be somewhere safe. He can’t lose a friend today.

“Bear, Bear, you gotta breathe. Take a deep breath for me, c’mon,” Jimmy says.

“She’s gone, Jim. She’s gone again. Why does she keep leaving?” he says, crying. His body can’t stop trembling. How long has he been here? How much time has he missed?

“I miss the cult,” he whispers, “I never had things like this happen when I was with them.”

“Yeah,” Ty snaps, “‘Cause you were high off of like 50 different pain meds ‘cause you let them whip you.”

“Ty, not helping.”

“Move over, let me talk to him."

"Hey, sweetheart," Auntie Bea's voice crackles through his tiny speaker, "I know you're tired and I know you're hurting. I know you miss the cult but you gotta breathe for me, okay? You're gonna pass out otherwise."

"I can't, I can't," he gasps out.

"Sure you can, you just gotta tell me five things you can see. Can you list those five things for me?"

Bernard desperately tries to get his breathing under control, "The sink is dirty."

"Good, good. Anything else?"

"The tiles need to be re-grouted."

Aunt Betty barks out a laugh. Bernard's lips twitch upward.

"Keep going."

"My pants, my white shirt, my ID badge," he rattles off.

They talk him through the rest of the grounding techniques and by the time he feels like he's in control again, he's exhausted. His eyes hurt and his throat is dry.

"Can you tell us why you spiraled so hard, Bear? This hasn't happened in a long time," Jimmy asks.

"I spoke to Tim again," he says simply. He pushes himself up onto his feet and walks over to the sink. Setting the phone down on the counter, he grips the sink with both hands and just breathes. The Bernard in the mirror looks like he just came out of a warzone, eyes haunted, hair messed up.

"Oh fuck," Ty says, "Where did you even meet him?"

"At my new job at Wayne Ent."

"Why would you apply there?" Jimmy asks, stressed.

"I didn't know! It's not like I've had a lotta time in the past few years to check the news!"

"Well, whatever, what’s done is done." Ty says, ever practical, "Are you going to quit?"

"No!” he says vehemently.

“No,” he repeats quieter, “Wayne has the best benefits and Mori needs that. I’ll just suck it up and try to avoid him.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Aunt Betty says.

“Ma!”

“Oh be quiet Jimmy. I’ve never heard of a more stupider thing. He’s your CEO, Bear, and he knows you work there. He’s obviously going to want ‘to catch up’ or whatever. There is no avoiding him. Can you handle that?”

What can he say? Aunt Betty is right. He can’t handle talking to Tim. Even seeing Tim felt like touching a live wire. He can’t deal with another episode. Mori doesn’t need him to be fucked up, Mori needs him to be the stable adult he promised the courts he was.

“You can’t, sweetheart,” she says softly, “you can’t handle it.”

There’s some shuffling on the other end of the phone.

“Bear,” Ty says gently, “I love you, man. You’re my brother. Jimmy loves you, Mama loves you, Aunt Betty loves you. But you gotta start thinking about therapy.”

“I know, I know,” he sighs, “I shouldn’t’ve dragged you into this. I’m—”

Ty cuts him off with an exasperated huff, “It’s not about that Bear. I’ll keep talking to your hallucinations for as long as you need me too. Even when we’re seventy, I’ll do it for you. I don’t care about that. I care about you and I want you to be happy and healthy. I don’t want you to keep seeing Darla. I don’t want you to keep trying to scrub the blood off your hands.

“And I know you’ve been avoiding therapy ‘cause you don’t got the money and ‘cause talking about your problems is scary but it’s not just you anymore. You got Mori now. That custody claim is going through. You can’t just avoid things ‘cause they’re hard now. You work at Wayne now; that paycheck is more than enough to set a few dollars aside each month to save up for therapy. Hell, mental health probably comes with your medical benefits. Please, Bear. If you can’t get help for you, then do it for us, for Mori. Please stop making us watch you hurt.”

Bernard exhales shakily.

“I never wanna find you the way we did after the cult, Bear. I never wanna see you in the hospital bed like that again. Please don’t do that to us, please,” Ty whispers.

Unconsciously, his hand comes up to rub at the scar left behind from the sacrifice. It stretches along the length of his sternum, jagged and rough. On good days, he can pretend that it’s a scar from a heart surgery. He doesn’t have that many good days.

Bernard presses the heel of his palms into his eyes before using his hands to scrub at his face. He’s always so tired these days.

“Okay,” he says simply, “okay.”

“Okay?” Ty asks hopefully.

“Okay, you’re right. It’s not just me anymore. Mori deserves the best and I’m gonna give it to him. And I love Tim, I think I’ll always love Tim but he clearly doesn’t give a shit about me. So I gotta make my peace with it or I’ll go crazy.”

Ty whoops, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he chants.

“Bear, it’s still the middle of the workday,” Jimmy says, although he too, sounds happy. Auntie Bea and Betty are muttering about a feast, he thinks. “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“Yeah, that’s if I’m not fired already,” he mutters.

“Hey!” Jimmy admonishes, “Optimism only, no pessimism.”

“Alright, alright. I gotta get back to work now. Thanks guys.”

“Of course, we’ll let you go now. Ma wants me to tell you that we’re having dinner at your place today.”

“Aunt Betty,” he whines, “I haven’t cleaned and you and Auntie Bea are just looking for a reason to spoil Mori.”

“Absolutely,” they say, unashamed, “he’s our only grandson. We have to spoil him.”

“Fine,” he sighs but he’s smiling. Fuck, he loves these people. God knows he wouldn’t have survived the past six years without them.

“Bye Bear,” they say before he hangs up, “Good luck on your first day!”

He cuts the phone and slides it back into his pocket. Turning on the tap, he splashes some cold water onto his face. Using his wet hands, he tries to rearrange his mussed up hair into something acceptable for an office job.

Time to face the music Darls, he tells her smiling face in the mirror. She gives him a thumbs up in return.

The walk back to his office feels like a death sentence. He’s fucked this up, he knows it. Freaking out over a small interaction with his CEO and then running away only to come back two hours later? It’s over, done for. Bernard takes comfort in the fact that at least the severance package will be nice.

Stepping into the office, immediately draws the eyes of his team members. Every step towards his team leader’s office feels nerve-wracking. Just before he enters, Esperanza, the team’s second in command, stops him.

“Whatever happened,” she says, “just explain it to him. Young-joon’s a reasonable man, he’s not gonna yell at you.”

Some of the tension leaves him and he nods. Knocking on the door, he enters. His team leader looks up and smiles.

“Ah, Bernard! Why don’t you take a seat for me?”

He crosses his wrists behind his back, “I’d rather stand, sir.”

His team leader looks confused, “‘Sir’? Just call me Young-joon like I told you.”

“Anyway, after you left, I took the liberty of going through your file to see if there was anything I missed. I hope that wasn’t overstepping my boundaries.”

“No s-, Young-joon. You’re fine.”

Young-joon sighs and pushes the file he was reading before Bernard came in forward. It’s his file.

“I’m going to say some statements,” he says, “and I want you to confirm whether it’s true or not. If any of these questions make you uncomfortable, just tell me okay? I’ll drop it immediately.”

Bernard nods.

“You went to Louis E. Grieves Memorial High School.”

“Yes.”

“Based on the dates you put in your file, you were there for the shooting.”

“...Yes. Junior year.”

“You know our CEO.”

“Yes,” he breathes out.

“How?”

He used to fall asleep on my shoulder during lunch and I would listen to him breathe. He’s got moles all over his face. Darls once connected them with a sharpie. His step-mom was so hot, I thought I’d spontaneously combust every time she smiled. HIs dad didn’t really like me and flirting with his wife didn’t help my case. The Drake condo had a crocheted flower blanket on the sofa that his mom had made during her pregnancy. He liked to skateboard but couldn’t roller-blade to save his life. I have all this love and nowhere to put it.

“It’s a little private,” he says instead.

“I’m only asking because we work quite closely with him. We see him often and if that makes you uncomfortable, then I can have you transferred to another team.”

His shoulders sag, “We went to Grieves together for one year. Our mutual friend died. It’s a little hard to look at him.”

“Jesus Christ.” Young-joon says, “Okay well the offer is still on the table, Bernard. Do you want to be transferred?”

“No, I like your team. I’d like to stay,” he says, firmly.

“Are you sure?” Youn-joon asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” and it’s like a switch had flipped. Gone is his serious team leader and in its place is the man he met this morning.

“If you plan on staying,” he says smiling, “then my primary recommendation is that you use the medical benefits the company gives you to find a therapist. If you need help, the infirmary here will walk you through it.”

Oh thank god it comes included with his medical, Ty will be overjoyed to hear that. But first, he has to ask Young-joon why he’s doing all this. Bernard knows his experience with authority figures is a little skewed towards the shitty side of the spectrum but even so, people usually aren’t so kind in his experience.

“Why are you doing this? Why didn’t you fire me? Why are you helping me?”

Young-joon chuckles, “Do you want to be fired?”

“No! But still, why are you helping me?”

Young-joon sighs and stands up. Walking around his desk, he stops right in front of Bernard. Young-joon puts a hand on his shoulder.

“This city takes a lot out of its people, believe me I know. And you were so young, when Gotham took her piece of you. It wasn’t fair of you to go through that. Just like it wasn’t fair to me and my wife when we got kidnapped as children. These kinds of things don’t go away. I still get worked up over zip-ties. My wife still has nightmares. All you can do is learn to live with it.

“You seem like a good kid with a good head on your shoulders. I’d hate to see all that potential go to waste ‘cause you kept getting trapped in your mind. I had a lot of help to get to where and who I am today. Consider this, me paying it forward. One day, I hope you can pay it forward too.”

His eyes feel suspiciously wet. “Thank you,” he chokes out, “thank you.”

Young-joon laughs, “There’s no need for the waterworks, Bernard. Now, pack up your things and go home. You’re in no state to analyze data today but I expect you here at 9AM sharp tomorrow, alright?”

Bernard mock salutes, “Yes, sir.”

“Goodbye, Bernard.”

Right before he exits, he turns around and calls out his team leader’s name.

“Young-joon,” Young-joon looks up confused, “you can call me Bear, by the way.”

A wide grin stretches across his team leader’s face, “Okay then. Goodbye Bear, see you tomorrow.”

Walking out of the office, it feels like a burden has been lifted off his shoulders. Esperanza takes one look at him and snorts.

“You just got Young-joon-ed, huh?”

His jaw drops, “He does that often enough you guys have a name for it?”

The other team members laugh, “Welcome to Data Analysis Team 1, kiddo. We look forward to working with you from now on.”

Smiling, he gathers his things and leaves after a few goodbyes. Once outside the building, the smile drops. It’s an hour-and-a-half bus ride from Wayne Tower to his house. The bus stop sits right in front of the tower too. Some new initiative by the mayor to promote the city moving towards green energy. Hey look, even rich people take the bus! What a fucking joke.

The tower warps the sunlight around it and he stares up at the top floor. Is Tim watching? Can Tim see him from up there? Does he care or was it just the shock of seeing someone he once knew this morning? Has Tim ever thought about him, about them? Or were they just moments in his life? Perpendicular lines, intersecting once and then never again.

I miss you, he thinks staring at the top floor, I miss you more than anything but I’ll walk into oncoming traffic before I ever reach for you again.

The bus pulls up next to him and he snags a seat in the back. Dropping his head onto the seat in front of him, he stares out the window. Darls smiles back at him in the window reflection, perpetually sixteen. He’s twenty-two now.

Fuckin’ hell Darls, he thinks wearily, we’re really in it now.

Darls places her hand against the glass, he leans his shoulder onto it. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel her warmth.

We’ll make it through, she says.

The bus rumbles forward and he lets the cracked streets of Gotham lull him to sleep. He’ll make it through.

A/N: chami! i hope you like it!!! i've never gifted a fic before, i don't really know how this works. and to everyone who read it, i hope you liked it too! please leave your thoughts in the reblogs or replies!!! i miss the days when td:r was coming out and we were all collectively freaking out. anyway when i said loosely based, i really did mean loosely. props to you guys if you can figure out the direct references to the drama. but this is a one-shot. i'm not gonna be writing anything else for this 'verse? au? (god i'm always so worried im using em dashes wrong)

if you have questions or you're confused by something i wrote, feel free to ask questions or send an ask or message. oh, and i know some people like know the exact wordcount. so, it's exactly 6,785 words long. nice number right?

also, please note that if you want to make art or a podfic or hell, even fanfiction of this, feel free to do so! i hope that's not too presumptuous or anything. idk i see fanfic writers make this disclaimer all the time, so i thought i'd do it to.

thank you for reading!