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bensolosbluesaber · 2 years

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You’ll Never Keep Him (Poe Dameron x f!reader)

EVERYONE STOP! Please read the warnings below as this fic deals with the aftermath of rape, severe trauma, and abuse.

Warnings: Mentions of rape and sexual assault, non-explicit references to rape, reader was a victim of sexual assault and violence, reader’s trauma is shared without her consent, reader is in a very dark mental place, generally very mature themes. PLEASE do not read this fic if these might be triggering or uncomfortable for you.

Summary: Your trauma is your best kept secret, a secret even from Poe, the person you love more than anyone else. Well, it’s a secret until a meddling ex of his gets ahold of your medical records and promptly leaks them to the whole Resistance. ~3,600 words

Angst, angst, and angst (Happy ending though)

Pairing: Poe Dameron x f!reader (she/her pronouns)

A/N: I’m serious about these warnings. Dead dove and all that. Bonus for you guys, I listened to these songs while writing this: Atlantis (Seafret), Till Forever Falls Apart (Ashe), Line Without a Hook (Ricky Montgomery)

For the first time in as long as you could remember, your life was good. Not just livable, but really and truly good. The First Order was nearly extinguished and with it the worst of your night terrors. You found friends, good friends: Rose, Finn, Rey. And of course there was Poe, your doting and charmingly arrogant boyfriend who - despite his reputation - had never been anything but patient at your unwillingness to have sex.

Not that he knew why. Not that anyone except Rey and a few medics knew why. You want Poe to know, and you want to sleep with him. Sleep with him that is, since you practically live together anyway. But every time you so much as think about sex your skin gets clammy and your stomach twists into knots.

That is what you are thinking about as you eat lunch with your friends. Poe is coming home tonight, and as you stare at your now empty plate, you can’t help but think that maybe tonight is the night. The usual clamminess is hardly present and your stomach is twisting, but you think that maybe this time you are feeling the same nerves anyone would feel. You might be ready. You might have finally summited your mountain of trauma.

It was a stroke of cruel irony that just as that thought had the audacity to emerge so did she - Poe Dameron’s ex. She was a brief fling during the war, and that’s all it was ever going to be. But things ended… poorly. That was how Finn explained it last week, with a pregnant pause before ‘poorly.’ Maker, it had only been last week that the woman had shown up, smiling far too big, greeting Poe with an uncomfortably long hug, shooting you a sneer over his shoulder. She transferred to this base just to get close to Poe. At least that was Rose’s working theory.

You weren’t afraid of her. Years as a spy and months of torture saw to that. Not much scared you anymore - sex not withstanding. She was no threat to your relationship; you trusted Poe’s whispered promises.

In retrospect, you should have been more wary of her, especially when she volunteered to stitch up your arm yesterday. She had done a good job, been friendly. Too friendly.

She stands behind you and drops a data-pad on the table with a bang that makes you turn. Her arms are crossed, her mouth pulled into a smirk that was all-too familiar. ‘Guess what I know,’ it seemed to taunt you.

You glance down at the data pad then turn back to her. She raises a single eyebrow, and only then do you realize what is on the screen. Your head whips around and you snatch up the data pad. Your medical records. How had she gotten her hands on these? Only medics and nurses who treated a patient could access their records, and yesterday she had… Shit.

No. No, no, no. It’s all you can think as you stare at the bright screen with wide eyes.

“Interesting read.”

“This is private,” you hiss quietly.

“Sweetie, I’m your doctor.”

Do not make a scene. Do not make a scene. Rey is tense beside you, and across the table Finn and Rose have gone silent. The rest of the mess hall continues with their lives like this woman isn’t casually ripping open a barely healed wound in the middle of lunch.

“I thought this part was particularly interesting.” She points to the screen as she leans over you. “I never knew you went through so much after your cover was blown.”

‘Patient demonstrates behaviors (documented below) suggesting she was subjected to prolonged torture and sexual abuse. Her physical injuries (see attached scans) corroborate these findings.’

You didn’t need to read any more. In your worst months you had committed this file to memory as some sort of fucked up coping mechanism. You can recite your long list of injuries and trauma induced behaviors from memory.

The woman in front of you looks around then leans in inches from your face to whisper loudly, “What was it like to tell Poe about all of this?”

The situation has caught you so off-guard that you can’t hide the expression that clearly says you have not told him.

“Oh, sweetie!” Her tone is so condescending you want to put your fist through her throat. Obviously she already suspected Poe was clueless about this whole thing. “You haven’t told him? Well… I mean, why does he think you won’t fuck him? You know sex is essential to maintaining a good relationship with a man like Poe. He has needs.”

You’ve never been concerned with how much the Resistance gossips, how involved everyone is in each others personal lives. Not until now since clearly your sex life, or lack thereof, is the subject of interest.

“What would you know about having a good relationship with Poe?” Finn snarls from behind you. Without looking at him, you shake your head. Not here. Not where everyone can see.

“What do you want?” You need to diffuse this situation and fast.

“I just want Poe to know the truth about his little girlfriend.” Her voice grates on your ears. She straightens up, her voice getting louder with each word. “I mean if you fucked half the First Order, why not Poe? Maybe you think he’s not good enough for you? You’ll never keep him if-”

“Stop!” You bite out as you jump to your feet.

It’s becoming a scene. Her raised voice has caught the attention of a nearby table, and the silence ripples through the mess hall slowly as you stare each other down. Soon the quiet in the large space is thunderous. The woman taps at a data pad calmly. All eyes are on you.

“Don’t worry about it, hon.” She shows you the screen, and it takes a moment to realize what you are looking at. A few data pads ding, and in your mind the sound reverberates into a violent, endless ringing.

She just sent confidential medical files, your file, to everyone stationed on this base. She just sent your file to Poe.

“Sweetie, don’t be mad. Poe deserves better than some bitch who will whore herself out to the enemy for fun but not fuck…”

For an instant it is not her voice you hear.

You might make it out of here alive, but then you’ll just be some bitch who slept with the enemy.

Tears sting your eyes. She is grinning that monstrous grin. One second your eyes drop to the ground. The next they fall on her curled lips. And then you have a fistful of her crisp, white, standard issue medical jacket and are shoving her to the ground.

You hit her once. Hard. Then again. Warm red blood sprays from her nose and coats your closed fist. The next strike she tries and fails to block. She’s screaming something about how crazy you are, but you could care less as you strike her again and again. She already spilled your best kept secret to the whole Resistance. Honestly, what more did you have to lose?

“Stop. Y/N, stop!” Rey grasps your biceps and pulls you back.

“You’re fucking crazy!” The woman spits blood as she pushes herself into a sitting position.

“Rose, get her out of here before I kill her myself,” Rey snarls.

You couldn’t say how you made it to Poe’s room, just that you did and managed to seal the door behind you before you crumpled onto his bed. No doubt Rey lingered outside, maybe with Rose and Finn, trying to touch your mind through the Force without being invasive.

You sobbed into the pillow that still smelled like the man you loved. You cried until your eyes physically couldn’t produce another tear, and then you walked on shaky legs to the small bathroom to clean the blood from your hands and change into something more comfortable. The clock told you it was nearly dinner time. You wouldn’t be going.

Instead, you curled back up in Poe’s bed and clung to his pillow, imagining it was him. Even as you lay there with your clouded mind and wished Poe would come home soon, part of you dreaded his return. He’ll have seen the file. He’ll know what they did to you. He was never meant to find out this way.

He’ll know what you did. The last thought you have before your exhausted body caves into the lure of the warm sheets is that woman’s voice echoing in your mind.

Why not Poe?

You’ll never keep him.

Poe smiles at your sleeping form, and heads right to the fresher to clean up. He is blissfully unaware of today’s events; he ignored incoming messages all day, trying to get home as fast as possible.

Soon, he’s tucking himself into bed and pulling your back flush against his chest. It wakes you up: his warmth, a few soft kisses on your head, the wiggle of his hips against you. It is as far as he will take things with you. You set that boundary, and he respects it completely.

“Hi baby,” he whispers.

Poe is home. There is a second of relief, then you’re wide awake.

You’ll never keep him. You have to keep him.

Normally, his return would bring nothing but joy, but now the anxiety coursing through your body has you shaking in his arms. It is utterly irrational. Poe never pressured you before, never hinted at wanting more than you were comfortable with, but your racing thoughts - poisoned by that woman - tell you that he must be lying, that he will get bored of you. That he is bored.

So you turn and kiss him. Hard. Kissing Poe is nothing new, so he wraps his arms around you, sinking into the kiss easily and thinking nothing of it until you’re half on top of him with your hand dipping to the waistband of his pants. There you hesitate.

You’ll never keep him.

His skin is soft under your fingers and there’s a rough smattering of hair along his lower stomach.

As you start to move lower, your fingers ghosting over the curve of his hips, he whispers, “Are you sure?”

Answering him will only force you to reveal the truth. You are sure. Sure that you don’t want this and equally as sure that he does. Sure that he needs this. So instead of replying, you swing a leg over his hips, settling atop him and working your hands up and under his shirt as you kiss him again and again. It gives you a second to steel yourself for what you must do.

His hands grabs yours tightly, freezing your movements at his chest.

“You’re crying,” he murmurs.

You hardly hear him, struggling to free your hand from his grasp to give him what he must have wanted for ages. But he is much stronger than you.

“Stop,” he says kindly but firmly. “Stop.”

It’s not until he whispers your name that you finally snap out of it just enough to realize what you are doing. You’re straddling his hips. A prominent hardness pokes at your thighs. Poe’s eyes are big and confused.

“You don’t want this,” he breathes, and much to your surprise there is not a hint of anger. That doesn’t stop your desperation.

“You do,” you whisper back, and your voice is so pathetic you drop your gaze from his in shame. “I can feel it. You do.”

You grind your hips down on him. He exhales through his nose, grabs your waist, and holds you still as he fixes you with an utterly lost look.

“Not if you don’t,” Poe insists. “This is- this is a physical reaction. It’s just because I haven’t had sex in a long time.”

The words settle like rocks in the pit of your stomach. The reason Poe hasn’t had sex in a long time is you.

“I want this.” You lie and bite down on the inside of your lip until warm coppery blood fills your mouth.

You swallow it and lean down to kiss his neck, working your lips along the rough stubble on his jaw, over the tiny scar on his cheek, back to his neck.

“Baby, please. Stop.”

Warm hands guide you off him. The rejection shouldn’t sting, not when this is hardly something you actually want. But sting it does.

Light flares in the room, bright but a soft white that you shut your eyes against as you sit and pull your knees to your chest.

“When I told you we could wait as long as you want, I meant it.” Poe sits up to lean against the wall.

You open your eyes to see his hand extended, offering you a spot on his chest. Instead you turn away to stare blankly at the wall in front of you. It’s white. Clean and sterile and white. No pattern. Just a uniform white wall that you wish would swallow you up.

You turn to him. It takes all your strength to look at his face and make your eyes focus on his handsome features. A few of your tears still linger on his cheeks. Curly brown hair sticks in every direction. The chain of his necklace peeks out from under his collar. He’s beautiful. He’s perfect and kind. And he deserves better than a girl who can’t even bring herself to sleep with him. Especially when… especially when…

“I’ve had sex.” You force the words out before you can think better of them. “Now that you’ve seen m- my medical records, don’t you feel entitled to… something?”

“Baby.” He swipes a lose strand of hair from your eyes, not missing how you shy away from his hand for a split second. You hadn’t done that in ages. “What happened before us doesn’t matter. I promise. I will-” Then his mind finally processed your question. “Now that I’ve seen what?”

You stare at Poe because how could he not have seen it? Without a word you grab his data pad, open the file from his unread messages, and pass it to Poe. Worry is written across his face. The second he realizes what he is looking at, he slams his eyes shut.

“Why would I have seen that?”

He truly has no idea.

But the dam already broke. You’ve already made the leap. There is no going back now.

Poe sets the screen aside to wrap an arm over your trembling shoulders and draw you against his chest. You let him only because you are too emotionally drained to push away the one person who might bring you comfort, even if that is the same person with the power to bring terrible pain.

He is struggling to put the pieces together on his own, not because he’s stupid but because the truth is painful to accept.

“Talk to me.” Poe presses a kiss to the crown of your head, and your arms wrap around his waist to hold him tight. “Please, talk to me.”

You curl yourself tighter and closer to Poe so you can bury your face in the crook of his shoulder. You can’t look at him; you can barely form words. Instead you blindly grope for the data pad and hand it back to Poe.

“Are you sure?” He asks. “If you don’t want me to-”

“Everyone already knows.”

You can picture the mess hall tomorrow morning. Poe eating breakfast, blissfully ignorant of your past when, ‘Hey, Dameron. Heard your girlfriend only fucks First Order officers. Sorry for your loss.’ More likely the words would be kinder, gentler, pitying the handsome pilot who had given up his playboy ways for someone like you. And he’d… Stop! You fight back ideas about this scenario that you simply would not let happen.

It is best that he learn about it in private. Then you can try to explain.

Poe’s brows knit together, but he doesn’t question your statement. He’ll figure out what ‘everyone already knows’ means later.

You feel his chest rise shakily underneath you as he steadies himself for whatever horrors are hidden here. With his free hand he absentmindedly trails feather-light touches along your cheek.

His eyes roam the file: your name, date of birth, a picture taken the day you first arrived. It’s all standard stuff. Regular check ups. Medical tests for your flight clearance. Post-mission blood work. You had been a spy, so you had more comprehensive medical records than most. Otherwise though, it’s a normal file. Until it’s not.

He never mentioned it to you, but he had suspicions that something like this might be in your past. It was a suspicion, however, that was easy to ignore. Poe hadn’t known you in your spy days, and like most former spies, you chose to keep your past in the past. Until now.

When he gets to that part, you feel his hand still. Poe’s whole body goes tense beneath you, the muscles of his neck tightening as he swallows hard. Each word makes his heart ache for the woman in his arms, for you who had been suffering through the aftermath of such horrors alone.

A few soft taps fill the silence as Poe searches for an answer to his other question - how did ‘everyone’ know about this?

Then Poe hisses aloud, “Fucking bitch.”

He is looking at the name of the sender.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper into his neck and choke down a sob.

“No, baby. Not you.” In an instant he has your head cradled in his hands, thumbing away your tears, bringing your reluctant gaze up to him as he realizes his mistake. “You have nothing to be sorry for. She should never have done this. No decent person would do this.”

“I should have told you before.” You try to protest, but Poe just shakes his head. His face is inches from yours, and his dark brown eyes implore you to believe him.

“You don’t owe me - or anyone else - an explanation.” His words are firm but kind.

Another few moments pass in a heavy silence. Poe holds your face between his hands, supporting the weight of your head that suddenly feels too heavy for you to hold up yourself. The callouses on his thumbs are rough against your skin. They are the only thing that feels real right now.

“I- I-” Just say it, you think. Just say it. Tell him what the file doesn’t. “I wouldn’t give them any information.” There is a certain pride in your voice as you say those words. “When my cover was blown, they tortured me, and I was strong. I was so strong.” Your voice cracks on the last word making Poe swallow hard. Your words sound like you are reading from a book rather than recounting your memories. “They thought they could try a new way to break me. It didn’t work. Eventually they weren’t even looking for information anymore. It was just fun for them. So I used that. I got close to the right people, and when they let their guard down I escaped.”

Your whole body is shaking as memories drown any rational thoughts you had left.

“I did it to survive." You meet his gaze and hold it desperately. “I did it to survive. It wasn’t fun. Poe, you have to believe me, I did what I had to. Please! Please, Poe. Please.”

“Of course I believe you.” His voice is a calm low rumble, and he repeats the words with even more conviction. “ I believe you. Come here.”

He wraps his large hand around the back of your neck, his fingers splayed wide across your skin as he pulls you into what you will later call the best hug of your life. Your head tucks under his chin. His other hand comes around your waist to hold you close.

The second he has you secure against him, he lets his own tears spill over. He didn’t want you to see him crying, knowing one of you had to maintain a calm facade through this. You deserved the entire galaxy, and what you had gotten was a slimy alley on some shit planet. He wanted to pull down the stars and bath you in their light. He wanted to kill the people who had done this to you. He wanted revenge on the woman who had made your trauma part of some sick game to get him back. Only his faith in Rose, Rey, and Finn kept him from hunting her down right now. He was certain they had dealt with her, and you needed him here.

“I love you,” he whispers the words. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

He really isn’t angry with you. The realization comes slowly then all at once. It brings with it a bit of embarrassment at your earlier actions. Before that thought can really settle, the exhaustion hits. Exhaustion from spending hours crying and worrying until your nerves were so shot you could hardly think straight.

Poe feels your body relax. Your breath has fallen into steady and slow inhales and exhales. He slides down in the bed, bringing you with his so you can curl against his chest with your head on his shoulder. You look up at him.

“Please don’t cry,” you murmur and wipe a tear from his cheek.

He grasps that hand in his, playing with your fingers. There’s a few light bruises along your knuckles that his touch lingers on like a question.

“I punched her. In the mess, during lunch.”

“Good.”

Poe raises your bruised knuckles to his soft lips and kisses each one reverently.

“I’m with you,” he breathes between kisses. “Whatever people say or believe.” Another kiss. “You’ll always have me. Promise. You’ll always have me.”

My Masterlist

I am contemplating a part 2 (if I can write it tastefully) where the reader and Poe do have sex for the first time.

Tags: @ay0nha

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x female reader #poe dameron x you #poe dameron x f!reader #poe dameron fic #oscar isaac #oscar isaac x reader #oscar isaac fic #bensolosbluesaber #bensolosbluesabermasterlist #poe dameron fanfic #poe dameron fanfiction #oscar isaac fanfiction #tw: r*pe #read the warnings

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notbadforafailedvessel · 1 year

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Batcina AU - Part III

Part I, Part II, Part IV

This is technically the last part I've planned for this AU since I want to write others. However, if you want to see a particular scenario for this universe, you are free to request it!

It takes months for Alcina to have the possibility to go and do what she actually wants instead of following an agenda that isn't hers.

She had been surpised when, at her return, didn't find the castle in shambles. It felt too good to be truth so just to be on the safe side she had made her way to the other Lord's home. Thankfully with her abilities, she didn't need to interact with them directly to find out if they were alive.

Nevertheless, Alcina decided that the best thing to do is to tell Mother Miranda what had transpired in the last weeks. The only thing that Alcina doesn't mention during her tale is you.

She doesn't want Mother Miranda to know about you for some reason, even when she usually tells her everything.

Mother Miranda comes to the conclusion that Alcina must have killed a decent amount of humans to cause an impact into their plan, big enough to make them retract for the time being.

However, not risking it, Mother Miranda still decides to warn the other Lords about a possible future attack. She knows how humans can be and she doesn't want to lose any of her pawns before she achieves her goal.

Alcina tries to focus on her daily tasks, to go on with her life, but she finds herself lost in thought often, thinking of you, wondering how are you, if you remember her from time to time.

Whenever she realizes what she's doing, she gets annoyed, scolding herself for such weakness.

She might have forgive you and grant you an amnesty so you wouldn't face your demise anytime soon, but that was it. You aren't anything especial, just a human that apparently isn't as awful as the ones she was used to.

Even so, the only thing that is able to distract her from you entirely arrives a few days later, when Mother Miranda gifts her with three corpses and the free card to experiment with them.

It's not unusual for her to experiment, very early on Mother Miranda told her it was going to be one of her duties, but Alcina is the one who looks out for the specimens for it.

Alcina achieves something different this time, and the day she brings them back to life, as mutant humans and not the monsters she usually creates, and her eyes met three pairs, you come back to her mind.

"Is this how it feels caring for someone? It is what they felt while I was under their care?"

She has a purpose now though, so she dedicates enough time to nurture the girls she now calls her daughters, to teach them they were a family and always protect each other and their home before finally giving up to whatever she's feeling instead of trying to ignore it.

And the only way to get the answers to her questions is forcing them out of you.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

In retrospect your life has not changed and nothing bad has happened to you but you simply can't get rid of the unhappy veil that has fallen on you.

There's nothing you can do about it though. Aware it's a mourning period that would pass with time and you simply have to try to be patient with yourself.

A knock on your door pulls you out of your thoughts, causing you to frown because it's not as if you received visits. You don't have friends nor family and whenever a knock was heard, it rarely meant anything good for you.

You stand up to open the door though, knowing it could be worse if you don't, depending who was on the other side.

You face an off-white wall that is shifting softly, and shamefully, it takes you until the clear of a throat to realize it's a person.

You know right away who is after that, and such knowledge speeds up your heartbeat.

Living in this village, you are not a stranger to Mother Miranda and the Lords. You know villagers revere them though you have never being a devouted.

You are aware is mainly out of fear not because they respect or accept what they practice, though there were some exceptions.

But the first and only time you've seen Lady Dimitrescu on the town (before your isolation), your first thought had been "I can understand why some villagers are so devoted, I wouldn't mind worship her."

Her unique height was what draw your attention and fascinated you, but you weren't blind, she was an incredible attractive woman.

Despite the admiration you feel for her, you are apprehensive for the visit. What could you have done wrong for her to come look at you in person?

You have heard what people said about her and the other Lords, the comments whenever you had to go down to the village and even tough you weren't fond of believing rumours just because, you did notice the disappearance of some people over time.

You never actively cared though. Why would you feel bad for the people who never show any kindness to you after they labelled you as a freak?

Deep down, you even considered it like the Universe has sent you a dark guardian angel to punish them for the way they treated you.

"L-Lady Dimitrescu." You bow shakingly. When you straighten up, you look up to make eye contact, not wanting to offend the lady in any way though perhaps what you were doing is much riskier.

Golden eyes are already waiting for yours, and when they lock, you feel a shiver while a familiar sensation washes you over, which confuses you because you two have never had eye contact.

Alcina is convinced that this time when you look at her, your eyes won't reflect the tenderness and affection she had gotten used to. The prospect bothers her but she knows what to expect from a human. So she's is totally taken aback when it doesn't happen.

There's caution in your eyes but not fear, and a glow that makes her feel warm.

You swallow slowly. "It's an honor to have you here, my Lady." You have no idea what's the reason for it, but you are sincere.

Alcina's lips part slightly but she holds back the gasp in the last second. That was different. In her bat form, when you referred to her like that, playfulness covered your words. Now, your voice was full of awe.

All her plans for how this encounter was going to occur suddenly vanished from her head.

She frows. Maybe she should go back to consider your dismiss, it would definitely make things simpler. But the simple idea of killing you, upsets her. "What's your name?"

You blink with bewilderment. Why is she looking out for you if she doesn't know who you are? "[Y/N], my Lady."

Lady Dimitrescu nods once sharply, looking at the surroundings as she tilts her head up regally. "I'm here to thank you for taking care of me a few months ago."

The words don't make any sense to you at first, but when the Lady makes eye contact with you again and the sensation of familiarity repeats itself, your eyes widen with realization.

Alcina smirks, pleased to finally have the upper hand in your interactions instead of the other way around.

When you are capable of react from your shock, you notice Lady Dimitrescu is walking away and without thinking, you head into her direction, doing the most stupid thing you've ever done in your entire life when you are close enough.

You don't count with the strength to make her stop but Alcina stops when your fingers wraps around her wrist, most likely taken aback by your gall.

Torn between amaze and annoyance, she regards you questioningly.

Aware that you are pushing your luck, you let her go, fidgeting with your hands. "Are you okay, my Lady? There is not any aftermath after the attack, is it?"

Alcina's stance softens and she wonders if you are ever going to stop surpising her. "I healed perfectly. Thanks to you."

The words make you blush and it's a sight Alcina relishes so she reaches out to brush your cheek with her thumb, deepening your redness.

"I just did what anyone would have done, my Lady," you whisper.

"We both know that's not true."

You know she's right. For most people it's easier to 'put a creature out of their misery' than taking the trouble and time of look after someone in need.

"Yes well, many humans suffer from a lack of brains." You normally keep your thoughts about people to yourself, so you cover your mouth with both hands when you realize you spoke out loud.

Lady Dimitrescu blinks once, twice and then laughs.

It's a miracle you remain standing when you feel your legs tremble due to the heavenly sound.

The Lady's reaction gives your the courage to ask, "Would you like some tea, my Lady?"

Alcina caresses you other cheek with an amused smile. "All right."

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

A routine develops between you two where Alcina comes to visit you at least once a week.

Since your cabin is too small for her to enter, you keep your meetings in the garden just like the first time. Reason why you started to give more attention to it, wanting to look adequate for your Lady, even though she had never mentioned anything to make you think she wasn't pleased with the place.

Lady Dimitrescu asks you questions to know you better and you are pleasently surprised that she allows you to ask too. But there's a line that's unspeakable even though you have never put a boundary ─ she never questions about why you live so far from everything and you never ask about the rumors.

In your case it was because you were certain having a confirmation or a negative wouldn't change things in any way.

You never know the day Lady Dimitrescu will come, but by now, any sound you heard from outside, you expect it's her.

Unfortunately, when you step outside, you encounter a group of men. You are able to recognize some of them but not others.

"Ah, none other than the freak. I should have imagine we wouldn't be so lucky to get rid of you definitely."

A man breaks through among the others but you don't need to see him to know who it is. You'll recognize that voice anywhere since it was the person who started the verbal attacks against you.

It only took a wrongful accusation from his daughter's part for him to start some sort of vendetta.

"You know her?" The man that seems to be the leader since he's at the front of the group asks him without looking away from you.

You grimace which makes your bully laugh. "Every town has a freak, though it seems we were blessed with more than one," he said sarcastically.

"A freak?" He scrutinizes you up and down. "Does she has any connection with her?"

"I think we all agree that that woman is an abomination but at least she has enough class to not get involved with this tasteless thing." He spits on the floor towards your direction.

Are they talking about your Lady? The words they are using are the last you'd use to describe her but it's more than clear that you don't have anything in common with these people.

"There might be a solidarity between freaks," a new voice from the group adds, followed by hoots of support.

"Lady Dimitrescu is not a freak." You know it's stupid to intervene. It's you alone versus at least ten men who only needed the label from one of their group to consider you unnatural and therefore an enemy. But you can't stand there listening them talk about the woman who has showed more interest and caring in you than your own race without doing anything about it.

If you die, at least there's going to be a reason for it.

And by the wrathful looks you receive, you know that's the only possible outcome. There's no opportunity to escape. Even if you are fast enough to go back to your house, it'll be easy for them to break in with the weapons they carried.

The only thing you lament is that you won't spend more time with your Lady.

Alcina is halfway from your house when she focus her hearing on you.

It has become almost instinctively for her to jump from hearing her daughters to you during her days to reassure herself everything's okay with each of you.

It amuses her the contrast between her daughters and you ─ where they are chaotic and loud, you are quiet and calm. Two very different spectrums with the power to soothe her.

However, she notices there's something wrong in an instant, noticing your apprehensive heartbeat followed by a scream that puts her on edge.

She turns into a bat to shorten the distance faster and she's back into her human once she visualizes the cabin, arriving at the moment you are struck on the cheek, hard enough to make you fall onto the ground.

She sees red.

Whenever Alcina fights, she's focused and centered, almost looking like she's involved in a violent dance. Not this time. She's nothing but walking wrath who slashes whatever comes in her way. Her only goal is to get rid of the filth who was foolish enough to come bother you and put a hand on you.

She doesn't want to stop and ask questions, people like that don't deserve a chance. And even though she would have preffered to take her time and make them regret what they did and beg for forgiveness, she wants this over as quickly as possible to make sure you are okay.

After the first hit, you were expecting the next one. There's a graze that makes you shrink on yourself but it doesn't go further.

You remain motionless until the screams startle you and make you look around anxiously.

The commotion only lasts a couple of minutes but it's tricky for you to understand what's happening since you can only see a white blur and the men falling, one by one, to the ground in pieces.

Only when silence falls and Lady Dimitrescu stops moving, her extended claws dripping blood and even a bit of human remains, you finally understand.

Your dark guardian angel indeed.

You don't care she's covered in blood, not bothered what you had just witnessed. You stand up shakingly, the sound drawing Alcina's attention in your direction, who retracts her claws, hoping she hasn't traumatized you for life.

There's a brief moment of hesitation and concern from Alcina's part while you two make eye contact before you run towards her, throwing yourself at her and your Lady is swift to catch you in her arms, pulling you against her body.

Your arms wrap around her neck and you bury your face in the crook of her neck.

You are safe. You know it, and not only of this dangerous situation. You know that now there is someone in your life who cares for you. Someone who is willing to kill for you if necessary. For the first time in years, your body is able to recognize it too, relaxing entirely, which brings tears to your eyes that you are not able to hold back for so long.

"You are safe now, dragă. I'll keep you safe now." She reassures you, closing her eyes as she hugs you and nuzzles the side of your face, needing the comfort of your presence.

You sniff, tightening your arms around her while you nod. You suddenly chuckle. "I saved you first and now you saved me." You pull back to look at her but without breaking the hug. Not that Alcina would have allowed it since her hold doesn't falters.

She smiles amused. "Indeed we did." She turns serious. "Though I would definitely prefer if we can avoid these situations as much as possible." You remember the terror your felt when you saw your Lady about to be devoured by an owl and you nod. You don't want her to feel that way again, imagining that's what she felt. "Which is why I want you to come live in the Castle with me and my daughters."

Even though your eyes widen, you are not surprised. You know Lady Dimitrescu is proprietorial, you have noticed it in her bat form and it wasn't any different in the human one.

She sees you as hers. You don't know her what exactly but you are okay with the idea of being hers.

You look at your cabin, expecting to feel some sort of dread at the idea of leaving but it doesn't happen. The truth is that after today's invasion, the place feels stained and the idea of staying here alone doesn't thrills you.

Looking back at Alcina, you remove one arm from her neck to caress her jaw softly. Your eyes showing your adoration.

You have never initiate any contact with her, even when you were desperate to do it. She's always the one doing it, prompted by the way you blush whenever she does it. Now that she has allowed it and it looked she was okay with it, you don't want to stop touching her.

"Of course, my Lady. It will be an honor." You smile at her before burying your face back in the crook of her neck.

#alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #alcina dimitrescu x reader #lady dimitrescu x reader #i have been sick for over three weeks and that's why i took so long with this part #but i hope the wait was worth it!#thank you so much for every like/reblog/comment 🥹#means everything to me 🥹#hd.txt #hdad.txt #txt: ad

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mimble-sparklepudding · 1 year

Text

Cemetery Symbolism OC Questions

A little list of OC questions based on Victorian Graveyard Symbolism (obviously some of the symbols mentioned here had more than one meaning, or a meaning which changed over time, it's not intended to be exhaustive, merely illustrative of some themes). I hope you enjoy the list!

Skull - Mortality.

Does your OC often reflect upon their own mortality? Is it something which they fear?

Does your OC have a "bucket list" of things they would like to do (or places they would like to see) before they die?

Who is the most significant person your OC has lost? Have they fully processed their grief? Or can certain things trigger a flood of emotions?

Is there a person who your OC cannot bear the thought of losing? What lengths would they go to in order to keep them safe?

Does your OC observe any ceremonies or festivals of remembrance? Who do they memorialise? How does your OC feel on these occasions?

Harp - Hope.

Is your OC an optimist? Do they tend to believe things will work out for the best? Or do they prefer to anticipate the worst, in order to be pleasantly surprised if it does not occur?

If your OC could make one wish to change the world for the better then what would they choose?

Has your OC fulfilled the hopes of their parents or their community? How do they feel about these in retrospect?

To what does your OC cling to in extremes of despair or danger? A faith? A mission? Or something else?

Does your OC galvanise hope in others? How do they encourage or rally others when they fall to despair?

Heart - Devotion.

Does your OC inspire devotion in those around them? What form does this take? Adulation? Romantic attachment? Ferocious loyalty? Or something else?

Is your OC particularly pious? Do they follow a religious faith? Or did they once have a faith which they lost? If they are not religious then how do they feel about those who are?

Does your OC have an irreverent sense of humour, even (or especially) about the things which are important to them? Or do they treat such things with great solemnity?

Is your OC particularly patriotic? What does their country or other place of origin mean to them?

Does your OC remain loyal to those they love, regardless of the rights and wrongs of any given situation? Would they support them even if they were in the wrong? Even if they committed a serious crime?

Cherub - Innocence.

Is your OC particularly knowledgeable about matters of the flesh? Are they easily shocked or scandalised? Or are there relatively few fetishes, positions, or unusual uses of implements of which they have not heard - or possibly even attempted?

Does your OC swear in day to day conversation? Or only when they are startled or angry?

Did your OC have a sheltered upbringing? Did anyone educate them about sex and relationships? Or were such things not discussed? If their family did not give them this information then how did they find out?

Does your OC adjust their language or behaviour around children? Are there some topics they avoid discussing in front of them - like war or death - because they would prefer to shield them from such things until they are older?

What is something your OC has learned that they would rather never have known?

Tree - Knowledge.

Does your OC have much in the way of academic learning? If so then how useful has this been to them in their adult life? If not then are they ever jealous of those with more formal education?

Does your OC have a particular area of interest or expertise? Do they enjoy sharing this interest with others? Or is it something they prefer to keep private?

Does your OC learn from experience? Or do they seem doomed to repeat the same mistakes time and time again?

Do others see your OC as particularly intelligent? Or are they considered average, or even somewhat lacking, in intellect? How accurate is this assessment?

How well does their partner, sibling or other closest person in their life know them? Are there secrets they keep even from them?

Urn - Penitence.

What is the thing about which your OC feels most guilty?

Does your OC believe that a person can be redeemed even if they have committed heinous deeds? Or do they maintain that some crimes can never be forgiven?

Does your OC find it easy to admit when they have wronged another person? Do they find it easy to apologise?

Has your OC ever been punished for a crime or been compelled to do penance for a perceived sin? Did they feel this was just at the time? Has their view changed in retrospect?

When your OC has hurt or offended someone they care about, how do they tend to make it up to that person?

#ask game #OC asks #OC questions #OC ask game #ffxiv #ffxiv asks #oc stuff #ask meme #asks #ffxiv oc #ffxiv rp #tumblr asks #graveyard #cemetery #victorian imagery #symbolism #questions

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itsbuckytm · 2 years

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Lost Memories | Ben Hargreeves

Summary: In which the reader and Ben were finally able to reunite. However, with the new Ben in town things get a little complicated.

Enjoy!! 🤍

Meeting the Sparrows were never an option and yet there they were. Each of them standing proudly by their family’s name not moving an inch. Your eyes wondered around the room having no clue on how to handle the situation. You watched innocently as your siblings tried to keep a straight face before striking a fight. It wasn’t before Diego noticed Ben’s awful personality. As if, the timeline they were at had brough not only Ben but a bunch of ego maniacs wishing only fame and power in the eyes of the world.

Sitting next to Diego you nudged him to calm himself down. Speaking in such tone wouldn’t make a different and you knew that. However, while the others started to argue about their wealth being, Ben’s eyes never left you out of sight. Not only he was baffled to see you here but with the awful attitude of his, got him this close to rip you out of your seat far away from Diego or anyone who dared to sat down next to you. Especially when it was another male’s presence. “Calm yourself.” Fei’s voice caught the boy quietly as she knew about the two people’s past. Ben needed time and patience before getting to you. Which for him, being patient wasn’t his cup of tea.

The next morning, you had joined Luther on a run. For once you were able to catch up on your life, decompress. Well, that is when both you and your brother were found unconscious. However, you did remember seeing a few similar silhouettes, and it wasn’t until Luther and you managed to wake up and were now found in a room. Grace’s warm welcome caught you off guard when you noticed you weren’t in the hotel anymore but back at the academy. “Shit.” Was all you could say when Luther with little subtle opened the curtains that welcomed the famous Sparrows sharing a not-so-welcoming.

“Good morning.” You nervously gulp the moment you peaked behind Luther’s shoulder. Sloane noticed your presence as she smiled at both of you. You on the other stood a little bit on the cautious side quietly approaching, following Luther like a lost puppy. Which to Ben’s remark found it so pitiful. “Don’t mind him, he woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” Fei smiled at you, somehow or someways Fei’s presence got you more warmth than the rest. So you smiled in return, completely ignoring Ben’s words.

As the day went on, you were able to discover the academy in a new retrospective. The library room was filled with books. Unlike your real father in your timeline of yours, hated reading or collecting classics. Losing yourself through the hallways you had forgotten the day had turned into night. You approached the third floor when you heard subtle voices which seemed to be arguing over something.

With curiosity, you walked silently knowing that the floor hadn’t been retouched and so creaks were heard if not cautious. “You are so delusional Fei. Did you even see how she ignored me the whole day?” It was Ben’s voice and as you leaned closer to the door, tried your best to get a glimpse of the conversation.

Fei looked at her brother with enjoyment. “Have you ever been in love, Ben?” In love. A strong word neither of you had experienced aside Luther, Allison, Viktor, Klaus and Five. Since your grief for Ben had drained you to the last drop, being loved or loving someone else had completely vanished from your memories. “Stop changing the subject Fei. I’m talking about Y/N right now and they had barely spoken a word to me since we met.”

It was true, after all, after seeing the new Ben not even Diego nor Klaus were to speak about him. Heck, if you were to find them in the same room chances are a deadly crime could be happening at any moment. “Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole around her maybe she will.”

You were so caught up with the conversation you had forgotten you were eavesdropping and the moment you heard the sound of heels walking in your direction. You were in some deep shit. Too late to hide, you were at least able to stand a little far away from the door pretending to walk when Grace smiled at you. The mother you once knew approached to say hi just when both Ben and Fei shared a look of confusion when they opened the door. “Y/N?” Ben was the first to notice, you on other had to find a solution to get out of this mess.

“I’ve- I’ve been helping Grace to bring the food…” You swore to yourself, hoping that maybe Grace’s knowledge was smarter. “She has! Isn’t she lovely? She even brought extra snacks.” With luck she wasn’t that of a dumb mechanic you thought she was especially when she gave you a delicate smirk and left the tray to her children, leaving you however, in the middle of a discussion.

“Well… I’ll leave.”

“Wait!” Ben caught you off guard when you felt his hand grip your arm. His eyes soften and yet showed confidence the moment he heard Fei’s snorts, holding the best she could not to be sick by the awful romance happening right before her eyes. “Alright, Alright I’ll leave.” She watched her brother hissing when she and her crows finally left the place, whispering a “good luck” quick enough before finally leaving.

It was then you both stood there. You are in the middle of the entrance of the room. Which Ben soon enough welcomed you in a quite uncomfortable way, to say the least. “So.. how’s it to be alive?” You knew the Ben who was standing right before you was in fact the same. And you were not ready nor wanted to know the answer to which why he was able to find a way to come back. Somehow, your remark had made him chuckle. “Well, it’s a long story…”

A long story indeed. But something about seeing Ben so vulnerable and yet not holding an inch to bring this asshole of personality of his. Had finally made you both able to be at least comfortable within the same room. “You know, I’ve been looking for you.” To your surprise, you were too. Well once you finally confess your time and sweat into being convinced that Ben’s presence has been here all along. Ben did the same. How he hated not seeing you anymore. The urge the protect you when he couldn’t. And with Klaus’s awful mannerism he had nightmares thinking just about the worse.

“I can say that maybe being in that timeline now, did have its good things, ugh?” You nervously chuckled, feeling your cheeks turning into a light shade of pink. Which Ben noticed and with a subtle way felt his fingers caressing your cheek. Leaning delicately to press a soft kiss on your forehead. “And we will try to end this timeline together.”

“Together.”

#imagines #preferences #ben hargreeves #ben x reader #tua imagine #ben hargreeves x reader

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yandere-sins · 2 years

Note

Can I get some emotionally, and sexually manipulative Hawks please?

Thanks for requesting!

Rated Lemon

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

“So, how have you been? We barely see you anymore!”

Your friend’s words tore you out of your thoughts, making your nails dig into Keigo’s hand that’s been riding up your thigh ever since you two sat down for dinner. Breathing in sharply, you hoped no one would notice the crack in your voice as you answered, your hand shooting out to get your glass closer and hide some of the embarrassment you were feeling behind the alcohol.

“Oh, you know. Lots of work, I barely have time to shower.” Avoiding the question as best as possible, you forced a laugh, the sound disappearing in the masses of voices around you. Sipping at your glass, you felt Keigo’s fingers dig deep into your thigh, leaving you unsure if it was meant as a reward or punishment. He hated that you forced him to take you out to celebrate with your friends but approved of you lying to them for his sake. You missed out on so many fun activities because of him, after all.

He was also the reason your knees rubbed together beneath the table, an unmistakable heat emanating from your core.

Luckily your friend didn’t question it much further, falling into a rant about their own problems at work and venting about colleagues and workload you could only dream of having. Keigo wouldn’t let you work. After he coaxed you into moving in with him—much too early as you feared, the relationship barely going for three months at that point—he made it clear to you that the only work he wanted to see you do was the one on top of him.

Admittedly, the reason you started to date him wasn’t a honorable one. Then again, you had no doubts that any other fan of the hero wouldn’t have done it if they were in your position. When you met him at a club, it was you who threw yourself at him, thinking that even just one night with the good-looking, charming hero would be enough to satisfy your crazy fan desires and give you bragging rights for the rest of your normie life. You didn’t expect him to ask you to stay for breakfast the next morning. Neither for dinner the following evening or to be his girlfriend after only a week of dates and fun times together.

Part of you wanted to stay and be this amazing man’s partner. But in retrospect, you probably knew much earlier that it all was too good to be true. Especially when he started to get more and more possessive over what you were doing and who you were with. These minor arguments usually end in a passionate kiss and sex that would leave you sore but too brainfucked to think. And when he came back with flowers and chocolates, promising to be better in the future, you just couldn’t bring yourself to hate him enough to leave.

Not when he apologized for canceling your plans for you.

Not when he fucked you silly on the kitchen counter after throwing away your clothes and leaving you to wander the house naked.

Somehow, Keigo always made it up to you. His eyes were so sincere when he told you he loved you and wouldn’t know what to do for you, even though you hadn’t quite come around to that kind of emotion yet. You loved the way he fucked you silly, pressing your face into the expensive satin sheets of his bed or roughly pinning you between him and the wall. But even after months, you weren’t quite sure yet if you actually loved him or, well, his cock and the occasional expensive gifts he made you. It was pretty shallow, but spending your birthday with him on a private island just to yourself, all-inclusive, and in the embrace of the person who truly loved you wasn’t the worst gift. None of the ones he gave you was.

You were special to him. The only one he could open up to, talk to, love. Keigo told you that constantly, always reminding you of how much you meant to him, especially after giving you a good fucking that left you lolling in his bed. That he can’t imagine his life without you and knows no one as perfect as you. How could anyone break up with a guy like this? He was a 10 in a sea of 5 and 7′s that you usually had to deal with. The chances were slim you’d ever get as good of a man as Keigo was, and lowering your expectations seemed futile after he raised the stakes.

“Spread them, Baby.” Keigo leaned over, whispering the words into your ear with a grin. His hand slipped between your legs, pulling them apart to emphasize his order. You looked up in shock, not at him but at your friends, who seemed unaware of what was happening. Biting your lips, you shook your head in very small motions, Keigo’s smile faltering. “Spread them, or we’re going home right now,” he demanded, and thinking about how much effort it was to make him agree to take you on this outing, you gulped, slowly opening your legs for his access.

Immediately, his lips curled back into a smile, his touch reaching further up and brushing against your panties. You nervously glanced between your friends, all in different stages of drunkness but not enough for your taste. They could still notice something, even though you couldn’t argue with Keigo when he was like that. Love-drunk, you called it. A mood in which he won’t tolerate any defiance to what he wants. And what he wants is always you.

“Does it turn you on?” he murmured into your ear, your silent question showing on your face prompting him to nod his head in the direction of your friends. “Them. Are you scared they’ll see?”

Gulping, you looked over them again. Keigo’s hand suddenly disappeared, leaving behind a cool draft of wind against your sex that made you shudder. He inched closer, bringing his chair right next to yours, and snaked his way between your body and the backrest of your chair. You held your breath, preparing not to squeal as you knew he would pull you against him, lifting your right leg over his and earning more access than you wanted him to have.

“W-Wait, they’ll see!” you whispered nervously, pushing down the skirt you were wearing as best as you could. “Let them, Dove. I want them to watch as you cum all over my fingers in this busy restaurant you forced me to go with you. At least let me have my fun, alright?”

Biting your lip, you didn’t even think about his words too much, merely giving in. True, you weren’t in love with him. But these things came naturally over time, right? Keigo always treated you well, even if you got embarrassed about some of his demands, and maybe it really wasn’t so fair that you dragged him to this meeting against his will. You knew he wanted to stay in and watch a movie tonight. Or at least the beginning of the movie before he’d demand his late-night snack from between your legs. After that, things would undoubtedly shift to the bedroom, but instead, you got your will. You had no grounds to stand on to refuse him.

Pressing himself up to your side, the arm wrapped around your back slipped its hand between your legs again, fingers prodding at your clit that made you jolt in your seat. Suddenly, a couple pairs of eyes turned to you in curious confusion, watching as Keigo snuggled into your side. Your whole body froze as you forced out a smile, trying to play along with the mask he put up of you two cuddling like the cute couple you were. You knew your friends were jealous about the catch you made with Keigo, though they were also happy for you, grinning before turning back to their conversations.

Confirmed in his actions, Keigo turned bolder and, you, hotter.

Was it embarrassment? Shame? The tip of his fingers pressing your panties inside of you?

“Aren’t you wet for me, Baby...” he mumbled into your shoulder, his lips plush against it for a couple of appreciating kisses. You felt the slick coating of your panties against your hot cunt, the fabric cooling every time he pulled it away before pressing it into you again. There was a feeling of frustration caused by the holdback of your panties acting like a safe wall. You could feel Keigo breach the limits more with every touch, and every time, you yearned for him to simply brush past the fabric, knuckling you with his fingers all the way inside your pussy.

But he stopped just as you were about to grind your cunt into his hand, pulling it away—you had no doubts dripping with your juices. Instead, he focused on your clit, the sensitive nerve endings shocking you with electricity over and over like a taser. Despite holding back so much, a long sigh escaped you, your eyes immediately widening as you clasped a hand over your mouth. But instead of stopping and letting you come down from the sensation, Keigo chuckled into his free hand, gripping the slim part of your underwear and pulling it taut, the fabric no match to his strength, ripping. But not before teasing you with its friction, the eventual snap! it made both relieving and yet dissatisfying as you wanted to rub against it a while longer. You didn’t quite anticipate how loud it would be as your panties ripped, hips - that you lifted unknowingly to accommodate the strain - falling onto the chair, your flowy skirt having riled up enough, so your exposed ass cheeks smacked hard into the wood.

This time, you could not hold back your moan.

“Fuck, Baby,” Keigo groaned next to you, keeping himself muffled with his hand, and you focused your hazy gaze on the people around you, chatting, laughing, but most importantly ignoring you. You had never felt so relieved to not be seen and, at the same time, still had doubts about what Keigo was doing, wishing someone would notice and put him in his place like he always did with you. Perhaps you were more of a switch than you thought, enjoying the thought of Keigo having to lower his head and getting scolded. At the same time, you knew he’d just make you stand before him afterward, spread your asscheeks to press his face between your legs, and get his reward for enduring his punishment. He was that kind of horny.

Not bothering with the shreds left by his actions, Keigo pressed his fingers back into your slit, rubbing them up and down your folds and coating them properly in your slick. You knew he was going to dig in any second now, and you knew you shouldn’t let him. That there were borders he simply shouldn’t overstep. But you couldn’t. You wouldn’t... wanted... because fuck. The moment his fingertip breached your entrance, you knew you’d be in for a ride.

His rough fingers paired with the determination to fill you as far as he could, never made him stop for a second so you could adjust. He gave you no warning, no preparation time, nothing. You were left to your own devices, using your right hand to cover your mouth while the other dug into the edge of the chair—hard—trying to keep you on your seat. However, Keigo had different plans, taking the hand away from your mouth to press into his crotch, hot, pulsing arousal tenting his jeans. Turning your head to look at him, your eyes fell lower at him guiding your hand over the outline of his cock, pressing and using you to satisfy himself while he added another finger to your cunt. It made you want to scream, but instead, Keigo caught your lips with his, kissing you while the friction under your palm stung with how hard he rubbed it.

You were blissfully unaware of your surroundings now, taking off into pleasure land as he scissored and curled his fingers inside you just how you liked it. It was not enough. You wanted more. Wanted his huge cock to replace his fingers, and it was frustrating to know he was drawing the line there. Public displays of affection were scandalous enough, not to mention the unspeakable ones happening beneath the table. His fingers had to do, and by god, they weren’t any less proficient even if you yearned for the fullness of his cock hollowing you out.

“You’re gonna cum for me, hm?” he asked, and you hummed in agreement, nodding before bumping your foreheads together. “You’re gonna make your friends watch you cum?”

This time, your eyes flitted to the people around you, making you wonder how they still hadn’t noticed even though you were about to fucking explode (and then maybe bend over the table and beg for more). “N-No,” you whimpered. “Just for you.”

“You’re cumming just for me?” he repeated, the grin spreading wider and wider on his lips as he appreciated your devilishly honest answer. Then he kissed you again, long and sweet and so full of love, whispering against your lips, “I’m cumming too, just for you, Baby.”

It was Keigo’s free hand that clasped over your mouth this time while you kept rubbing him over the top of his jeans all on your own, his teeth sinking into your shoulder to keep himself from moaning as you were both pushed over the edge. You felt like you were burning, a volcano erupting. Toes were curling as you tensed your legs, Keigo keeping his fingers lodged deep inside of you. His cock was pulsing in your palm, and you didn’t need to see the massive stain on his pants to know it was there. He loved you so much, he swore that every one of his ejaculations was only there to mark you as his. Shower you in his very essence, even when it was lost in the fabric. That was his explanation for coming like a fucking volcano as well.

“You two good?” one of your friends suddenly asked, and you snapped out of your rigor while you were flooded with waves of orgasm, though you couldn’t clear the haze in your head, making you reply in a slur, “We’re all good. Perfectly fine...”

“Actually, I think [Name] had a bit too much to drink,” Keigo covered for you, giving one of his charming yet apologetic smiles. “I’ll better take them home.”

You caught the friend glancing at your glass that you barely drank two sips from before they mumbled, “Okay...” They didn’t believe it. How could they when you were caught in the afterglow, chest heaving heavily and your body limp but tense at the same time?

Rolling your head over to Keigo as the waves washing over you vanished shamefully slow, he kissed your forehead, whispering, “Don’t you wish you stayed home today? Then I’d have you riding on my tongue next.”

Even now, he was reprimanding you for your choice to go to this meeting, but all you really wanted was to get some fresh air and clear your head. Maybe see if there was still a place for you outside the apartment. Keigo quickly gathered your things, somehow more composed than you were, and you two said your goodbyes getting some weird looks and some that just proved that your friends were severely drunk. Hopefully, no one would remember you looking so undone in front of them, letting yourself be pulled out of the restaurant by Keigo, who footed the bill for the whole table without hesitation. He was such a good man, wasn’t he? Paying for you and your friends even though he didn’t want to come in the first place.

Even though you felt the remnants of your panties cling to your thighs, your slick drooling down your legs.

“Yes, I am,” he remarked as you told him how awesome he was for that. “You should really make it up to me if you mean it,” he added, winking at you as he led you down the streets back to his apartment.

“How?” you asked, having an inkling of what he was going to say, your gut churning as you remembered him confronting you recently with a few things you weren’t comfortable with. Keigo waved down a taxi, pushing you inside and following suit, telling the driver where to go, and you two were off towards home in a matter of seconds, cuddled against each other with your legs over his while he held you close to him.

“I’d really like it if you’d let me try some of the toys I bought. I know you said the rope was a bit too restrictive the last time, but I’ll be gentle, I promise,” he mumbled against your temple, and you gritted your teeth. You didn’t like the idea of using rope for playing around since he made it way too tight last time and didn’t release you even when you begged and pleaded with him. It quickly became a big no-no.

But when you looked at him, Keigo met your gaze head-on, speaking before you could.

“You owe me this, [Name]. I might not agree to go out with you again if you don’t do anything for me in return. And I want you. Spread out on my bed and tied at every limb, relying on me to feed and fuck you until you don’t even know which one I am doing anymore. Okay? Don’t deny me the pleasure of giving you everything you could ever want. I love you so much, Babe.”

You didn’t know how to respond. Keigo sounded so demanding, yet almost as if he was begging you. It was a delicious mix going straight to your core. Your mouth stayed open before you felt his finger push your jaw closed, a mixture of guilt and discomfort spreading inside you. He wanted it so much, putting everything out in the open for you and not hiding behind favors. Keigo wouldn’t hurt you on purpose. He’d never do anything to make you regret agreeing to his decisions. At least, that’s what you wanted to believe, no matter how much that victorious grin on his lips raised goosebumps all over your body. You hadn’t even agreed yet, but he already knew he had won.

“Fine,” you mumbled curtly, looking away, not yet ready to do something that didn’t make you feel safe. But he was right, you owed him one for dragging him out that night and him paying so you could have ‘fun’ with your friends. Or at least talk to them again for once.

Nuzzling your face into his shoulder, Keigo let out a happy “Yay!” before bringing his hand to your neck, driving it up until he met your jaw. Urging you to look back at him, he kissed you again, his tongue slipping between your lips and forcing a gasp as he bit into your lower one. “I love you,” he purred into the kiss, laying some soft smooches to your mouth, but his eyes searched for yours expectantly.

“Love you... too,” you mumbled, not really feeling the sentiment. But Hawks believed it, grinning and burying his face into your shoulder, rubbing it against your skin. “Finally,” he whispered into your body, and you couldn’t help but grow restless as he wrapped you into his arms tightly, squeezing until you could barely breathe.

If you were honest, being with him didn’t feel right.

But you kind of owed it to him by now, didn’t you?

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pia-writes-things · 22 days

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#river and the fucked up punds' dynamic

ok i'll bite, tell me about it

Ok, so, first, that typo is BURNING my eyes 🥲🥲 I'm so sorry Amy and Rory, I would never disrespect you like that on purpose 🥺

Second, this will basically be my Ways To Heal chapters about the Ponds but in essay form, so if you wanna read the angst-filled version, it's there 🥰

Putting all of my unhinged thoughts under a read more because, as predicted, this ended up quite long. And it wasn't prompted, so I'm glad to know I could really do a presentation about them on the spot ^^

So, to start, you have the Ponds, a couple that started, well, not bad, but not great either. But during the course of the 3 seasons we got them, we saw them choose each other, again and again and again. And everytime they chose each other, every time we saw what perfect life looked like for them, there was a kid in the picture. The most obvious example of that is Amy's choice obviously, but the beginning of season 6 is also a big indicator. When we beging season 6, they're settled. They haven't seen the Doctor in a while and they built a domestic life that is theirs. And later in the first two episodes, you learn that Amy thinks she is pregnant. And she is worried for the baby, for what travelling in the Tardis might have done to it (which, in retrospect, she was right about ^^). Her worry, the fact she wants to talk to the Doctor about it, and the fact that Rory and her started to build a life together on Earth makes me think that they had talked about it, had planned for it, and maybe were considering starting trying. So, clearly, having a baby was really important for them. There are a myriad of other moments when we're shown it was really important for them : when Amy explains to Mme Kovarian why she's more than happy to kill her in The Wedding of River Song, the beginning of season 7 and the whole reason she and Rory are about to divorce, and, whether you believe it to be canon or not, the fact that they adopted a kid in Manhattan. A fundamental fact about Amy and Rory is that they wanted kids together, and didn't get to raise Melody. They had to accept River as their daughter while she was already an adult, and probably older than them. They had to accept also, especially Amy, that her birth meant they couldn't have children of their own anymore. They had to accept that their own daughter was always away, never quite fitting in with them. They had to accept that they would never be the family they wished they had.

On the other hand, you have River. River whose life is entirely in disorder compared to her parents. They met her before they knew who she was. They were her friends before they were her parents. She had to lie to their face countless times to protect time and prevent a paradox. She never got to really experience life as their daughter. We got glimpses in The angels take Manhattan and in The Ruby's curse but that's it. And even then, it's moments in her life, always fleeting.

That's where my first point of the fucked up dynamic appears (admittedly I only have two but whatever). See, an established fact of River and the Doctor's story is that they forbid each other at different moments to change their story in any way shape or form. And that include the Ponds' story as a family. At the end of A good man goes to war, the Doctor promises Amy that he will find her daughter. At the beginning of Let's kill Hitler, he's still looking for her. My personal interpretation is that he either didn't look for her, or made the choice not to intervene. I can't believe that the Doctor, clever as he is, Mr. "The laws of time are mine and they will obey me" couldn't find his best friend's daughter, his wife, as a kid, even though he knew when he last saw her. At this point in season 6, he knows the kid in 1969 is River. So, my personal headcanon is that he chose not to look for her, or not to bring her back to Amy and Rory. Because, and that's the thing, if he'd found Melody, she would not become River. If Melody got to be raised by the Ponds and not the Silence, she would never have become River. So, to keep his promise to Amy, he would have had to break the one he did to his wife when she was dying. And he just couldn't do that. So, indirectly, River was responsible for her own fucked up childhood. She was responsible for her parent's unhappiness. Even if it wasn't her direct responsibility, the consequences and implications are there. And, I think, as a daughter, that is a very fucked up thing to know and realise. And River being River, knowing so much about everyone and being so used to being out of order, I think she knew. She knew she was a paradox and the Doctor couldn't change anything about her history. She didn't know about her death and what she told him then, but she knew the rest. So she always knew they were doomed from the start as a family.

Which ties to my second point about their fucked up dynamic. River never got to be raised by her parents. At most, Rory and Amy were her "parent-friends" when they were kids. But it's not the same thing. So, knowing that, knowing all that we said in the precedent paragraph, and knowing that she was raised by Mme Kovarian and the Silence, I think that "Hiding the damages" is as much the Doctor's fault as it is indirectly the Ponds' faults. I think we can all agree that River had a very fucked up, beyond traumatizing, childhood. She didn't have any parents, she was shot at by her own mother (again, not Amy's fault, she didn't know, but still), she was brainwashed, trained to kill, and, weirdly, Mme Kovarin doesn't strike me as a very nurturing parental figure (*irony itensifies*). She never had anyone who could really listen to her, or even know her completely. As a child, no one ever knew her real self, or no one bothered to learn to know her. She was either a future weapon or a story designed to fit in Leadworth. Her parents weren't there for her when she needed them, or they couldn't really be her parents. And - and !- tying all this up with my precedent point, when they finally got to be her parents, she had to live with the fact that her birth, her story, fucked them up beyond measure. She was, though it wasn't her fault, partially responsible for their unhappiness. So, she learned to hide the damages. She kept lying, like she had always done, she kept the pretense of being a good psychopath with no feelings, because it's easier than showing to her parents how much exactly her own story fucked them and her up.

And, I think this will be my conclusion, to me, River being a psychopath is actually just her being traumatised and coping unhealthily. We never really saw her being a real psychopath, or at least a cold-hearted assassin who would shoot at anyone like the show tries to imply she is. She has feelings, and she shows them all the time. Even in The Husband of River Song or Let's kill Hitler, which are the episodes where they try to show River being a psychopath, she isn't really one. The people she wants to kill are themselves assassins, or the person she was literally brainwashed to hate. And she doesn't even really want to kill them for the most part, only scam them. Even the Doctor, in the end, she saves him. To me, River's "psychopath" tendencies, her selfishness that so many people in the fandom hold against her, are just the ways she found to cope with her traumas. It's the only way she found to cope with lying all the time, never having the stability of knowing people and people she loves knowing her. It's easier for her to pretend she is what Mme Kovarian and the Silence wanted to make her that actually showing her true self, when half the time, no one is there to receive it. It's easier to be that way than to be vulnerable. Especially because every time she was vulnerable in her life, it ended badly for her.

So, tldr: River is very fucked up by her childhood and that informs her relationship with her parents, as well as the relationship between her parents. I love them all very much, and they love each other, but apart from Marisa, Asriel and Lyra in His dark materials, the Ponds are probably the most fucked up fictional family I know.

Also, a lot of this essay is based on my interpretations of canon, the characters, and some plotholes Moffat gave us, so I know I might be wrong or biased on some points. But here, you have my rotating thoughts about them! I think about this more than I care to admit tbh ^^

#dw #doctor who #river song #amy pond #rory williams #ask #sae's the best #pia's oversharing #this ended up being very long but I regret nothing #i'm unhinged about them 24/7 and this is just a glimpse of what my brain is like half the time lmao #hope you liked it!

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ufonaut · 11 months

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Do you happen to have a compilation of queercoded Alan Scott panels from before Flashpoint by any chance? It's really interesting to know how even as far back as the Golden Age the seeds for his sexuality were there and nobody really noticed

i do! kind of! i have a bunch spread across various post so i'm just gonna put together a compilation of gaycoded alan scott moments from the golden age (and beyond) for you right now :)

in his 1940s stories alan not only shows a complete disinterest in women but he actively rejects their advances at every turn

(in green lantern 1941 #34 he refuses to go on a date by pretending his dog dislikes girls)

(in green lantern #33 he reacts with disgust to the idea of marrying a woman)

(in all-american comics 1939 #71, alan's completely immune to a mad scientist's daughter that's been specifically created to be irresistible to men)

(in green lantern #13 doiby falls for a debutante that only has eyes for alan, and alan can't stand her or any affection from her)

much of his gaycoding also revolves around the close and intimate relationship he has with his best friend doiby dickles, whom he shares a bedroom & a bathroom with

(an especially flagrant example from all american comics #60 but keep in mind this is the status quo for all their golden age appearances after doiby finds out alan's identity in aac #35)

(a couple other examples of such intimacy from gl #28, aac #54, the big all-american comic book 1944 #1, and gl #34)

there's also a story in comic cavalcade 1942 that implies a great deal about alan's relationship with a nightclub owner named jonah dayton, which stands out in stark contrast to alan's distinct lack of romantic & social life

(comic cavalcade #23, note doiby's strange insistence that alan is 'ruining his life')

these are all just examples because it'd be impossible to show you panels from all his 130+ golden age appearances but if you were to read them in full you'd discover that over the course of his 1940s stories alan has no romantic relationships whatsoever and he and doiby live together, go on vacations together, adopt a dog together, babysit doiby's nephew together, and generally share a closeness that is 'inexplicable' even for the comics of back then. notably, alan's first silver age appearance in green lantern 1960 #40 has alan & doiby still living together and alan's employees at gbc calling him alan's 'man friday'

the 1976 run of all-star comics (which picks up the golden age series' numbering) goes so explicit with the confirmed bachelor aspect that it's undoubtedly what led to roy thomas' subsequent retcons in infinity inc (and specifically infinity inc annual #1)

(missing doiby in all-star comics #60, after doiby's subsequent marriage in the silver age gl series)

(writer paul levitz' retrospective on asc 1976 in the amazing world of dc comics #16, note how alan's the one jsaer to have never married and who has no family besides his close friend doiby)

it's within this context of alan's history that roy thomas' attempts to make him seem straight in infinity inc must be approached and how the confirmation of alan's sexuality in the present day is just that -- a confirmation, a return to form -- and not a retcon, after all for forty-one years of his existence there had been no women in alan's life.

this isn't to say though that with molly in the picture the gaycoding ever actually stopped, it just became rarer as any focus on alan himself or his personal life became rarer and the jsa-as-people (rather than heroes) sort of faded into the background. we still got the occasional gems like everything during the sentinel era (special shout out to the book of fate 1997 and the weird psychosexual things contained within) and how showcase '95 #1 has alan fighting the maybe-ghosts of his teammates while saying they have no right to judge him after they accuse him of not being 'a real man'

or green lantern: in brightest day, blackest night 2002 stating he'll never be able to settle down into a normal life because he's not a 'normal man'

and there's a lot to be read into molly's effective disappearance over the years, too. she's been pretty much erased post-early 2000s to the point that you could easily pinpoint their separation/divorce somewhere around 2007 or so.

there's certainly much more out there and having read all his appearances i've found next to none that didn't feature some hint of gaycoding but i hope you've enjoyed these examples! lmk your thoughts if you'd like :)

#alan scott #green lantern #jsa #justice society of america #dc #dc comics #asks #anon

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ajvocals43 · 2 years

Text

Haircut

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1368

Warnings: fluffiness, impulsivity

It was late when we had returned from the ruguru hunt last night. Rather than stay the night at another motel, Dean drove the whole way back to the bunker. It was a little after 2am when Dean parked Baby in the garage. I was dead on my feet and I’m sure the guys felt the same. Dean and I said a quick goodnight to Sam before we headed off to bed. It's been about 3 years since I joined the Winchesters, nearly 2 years since Dean and I got together. Sam and I have been best friends since the start. Life with the brothers hasn't been easy but I don't know what else I would expect from the idiots who kickstarted the apocalypse on multiple occasions.

Not that I haven't made my fair share of mistakes that have gotten me killed or almost. I can't deny that the boys have given me a sense of purpose after losing my family. They saved me when I most needed it and I don't think that I could ever thank them enough for what they've done for me. That being said, it hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns since I started hunting with the Winchesters. We’ve all been through our fair share of heartbreak, some more than others. After learning about the boys’ pasts, I was amazed with how they've kept going for so long, all the people they’d lost. There were times where I wish I could’ve been there to give them the badly needed hope that they didn't ever seem to have. Dean especially. With everything he’s been through it's a miracle he was still hanging on. I know that most of that was because he had to be strong for Sam, he’d been doing it since his mom died. My heart broke when I heard this, that was too much to put on a little kid, and that was only the beginning. However, despite all he’s been through, he is the most amazing person that I know.

It didn't take much time for me to fall head over heels for him, not that I admitted it to myself until after almost a year of knowing each other. It wasn't until Sam and Cas forced us into a room and didn't let us out until we admitted how we felt about each other, that we finally voiced our feelings. There were some on and offs the first year; but in retrospect, I shouldn't have expected less from Dean. After the second time he almost died without me, we got over ourselves, and we've been together since. I don't claim to have fixed the boys but I think that me being there has given them some hope that it's not all on them. “I see the gears turning, what’re you thinking?” Dean asked as we got into bed. His voice pulled me out of my thoughts and when I looked at him I couldn't help but smile.

“Just… thinking about how lucky I am to have found you and Sam.” I said.

“Believe me, we’re the lucky ones.” He said softly, I was surprised because Dean doesn't usually share his feelings without prompting. He chuckled slightly at my speechlessness and turned off the light. I fell asleep where I felt safest, in Dean’s arms.

The next morning

I woke up alone but when I looked at the clock and saw it was 10am I realized where my boyfriend had gone. Dean had undoubtedly gone to get food, he almost always woke up hungry. I smiled to myself as I dragged myself out of bed to get ready for the day. I passed the mirror as I went to grab my clothes on the other side of the room. I looked at myself and realized that I was getting bored with my look. Normally, I didn't care much about my look because a hunter’s life didn't really allow much in the way of style. I looked over myself a couple of times and as I was about to give up and leave it for another time, I saw the scissors on the desk. It was big for me because I always loved my long locks, but it was time for a change. I took the scissors and a change of clothes into the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror and braced myself for what I was about to do.

About 30 minutes later, I was rinsing off the last of my impromptu haircut. Exiting the shower, I looked at myself and realized that it was exactly what I needed. And then I froze in fear for what the boys would think. Not that they would notice much since they were male but you never know. I got dressed as usual in a pair of blue jeans and an olive green t-shirt. I returned my pajamas from the previous night to my room and grabbed the broom from the utility closet at the end of the hall. I swept up the bathroom, took the hair along with Dean and I’s bloody, torn clothes from the previous hunt and threw them out. When I came back inside, I heard conversation coming from the kitchen. I walked through the hallways, following the sound of voices that suddenly stopped when the brothers saw me. I smiled slightly and sat down next to Dean. “What are we talking about?” I asked, taking advantage of Dean’s stunned silence to steal a piece of bacon off of his plate. When I didn't get a response, I looked down and said, “I know that it's different but I needed this. I actually think it looks cute so you can take your opinions and stuff them.” Sam laughed at my response but Dean said nothing. I chanced looking at him and he was still just staring at me. I couldn't read much other than the surprise in his gaze and it made me nervous.

“So. Uh… What was going on before I came in here?” Instead of answering, Dean stood up abruptly, grabbing my hand forcing me to come along with him. “But-” but nothing, apparently because Dean didn't stop, his hold on my wrist was tight but not enough to cause any harm, just enough that I knew that he was in a hurry. I turned around and waved at Sam. He rolled his eyes, smiling and went towards the library, farther away from where Dean and I’s room was. He seemed to know something I didn't.

I followed Dean calling his name, trying to get him to stop or at least slow down. He ignored me and pulled me into our room where he then finally let go of my wrist only to slam the door behind me and pin me up against it. My heart rate sped up as it always did when he was this close to me. “Dean, what-” Suddenly, his lips covered mine in a passionate kiss. It didn't take long for me to respond, I melted into the kiss. There were a few advantages to dating a former playboy, one of those being that he was an amazing kisser. No matter how many times his lips touched mine, it was always amazing. Breathtakingly amazing. When the need for air became too much, he finally detached his mouth from mine. Though he stayed close, I could now recognize the desire lurking in his green orbs. He smiled at me and his hand ran up my arm from my waist to my hair.

“Love this.” He said gruffly. I couldn't help but smile at his response. But my joy was quickly replaced by desire as he tugged slightly at my scalp. I couldn't help the sound that came out of my throat at his movement. He did it again and I moved to kiss him again.

“I was worried you wouldn't like it.” I said, blushing slightly.

“Why wouldn’t I? I like everything about you.” Dean said sincerely.

“That sounds suspiciously like a line from a chick flick.” I joked. He smiled.

“Shut up.” And then he made me when he kissed me again, effectively cutting off anything else I would've said.

Masterlist

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jgmartin · 11 months

Text

LULLABIES AND NOVEMBER ASHES

Third grade, for me, was not a pleasant time. Sure, there were bright spots in the year. There always are. Overall though, I rate third grade a 1/10, and that’s probably being generous.

My mother and father were not exactly great role models in my life. My dad was cold and, in retrospect, probably a sociopath— or at least a narcissist. He rarely spent time with me and when he did I could tell he regretted it. Usually he did his best to forget I existed.

My mother was kinder. Sometimes she helped me with my homework, and she always drove me to school. When she dropped me off, she’d wave goodbye with a smile and, as if reading from a script, tell me she loved me and hoped I had a good day.

I liked my mom.

Sometimes, I think I even loved her.

At least, when she wasn't drinking. Her vice made sense in retrospect, given the man she decided to shore up with, but what didn’t make sense, especially to eight-year-old me, were the relentless insults she’d throw my way.

Lazy.

Waste of space.

Brat.

Dumbass.

These were all mainstays of her vocabulary, never far from her lips once they’d been soaked with wine.

My escape from the depression of my home life was school. Growing up, I loved everything about it. I loved hanging out with my friends, loved learning new subjects, and I especially loved the teachers who always had time for me, and never drank, and always remembered my name.

One of those teachers was Mr. Gilad. A boisterous, heavy-set man with bushy eyebrows and an uncanny ability to brighten the room. He wasn’t my teacher, but he was my best friend Oscar’s, and because of that I often crossed paths with him. The first time I ever told him my name, he remembered it. Like magic. Every day after, he’d greet me in the hallways with his beaming smile and booming voice. “Walter! How was class today?”

I would always tell him exactly how it was. Usually it was good, but sometimes it was frustrating. Or boring. No matter what though, Mr. Gilad always listened intently, eyes focused on me and a grin on his face. It was like we were the only two people in the world. He was the first person I met that inspired me to be better than I was, and the first person that made me believe I actually could be.

One autumn day, I was feeling particularly low. In the middle of the previous night, my mother had woken me up. I smelled wine on her breath, and I asked her if she had been drinking again. She told me to shut up, that it was none of my business. Swaying on her feet, she stood over my bed, staring at me. I remember feeling horribly nervous, because there was this sense of hatred in her eyes, and the way she studied me almost seemed like she was making a decision.

“Mom?” I remember asking. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

She didn’t reply.

Instead, she left the room. I curled back into my covers, nervous and afraid, although what I was nervous and afraid about I couldn’t exactly say. It felt like an intuition. Something deep inside of me, something primal was screaming that the way my mother was looking at me was not okay.

A few moments later, I heard the creak of my door opening and then there she was again, this time with a half-drunk glass of wine in her grip.

“I wish I never met your father,” my mother said, staring at me with dead eyes. “That way you’d never have been born, and I’d have enough money to enjoy my life.”

She watched me until she finished her glass of wine, and then she left. Door closed. Glass on my dresser. Unsure how to process what I’d just witnessed, I cried myself to sleep.

The next day I spent recess alone, at the far end of the field. I didn’t feel like I deserved friends. I didn’t feel like I deserved to have fun. I didn’t feel like I deserved anything. When the bell rang, I took my time getting back to class. As I entered the door’s of the school, I was greeted by an empty hallway. The rest of the students had already returned to class.

My stomach twisted, knowing I was in for a talking-to, and probably a detention once I got back. “Walter!” a voice shouted.

Mr. Gilad.

Out of all the teachers I could have crossed paths with, somehow Mr. Gilad felt like the worst. He was the one adult that actually cared about me. For him to see me like this, out in the middle of the hall when I should have been in class? It probably destroyed whatever goodwill he had for me.

“Sorry, Mr Gilad,” I said, my eyes downcast.

He wasn’t angry. Instead, he knelt down in front of me. “Is something wrong?”

I shook my head, but for one reason or another, the floodgates opened. My face scrunched up in a grimace, and then I started to sob. Before I knew it, I was bawling my eyes out in the empty hallway.

He took me by the shoulder and ushered me into a classroom undergoing renovations. He closed the door and sat me down at the teacher’s desk. “What’s happened?” he asked me, his voice calm and kind.

I told him everything. I told him about my father’s cold indifference, my mom’s drinking, and how last night she had woken me up to tell me she wished I’d never been born. I worked all of it out between sobs, my nose runny with snot and my cheeks soaking wet with tears.

Mr Gilad pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Walter,” he said. At length, he let me go, and then sighed. “You know, it’s tough to talk about these things at times, but it’s important that we do. My parents weren’t especially kind to me either, you know.”

It seemed strange to me that somebody like Mr Gilad, the kindest man I knew, could have had parents who were anything less than saints. I didn’t know what to say, but thankfully I didn’t need to say anything, because he kept talking.

“Something important, that I think a lot of people learn far too late in life, is that none of us are defined by our parents or our upbringings. Our future is our own. We get to choose who we become.”

“We do?” I asked him, calming down. I sniffled and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“That’s right, we do,” he said, his voice adopting a more serious tone. His eyes, usually so bright and full of cheer, now looked sullen and filled with sadness. He seemed somehow distant.

“It took me a long time to realize that, Walter. For a long time I felt like I needed to do what society wanted, or be the sort of person my parents wanted me to be. It was only recently that I realized that in doing so, I wasn’t actually living my life.”

Mr Gilad sighed, shaking his head and muttering something beneath his breath. “I never felt fulfilled, because each day I felt like I was a part of a play, or an act. I felt like I was fighting tooth and nail against my instincts, and it was only making me more desperate to see them through." He bit his lip. "I was never happy.”

It was a heavy conversation to have with an eight year-old, and while a lot of its nuance went over my head, I decided I got the gist of what he meant. “So no matter what anybody says, even my mom and dad, I should just keep being me?”

He smiled, and the sadness in his expression seemed to evaporate near-instantly. He was back to the beaming, joyous teacher I knew and loved. “Something like that,” he said, ruffling my hair. “Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you join Oscar and the rest of my class tomorrow? We’re going to be doing a trivia competition in the morning. Oscar tells me you’re one of the smartest kids in the grade, and it’d be a shame if you missed out.”

I grinned, sniffling. “I don’t know if Mrs Applefig would allow it. Actually…” My eyes drifted up to the clock above the closed door. Its minute hand ticked forward to 10:32am. “I think I’m already gonna be in a lot of trouble for being so late.”

My mood plummeted all over again. Maybe my mother was right. I couldn’t seem to do anything right — even get to class on time.

“Well, then how about this,” Mr Gilad said, standing up and opening up a drawer in the teacher’s desk. He pulled out a stack of sticky notes and a pen. “I’ll write you a note explaining your lateness, as well as giving you permission to attend tomorrow morning’s trivia competition. Sounds good?”

I nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, I’d love that!”

“Perfect,” he said. “So would I.”

He handed me two sticky notes. One excusing my late return following recess, and another requesting permission for me to attend trivia tomorrow morning.

By some miracle, I spent the rest of the afternoon smiling. Oscar and I walked home together after school, and the entire time we brainstormed team names. We eventually decided on “Brainiacs.”

“You better get us the win!” Oscar teased.

“Well duh,” I laughed. “One of us has to!”

The two of us joked around and goofed off all the way home. For such a bad start to the day, I can scarcely remember a day ending with me feeling happier, and more full of life. When Oscar and I finally split off, we swore that tomorrow we’d go home as the trivia champions.

As soon as I got home, I cheerily started on my homework. Mr Gilad had given me a practice trivia question: what temperature does nitrate burn at? If I got it right, we earned an extra point immediately in the trivia competition. I thought long and hard about it, and decided I really had no idea. To be honest, I’d never heard the word nitrate before in my life.

Which meant it was probably a trick question.

It sounded like something way beyond a third grader, so maybe Mr Gilad wasn’t expecting me to know the answer. He had forbidden us from using the internet, and I bet you that if I got the right answer for it, then he’d know I was cheating. Instead, I wrote ‘very hot’ with a confident flourish of my pencil.

A short while later, I heard the front door open and my mom came home. She paid me a hasty smile, before pulling off her jacket and opening the cupboard to start on supper. “Hey mom,” I said, beaming. “How was work?”

“Long, honey,” she said, her eyes bloodshot and jaw set. “How was school?”

“Great! I’m doing a trivia competition tomorrow with Mr Gilad’s class!”

She eyed me for a moment, and then smiled. “That’s lovely. I’m sure you’ll learn lots.”

“Me too.”

A half hour later my father came home. He threw his jacket over the kitchen chair and immediately asked where supper was. “I’ve been stressed all day, Sarah, and I come and you still haven’t started dinner?”

I shrank into my homework, doing my best to ignore my parents’ arguing.

“I have started supper,” my mother countered, “I just haven’t started cooking it yet. The ingredients are all ready to go—”

“Jesus fuck, Sarah!” my dad bellowed. “Can’t anybody in this house do anything right?”

_____________________

That night I woke up to the smell of alcohol. I lay on my side, curled in blankets, and heard the sound of breathing near my face.

“Worthless,” my mother’s voice whispered from behind me. I felt her hand wrap itself around my neck, and I didn’t move, I didn’t speak, I didn’t so much as breathe. My body was paralyzed with fear.

“You stole my life from me,” she hissed. “If only you would just go away.”

Her fingers squeezed, their nails biting into my flesh. My throat contracted. I gasped for air, whimpering in pain and terror and then almost as soon as she started, she stopped.

Her hand slipped away from my neck.

My back was to her, but I could tell from the shadow she cast on the wall that she was still there. Standing in the dark. Watching me. Drinking wine straight from the bottle.

A half an hour later, she finished and put the bottle down on my dresser. I watched her silhouette wipe her lips, and heard her mutter the word, “Tonight.”

She left my room.

I listened as her footsteps creaked their way down the stairs, and into the kitchen. A moment later came the sound of wood squealing against wood, like a drawer being opened, followed by the clatter of cutlery.

I stared at my wall, blinking back tears. Again, that primal sense of fear returned. That indescribable intuition that something was very wrong, and I needed to be far away from my bedroom, and far away from this house.

My heart thundered in my chest as I heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. This time, coming up. The sounds grew louder, the higher and closer they got to my bedroom. Soon, the footsteps were in the hallway. I could hear my mom’s voice muttering, although I couldn’t make out any specific words.

Please, I thought to myself. Please walk by my door. Please don’t come inside.

The footsteps groaned on the floorboards as they approached. My mother left my bedroom door ajar when she left, and from its crack I saw a shadow in the hallway. I heard her voice.

“... Threw away my career for this. Threw away my entire life, and all so that you could take my money, take my time and destroy my marriage.”

The rusty hinges of my door whined, and the door swung open slowly. A shadow grew on my bedroom floor, and I recognized its shape as my mother in her nightgown. She held something in her right hand, but it wasn’t a wine bottle.

It was a knife.

I curled into a ball, every part of me screaming to do something. To run. To call for help. To throw something at her. My instincts told me I was going to die.

Instead, I lay there as still as a board, too paralyzed by fear to move or speak.

Who would I call out to, my father? He didn’t care about me. How was I supposed to run? My mother was blocking the doorway. What was I supposed to throw at her? The only thing I had nearby was my lamp, and I knew it wouldn’t hurt her enough to stop her from hurting me.

She walked toward my bed, standing beside it, knife in hand. I stared at her, hyperventilating with panic. She looked back into my eyes. She kept moving her lips, muttering words but not loud enough for me to hear. Her face was painted with revulsion and hatred, and every so often she would lift the knife up and threaten at stabbing it down toward me.

Then, she turned on her heel and left my room, closing the door behind her.

I lay there, sat-up in bed, my body too awash with adrenaline to even dream of sleeping or thinking or doing anything. I just waited, wired and awake.

I waited for her to come back and kill me.

_____________________

She never did.

The sun rose, and with it came the sound of cars in the street and dogs barking in their yards. I nervously stepped out of bed. My feet were cold against the hardwood, but I barely noticed. All I could think about was my mother, and how she would react this morning. Usually she was full of smiles and affection after she’d slept off the booze, but after last night I wasn’t so sure.

Something seemed to have changed in her.

When I made my way downstairs for breakfast, she wasn’t there. Normally she was eating her porridge and ready to grab my cereal of choice from the cupboard. This time it was just me. The house felt empty. Lonely.

I clambered onto the countertop and opened the cupboard, pulling out a box of Frosted Flakes. I did my best to remember what Mr Gilad had told me the day before. It doesn’t matter what my parents think of me, I thought to myself. I need to forge my own path and listen to my heart. I have to do what I think is right, and not let anybody, my parents or otherwise, get in the way of that.

I thought about his words over my bowl of cereal. Even if my dad didn’t love me, and even if my mom wished I’d never been born, I could still find my own path in life.

As I ate, I monitored the digital clock sitting on our kitchen counter. It was a habit I picked up because my mom was always very strict about ushering me into the car by 7:15am, so she could drop me off in time to get to work.

Right now it read 7:45am. She was nowhere in sight.

A minute later I heard the familiar creak of footsteps on the stairs, and my mood picked up. Even after everything that had happened last night, my mom hadn’t hurt me, and I still had my trivia competition with Mr Gilad and Oscar to look forward to. Maybe mom realized she loved me too much to hurt me.

The creaking stopped as the footsteps reached the landing, and my dad bustled around the corner, adjusting his tie. He paused, seeing me at the kitchen table. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for mom,” I said quietly.

“Excuse me?” he said, his voice rising.

I swallowed. My father always had a way of making me feel smaller than I already was. “Waiting for mom, dad.”

He stared at me with something between irritation and disbelief. “Your mom’s not home.”

“What?”

“I said she’s not home. Do you need a fucking hearing aid now too?”

I looked down, eating another spoonful of Frosted Flakes. Where did she go? I wondered. She was here last night.

My eyes drifted to the digital display. The clock now read 7:50am. Class was starting in ten minutes, and so was my trivia competition. It took at least ten minutes to drive to school.

“Dad?” I asked.

“Have you seen my briefcase?” he said, impatiently

“No, sorry.”

“Fuck!” he snapped. “That stupid bitch probably took it!” He adjusted his collar and reached for the coffee pot, before realizing it was empty and then flung it across the room, where it shattered on the wall. “Everything I do!” he screamed. “Taken for granted!”

Mr Gilad’s words echoed in my head. To believe in myself. To trust in my instincts. To do what I felt I needed to. I cleared my throat. “Can you drive me to school, I have a trivia compet—”

“Do I look like your mother?” he said incredulously. I stared at him, feeling tears welling in my eyes. Eventually, I shook my head.

“I have a real job,” he said, grabbing his jacket from the wall and opening the front door. “I don’t have time to play at being a parent.” He muttered something about ingrates, and then disappeared through the doorway, shutting the door behind him.

I sat at the table for a few more minutes, too stunned to do anything. My mom was gone. My dad was gone. It was just me in the house now. My family didn’t care about me. Nobody gave a damn.

No, that wasn’t true.

Oscar cared. Mr Gilad cared.

I snatched my jacket from the coat rack beside the door and exited after my father. I used the key we hid under the rock in our garden to lock the house behind me, and I started jogging toward the school. Usually, when I walked home with Oscar it’d take us just over an hour. Unfortunately for me though, Hillcrest school lived up to its namesake.

My school sat perched atop a large hill, overlooking the rest of Plumberry township. At the top, it was really a spectacular view. To the north you could see most of the local streets, all the way up to the city hall, downtown. To the south, you could see far down the country road, all the way out to Lake Tyler and Gefferson forest beyond.

Still, it was uphill. Which meant it would be a longer walk to than from. I was determined though. Mr Gilad’s words recited themselves in my mind like a mantra, pushing me ever forward.

I kept my eye on the watch on my wrist, figuring if I could get there before 8:30, I’d be in the clear. In both third grade classes, we did a sharing period from 8 till 8:30, where we talked about our day or new things we found interesting.

My sneakers pounded along the sidewalk, my backpack bouncing up and down with my binder, pencils and markers. I made good time getting to the bottom of the hill, and at the distant top I could see the gates that marked the entrance to Hillcrest elementary.

I started my ascent.

It was slow going. As I went, I kept track of the watch on my wrist. 8:20am. I had ten minutes to reach the top, and I was barely a quarter of the way there. My breath was coming in big heaves and my legs, tired from jogging for so long, burned with soreness. I felt lightheaded and wobbly — out of breath.

I continued to climb, more slowly now. I didn’t have a water bottle, and I was beginning to feel incredibly thirsty, but I knew I needed to get to the top before the trivia competition started.

Somehow, even after everything that had happened with my mom and dad, I felt like if I could just win that competition, then everything would be alright. My mom would come home, and she’d realize how smart I was and decide that drinking wasn’t worth it, and my dad would be so proud of me that he’d start taking an interest in my studies.

My eyes drifted back to the watch on my wrist, and my heart fell. 8:45am. How had I been walking up the hill for so long already? I stopped, catching my breath and realizing none of it mattered anymore.

I was way too late for trivia, and I was probably going to end up in detention besides that. There wasn’t any point in rushing now.

My day was already ruined.

I took the rest of the hill at a slower walk, and my legs thanked me for it. I hated my mom for leaving last night, and I hated my dad for not driving me to school. I hated both of them for making me miss out on trivia, and disappoint the one adult who seemed to care about me: Mr Gilad.

Tears tugged at the corners of my eyes as I considered how ashamed of me he probably was. He went through all the trouble of securing me permission to attend his class this morning, and I gave him my word I’d be there. Then I didn’t show up at all, and my dad didn’t so much as call the school and let them know I’d be late.

He probably thought I was just as much of a lost cause as my parents by now.

“There he is!” a shrill voice shrieked. “Oh my god, he’s here!”

I looked up as Mrs Applefig came stampeding toward me, her lined face filled with concern and her tone thick with relief. “Walter, are you okay?” she wrapped me into a tight hug. “Thank goodness. Thank goodness.”

I’d been so absorbed in my own thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed I’d crested the hill and come up in front of my school. Mrs Applefig smothered me with her hug, and all I could see was the blue fabric of her blouse. “I’m fine, Mrs Applefig,” I lied. “I’m sorry for being late.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay,” she said, pressing her face to mine. I felt something wet on her cheek.

“Gloria, is that Walter Thimby?” a man bellowed, and I recognized it as Principal Patel.

She wheeled around, nodding fiercely. “It is, Uday! It is!”

Freed from Mrs Applefig’s all-encompassing blouse, I became acutely aware of something very strange: my entire school was staring at me.

“Bring him over here,” Principal Patel called out. “Everybody triple check your students and make sure everybody’s accounted for!”

Mrs Applefig ushered me into a line with the rest of my classmates, and I plunked down on the grass beside Jessie Wilson, a blonde kid who held the record for most school suspensions in third grade. He leaned over and whispered into my ear.

“Whew,” he said. “Gotta say man, for a while there you had us worried.”

“Had you worried?” I said, feeling too depressed to chitchat.

“Yeah,” he said. He thumbed over his shoulder, back toward the school behind us. “We thought you were still inside.”

Still inside? I turned around, and gazed at the school with narrowed eyes. Beyond the belltower in the center, I saw a dark cloud billowing into the sky.

Smoke.

“The back of the school caught fire sometime this morning,” Jessie explained. “We did the fire drill thing, everybody ditched the classroom’s and came out here, but I guess we’re still missing some students.” He grinned. “One less now, though.”

I swallowed. The smoke was pitch black, and heavy. It looked like it was growing thicker.

“Firefighters are on the other side,” Jessie continued. “Fire’s been going for like twenty minutes now, and it keeps getting bigger. They’re calling in fire trucks from the next town over. Pretty wild.”

I stared, transfixed at the pillar of shadow rising from the school. Beneath it, faint in the brightness of the morning sun, I spotted the flicker of flames.

The school was burning.

Just then, a cacophony of sirens sounded in the distance. A handful of seconds later, and two fire trucks roared over the crest of the hill, through the school gates, and swung around the parking lot toward the south side. I gazed after them in awe. I’d never seen fire trucks in action before.

“Mister Thimbly,” Principal Patel said firmly. I blinked, pulling my gaze from the school. Mr. Patel crouched down, meeting me at eye level. “I need to know if you were with Mr. Gilad’s class this morning.”

“Mr. Gilad’s class?” I said, confused. “No, I was late. I was supposed to be but—”

“Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head and standing up. “He wasn’t!” he shouted to somebody I didn’t recognize. They were in a suit and on a cellphone, and their lips were moving fast.

“That’s not good,” Jessie said beside me.

“What’s going on?” I asked, fear beginning to take seat in my chest.

“Pretty sure I heard 'em’ saying we’re missing twenty-two kids still, and one teacher.”

My heart sank, a piece of me already knowing the answer to the question I was about to ask. “Who’s missing?”

“Mr Gilad,” Jessie said darkly. “Nobody knows where he is, or his class.”

“They’re two doors down from us,” I argued. “How can they not know where he is?”

Mrs Applefig appeared in front of us, her finger pursed to her lips. “Shh!” she hissed. “It’s important that we’re all quiet. This is a very serious situation and it’s crucial that Principal Patel is able to hear what’s going on.”

Jessie and I closed our mouths, nodding in acknowledgement. As soon as Mrs Applefig shuffled out of earshot though, he leaned over and resumed his whispering.

“That’s the thing, they cleared the entire school. The fire alarm went off as soon as the smoke detector caught whiff, and Patel himself made sure to double check every classroom to make sure they were clear. All of them were empty.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, defiance leaking into my voice. Oscar was in that class, there was no way Patel would miss Oscar. He was the loudest kid I’d ever met. “They had to have been there! We were doing a trivia competition today.”

Jessie shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell ya’ man, that’s just what I heard.”

My mind raced. Where could they be? Mr Gilad had promised me there would be a trivia competition today. He hadn’t told me to meet the class anywhere special. They had to be here.

My eyes scanned the crowd of assembled students. Each class was separated into small ranks, with their teachers standing out front. I went over every one of them once, twice, then once again to be certain. No Oscar. No Mr. Gilad.

No. Just no.

Again I felt my emotions getting the better of me. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes, but I took a deep breath. Maybe they had met up at the school, and then gone for a walk? I looked up at the cloudless sky, and the warm sun. It was an uncharacteristically nice day for November. Maybe Mr. Gilad took them outside for the trivia competition, so that they could enjoy the weather?

Yeah. That was it.

A crash sounded behind me, and everybody’s heads turned in near unison. I watched, transfixed in horror as the bell tower, now almost entirely enshrouded in thick black smoke, sagged, and then with a loud groan fell backwards, onto the blazing south wing. The resultant collision was deafening. The roof of the school caved in instantly, and in its wake exploded an inferno of smoke and flame.

Screams erupted from the students.

My jaw dropped. I was watching my school, the one place I truly felt at home, burn to ash in front of my eyes. It felt surreal. Like I was dreaming, and couldn't wake up.

It was Mrs Applefig’s crying that brought me back to earth. She had a hand covering her mouth, and she kept muttering the words “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.”

A minute later a school bus arrived, and all of us whose parents hadn’t picked us up yet were loaded into it. I remember resisting at first, telling Mrs Applefig that I needed to wait for Oscar, but she kept crying and telling me I had to get onboard. “Please,” she said. “Please, Walter. Please just go.”

I relented, and fifteen minutes later the bus dropped me off at home. I used the key in the garden to get back inside, and when I did, I called out for my mom. She didn’t answer, so I went into the kitchen and picked up my phone, calling Oscar’s house. Maybe he was home sick?

The ringer rang once, twice, three times and then a voice picked up. “Hello?” it said breathlessly. “Sarah? Matthew? Is Oscar at your house with Walter? Please we need to—”

“No,” I said. “This is Walter. Oscar’s not here.”

The line went quiet on the other end.

“Is he not at home?” I asked.

“No,” said his mother’s voice, though it was broken, and filled with sadness. I heard her stifle a sob. “I’m sorry, Walter. I have to go.”

“Okay, Miss Cortez.”

The line went dead, and I hung up the phone. I looked over to the clock. It read 10:54am. My dad wouldn’t be home for another six hours, so in the meantime I made my way to the living room and turned on the TV, hoping maybe there was something on the news.

I flicked through the channels until I spotted a newscaster in front of my school.

“— here in front of Hillcrest elementary, where a vicious fire has caused the bell tower to collapse upon the South Wing. Firefighters have managed to get the blaze out, and efforts to locate survivors, as well as fully assess the extent of the damage have begun.”

The woman speaking, dressed in a nice three-piece suit, turned her attention to somebody off camera. They exchanged a few words with her microphone down. A moment later, she looked back at the camera and raised her microphone to her mouth.

“I’ve just received word from the fire department that several remains have been located within Hillcrest. These remains are suspected to belong to the missing third grade class, taught by Mr. Heinrich Gilad.”

An emptiness stole through me. The news lady continued speaking, but her words washed over me like white noise. Several remains have been located within Hillcrest. The words haunted me, replaying over and over again in my head. It wasn’t until my father came home that I realized just how long I’d been sitting there.

“Walter?” he said, before rushing over to me. He pulled me into a tight hug. “Oh, god, Walter. I was so worried for you. I was in a meeting and I didn’t hear until twenty minutes ago, once I did I came right over—”

“It’s okay, dad,” I said, though my voice was void of emotion. It was such an odd sort of feeling. All of my life I had craved this sort of attention and affection from my father, and yet now that I was receiving it, it didn’t mean anything to me.

I felt empty inside.

My dad took me upstairs, ordered me my favorite pizza and rented the newest Harry Potter movie. He sat with me all night. Every so often he would ask me if I was okay, and apologize for yelling at me earlier, but I hardly registered it. My thoughts were consumed with thoughts of Oscar, and Mr Gilad.

They were gone.

The next morning school was predictably canceled. My father stayed home with me, and put on another rented movie in my room. This one was Monsters Inc. I only watched it for twenty minutes or so before I wandered downstairs. I found my dad on the couch in the living room, his back facing me, watching the news lady I’d seen yesterday.

She was in front of the scorched remains of the south wing of my school, and it looked like a windy day, because her blond hair was blowing all over the place.

“— I'm again in front of the wreckage of Hillcrest Elementary’s South Wing, where twenty two children and one man lost their lives early yesterday morning, in what can only be described as the greatest tragedy in Plumdale history...”

My dad reached for his mug on the coffee table and took a sip. It occurred to me that he must have taken the day off of work to stay home with me.

“...Yesterday morning a fire blazed, quickly spreading through the South Wing and eventually reaching the bell tower. An old school, built in the early 1900s, Hillcrest Elementary was built primarily of highly flammable lumber, and the bell tower was no exception. At 10:13am it fell backward, onto the South Wing, collapsing that section of the school and dooming the individuals trapped inside.”

She touched her ear, and her eyes looked sideways, as if somebody was speaking to her.

“I’m just receiving word that the investigation has determined some rather disturbing details. I… I should caution viewers at home that what I’m about to say is not for the faint of heart.”

The news lady cleared her throat, and I drew closer behind my father.

“Investigators have located two thick wooden doors in the wreckage. The deadbolts belonging to these doors were discovered in the outward, locked position. According to blueprints, these doors lead into the basement of the school, where the Hillcrest archive was held.”

“Jesus…” I heard my father mutter, leaning forward and setting his mug back down on the table.

“The twenty two students and teacher, who we have now positively identified as one Mr Heinnrich Gilad via dental records, appear to have been locked inside the school’s basement at the time of the blaze. Details pertaining as to why are still unknown. The stunning ferocity of the blaze, according to investigators, was due to old film reels housed in the school’s archive. These reels contained nitrate, a substance which burns hotter than gasoline...”

A lump formed in my throat.

The camera cuts out, and I see my principal giving an interview on the school grounds, but in a different location during a different time of day.

“One aspect of the tragedy that school Principal Uday Patel is wrestling with, is that he never physically cleared any of the school’s basement areas.”

“I checked everywhere,” he said, adjusting his glasses and keeping his voice level. “Every classroom was personally cleared by myself, as well as a team of three other faculty members. We ensured to check all of them. I double checked them personally, and suffered severe smoke exposure in the process. Of course, in the interest of protecting my students —”

“What about the basement?” the interviewer asked from off screen, and I recognized the voice as the news lady from earlier.

Principal Patel's voice cracked as he began his reply. “I saw no need to physically check the basements. It seemed a dangerous task, given the relative size of them, and the speed at which the blaze was spreading. As I walked by the basement areas in each wing, I called down and asked if anybody was down there and needed assistance. I heard no response, and so I continued on. There simply wasn’t time.”

The screen cut back to the news lady, and a small icon in the corner read LIVE.

“Strangely enough, despite Principal Patel’s calls, nobody answered. Given the amount of remains located within the school’s archive, it seems as though such screams would have been loud and plentiful. One theory as to why Patel didn’t hear any of the victims, was that they had already suffered from toxin inhalation due to the nitrate film off-gassing. It's highly likely they'd already passed out —- sorry?”

The news lady brought a hand to her earpiece again. Seconds ticked by in silence, and I realized somebody must be speaking to her on the other end, because her expression slowly became more and more disturbed. Finally, she cleared her throat and brought the mic to her lips.

“For those watching at home, particularly family members of the suspected deceased, your viewer discretion is advised." Her voice trembled. "I can hardly believe I’m about to say this in sleepy Plumdale, but investigators have just determined that, based on observed damage to a child's hyoid bone, their throat is presumed to have been slit."

The news lady closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "According to dental records, one Oscar Cortez appears to have died prior to the start of the blaze.”

I gazed, transfixed in horror at the television screen. My father was too stunned to notice me creeping ever closer, drawn toward the scenes on the display. “It is now being posited that perhaps this young man was killed in an attempt to scare the remaining twenty-one children into silence.”

“Oh my god,” my dad muttered. He ran a hand through his mess of hair, and I could tell by his sleeves that he was wearing his housecoat. He didn't even bother getting properly dressed.

I took another step closer and the floorboard croaked. My father turned around. “Walter?” he exclaimed. “Jesus, Walter! You shouldn’t be watching this!”

He rushed around the couch, and the news lady's words became muffled against his chest as he lifted me up and carried me back upstairs.

“You need to take it easy, buddy,” he said, ferrying me through the hallway. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, and I know your worthless joke of a mother abandoned us, but the two of us gotta stick together, okay? And that means you gotta trust that I know what’s best for you. Now I don’t want to see you out of your room again today, alright?”

He gently lowered me onto my bed, and hit play on the Monsters Inc movie. “You need to take some time for yourself. Don’t worry about the news. This is all just conjecture right now anyway.”

He paid me a remorseful smile and closed my bedroom door behind him. I laid there, staring at my wall and oblivious to the sounds of Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc. All I could think about was Mr. Gilad’s words, playing on repeat inside of my head.

"I never felt fulfilled, because each day I felt like I was a part of a play, or an act. I felt like I was fighting tooth and nail against my instincts, and it was only making me more desperate to see them through."

Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. Thanks to the news lady, I finally knew the answer to my trivia question.

Nitrate burned hotter than gasoline.

#horror #creepypasta #writeblr #writers #writeblr community #writers of tumblr #creative writing #writing #original writing #writblr #scary shit #thriller #jgmartin #short fiction #one shot #short story

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accessibleaesthetics · 1 year

Note

Hi! I love your blog! If it's okay, I'd like to request a bit of advice.

I have a physical disability (born legally blind due to albinism). I had spent a lot of time "masking" my blindness since I was 8 or so. I stopped using my cane in public, only used a screen reader when I had earbuds, read braille in private, etc. I suppose in retrospect it was me trying to play into respectability politics, so I would stop getting the "how many fingers?" routine. It feels even more reinforced that the field I'm studying is considered too dangerous for someone with low vision.

As an adult, I want to let go of that shame and integrate properly with this incredible community. Yet, I feel like a fraud just by interacting. I know that my disability affects me in a multitude of ways that makes me qualified to be here, but I struggle to shake the feeling that others have it worse than me. I am privileged enough to be able to mask myself at all. Short version is: how do I know that I'm enough to be here? If I am enough, how can I get over this imposter syndrome and support my fellow disabled people?

Thank you for reading this, regardless of if you respond or not. Sincerely, I hope you have a good day! :D

First off, I invite any of my followers to comment or reblog this with their own input, especially those who are blind or low vision, since I am not. But I will do my best to answer based on what I know and believe, and what has helped me with my own imposter syndrome.

While it is obviously a privilege to be able to pass as abled, anyone with an invisible disability will tell you that it is sometimes as much a curse as it is a blessing. I'd be willing to bet you could think of some examples from your life that exemplify that too.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that not being able to mask is also a privilege in some contexts. Being so visibly disabled that society no longer expects you to pretend like you are abled is a privilege, and not one that you enjoy, by the sound of it.

And that's the thing about privilege; too often, I think it's easy to get caught up in conversations about privileged groups and start to think that those are groups of people: the privileged and the not privileged. But it doesn't work like that. Literally every person on the planet is part of at least one privileged group and not part of at least one other privileged group.

You asked if you were enough to be "here," but where is "here"? I think defining that might help you zero in on exactly what arguments you are compiling against yourself, and more easily allow you to counter them.

For example, is "here" the disabled community? If so, I think it would be useful to remind yourself that everyone is part of some privileged groups and not part of others. Do others have it worse than you in some ways? Absolutely. But they might also have advantages that you do not enjoy. At the end of the day, the community isn't so much a place you need to earn a spot in as it is a collaborative effort to pool resources and find solace in the fact that we are not alone in our struggles.

#god I wrote the word 'privilege' so much it's stopped sounding like a word lol #but I hope this helped

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nflstreetsanimereviews · 1 year

Text

A Retrospective on Sword Art Online's Aincrad Arc

What you’re about to read was originally going to be a review of the first volume of the Sword Art Online series. Then after reading it along with the second volume, I realized that they were so interconnected that it only made sense to combine the two into one review. After that, I had a realization–most people reading this have probably already watched the SAO anime. Meaning that reading this would pretty much be redundant since it’s a pretty one-to-one adaptation. Even if you liked the anime, there’s no payoff in reading the light novels, since the anime has the superior version of the Aincrad arc. Needless to say, this review became more of a slightly below-surface-level view of Sword Art Online as a series, Reki Kawahara’s growth as a writer, and what you would be better off reading if you wanted to learn more about Aincrad. Please excuse the title, I couldn't think of anything better to name it.

Believe it or not, it’s been almost eleven years since Sword Art Online first aired. For those who don't remember, it was a huge deal when it aired. It was probably the biggest anime back in 2012. It was also the most panned, with many calling it overrated or saying it just plain sucked. While some of the criticisms were over the top, it was understandable why many didn’t like SAO–there were many better anime that aired that year that only got a fraction of attention it did. Many of SAO’s plot points, especially in the second half of the show, were rightfully slammed for being inconsistent about Asuna’s personality and the way it handled Kirito’s and Suguha’s relationship. After a while, it became ‘cool’ to hate on SAO. After all, it was a mediocre-at-best anime that became immensely popular despite said setbacks. I’ve always had a soft spot for SAO–for a series that wasn’t that good overall, it does maintain to keep being interesting, which at the very least is what you want. With that in mind, I decided to re-read the first and second volume to see how it holds up, years later after the hype.

For those who’ve already watched the first season of Sword Art Online, the first two volumes cover roughly the first half of it. It begins with Kirito, our protagonist, playing the game Sword Art Online, a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG). The game is played on a device called a Nerve Gear, a state-of-the-art VR headset that simulates all five senses. For Kirito and the ten thousand players that were able to log on and play SAO, they’ve just unwillingly signed up to be trapped in the game’s world (Aincrad). The game creator, Akihiko Kayaba, states that he’s holding them captive until they’re able to reach the 100th floor of the game’s map and that anyone who dies in the game also dies in real life.

I don’t think it’ll come as much of a surprise when I say that this book isn’t good. With all of the knowledge and lore I know about the Sword Art Online series, SAO volume 1 is alright–but on its own, it’s flimsy and hollow. After the big reveal that Kirito and everyone else in the game are trapped in there, there’s a two-year time skip, which in my opinion is a huge mistake. What the reader knows of SAO and Aincrad from this volume is almost at an elevator pitch level, assuming that this is their intro to the series. For now, we almost know nothing about the world around us–we just know about how powerful and cool Kirito is.

Most of our perspectives on this are warped because most of us already knew about Sword Art Online from the anime, which had a completely different pace from this. It’s why I’m including the second volume in this review as well. This volume skips most of the world-building and spends an extensive amount of time showing us what ends up being the final boss fight, along with Kirito and Asuna being together, although we as a reader don’t know that much about her or why she fell for Kirito in the first place. Funny thing is that the Aincrad Arc part of the anime takes parts from other entries in the light novel series–from Volume 8 (which is a collection of short stories, like Volume 2), Material Edition 1 (which I don’t even know is translated into English officially), and Progressive Volume 1 (written four years after the first volume was published, and is a ‘spin-off’ that expands on the Aincrad arc). To put in perspective how much this volume is lacking in detail, the anime adaptation only uses material from the first volume in episodes 1, 8-11, 13, and 14. That’s a whole lotta gaps! Compare that to the second half of the anime–the Fairy Dance Arc. It adapts from volumes three and four chronologically, and it shows in an obvious decline in plot quality. There are other reasons why that is, but that’s not relevant here.

I mentally tried to put myself as a reader that didn’t know anything about Sword Art Online before opening this book, and this was the interpretation I got: This volume leaves a lot to be desired. We know that Kirito is perhaps the most powerful person in the game. We know that Asuna is in love with him. We know that many have gotten used to life in Aincrad and have given up all hope of returning to the ‘real world’. But we don’t get to see them transition into that. All we get is the tail end, where life is already settled in. It zaps most of the fun out of it. It straight up didn’t make sense how THIS became popular enough to be animated in the first place–it is, until I did some more research on how this light novel came to be.

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At the beginning of the afterword for Sword Art Online Volume 1, Reki Kawahara, the author writes “The volume of Sword Art Online you hold in your hands now was my first novel, written for the Dengeki Game Novel Prize in 2002.” He actually never submitted it, due to it being too long to enter, and instead published it online. The web version of Sword Art Online, which ran from 2002 to 2008, had popular support, but it wasn’t what got it published as a light novel. He won the Dengeki Novel Prize in 2008 with his story Accel World, allowing himself to finesse his way into also have SAO published as well. So basically, what we’re reading is the most juvenile writing that Mr. Kawahara had to offer. Due to it being not how he got his foot in the door, SAO was left on the back burner for Accel World. That being said, the web novel had LOADS of content, which made it more feasible for Kawahara to be able to publish both it and Accel World at the same time, even if the writing quality wasn’t up to Kawahara’s now-seasoned standards.

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The second volume of Sword Art Online contains four short stories–stories that were sorely missing from the first volume. For the theoretical person in my head who has only read the first volume, and knows nothing else about the SAO universe, this volume gives some life to Aincrad and the society that formed in-game.

The first story, titled The Black Swordsman, starts on the 35th floor of Aincrad. Our hero runs into Silica, rescuing her from a mob of NPC monsters. Kirito and Silica go on a quest to revive Silica’s Tamed Monster, Pina.

This story introduces the concept of ‘Kirito, the older brother’–something that those who’ve seen the later half of the first season of Sword Art Online know full well about (many would claim that they know ‘too much’.) While Kirito admits that he’s helping her because she reminds him of his real-life sister, their relationship is nowhere near as weird. I have to say though, there were still some ‘sus’ moments. The one that comes to mind is Kirito saying “Level is just a number”. I cringed at least a little reading that, even if the context is way less insidious than expected.

Other than that, it was an alright story about the difficulties of being a young girl trapped inside Sword Art Online. While Kirito is also young (he’s only two years older than Silica), he’s had years of prior gaming experience before SAO, along with also being a beta tester. Silica, being only thirteen (and a girl), for better or for worse, has a constant stream of fellow players wanting to play with her. Her naivety gets her into trouble, being only saved by Jes-...I mean Kirito. This story also gives us a more in-depth look at the mid-level players of SAO. Silica, being ‘mid’ herself, doesn’t fight on the frontlines, and instead makes her living exploring already cleared dungeons in the lower levels of Aincrad. It’s a pretty good gig if you want some excitement in your life, but aren’t crazy (or strong) enough to be on the front lines. Probably beats subsisting on apples and being harassed by Army assholes in the Town of Beginnings.

The second story, titled Warmth of the Heart, features our hero with the blacksmith Lisbeth, who both go on a quest to the 55th floor to obtain a new mysterious metal–a metal so rare that it has not been dropped in-game yet.

This story was by far the worst. I feel bad for Lisbeth, because the entire reason for her existence is to be another girl to pine after Kirito. Yes, as you would expect, Kirito’s Law1 is in full force in this story–Lisbeth, swept by the enigma that is ‘Kirito’, falls for him in no time. Are there really no other honorable men in Aincrad other than Kirito? Well, of course, there’s Agil and Klein, but they’re adults. Lisbeth, while older than Kirito, is still a teenager. Not that age has ever stopped someone in Sword Art Online, but you’d think that there’s at least one other Japanese teenage boy stuck in the game that is as honorable, or even as nice, as Kirito. Guess not, considering that most male players in the game that aren’t Kirito and friends turn out to be huge sickos most of the time. Guess being trapped in a video game world with little hope of ever coming back gets to you after a while. Cabin fever did a number on more than a few men in Aincrad.

Anyways, back to Lisbeth–this story kinda rubs me the wrong way due to the way it establishes her character–someone who will only feel unrequited ‘love’. In scare quotes because it’s a ‘love’ that comes from being stuck with him for a day. Replace her with any other female blacksmith, and the story would’ve gone the same. Because he’s Kirito, and you’re supposed to want to be with him forever. It isn’t like Lisbeth is bland or anything. From what little we know about her, I like her. It’s just disappointing that her purpose (for now) is to be a side-piece of Kirito’s theoretical harem. She’ll never get what she wants because she’s not Asuna. Her fatalist interpretation of Kirito’s and Asuna’s relationship combined with her inability to move on traps her in Kirito’s ‘friendzone’, for a lack of a better term. Needless to say, this story doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test.

The Girl in the Morning Dew is the third story, featuring Kirito and Asuna shortly after they got married in-game. They come across a little girl named Yui, who collapses near the two while they’re venturing out to a remote part of the forest on the 22nd floor to look for a rumored ghost. Yui, not a ghost, nevertheless lacks a Color Cursor, something that every living object has in Sword Art Online. Kirito and Asuna, never one to not help someone in need, help Yui try to find where she came from.

Out of all of the chapters, this one is the best by far. The worldbuilding is a good thing to see. I mean, we gotta know about Aincrad first if we’re expected to care about it. A lot of the chapter is set in the Town of Beginnings, the starting town in Sword Art Online. It’s still the most populous town in all of Aincrad two years after the ‘game’ started. Most people who still live there are those who’re afraid to go outside the town’s walls. There’s also the Aincrad Liberation Force (known as the ALF, or simply as ‘The Army’), the largest guild in SAO with more than a thousand members, who make the starting town their base. It was nice to come back to where it all started, since Kirito stayed in here for all of one day the first time he was here.

This chapter delves into the conflict within the higher rungs of the Army and offers a very interesting insight into what happens when leadership breaks down. One faction of the ALF has turned to ‘taxing’ (extorting) the citizens of the Town of Beginnings–who’re probably the least well-off out of all of the people trapped in Sword Art Online, considering most of them haven’t even left the town. In typical SAO fashion, these ‘taxers’ are unnecessarily evil–they would take candy from a baby and laugh about it. Another victim of cabin fever. Caught between this is an orphanage run by a woman named Sasha, who houses twenty kids that’re stuck in SAO without a parent or guardian. There’s a lot about The Army that could be expanded, but since this is a series about Kirito, all we need to know is that they’re the closest thing Aincrad has to a form of government. Did you know that ‘The Army’ is actually a combination of two guilds, the ‘Aincrad Liberation Squad’, a front-line clearer guild, and ‘MMO Today’, a mutual aid organization that aimed to spread info about Sword Art Online and resources equally.

The final story, titled Red-Nosed Reindeer, is also the earliest story chronologically, taking place in December 2023, almost a year before Kirito and everyone else finally broke out of Aincrad. The story is also the only one where Kirito is the lone narrator.

This story hearkens back to an earlier time in Kirito’s Sword Art Online playthrough, when he briefly joined the ‘Moonlit Black Cats’, a small guild whose camaraderie was a welcoming surprise to the lone-wolf Kirito. Kirito hides his actual power level, pretending to be only two or three levels higher than the rest of the guild, while in actuality he’s Kirito, the all-mighty slayer of bosses and wooer of around half of the women he talks to. Nevertheless, things go horribly wrong one day when one of the members accidentally sets off a trap in a labyrinth, ending up killing four of the guild members and driving the remaining member to suicide. This memory still haunts Kirito months later, believing that he is the reason why the Moonlit Black Cats were killed. He’s especially guilty about Sachi, who Kirito was mentoring and teaching sword skills to.

While it’s woefully the shortest, Red-Nosed Reindeer is easily better than the first two stories. It’s the only insight that we get to see of the ‘early days’ of Sword Art Online, with all of the other stories in the book taking place in 2024, the year after. Our visit with the Moonlit Black Cats is only brief, getting only a little bit more than the cliff notes on them, but at least we got to meet them.

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These four stories add some flair to the Sword Art Online universe, but still leave a lot to be desired. Aincrad is a vast and wonderful world, filled with ten thousand people’s stories–two volumes are better than one, but there’s still tons of meat on that bone. Mr. Kawahara agrees as well, regretting that the Aincrad storyline is only solved in one volume. To correct this, he started the Sword Art Online: Progressive series in 2012.

The Progressive series starts from the very beginning. I mean, the very beginning. The first volume only covers the first two floors. Kawahara, in his afterward for the first volume of Progressive states that “I wrote the story [Sword Art Online] as a submission for the Dengeki Novel Award, so I had to finish the story with the game being beaten, right in the very first installment.” Wow. So that explains why it was wrapped up so soon. The first volume quite literally was what he was going to submit in 2002. In a sense, it’s actually very cool, since what we’re reading is pretty much the first thing he wrote. One of the payoffs of reading the series is seeing the growth in Kawahara’s writing.

Continuing on, he also says that “Later on, I wrote a number of shorter prequel stories that filled in gaps (see Volumes 2 and 8), but they’re more like little episodes, and don’t focus on the meat and potatoes of the players advancing through the game.” Okay, so we did read Volume 2, but I’m not going to read Volume 8. This review is already long enough as it is. Moving on, I’m so glad that he gets that what supplements he wrote are substandard, especially for a great concept like Sword Art Online. They just don’t quite scratch the itch for people like me.

Moving backward, it’s pretty absurd to see an author so freely critique and criticize his most known and successful work. It was popular enough to have people begging him to write more when it was a web novel. It was somehow impressive enough to have it published as a light novel, which then had an anime adaptation that blew up in popularity, and since then has had several sequels and even a spin-off. It’s a staple ‘starting anime’ to this day, nearly a decade after it aired. It makes me respect him a lot to admit what he really thinks, and try to ‘rectify’ it in a sense. The Progressive series contains many ret-cons of the original novel. The biggest to me is when Asuna and Kirito meet–in the first volume, Asuna and Kirito are just kinda together forever already, and we’re supposed to care about it–but in Progressive, they meet a lot earlier. On the first floor. This change is for the good, because we get to see their relationship from the start. We get to see them slowly become lovers, rather than be dropped off via timewarp to literally a week before they get married. There are also characters from the original novel, like Agil and Kiabou, along with new ones.

So, is it worth it to read the Sword Art Online series? To be quite honest, I think it’s only worth reading the Progressive series, and that’s if you’re into the concept of Sword Art Online. I’ve only read the first volume of the Progressive series, and while it's miles better than the original series, it still wasn’t great. That’s only the first volume though. Kawahara has written a total of eight Progressive volumes–usually releasing them once a year. The funny part is that the SAO light novel series didn’t have an original arc until 2017. The guy got 18 volumes of content from what was basically something he wrote for fun. I know light novels aren’t the longest things, but that’s a lot of words! So basically, this arc up to the Alicization arc was already written by 2008, and Kawahara was only able to write new arcs when the light novel caught up to where his web novel was when the series was originally published. That’s quite a mind boggle. It also pieces together why it became big enough in Japan to warrant an anime adaptation. Since there was already a web novel, Japanese readers had the opportunity to read past where the light novel is, if they didn’t ready before reading SAO. The context it was released makes it suffer from poor-quality writing and bad pacing, but those gaps could be filled by the web novels, which were only ever released in Japanese. The light novels began being translated into English in 2014, two years after the anime aired. Most of those who bought the light novel had already watched the anime. This means that my theoretical person whose first experience with SAO is with these light novels was likely a larger minority than I originally thought. Sword Art Online really is a weird series!

It might be worth a read of the main series–only after you’ve read all of the Progressive series that is. I mean, it’s up to you. The anime series has adapted the light novels up to the end of the Alicization Arc. You could either watch it or read it. That is, if you wanted to in the first place, which I highly doubt.

‘Kirito’s Law’ is a slight deviation from the more well-known ‘007’s Law’–basically, any woman who interacts with Kirito for more than four hours has a fifty-fifty chance of falling in love with him. Unlike ‘007’s Law’, these women pass away ten times less often. These two terms were made up by me at the time of writing this.

#sword art online #sao #anime #light novel

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