#the real threat of damnation

[qingxin-dream]

“Righteousness”

summary | in another timeline, kunikuzushi never redeemed himself. he took interest in a different kind of heart—not the Gnosis, not a Vision—but yours. (art credits: @/Shiqaruki on twitter).

warnings | lore, kidnapping, kuni calls you ‘little songbird,’ profanity, brief mention of physical abuse, manipulation, praise & degradation, pining, obsessive/possessive, smut [18+, MDNI], dubcon, female-bodied reader (wears a dress & lingerie), dominant kuni, choking, yandere jealousy, murder/arson threats, worship, slapping, finger-fucking, mirror sex, kuni receives oral, deepthroating, edging/teasing, orgasm denial, mention of breeding

genre | yandere, smut with plot, canon-divergent

word count | 4.5k

pairing | kunikuzushi/scaramouche x reader

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

In a time all but forgotten, a young boy sat on his knees, caressing a hand-sewn doll in his palms and looking up with childlike compassion to his companion.

“There once was a puppet solider whose greatest wish was to be with a ballerina doll forever and ever,” he began, his eyes reflecting the scene of his storytelling imagination.

He gently squeezed the doll in his hands, as if to comfort his companion before the truth spills from his lips. “But the solider didn’t have a heart and didn’t know where his feelings came from.”

“One day, his owner didn’t want him anymore and threw him away into a fire. But even in the flames, his eyes never left the ballerina,” he continued with a more somber tone, drawing attention to the gut-wrenching ending of a tragic romance.

However, his voice shifted, offering soft words of wisdom and hope to his distraught friend. “The next day, the people found a tiny heart in the ashes left by the fire.”

Instinctively, the beautiful puppet sitting before the young boy curled his lip in disdain. “Probably ashes in the shape of a heart… but that’s not a real heart.”

He could hear the affectionate smile pulling at the corners of the young boy’s mouth. “Maybe, but what if… hearts can be born from ashes?”

“What a joke. It’s just ashes,” the lonesome puppet can barely conjure up a breath in his agony. “Nothing left but ashes.”

As his chest twisted and clenched with the wretched filth of so-called human emotion, the divine puppet came to a profound realization. His body merely served as a hollow shell, cursed by the ghost of mortal weakness—a living testament to the depths of an Archon’s visceral mourning.

In his naïveté, he had trusted the boy he thought to be his friend. He had believed that silly little fairytale, that maybe he wasn’t as empty and worthless as he felt. There was no heart to be found in the cold vessel of a failed god.

Kunikuzushi would have to claim one for himself.

Sin.

The ultimate temptress of mortals. The manifestation of human greed and desire. That which demands repentance and atonement for fear of eternal damnation. It is hinged on the human condition that death is inevitable.

Mortals are easily persuaded by morals and ideology if it means life after death in a paradise that is not guaranteed. Humans create false narratives to exercise the sick satisfaction of controlling one other. When all is said and done, the real struggle is for power—namely the power to control fate itself.

For those who are destined to roam the world with no such motives, imprisoned in an earthly purgatory, sin and salvation are laughable notions.

There is no reason to live, for you cannot die; Sin knows no bounds and comes with no price.

“The sooner you accept this, the better,” Kunikuzushi laments, his face just inches from yours. The bewitching twinkle in his lavender irises has remained all these centuries, a cruel illusion masking the abyss beneath. “Nothing you say will change my decision.”

You were really quite the picture, if he was being honest, all tied up for him. Kunikuzushi loathed that just the sight of you was enough to make the void in his chest cavity ache with longing. A reminder of his imperfection.

Anyone else would have died a violent death for such a transgression. But you presented a unique opportunity.

“Kuni, please,” you whimpered, your pleas falling on deaf ears. On the contrary, he loves hearing your voice, especially when you beg so earnestly. “I-I don’t know what I did wrong… I’m scared. Please, let me go…”

The puppet hushes you lovingly, his lips brushing against your delicate skin toward your ear. “Hey, now. There’s no need for that. You’re safe with me, little songbird.”

You flinch, gasping and recoiling in fear, turning your head away defiantly. It’s not like you could push him away, your little limbs bound to a tall column in the kitchen nice and tight. Hot tears pricked at your eyes. It burns like hell.

“Untie me, Kuni!” you shrieked, squirming and struggling against the binds to no avail.

He snatches your face firmly between his thumb and two fingers, squishing your cheeks to the point you felt pressure on your skull. “Ungrateful slut. Didn’t I explain this to you already? Your heart beats for me from this day forward.”

Frozen in shock, your body stiffens involuntarily as fear floods your veins, rendering you utterly helpless. Even as he gazed upon you with an icy, detached stare, you couldn’t find it within yourself to fault Kuni for this act of desperation. He could never make sense of himself and the pain that came with betrayal after betrayal.

Why even try to embrace humanity if it would mercilessly punish you for not having a heart?

You still remember the day you found him, it was but a coincidence you both crossed paths. Kuni was a wandering traveler, or at least that’s how he introduced himself. He seemed kind enough. You were particularly taken by his appearance, so lovely it was almost inhuman.

It just so happened that you were willing to offer him a place to stay. It took a bit of convincing on your part, actually, but you were worried about the string of murders near your village recently. Someone must have had an insatiable vendetta against the blade-smithing arts, striking them down one by one.

A small knowing smile pulled at his lips, his eyes creasing slightly with amusement as he marveled at how you opened yourself up so easily. This was the first time he had talked to a human in who knows how long. Perhaps since the young boy’s passing many dreadful seasons ago.

Kuni found the void in his chest persuading him to entertain his curiosity about you.

He had to admit, once you both got to know each other, it was quite the impeccable arrangement. During the day, you provided the kind of mundane tranquility and domesticity he had always dreamed of. Thankfully, your residence was in a rural part of the countryside, which offered much appreciated security and seclusion from the world.

Once you were safely tucked into bed and sound asleep, he would lie restlessly in the guest room. Puppets have no need for sleep. On some lonely moonlit nights, he would entertain his own fantasies of you. In the absence of such desires, he was compelled to satisfy his blood thirst.

Though Kuni had long forsaken the human emotions that afflicted his existence with disappointment and abandonment, his burgeoning relationship with you had quickly proven to be the last remaining vestige of his innocent supplication for a purpose.

In fact, he demanded it, after witnessing you day in and day out slipping from his grasp. He was growing impatient, waiting for something more. You had always stopped short of taking a little leap of faith to hold his hand or kiss his forehead, leaving him yearning for your touch and attention. Why?

Even in your presence, he was not alleviated of his turmoil. A number of possibilities plagued him. Were you dissuaded by his artificial constitution? Did he make a fatal miscalculation? God forbid, was there someone else?

No matter how many times he twisted, folded, and bent reality in his mind, trying to make sense of you, he never came to an agreeable conclusion. By the time Kuni realized just how deep you had nestled yourself into the empty husk of his heart, it was too late for the both of you.

All of this mental anguish and pining was unbearable. Unacceptable. He loved you, yes, but needed you more.

The puppet’s chest fluttered as you willingly complied, tears staining your cheeks, but that’s okay. His soft pink lips brushed against your cheek once more, kissing away your precious tears. It was his first taste of you.

Kuni cradled you in his palms like a delicate doll, his thumbs ghosting your cheeks. He leaned in closer, indigo bangs tickling your face and his mouth parted with a breathless question. “Is your heart… truly mine?”

He had broken you, and you had no choice but to nod slowly.

“Say it for me, little songbird,” he encourages you with a warm intonation. His eyes were trained on your lips.

“I-I’m yours,” you replied weakly.

No sooner than you could speak were his plush lips pressed to yours, a breathy hum of relief exhaling through his nose. In turn, you muffled a whimper, overwhelmed by the sensation. He had untied you, knowing you couldn’t hurt him but he could certainly hurt you.

Kuni was gentle at first, relishing in his first kiss with you. He carefully took your wrists to guide your hands to his body, and he wrapped his arms around your waist to pull you against him. Still, you trembled in his grasp.

“There’s no need to fear,” he whispers between kisses, holding your face to his. “I will take care of you.”

He can’t bear to leave your lips. Guiding you towards him, he leans against the kitchen counter and tucks a stray lock of your hair behind your ear. A small prayer barely escapes his lips. “(Y/N), hold me… touch me… please.”

“Kuni,” you choke out, tears forming in the corner of your eyes again. You are silenced with increasingly fervent kisses, one of his hands trailing down to your neck just by his fingertips, giving you goosebumps in the wake of his featherlight touch.

“You are going to give yourself to me. Your heart is my heart, and I will not have you hiding any part of yourself from me,” his voice grows a bit more insistent, closing his fingers around your throat as a threat, but not yet squeezing. “Do you understand?”

You give a feeble nod, unable to look at him directly. Every time your gaze locked with his, it sent a pang of terror jolting through your fragile body. He brings you closer by your neck, kissing you with more confidence than before. There is a little part of you that is worried you are unable to discern fear from excitement.

The puppet lets his hand slip further, fingertips finding the contour of your chest. He hesitates briefly, then allows his palm to feel your plump breast. The act was enough to elicit a little whine from you, and he knew right then and there that he had to hear it again.

“Do you… have any inclination of how long I waited for you?” he whispers hotly onto your lips, feeling down your waist at an excruciatingly slow pace. He smoothed each wrinkle of your dress with his thumb, tracing the silhouette of your figure down until he felt the hem of your underwear through the thin fabric. His breath caught.

You were still not as receptive to his advances as he would like, and suddenly he scoops you up to hook your legs around his hips, pressing your back against the nearest wall in the hallway. Kuni was beginning to reveal his desperation for you in more ways than one, breathing a little heavier. He was determined to have you submit to him and if you weren’t responsive to his soft side, then so be it.

“Answer me,” Kuni lowers his voice with a commanding edge, his lips just inches from your neck while his messy indigo bangs tickled your jaw. You whimpered, involuntarily moving your hips against him at the mere thought of his mouth on you.

At long last, you found your voice—delicate and decadent with a tinge of spine-prickling anticipation. Perhaps you had lost part of yourself, your humanity, in him too. “H-how long, Kuni?”

You shivered slightly, feeling his mouth spread into a satisfied smile against the sensitive skin of your neck. His voice deepens further, sultry and needy, “Lifetimes… I’ve been so goddamn purposeless for too many fucking lifetimes, just waiting for you.”

Without warning, the touch-starved puppet sunk his teeth into the crevice of your shoulder at the base of your throat, sucking at the weak spot to bruise the skin with his mark. A surprised yelp fell from your mouth, and you so nicely turned your head to offer him more. He clutched your curves tightly, as if he was secretly wishing your bodies would just melt into each other.

Ba-dum… ba-dum… ba-dum…

Your precious heartbeat echoed through his chambers of his chest. Kuni craved that little pulse of yours, chasing it up your neck in heated, sloppy kisses. All the while, you encouraged him with sweet little sounds of pleasure, softly asking for more under your breath.

“It’s mine,” he reiterated, perhaps to help immortalize the sensation against his lips. With a faint growl and yet another love bite, he added, “You’re fucking mine, you hear me?”

If only he could be bothered to pull back and catch a glimpse of how the puppet had unraveled you beyond recognition, equally as intoxicated by the heat of the moment. No matter. He will have his fill of you in due time.

“Y-yours, mhmm,” you capture his wet lips halfway, experimentally swirling your tongue with his passionately. You were clinging onto his shoulders, entangling your fingers in the soft ends of his pretty hair resting on the back of his neck.

With a faint moan against your mouth, Kuni lifted you once more by slipping his hands under your dress to feel his digits press into the soft flesh of your ass. It was light work to carry you, giving him the opportunity to squeeze and smack your ass with a smirk.

Slipping into your bedroom, he set you down and turned you around by your hips so that you were facing the tall mirror just a few feet away from the mattress. He leans over your shoulder from behind and you blush heavily at the image reflected by the mirror. Both of his beautiful hands traveled up your body simultaneously, one feeling your stomach, ribs, breast, and resting around the bottom of your throat.

The other, however, caught the frilly ends of your dress, sliding it up your skin at a painstakingly slow rate. Kuni’s violet irises shimmered with obsessive desire, admiring every inch of your body that was exposed to him. He bunches the dress in his fist as he raises it above your hips, revealing the most angelic lacy undergarments accented with cute little ballerina pink ribbons. Kuni chuckled, his breath tickling your neck.

“Do me a favor, darling,” he whispers into the shell of your ear, kissing it lightly. He takes his time to unveil your breasts, each one perfectly shaped with lovely nipples begging to be pinched. “Open your mouth.”

You comply, watching yourself in the mirror with curious fascination, before Kuni stuffs the thin, light fabric of your dress into your mouth. He nibbles your ear playfully. “Hold that for me.”

His eyes marvel at your body. If you told him you were a goddess, he would believe you without hesitation. Divine or not, the puppet was hell-bent on worshipping you like he had been dreaming of. Kuni played with the intricate lace of your snow white lingerie, his thumb brushing your pelvis teasingly.

Instead, he takes two fingers and caresses your folds outside of the undergarment, pleased to feel your panties dampened with excitement. You quiver at the touch, moaning faintly. Kuni is enthralled by the sweet noise, taking the tiny lingerie by his thumbs and sweeping it down your pretty legs.

He immediately sits down on the edge of the bed, quickly pulling you into his lap and spreading your legs apart with his knees. There it was in the mirror. Your glistening flower framed with the loveliest soft petals.

Kuni couldn’t possibly restrain himself when you were presented so exquisitely, wasting no time to slide his fingers over your pussy. You groaned in pleasure, muffled by the dress in your mouth, relaxing against his chest as the puppet focused on rubbing circles around your clit. He kissed your neck and shoulders endlessly, admiring your reactions in the mirror and whispering lowly, “So good for me. So, so good for me, aren’t you, (Y/N)?”

Your thighs trembled. You desperately wanted to close your legs as his movements became faster on your clit, the stimulation swiftly overcoming you. Breathy moans soon evolved into incoherent pleas. Kuni held you steadfast with his legs, keeping you spread all nice, admiring how you twitched beneath him.

“What did I tell you?” his tone is one of warning, groping your right breast and littering your skin with a few more marks. “There are consequences to hiding yourself from me.”

The puppet suddenly swipes his middle finger over your leaking hole—causing you to moan lewdly—before slapping your pussy. It was a light but firm slap, sending an addicting concoction of both pain and pleasure through you.

After a brief moment, he returns to your folds to trace and admire it, then continuing his ministrations on your clit. Occasionally Kuni would let a finger slip to tease your entrance, finding that it drove you crazy.

“P-please, please, Kuni,” your words quivered like your body, bending easily to the pleasure he was so kindly bestowing you. It had to have been the hundredth small cry for relief tumbling from your throat, you were on the precipice of your climax. “I-I need it. Something, anything… fuck me.”

“You better not cum on my fingers,” the puppet orders, gathering your slick and gently inserting two fingers into your warm walls. You whined in frustrated pleasure as he stretched you slightly, pumping his digits in and out of you barely an inch but keeping you stuffed.

“I c-can’t, I’m…” you babble. Kuni knew you were on the brink already, but he wanted to at least try to prepare you for his cock. He suddenly pulls his fingers out, and with it escapes your climax. Tears were almost pricking your eyes. You could definitely feel them beneath the surface.

He slaps your pussy again as punishment for not listening to his commands. “Greedy sluts are not rewarded.”

“I-I’m sorry,” you mumble and he grunts, pushing you off of him and to your knees in front of the bed. Kuni makes quick work of his clothes, tossing his shirt aside and pulling his pants down enough to spring his throbbing cock free. You had certainly felt his hard length while you were in his lap, but seeing it rendered you speechless.

No different from the rest of the puppet’s beautiful body, Kuni’s cock was perfect. A few veins wrapped around his hard member, bulging under the flesh. Towards the tip, it was gradually flushed pink with hot need, a pearl of precum on his slit. You took him in your hand, butterflies swarming your stomach with the realization that he had more girth than you expected.

Kuni grabbed a fistful of your hair and shoved your face toward his cock with a simple demand. “Suck.”

You experimentally drag your tongue underneath his cock, licking your lips, and working your mouth on his tip to lubricate him first. Kuni’s eyes roll in the back of his head, resting one hand behind him on the bed as he moans deeply. “Fuck, (Y/N)…”

The sensation of you smiling with his cock in your mouth sent warmth through him. You eagerly fit more of him in your mouth, sucking and swirling your tongue just the way he likes it when you received praise. Yet, Kuni needed more.

“You can do better than that,” he scoffed.

His grip on your hair tightened, pushing your throat completely down on his cock just to feel it once. The puppet twitched in your throat, letting out a seductive growl of pleasure. You gagged slightly, before pulling back with a string of saliva connecting your lips to his tip. You coughed a little, but he cupped your chin and wiped it from your mouth sweetly.

“That’s my girl,” Kuni coos, guiding you up on the bed next to him and pushing you down onto your back. As much as he’d love to see you taking him in your mouth all evening, he had a prize more tantalizing waiting for him. Clothes on the floor, moonlight pouring over you both, the puppet vowed to never forget how you mewled as he dragged the pulsing tip of his cock along your wet folds.

Gasping, you achingly bucked your hips in tandem, utterly drunk on the delicious sensation of his thick length parting your pussy lips. You loved to be teased, that much was for sure and Kuni ate it up—the desperate crinkle of your brow in pleasure and how your breath became short.

He presses his tip at your warm hole, but never pushes it in.

You groan dramatically, sweat already forming on your forehead and you haven’t even began. Every bit of pressure he applies has you smitten, imagining the moment he finally fills you. “K-Kuni…”

The smug puppet smirks down at you knowingly, grinding his cock against you repeatedly, rubbing your clit just right. “Yes, my little songbird? Have something to say?”

Before you can speak, he kisses you to muffle your answer. You grow even more impatient, using your legs to keep his hips locked close to yours. Kuni peppers your jawline and neck with kisses and little playful licks of his tongue. “I’m listening.”

“Please,” you beg.

Kuni’s tone is unreadable. “Please what? Use your words.”

You give him a flustered look of desperation and he pins your hands on either side of your head, interlacing your fingers with his. You reply, biting your lower lip, “Fuck m-me, Kuni.”

A smile graces his face and his eyes soften, thumbs caressing your hand comfortingly to brace you for his length. “Is this… your first time, (Y/N)?”

Though you were a shy and kindhearted person, he should’ve known from the way you deepthroated his cock earlier that it wasn’t your first. He wasn’t your first. That means someone else was. Someone else defiled you.

Kuni’s electric purple eyes darkened like an impending storm as you shook your head.

“Indulge me,” the puppet asks. “What other men have been in my position?”

You are not in the right state of mind, still insatiably yearning for your climax and grinding your wet folds on his length. However, Kuni doesn’t accept your nonsensical mumblings and half-answers. His hands tighten around yours, pushing his cock into you with a guttural moan inch by inch until he bottoms out completely.

“Oh my fucking god,” you sputter out, sighing in sweet relief and a bit of pain. Your pussy is filled to the brim with his cock, stretching you out good. You try to turn your head away and close your eyes, but Kuni refuses to let you.

“That’s right,” Kuni’s voice is nothing short of alluring in the most raw way possible. “Treat me like your god and fucking look at me while you take my cock.”

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t also utterly euphoric as he sinks his large member into your tight walls. Gritting his teeth, he’s taken aback by how you squeeze him unknowingly, even your subconscious is unable to deny the pleasure he’s giving you. It took you a few seconds to adjust to his girth, your eyes drifting down his muscular chest and toned abdomen in admiration.

With the first drag of his cock out of you to his tip, hushed hum of pleasures are murmured by each of you, until he buries himself all the way back into you. Kuni continues in this rhythm with a few thrusts, unable to his stifle his own moans. He was no better, his climax already building within.

Pulling back, the puppet releases your hands to push your legs against your chest by your thighs to get just the right angle and perfect view of your folds. He hovers above you, fucking just his hot bulbous tip into your needy hole. In mere seconds, you cursed to yourself at how good it felt when he brushed against your sensitive entrance.

Your clit pulsated for attention. How could he not press his palm onto your pelvis and drag his thumb across the slightly swollen bud? His half-thrusts became shakier as you unexpectedly tightened around his cock—moans freely and loudly erupting from your throat. The feeling was beyond exhilarating and convinced him to push you to your limits.

“You think I’m going to let any other man put his hands on you like this?” Kuni sneers with jealous envy reflecting in his irises. “I’ll fucking snap his neck. I’d kill him.”

Impulsively, the obsessed puppet roughly plunges his entire cock into your soft pussy. He relishes in your loud moan of shock at the pleasure and slight discomfort in splitting you wide open. His cock pushes against that wonderful spot deep inside you, incredibly sensitive after all his torturous teasing. You were seeing more than stars.

“I bet they couldn’t fuck you like I can,” he scoffs, possessively pulling your closer by your legs and holding your ankles on his shoulders as he fucks you mercilessly. “Make you scream like I can. And—nghh—breed you.”

You were finer than a work of art, truly, in all your fucked-out glory as you chase your high on his thick cock. His thumb flitting over your clit messily, primal groans of bliss echoing throughout the bedroom at every divine flutter of your pussy milking his cock so well. Your words were simply unintelligible, mumbling breathy prayers wishing for his seed.

“No one can take you away from me,” Kuni himself is beginning to tremble with pleasure, but nevertheless he keeps up his brutal pace. Every crevice of your walls and your womb will know his essence. “You’re mine, and I’ll burn the whole damn world for you if that’s what it takes.”

In a rush of jealous envy at the mere thought of losing you, the puppet abruptly pushes your legs back onto your beautiful breasts by his chest. The erotic melody of your fluids coating the base of his cock and v-line with every sloppy thrust pushes you both over the edge of an impossible free fall of euphoria.

“Cum on me, (Y/N). C’mon, cum all over my fucking cock,” Kuni demands with salacious desperation, pounding into you again and again until you’ve ridden out every second of your climax. The sensation is indescribable as he swears he could feel your rapid heartbeat through your walls—your heartbeat in his hands like he’s the supreme god of your body.

And as such, he blesses you with ropes of hot cum to drown your pussy in his everlasting love. Kuni collapses and cradles you, wiping the tears of pleasure from your sweet, angelic cheeks.

Righteousness means nothing to gods, for whom salvation is too late and sin knows no price.

thanks for reading! reblogs are appreciated! my masterlist

#IDK WHERE 4.5K CAME FROM I JUST REALLY LIKE SCARA OKAY😩💜 #[opulent dreams].✿ #[dreams of delusion].✿ #genshin impact #genshin #genshin impact imagines #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #genshin smut #genshin fatui #genshin scaramouche #genshin kunikuzushi #genshin wanderer #scaramouche x reader #kunikuzushi x reader #wanderer x reader #scaramouche smut

[dee-morris]

Aziraphale Does Not Have Religious Trauma

We talk a lot about Aziraphale's trauma when we discuss his motivations and choices, particularly the ones we don't like. But what we don't talk enough about is the KIND of trauma he has, and it's not what we think of when we think of religious trauma. We have to remember that everything that Aziraphale has been threatened with and terrified by in his existence. It's REAL.

When a human has religious trauma it's generally because they've been abused and conditioned by threats of hell and damnation and judgement and so forth, and part of the healing process is realizing that it's a bunch of bullshit from an abuser with a power trip. That's not the case with Aziraphale. The angels are mostly bastards, but I'm willing to bet most of them believe in the Great Plan and genuinely believe in what they're doing. Because God is real, hell is real, and you really can be tortured for eternity if you step out of line. Aziraphale saw it happen. I can't even imagine what that must have been like.

When he tries to stop Elspeth from digging up bodies, it's not from some vague moral qualm; it's very practical concern for her future. He knows hell is real and doesn't want this young woman to suffer. And the excitement in his face when he realizes that it's more complicated than that and there are moral justifications for it. "Good news, I've found a work around!" Aziraphale the rules lawyer my beloved. He's managed to survive all this time by finding justifications for evading the rules, but when the most powerful angel in heaven drops in for coffee and a chin wag, that's not an option anymore.

I just really feel like we need to have this in the front of our minds when we're answering every Why? with "Trauma." I mean, yes he has trauma, but it won't be cured by developing stronger self esteem and giving heaven the finger. (Satisfying as that would be.) It will be cured by tackling the source and ending the very real physical threat that heaven poses to himself and Crowley.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #crowley x arizaphale #aziracrow #good omens season 2 #good omens 2 #crowley good omens #aziraphale my beloved #fuck the metatron #Good Omens meta #heaven is terrible

[sfehvn]

intruder part 2

Part 1 | Part 3

Description: A year has since came and went following Astarion's ascension ritual. He is no longer himself, but then... Where is he? A/N: Forewarning, there is a brief portion detailing non-con voyeurism. Hope you all enjoy :) Rating: M (18+ minors DNI) Word count: 1656 Characters: ascended!Astarion x Tav

 ─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

 “What do you think you will do once this is over?” Astarion’s head rested in your lap, your fingers running through silky white hair.

  “I suppose I’ll just-” You stopped for a moment hesitantly, “Well, I’ll just follow you. I’ll follow you wherever you go. Whatever that entails.”

  The large tub of warm water offered your mishandled skin the slightest inkling of comfort. Your bones ached to jump out of your skin, discomfort settling deep and unforgivingly. Unsure if this was the work of cruel touches or the utter disgust you felt for whatever was puppeteering Astarion around. You stare at the ceiling as if the answer to the problem in your mind is etched into it. Astarion was in there, trapped. You try to imagine what he must be thinking. Feeling. 

  You can’t help but notice the similarities of where you two have ended up. While Astarion was stuck in darkness in the literal sense, you are trapped in a different type of darkness. Shrouded by the darkness of the other Astarion’s thumb. You were a plaything, a pet, a toy. 

-

  “Eyes on me.” Astarion grunts out, buried deeply in a twenty-something human’s cunt. The sight turns your stomach viscerally. It’s not him, you try to remind yourself. You watch from the oak chair in the corner of your bed chamber, allowing yourself to dissociate entirely. The woman was beautiful. 

  Hair of sunshine and eyes of the vast waters, you knew of the woman’s fate. To end up another spawn for Astarion to toy with. Humans in the area who had come to learn of Astarion’s true nature came with the proposition of trades in exchange for immortality. You felt pity for her. If she knew what she was getting into, she would never have come here, indeed. Nobody could want this.

  “He would have liked her too.” Astarion taunted as he led the woman to your bed, plans to desecrate the one place in the manor that you were able to find an ounce of comfort in. “Maybe I’ll let the dear old Astarion come out for a bit of fun.” Your heart sinks to your knees. The thought of another using Astarion’s body and soul for their own heinous intentions. You couldn’t bear it.

“Please don’t.” You pleaded with him. 

  Astarion tuts as he presses you down onto the chair. For whatever reason, he doesn’t follow through with his threat. Was it mercy? No, that can’t be it. Perhaps he simply wanted the enjoyment of watching the pain on your face while he used the body of the man you love to hurt you. Maybe he wanted the fun. You would never be sure.

-

  You’re brought back to the present, the events of last night spinning in your mind. Your punishment for entertaining the incident. That’s what he called it, anyway. You longed to free him, to free yourself along with him. To leave this cursed manor and never return with the real Astarion in tow. 

How? 

  The question that had been on your mind since your meeting with Astarion as you prepared for bed. How does one free a soul from a damnation such as this? Out of all the beasts, villains, and monsters you’ve fought, none had prepared you for a feat of this nature. On the precipice of jumping into the unforgiving sun and turning yourself into ash, that was no longer an option. Your beloved needed help. You weren’t going to abandon him. 

  The opening of the door jolted you from your thoughts, and you let out a sigh of relief upon seeing your chambermaid. “Lady Ancunin, may I be of assistance?” You nod, allowing the woman to approach the tub. You sit up to give her access to your wet hair. There was silence as she worked the knots from your strands, only sounds of meager discomfort when she tugged too hard, always followed by a heartfelt sorry from her. “What was he like?” There was a pause with her words, almost as if she expected to be scolded. Though, you both knew you wouldn’t dare. “I mean before-” She trails cautiously.

  “Wonderful. He is wonderful, Alodia.” Your eyes were glued to the bath water that engulfed your body. Lowering your voice as if someone other than her would hear, “Maybe you will have the pleasure of meeting him someday.”

  Alodia nods, “I bet he was a real gentleman to have someone such as yourself.” She couldn’t comprehend why you were with him, you could tell. Someone with such a kind soul forever paired with another who may as well be a devil ruling the Nine Hells.

  “Careful.” You whisper, eyeing the door. No conversation went too long without Astarion’s knowledge, not even amidst nothing but the bars of soap that clean you. Alodia understood and continued to work through your hair without another word. It was clear you were just as much a prisoner as her.

  Once your hair was tied into two careful braids and an obnoxious velvet gown clung to your body, you sat in the manor’s library. With Astarion out for the night, you made yourself comfortable with every piece of literature between the walls of your confinement. The stack of books grew as the night grew darker and darker. How much time had passed, you were unsure. You slammed down the last book and glanced around. A frantic sob erupted from your chest, heaving. You laid your head on the table before you and wallowed into the oak of the desk.

  You were defeated. Hopeless. This godsdamn library had every composition, novel, and prose that you could think of, and not one aided you. Trance-like, you stood from the desk and made your way to the entry of the manor. A voice briefly stops you, “Lady Ancunin, I don’t believe Master Ancunin has granted you-” 

  “Tell Master Ancunin to burn in the Nine Hells.” You spit back, making your exit.

  It had been too long. Once you’re out of the manor’s view, you breathe in the fresh air about you. As you get further into the heart of the city, chatter cultivates. Even in the middle of the night, it was lively, bringing you a hope you had not felt for a long time. Even reflecting on what punishment may await you once Astarion learns of your absence, you deemed this worth it. Of course. You would have preferred the warmth of the sun. Given your ailment, the beauty of the moon did just fine.

  Strolling to Elfsong Tavern, you hummed an incandescent tune to yourself. My, this must have been the most airy you’ve felt in just shy of a year. The little bit of gold you managed to snag from Astarion’s stash may have just been enough to get you a drink and, if lucky, a room. You knew it was only a matter of time before he came looking for you. Maybe you’ll be banished to the dungeon. You didn’t allow yourself the time to think too hard. You approach the barkeep, looking at the selection behind him. “Wine? Have you got red wine?” You were a tad rusty in the socialization department. 

  The man behind the counter chuckles, “We do indeed.” He retrieves a bottle from behind the counter, preparing a glass. “What troubles you?” He inquires as you watch the red liquid spout into spotless glass.

  “Whatever could you mean?” Your lips are pursed, accepting the drink as he offers it. You dig into your coin purse, “How much do I owe?”

  “On the house.” He smiles. Alas, it would be warmer without the pity that lies so evident beneath the surface. You’d forgotten how ill you must have looked. Astarion’s words played over in your head.

“Gods, what has he done to you?”

  “Alan Alyth.” The man offers. An introduction? It had been well over a year since you had the pleasure of introducing yourself.

  “Tav Carmine.” You return before making your way to an empty table in the corner of the lightly occupied room. You bring the glass to your lips, and the dry liquid soothes your nerves for the time being. I will enjoy this, you thought to yourself. 

-

  “Gods, you’re beautiful.” Astarion declares, his fingertips gliding across the delicate skin of your hipbone, up to your chest, cupping your exposed breast in his hand. His thumb moves in careful circles around your nipple. He sits upon his knees, watching the way your body reacts to even the smallest of his touch. His other hand moves comfortably onto your cheek, almost as if he’s relishing in the warmth that radiates from your body.

  “You’ve only told me fifty times today. Are you feeling alright?” You teased, welcoming his cool touch across your eager body. His head dips, meeting your lips lovingly. One of your hands knots gently into his hair, and you shift so a leg rests on either side of his toned body.

  “I suppose I’ll have to work on it tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll be making love to said beautiful woman.” His words are a prayer against your lips, and your heart flutters against your ribcage.

-

“I’ve been expecting you.” 

  The unknown voice causes your head to snap up in attention. “I’m sorry, have we met?” You try to recall the face, maybe someone you became acquainted with during one of many adventures, but you just cannot place them. You tip the glass to your lips, eyes never leaving the stranger in front of you.

  “I don’t believe we have.” They helped themselves to the chair across from you. “I believe I can help you. I know what ails you.” The man is older, with brown hair peppered in grey roots. His eyes radiate a sort of enthusiasm. 

  “You couldn’t possibly know what ails me.” You chortle, though the sarcasm is evident in your laugh.

“Everything has led you straight to me. Try me.”

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

#ascended!astarion x tav #ascended!astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x reader #astarion #x reader #bg3 #reader insert #ascended astarion

[lincolndjarin]

Best Kept Secret

chapter thirteen : lunar interlude : vercopa (RE-UPLOAD)

ao3 link ✿ series masterlist ✩ main masterlist ✧

pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader

rating : 18+ mdni

word count : 3.5k

summary : the mandalorian does some thinking

warnings, etc. : language, angst, references to sex

A/N : i had to change accounts so this is a re-upload of my ongoing fic bks!!

He did it.

He did exactly what he knew he needed to do.

So why does he feel worse than ever?

The look on your face when he had lied so blatantly to you made him want to collapse in on himself. If someone else had made you that upset he would have caved their skull in, why does he deserve any less?

He did it. That’s what matters, even if he had to lie to get you to believe it, he ended things. He doesn’t bother taking off his armor as he collapses onto his mattress. 

His eyes find the plastic flower on his nightstand. It’s a good reminder that he’s a bad person for what he’s put you through. He never should have slept with you. 

He never should have loved you. 

He deserves every form of torture that would be performed on him if they found out what the two of you had been doing. 

He deserves damnation for what he has done. 

And he gets just that when he sleeps. 

Most of his dreams follow the same theme. You, in his cabin, sometimes he finds himself entangled against your naked form, sometimes it’s just laying on his twin bed, enjoying the warmth of each other. 

Something is immediately off about the dream he’s in now.

His first thought is that this cabin is different. 

It’s bigger. There’s more dressers, the bed is twice the size of his. His confusion is palpable as he tries to find you. 

He knows he will if he looks. 

You’re always there when he closes his eyes. 

So he stands, and he walks around the house. It’s completely new to him yet so familiar and as he turns the corner and you’re there.

His breath hitches. 

You’re sitting at the kitchen table, with a genuine smile, and your hair hanging down across your face. But what catches his eye the most is the little green baby in your arms. You pinch at his cheeks as he makes those all too familiar babbles that used to fill the Crest. 

His heart is in his throat. 

He can’t move. It’s like he’s staring down the greatest threat of his life and if he moves an inch it will attack. 

Maybe he died in his sleep and this is heaven.

That doesn’t make sense, he’s done nothing to earn his place. Or it’s hell, and his torment is knowing he can’t stay here with you and Grogu, that he’ll have to wake up and live with what he’s put you through, and the kid will still be gone. 

He’s content to stand in the doorway and watch this alternate reality for as long as he sleeps. His chest heaving as he takes in the sight of everything he’s ever wanted, just a few steps away. 

The two most important people in his life, and in his reality he’s pushed you both away. 

He could have kept the kid. He hadn’t been sure about leaving, he truly believes that if he had asked Grogu to stay that they could have been happy. But he was just so scared. 

What if he got hurt while out on a hunt? What if he changed his mind and years down the road resented Din for keeping him? Or worst of all, what if plain and simple, he just got sick of Din? 

And then he did the same thing to you. 

He got scared.

He can’t already be regretting it, it’s been less than a day.

The sound of your voice calling him snaps him out of his trance. 

You say his name. 

His real name. 

Din. 

Second to the little noises the kid makes it’s the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. He’s not in control of himself as he stumbles towards you. Falling to his knees in front of your chair, scared to reach out to touch you because deep down he knows this isn’t real. 

You should be upset. Upset that he’s lied to you, told you that he doesn’t want you, used you. You should be throwing insults into his face but instead you reach down to put a hand on his cheek and he’s vaguely aware of the fact that in this particular dream he isn’t wearing his helmet. 

He’s so at ease from your touch he doesn’t care. 

You don’t speak. You just use your thumb to rub gentle circles into the planes of his face. Eventually the house is gone, the kitchen is gone, the table and chairs are gone and it’s just you. Standing above him, caressing his face with one hand, holding the kid to your chest with the other. 

He doesn’t dare move a muscle as he tries to burn the sight of the two of you into his memories. 

He wakes up with a start, sitting upright in his bed, his hands clawing at the helmet as he gasps for air. He haphazardly tosses it onto the sheets as tries to catch his breath. 

Wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his flight suit he stuffs some rations into his satchel and locks his helmet back on. 

So he can’t stay in the cabin anymore. 

He had never even brought you here but it reeks of your absence. And that dream didn’t help in the slightest. 

There are whispers of you in every corner and crevice of his home. He’s not an idiot, he knows no matter where he goes there will always be traces of you. So there’s no sense avoiding it, he makes his way to the castle and stands guard outside your room. 

He doesn’t sleep the rest of the night. He stands against the wall opposite your bedroom door. He can’t go back to sleep, he can’t handle that dream again. So he stays up until the sun rises. 

He’s a bundle of nerves waiting for you to greet him, but you never do. You stay in your room the entire day, the only change in scenery is when Leo or one of the girls brings you food, he tries to catch a glimpse of you when the door is briefly open but he never does. 

His heart hurts. 

He doesn’t move. When the hallways are empty he eats his rations just for something to do. Sometimes he’ll turn up the external audio so he can hear you pacing around your room but most of the time it’s silent. He’ll stretch his legs every few hours, pacing the hall. And then he’ll sit and repeat. 

He wants to go in. 

He wants to tear the door down, kneel before you and beg for forgiveness. But he manages to resist. 

He doesn’t sleep when the sun goes down. 

When he feels his eyes starting to flutter he’ll chew on a ration. 

Sometimes if he feels sleep creeping up on him he thinks of things to say to you in the morning. 

He wants to say sorry. More accurately he wants to grovel at your feet and tell you he’s an idiot, that he was lying, that he didn’t mean a word of it and that he’s madly in love with you. 

Of course he won’t do that.

He shouldn’t say anything.

It’s better that way. It’s better for the both of you. 

Doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize about a world where he begs for forgiveness and you grant it. 

Would you want him in that world? All of him, not just moments in secret when one of you craved the other. He wants mornings, noons, and nights. Would you give them to him? 

He could take you away from here if you did. 

It wouldn’t be easy but when your job is to find people who don’t want to be found you get pretty good at hiding. You could change your names, go get the kid, he could make his dream real. 

Would you really want that though? 

Of course you wouldn’t. Even if he hadn’t ended things so cruelly, you were a princess and he was just Din. 

You wouldn’t want that cabin in the woods, you were too good for that. You deserved castles and gowns, not living in the woods with a Mandalorian. 

So he won’t talk to you. He will simply resign himself to loving you from afar. (Or more accurately he will love you from a few steps behind you.) And he will leave you alone because he’s caused enough problems. 

Well, if you came out of your room he would. But he can’t properly leave you alone if you won’t let him.

He’s exhausted as he sits against the door, willing himself to stay awake to avoid any more dreams. He turns up his audio for most of the day, listening to you mill about the room. 

He wishes you’d give him a reason to come in, the sound of a scuffle, a yelp, for Makers sake, if you stub your toe he could use that as an excuse just to check in on you. But all he hears are the sounds of your muffled footsteps. 

And he can’t keep his eyes open forever. 

The combination of the flight suit and his armor makes him heat up when he sits still, especially as the sun sets and the light through the windows hits him. He isn’t sure when exactly he falls asleep but he’s back in that big cabin when he does. 

He makes the executive decision this time to stay in bed. 

He doesn’t want to see you, and he doesn’t want to see the kid. Because neither of you are real, and eventually you’ll be ripped away from him when he wakes up. 

Of course his strategy doesn’t work because in this dream you bring Grogu to him. He tries to shield himself from his delusions, even in his dreams he knows it’s pitiful, a trained killer hiding under the blankets from a singular person and a sleeping child. 

You still don’t speak. Gods he wishes you would speak, he wishes you would scream at him, shame him for his cowardice but instead you peel back the sheets just enough to put the kid between the two of you and lay with him, Grogu snoring through that tiny nose of his as you lay down with him, giving him that smile that makes his heart melt and his brain turn to mush. You lean forward and your forehead rests on his. 

He knows he deserves this anguish but still, it’s ruthless. 

Everything he could ever possibly want, under one blanket and it isn’t even fucking real. 

He’s startled awake when the surface he’s laying on moves. 

He doesn’t have a lot of time to come to his senses before he’s looking up and you’re there. The real you. The dream version could never compare to the real thing. That’s how he knows he isn’t sleeping anymore. You're clearer, confusingly you’re wearing simpler clothing. He can’t really think about that right now though because he’s hit with a wave of embarrassment. 

He was the one who had ended things with you yet here he was, sitting outside your door like a dog who got locked out overnight.

You just step over him.

Just like that you’re over him. 

Literally and apparently figuratively.

Huh.

He had assumed you had locked yourself in your room because you were trying to process everything, that you were trying to repair the parts of you that had been broken. 

He had assumed you felt as terrible as he did. 

But you seem fine, like nothing even happened. 

He should be elated. That you’re not only fine but seem to be completely over it.

Instead he feels sick. He’s worried he’s going to vomit in his helmet because he can’t stop wondering if maybe you never even cared about him in the first place. It’s wrong, it’s a terrible thing to wonder and he can’t help but think of what an awful person he must be to have such a thought.

He follows behind you, as is his natural instinct but he feels like he needs to sit down again. 

Did you ever care about him? He had only ended things with you because he couldn’t handle the idea of you loving him. If you loved him and he still couldn’t be with you he wouldn’t survive it.

Yet you seem perfectly fine. 

And he can’t help but think that he ruined everything on a bad judgment call. He hasn’t felt this stupid since he almost got himself stuck in carbonite when he first bought the Crest. 

He can’t focus on a thing you’re doing, yet he stays with you the entire time, he knows you grab books and he knows you return to your chambers and he knows that at some point he ended up back on the floor, leaning against your bedroom door again. 

Maybe you had never even liked him as a friend.

He had never considered that you might have been exactly what he had claimed to be. Bored and in need of entertainment. 

That isn’t possible, you had been so upset when he had ended things.

Of course you could have just been upset because he had been unnecessarily cruel.

He has no right to be bothered by this. This was his choice. His decision. 

Maybe he chose wrong. 

It’s a little late for thoughts like that.

He can’t just change his mind.

And he’s left to think about everything he possibly could have done differently as he fights sleep. 

He doesn’t even know how he’s still standing when the sun rises and he groans as he gets to his feet. 

Your ladies in waiting go in, and this time they actually stay in and he’s more awake then he’s been in days because he knows that you’re actually going to come out today. He braces himself to see that fire in you, tells himself that last night was a fluke, that you hadn’t been prepared to see him and now that you are you’ll want to argue and berate him and he can finally sort things out in his head.

But you don’t.

You barely even look at him and you’re already walking to the library like nothing happened. 

Like it’s any other day. 

He can’t think, he can’t form a coherent thought because you seem perfectly fine. He really hadn’t meant anything to you. 

He had hoped that this confirmation would free him. That if it was true he wouldn’t feel an attraction to you anymore and he could finally get off this kriffing planet. But his adoration doesn’t waver for a second. He still feels exactly the same way except now he feels smaller. There is nothing worse than a problem that can’t be solved with a blaster. 

He’s got big plans to spend his day trying not to give in to his mental and physical exhaustion while he does everything in his power to not think about how unbothered you look. But those plans are immediately halted when you freeze up right after you get into the library. He’s puzzled for a few seconds until he sees the nook and your voice echoes inside his helmet.

“Why is your favorite color green?”

The kid, the cabin, and you. 

He wants to fall apart. He wants to collapse right there on the floor and he’s so tired he briefly considers it until he realizes you’re still not moving. He gives you a second, he knows better than to try and talk to you right now, his helmet has been silenced since the last time he had spoken to you. 

He can’t be trusted to not beg for absolution. 

Your eyes are glued on the nook and he swears you tremble slightly.

So you did care. 

He can’t even take pleasure in that fact because his heart drops when he sees your expression. It’s like looking in a mirror.  

What the hell is he supposed to do in this situation? 

He’s faced enough deadly challenges throughout his bounty hunting career to know when to just go with your gut, so that’s what he does. He gently guides you away from the nook and sits you somewhere where you won’t have to look at it. 

You look as small as he feels, there’s something so intimate about your misery that he can’t look any longer, if he does he’ll give in and all of this will have been for nothing. You’re strong, even though he wasn’t sure for a moment there he knows that you still have your fire so of course you pull yourself together. And when you speak, you address him as you task him with finding Leo and he’s so happy to not only hear your voice but to hear you sound okay that he does it without a second thought. 

He desperately waits to hear you say more but you never do. He should have seen that coming. But he’s so weary at this point, he lets himself lean against the shelves and close his eyes, just for a second, the last thing he sees is you sketching something out on the papers Leo brought you. 

Of course you’re there when he closes his eyes as well. 

There’s no cabin, no kitchen, no bedroom, no kid. It’s just you this time. And he is trapped in a never ending loop of you. Every few minutes he’ll wake up, turning to make sure you’re still there, before drifting back into unconsciousness. You’re there too, waiting for him. It’s a funny sort of hell. To wake up and see you there, to fall asleep and see you there. He can’t escape for a single second.

What else is new?

The dream you isn’t real. He can’t bring himself to interact with her, because even the fantasy of you that he has conjured up doesn’t live up to the real thing. The real you is right there, everytime he slips back into consciousness he turns to see you. He’s never been a devout man but looking at you now he gets it. How people can be religious. The idea that you can adore something so much that you commit your life to it. He shouldn’t be thinking about you like that, at this point it’s unhealthy, but he’s just so tired, and you’re everywhere, and it’s hard to focus on anything but the look of pride on your face as you stare at your drawing. 

The dream you is too polished and shiny, she always seems so quiet. This is the real you, pleased with yourself, fighting back a smile because you’ve accomplished something. 

The sound of your chair pushing backwards wakes him from his strange middle ground of awake and asleep as he straightens up. He shouldn’t have let that happen, he doesn’t sleep in front of people, there’s too much risk involved but as much as your presence torments him it also soothes him. 

You seem like you’re in a rush to get back to your room and curiosity gets the best of him, so he allows himself a glance at your work as you scramble to get your things together. 

The table is covered in sketches of weapons and ships, a lot of which he recognizes from his book.

That’s what you had been drawing. 

He sees an ink depiction of the Crest and he can’t stop himself as he shoves it into his pocket, careful not to crinkle it. 

Why did he do that? 

He shouldn’t have done that.

But it’s too late because you’re out the door already which means he needs to be out the door. He trails behind you like always and there is the faintest hesitation from you where he thinks you might just invite him in, he’s imagining things, he has to be. He doesn’t think further on it as you close the door. He can barely stay upright and when he’s sure you’re out of earshot he lets himself slump back down onto the floor. 

He reaches into his pocket and holds the drawing out in front of him. 

He hadn’t told you about the Crest. This was just a freak coincidence. It’s a nice drawing though, you did it justice. 

He puts it into his bag, careful not to fold or crease it. 

He stops fighting sleep, he can’t keep this up forever so he lets his eyes close with a sigh. 

His vision fading to black as he feels a tap on his shoulder, opening his eyes he’s expecting to see you and the kid but instead of the house he’s still in the hall and instead of you it’s a rather displeased looking Togruta girl. 

He recognizes her as one of your ladies in waiting, he’s never learned her name. When she speaks she doesn’t sound even the slightest bit frightened of him like any of the other servants in the castle, she sounds furious.

“What did you do to her?”

I am no longer doing taglists so follow @lincolndjarinnotifs and turn on notifications to be notified when new chapters are posted !!

#lincolndjarin #the mandalorian #best kept secret #bks #din djarin #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian x you #din dijarin x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin fanfiction #RE UPLOAD

[aloysiavirgata]

Prompt: Jealous Mulder and Scully reassuring him, UST. Thank you!

“Can I die?” she asked him once, dreamy with wine just after Ritter.

“Of course,” he said, broody, not really believing it. He didn’t know which answer he wanted for her.

She’d smiled at him with lushly purpled lips, the way she is now in upstate New York, in Ellicottville, where they’re undercover and investigating an art gallery owner for money laundering. She’s wearing a strapless blue silk dress right now and it swirls around her ankles like the sea at night.

People look at her the way some wolves must have looked at fire once. They understand that there is warmth in her, that there is light. That she can burn and burn and burn without being consumed.

He can’t. He feels himself being used up, hollowing out inside from his own cold, unquenchable flame. Gouging, he thinks, because he is a profiler.

Lumenizing, he thinks, because Scully is a doctor.

The gallery owner has been eye-fucking Scully for four days and Mulder is growing weary of it. He’s doing it right now, at this vineyard, where he’s pretending to be surprised to see them even though he recommended it.

Scully laughs a little, flirts a little the way she’s gotten better at doing. Shows her beautiful white throat. The gallery owner smiles at her, enchanted by her tourmaline eyes, her burnished hair.

“Excuse us,” she says after a few moments. Steers Mulder towards a side table with the press of her slim fingers on his arm.

They burn too, through his clothes.

She swallows the rest of her wine in a gulp. “What an asshole,” she remarks, peering back over her shoulder.

“Hitting on my wife in front of me is a bold move,” he observes, even though it’s the point of this little game they’re playing out.

Scully waggles her fingers so that the ring catches the light. “Maybe you should be a touch more possessive,” she suggests, her voice just past throaty.

He looks at her, then past her out the window. “That you talking or Mrs. Daphne Tillyard?”

“What do you want?” There’s so much in the question.

He shakes his head. Jerse, Van Blundht, Padgett, this idiot and a hundred other idiots. He wants their audacity, their risk tolerance. He wants her toothy smile, wants to kiss her without the threat of sorrow or damnation.

“Scully I-“

“Daphne.”

“Daphne.” He reaches out, runs a finger down her temple, over her cheekbone. He stops at the corner of her mouth. Her pupils dilate, her lips part.

“Mulder,” she whispers, husky. Her tongue is visible. She leans her cheek into his palm. “He’s not… it isn’t real.”

They could do this. It’s been brewing, fermenting for years and maybe tonight, maybe here, he can let himself do what he couldn’t even after the fungus.

He thumbs her chin, watches her searching eyes a beat longer. “Leo,” he corrects. He brushes her hair from her eyes and walks out to the back deck alone.

#xf fanfic #xfiles fanfic #my fic #prompt

[apelcini]

as a jewish person i’m so excited to write a small town americana horror where my protagonist and deuteragonist are indigenous and jewish respectively. so often it feels like we see small town horror exploring the fucked up implications of salvation and damnation being real, but where’s the horror of it all being snake oil? of the real damnation being the choices christians willingly made against their fellow human beings? just because this is a horror story doesn’t mean christianity gets to be the religion that Got It Right. “jesus can’t help you now” is not a threat, it’s an admission of impotence.

#the normal school #I’m sick of horror that’s still christian hegemony but grim and self loathing this time

[sapphire-weapon]

If you're comfortable, I'd actually LOVE to hear your Ada x Wesker opinions.

The way that Ada talks to Wesker in Separate Ways is very different from how she talks to literally anyone else in the series. She is more casual/colloquial with him than she is with anyone -- with the sole exception to this being the way she talks to Leon in Damnation. Basically, the way that Ada talks to Leon in Damnation? Is how she talks to Wesker in Separate Ways.

And... what happened between Leon and Ada leading into Damnation?

Just saying.

Separate Ways tried to heavyhandedly put more sass into Ada's character in general, but it's more honest when it comes to Wesker. She cracks jokes at him and emotes openly at him. She gets openly annoyed with him at times, and even has a tone of "dude, come on" with him when he gives her a ridiculous order.

She just always seemed very... comfortable with him.

And it always struck me as weird that Wesker wanted Leon dead so badly in Separate Ways. It is the only time in all of Resident Evil that Ada is given orders to assassinate/kill someone. And it's the way he goes about telling Ada to kill him:

"And that US government lapdog, Leon -- if you do happen to encounter him, put him out of commission. We can't let him interfere with our plans. [...] He's a survivor of Raccoon City. We could do without the extra distraction. Take him out."

Like, obviously, Wesker sees Leon as a threat to Ada's mission, and the pretense that he gives overtly for it is "If he can survive Raccoon City, there's no knowing what he's actually capable of."

But the "extra distraction" part always seemed like a weird choice of words. It was like Wesker knew that Ada had some sort of attachment to Leon already and thought that he would get in the way of her mission not because he'd overpower/kill her, but because she'd be too distracted by him to do her job.

And that struck me as being a little jealous.

Later, when Ada reports to Wesker that Luis is dead and Saddler has the Sample, his response isn't... anger or frustration or irritation or even disappointment. It's:

"Have you had a chance to eliminate Leon?"

It's only after Ada says no that Wesker gets the idea in his head to use him. He didn't ask her that with the intention/plan of using Leon if he was still alive; he just wanted to hear that he was dead -- and, when he didn't get that, he drums his fingers against the arm of his chair in thought and then comes up with the idea to use him.

And what's crazy about it is that Leon plays his part perfectly and unknowingly does exactly what Wesker wanted him to do -- and Wesker still wants him dead. And since he's clearly not going to get his way and have Ada do it, that's when he decides to sic Krauser on him.

And after Krauser dies, Wesker is still on this, and he's all like: (paraphrased) "Make Leon and Saddler fight each other and then kill the winner. MAKE SURE YOU KILL HIM, ADA."

And then he fucking hangs up on her.

It's starting to feel a little personal, at this point.

And then Umbrella Chronicles happened. And it's revealed that Wesker saw all that shit go down between Leon and Ada in real-time.

Which now makes his desire to see Leon dead feel really, really personal.

When Wesker contacts Ada in Umbrella Chronicles, he does so via video chat (somehow in 1998 the tech for that existed shut up), and her reaction on seeing him fucking shocked me.

I expected that her reaction/tone would have a hint of "oh shit" behind it or "oh god here we go" or even just cold, unfeeling business -- kind of like how a soldier "Sir"s their CO. But that's not what she does.

She sighs his name in that dreamy sort of way she sighs Leon's name during Separate Ways.

At the very end of Umbrella Chronicles, Ada says in her narration:

"[Wesker and I] are both used to being backstabbed and manipulated. I have a feeling our relationship will last for a little while longer."

Ada's hookshot? That has become a huge staple of her gameplay and character design? It was a gift from Wesker -- it's what he gave her so that she could make it out of Raccoon City alive.

And she never stopped using it.

NOW, WITH ALL THIS BEING SAID

I am not trying to make a case that Wesker and Ada loved each other or that their relationship was romantic at all.

What I am saying is that I do think that their relationship went deeper than just a professional working one. I think that they were definitely sleeping together, and I think that Wesker knew and understood who Ada was better than anyone ever has in her life, and I think Ada knew that.

Wesker is a sociopath, but he still trusted Ada's ability and her judgement and seemed to, on some level, also genuinely enjoy her company.

And Ada, I think, found some comfort in Wesker's familiarity and felt a connection with him based on their similar past experiences. I think that her keeping the hookshot even after she betrayed him and after he'd been killed is her way of honoring who he was to her and what he did for her without remaining beholden to him in any way.

Leon was the reason why Ada ultimately betrayed Wesker in the end, but it wasn't a matter of "Well, I love him now, so I'm going with him. Boy, bye." Ada says in Umbrella Chronicles that her meeting with Leon changed her, and she says at the start of Separate Ways that betraying Wesker is part of her own objective -- which, presumably, has to do with the way Leon changed her. It had to do with a change in worldview, not a change of heart.

And I think that what Remake is trying to do is to show that change in her happen in real-time. That's why she doesn't go into RE4make already intending to betray Wesker; it's a decision she comes to organically as a result of Leon's impact on her inspiring her to ask questions as to where her efforts are going.

She didn't betray Wesker because she fell in love with Leon. She betrayed Wesker because she started to look at the world differently and realized that Wesker's ambitions were incompatible with her new worldview. It wasn't personal -- it was just that their lives were now going in two different directions (two separate ways, you might say ayyyyyyy).

But I think that there will always be a part of Ada that's grateful to Wesker and holds some degree of affection for him -- even if it's not at the intensity of actual love, it was still meaningful, and he still had a profound impact on her life.

In some ways, I view Ada's attachment to Wesker the same way that I view Leon's attachment to Ada in the OG timeline. It's not true love, but it was something that kept her bound to him and that she found comfort in when she felt like she had nothing else and her life was spiraling out of control.

Ada is a part of Leon that he thinks he can't let go.

And I think that Wesker is a part of Ada that she thought she couldn't let go, until she finally did.

#resident evil #resident evil 4 #ada wong #albert wesker #meta analysis

[daughter-of-sapph0]

"if you aren't religious, what's stopping you from murdering and raping people?"

first of all, I am religious. I'm Jewish. stop pretending that christianity is the only religion in the world. and also, Judaism isn't a controlling force that tells me what I can and can't do. it's a community of people, most of whom have wildly different ideas and viewpoints than I do, all connected by our ethnicity or religion or both. it's a part of us. either by choice or not, whether you were born Jewish or converted. and unlike christianity, it's part of me all the time. not just between 9 and 10 on Sundays and whenever I need to feel morally superior to gay people on the internet. and not once ever has it ever tried to control me or manipulate me or scare me out of doing something with the threat of eternal damnation as punishment.

but secondly, are you seriously saying that the only thing stopping you from murdering and raping people is christianity? not societal norms and stigmas? not your own morality? not your empathy for others? not even the real life consequences of your actions? the only reason you don't do something horrible is because a guy said you'd burn in lava for the rest all eternity if you didn't do exactly what he said, and you believed him? and that is your only justification for why you do the things you do and your only guide on what is right or wrong?

I see only two options. either that's exactly how you think, and you desperately need therapy. or you actually do have morals outside of christianity, but you just need to make up excuses to try and forcibly convert people by saying that non-christians have no real morals. which, if you think about that for more than five seconds, is extremely antisemitic and Islamophobic and xenophobic, and a christofascist way of viewing the world.

#dostxt

[luckbealincoln]

Best Kept Secret

chapter thirteen : lunar interlude : vercopa

THIS SERIES HAS BEEN MOVED AND RE-UPLOADED TO ANOTHER ACCOUNT. WHICH CAN BE FOUND HERE. THIS POST STILL EXISTS AS AN ARCHIVE BUT THIS ACCOUNT IS NO LONGER ACTIVE!!

pairing : bodyguard!Din Djarin x afab!princess!reader

rating : 18+ mdni

word count : 3.5k

summary : the mandalorian does some thinking

warnings, etc. : language, angst, references to sex

He did it.

He did exactly what he knew he needed to do.

So why does he feel worse than ever?

The look on your face when he had lied so blatantly to you made him want to collapse in on himself. If someone else had made you that upset he would have caved their skull in, why does he deserve any less?

He did it. That’s what matters, even if he had to lie to get you to believe it, he ended things. He doesn’t bother taking off his armor as he collapses onto his mattress. 

His eyes find the plastic flower on his nightstand. It’s a good reminder that he’s a bad person for what he’s put you through. He never should have slept with you. 

He never should have loved you. 

He deserves every form of torture that would be performed on him if they found out what the two of you had been doing. 

He deserves damnation for what he has done. 

And he gets just that when he sleeps. 

Most of his dreams follow the same theme. You, in his cabin, sometimes he finds himself entangled against your naked form, sometimes it’s just laying on his twin bed, enjoying the warmth of each other. 

Something is immediately off about the dream he’s in now.

His first thought is that this cabin is different. 

It’s bigger. There’s more dressers, the bed is twice the size of his. His confusion is palpable as he tries to find you. 

He knows he will if he looks. 

You’re always there when he closes his eyes. 

So he stands, and he walks around the house. It’s completely new to him yet so familiar and as he turns the corner and you’re there.

His breath hitches. 

You’re sitting at the kitchen table, with a genuine smile, and your hair hanging down across your face. But what catches his eye the most is the little green baby in your arms. You pinch at his cheeks as he makes those all too familiar babbles that used to fill the Crest. 

His heart is in his throat. 

He can’t move. It’s like he’s staring down the greatest threat of his life and if he moves an inch it will attack. 

Maybe he died in his sleep and this is heaven.

That doesn’t make sense, he’s done nothing to earn his place. Or it’s hell, and his torment is knowing he can’t stay here with you and Grogu, that he’ll have to wake up and live with what he’s put you through, and the kid will still be gone. 

He’s content to stand in the doorway and watch this alternate reality for as long as he sleeps. His chest heaving as he takes in the sight of everything he’s ever wanted, just a few steps away. 

The two most important people in his life, and in his reality he’s pushed you both away. 

He could have kept the kid. He hadn’t been sure about leaving, he truly believes that if he had asked Grogu to stay that they could have been happy. But he was just so scared. 

What if he got hurt while out on a hunt? What if he changed his mind and years down the road resented Din for keeping him? Or worst of all, what if plain and simple, he just got sick of Din? 

And then he did the same thing to you. 

He got scared.

He can’t already be regretting it, it’s been less than a day.

The sound of your voice calling him snaps him out of his trance. 

You say his name. 

His real name. 

Din. 

Second to the little noises the kid makes it’s the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. He’s not in control of himself as he stumbles towards you. Falling to his knees in front of your chair, scared to reach out to touch you because deep down he knows this isn’t real. 

You should be upset. Upset that he’s lied to you, told you that he doesn’t want you, used you. You should be throwing insults into his face but instead you reach down to put a hand on his cheek and he’s vaguely aware of the fact that in this particular dream he isn’t wearing his helmet. 

He’s so at ease from your touch he doesn’t care. 

You don’t speak. You just use your thumb to rub gentle circles into the planes of his face. Eventually the house is gone, the kitchen is gone, the table and chairs are gone and it’s just you. Standing above him, caressing his face with one hand, holding the kid to your chest with the other. 

He doesn’t dare move a muscle as he tries to burn the sight of the two of you into his memories. 

He wakes up with a start, sitting upright in his bed, his hands clawing at the helmet as he gasps for air. He haphazardly tosses it onto the sheets as tries to catch his breath. 

Wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his flight suit he stuffs some rations into his satchel and locks his helmet back on. 

So he can’t stay in the cabin anymore. 

He had never even brought you here but it reeks of your absence. And that dream didn’t help in the slightest. 

There are whispers of you in every corner and crevice of his home. He’s not an idiot, he knows no matter where he goes there will always be traces of you. So there’s no sense avoiding it, he makes his way to the castle and stands guard outside your room. 

He doesn’t sleep the rest of the night. He stands against the wall opposite your bedroom door. He can’t go back to sleep, he can’t handle that dream again. So he stays up until the sun rises. 

He’s a bundle of nerves waiting for you to greet him, but you never do. You stay in your room the entire day, the only change in scenery is when Leo or one of the girls brings you food, he tries to catch a glimpse of you when the door is briefly open but he never does. 

His heart hurts. 

He doesn’t move. When the hallways are empty he eats his rations just for something to do. Sometimes he’ll turn up the external audio so he can hear you pacing around your room but most of the time it’s silent. He’ll stretch his legs every few hours, pacing the hall. And then he’ll sit and repeat. 

He wants to go in. 

He wants to tear the door down, kneel before you and beg for forgiveness. But he manages to resist. 

He doesn’t sleep when the sun goes down. 

When he feels his eyes starting to flutter he’ll chew on a ration. 

Sometimes if he feels sleep creeping up on him he thinks of things to say to you in the morning. 

He wants to say sorry. More accurately he wants to grovel at your feet and tell you he’s an idiot, that he was lying, that he didn’t mean a word of it and that he’s madly in love with you. 

Of course he won’t do that.

He shouldn’t say anything.

It’s better that way. It’s better for the both of you. 

Doesn’t mean he can’t fantasize about a world where he begs for forgiveness and you grant it. 

Would you want him in that world? All of him, not just moments in secret when one of you craved the other. He wants mornings, noons, and nights. Would you give them to him? 

He could take you away from here if you did. 

It wouldn’t be easy but when your job is to find people who don’t want to be found you get pretty good at hiding. You could change your names, go get the kid, he could make his dream real. 

Would you really want that though? 

Of course you wouldn’t. Even if he hadn’t ended things so cruelly, you were a princess and he was just Din. 

You wouldn’t want that cabin in the woods, you were too good for that. You deserved castles and gowns, not living in the woods with a Mandalorian. 

So he won’t talk to you. He will simply resign himself to loving you from afar. (Or more accurately he will love you from a few steps behind you.) And he will leave you alone because he’s caused enough problems. 

Well, if you came out of your room he would. But he can’t properly leave you alone if you won’t let him.

He’s exhausted as he sits against the door, willing himself to stay awake to avoid any more dreams. He turns up his audio for most of the day, listening to you mill about the room. 

He wishes you’d give him a reason to come in, the sound of a scuffle, a yelp, for Makers sake, if you stub your toe he could use that as an excuse just to check in on you. But all he hears are the sounds of your muffled footsteps. 

And he can’t keep his eyes open forever. 

The combination of the flight suit and his armor makes him heat up when he sits still, especially as the sun sets and the light through the windows hits him. He isn’t sure when exactly he falls asleep but he’s back in that big cabin when he does. 

He makes the executive decision this time to stay in bed. 

He doesn’t want to see you, and he doesn’t want to see the kid. Because neither of you are real, and eventually you’ll be ripped away from him when he wakes up. 

Of course his strategy doesn’t work because in this dream you bring Grogu to him. He tries to shield himself from his delusions, even in his dreams he knows it’s pitiful, a trained killer hiding under the blankets from a singular person and a sleeping child. 

You still don’t speak. Gods he wishes you would speak, he wishes you would scream at him, shame him for his cowardice but instead you peel back the sheets just enough to put the kid between the two of you and lay with him, Grogu snoring through that tiny nose of his as you lay down with him, giving him that smile that makes his heart melt and his brain turn to mush. You lean forward and your forehead rests on his. 

He knows he deserves this anguish but still, it’s ruthless. 

Everything he could ever possibly want, under one blanket and it isn’t even fucking real. 

He’s startled awake when the surface he’s laying on moves. 

He doesn’t have a lot of time to come to his senses before he’s looking up and you’re there. The real you. The dream version could never compare to the real thing. That’s how he knows he isn’t sleeping anymore. You're clearer, confusingly you’re wearing simpler clothing. He can’t really think about that right now though because he’s hit with a wave of embarrassment. 

He was the one who had ended things with you yet here he was, sitting outside your door like a dog who got locked out overnight.

You just step over him.

Just like that you’re over him. 

Literally and apparently figuratively.

Huh.

He had assumed you had locked yourself in your room because you were trying to process everything, that you were trying to repair the parts of you that had been broken. 

He had assumed you felt as terrible as he did. 

But you seem fine, like nothing even happened. 

He should be elated. That you’re not only fine but seem to be completely over it.

Instead he feels sick. He’s worried he’s going to vomit in his helmet because he can’t stop wondering if maybe you never even cared about him in the first place. It’s wrong, it’s a terrible thing to wonder and he can’t help but think of what an awful person he must be to have such a thought.

He follows behind you, as is his natural instinct but he feels like he needs to sit down again. 

Did you ever care about him? He had only ended things with you because he couldn’t handle the idea of you loving him. If you loved him and he still couldn’t be with you he wouldn’t survive it.

Yet you seem perfectly fine. 

And he can’t help but think that he ruined everything on a bad judgment call. He hasn’t felt this stupid since he almost got himself stuck in carbonite when he first bought the Crest. 

He can’t focus on a thing you’re doing, yet he stays with you the entire time, he knows you grab books and he knows you return to your chambers and he knows that at some point he ended up back on the floor, leaning against your bedroom door again. 

Maybe you had never even liked him as a friend.

He had never considered that you might have been exactly what he had claimed to be. Bored and in need of entertainment. 

That isn’t possible, you had been so upset when he had ended things.

Of course you could have just been upset because he had been unnecessarily cruel.

He has no right to be bothered by this. This was his choice. His decision. 

Maybe he chose wrong. 

It’s a little late for thoughts like that.

He can’t just change his mind.

And he’s left to think about everything he possibly could have done differently as he fights sleep. 

He doesn’t even know how he’s still standing when the sun rises and he groans as he gets to his feet. 

Your ladies in waiting go in, and this time they actually stay in and he’s more awake then he’s been in days because he knows that you’re actually going to come out today. He braces himself to see that fire in you, tells himself that last night was a fluke, that you hadn’t been prepared to see him and now that you are you’ll want to argue and berate him and he can finally sort things out in his head.

But you don’t.

You barely even look at him and you’re already walking to the library like nothing happened. 

Like it’s any other day. 

He can’t think, he can’t form a coherent thought because you seem perfectly fine. He really hadn’t meant anything to you. 

He had hoped that this confirmation would free him. That if it was true he wouldn’t feel an attraction to you anymore and he could finally get off this kriffing planet. But his adoration doesn’t waver for a second. He still feels exactly the same way except now he feels smaller. There is nothing worse than a problem that can’t be solved with a blaster. 

He’s got big plans to spend his day trying not to give in to his mental and physical exhaustion while he does everything in his power to not think about how unbothered you look. But those plans are immediately halted when you freeze up right after you get into the library. He’s puzzled for a few seconds until he sees the nook and your voice echoes inside his helmet.

��Why is your favorite color green?”

The kid, the cabin, and you. 

He wants to fall apart. He wants to collapse right there on the floor and he’s so tired he briefly considers it until he realizes you’re still not moving. He gives you a second, he knows better than to try and talk to you right now, his helmet has been silenced since the last time he had spoken to you. 

He can’t be trusted to not beg for absolution. 

Your eyes are glued on the nook and he swears you tremble slightly.

So you did care. 

He can’t even take pleasure in that fact because his heart drops when he sees your expression. It’s like looking in a mirror.  

What the hell is he supposed to do in this situation? 

He’s faced enough deadly challenges throughout his bounty hunting career to know when to just go with your gut, so that’s what he does. He gently guides you away from the nook and sits you somewhere where you won’t have to look at it. 

You look as small as he feels, there’s something so intimate about your misery that he can’t look any longer, if he does he’ll give in and all of this will have been for nothing. You’re strong, even though he wasn’t sure for a moment there he knows that you still have your fire so of course you pull yourself together. And when you speak, you address him as you task him with finding Leo and he’s so happy to not only hear your voice but to hear you sound okay that he does it without a second thought. 

He desperately waits to hear you say more but you never do. He should have seen that coming. But he’s so weary at this point, he lets himself lean against the shelves and close his eyes, just for a second, the last thing he sees is you sketching something out on the papers Leo brought you. 

Of course you’re there when he closes his eyes as well. 

There’s no cabin, no kitchen, no bedroom, no kid. It’s just you this time. And he is trapped in a never ending loop of you. Every few minutes he’ll wake up, turning to make sure you’re still there, before drifting back into unconsciousness. You’re there too, waiting for him. It’s a funny sort of hell. To wake up and see you there, to fall asleep and see you there. He can’t escape for a single second.

What else is new?

The dream you isn’t real. He can’t bring himself to interact with her, because even the fantasy of you that he has conjured up doesn’t live up to the real thing. The real you is right there, everytime he slips back into consciousness he turns to see you. He’s never been a devout man but looking at you now he gets it. How people can be religious. The idea that you can adore something so much that you commit your life to it. He shouldn’t be thinking about you like that, at this point it’s unhealthy, but he’s just so tired, and you’re everywhere, and it’s hard to focus on anything but the look of pride on your face as you stare at your drawing. 

The dream you is too polished and shiny, she always seems so quiet. This is the real you, pleased with yourself, fighting back a smile because you’ve accomplished something. 

The sound of your chair pushing backwards wakes him from his strange middle ground of awake and asleep as he straightens up. He shouldn’t have let that happen, he doesn’t sleep in front of people, there’s too much risk involved but as much as your presence torments him it also soothes him. 

You seem like you’re in a rush to get back to your room and curiosity gets the best of him, so he allows himself a glance at your work as you scramble to get your things together. 

The table is covered in sketches of weapons and ships, a lot of which he recognizes from his book.

That’s what you had been drawing. 

He sees an ink depiction of the Crest and he can’t stop himself as he shoves it into his pocket, careful not to crinkle it. 

Why did he do that? 

He shouldn’t have done that.

But it’s too late because you’re out the door already which means he needs to be out the door. He trails behind you like always and there is the faintest hesitation from you where he thinks you might just invite him in, he’s imagining things, he has to be. He doesn’t think further on it as you close the door. He can barely stay upright and when he’s sure you’re out of earshot he lets himself slump back down onto the floor. 

He reaches into his pocket and holds the drawing out in front of him. 

He hadn’t told you about the Crest. This was just a freak coincidence. It’s a nice drawing though, you did it justice. 

He puts it into his bag, careful not to fold or crease it. 

He stops fighting sleep, he can’t keep this up forever so he lets his eyes close with a sigh. 

His vision fading to black as he feels a tap on his shoulder, opening his eyes he’s expecting to see you and the kid but instead of the house he’s still in the hall and instead of you it’s a rather displeased looking Togruta girl. 

He recognizes her as one of your ladies in waiting, he’s never learned her name. When she speaks she doesn’t sound even the slightest bit frightened of him like any of the other servants in the castle, she sounds furious.

“What did you do to her?”

tag list : dm or reply to be added !!

@stagerightlauren - @dins-riduur-anthe - @littleguy-bendy - @rarachelchel - @laurensnotsparkly - @gerardingurway - @reallyidontcare- @clear-your-mind-and-dream - @estoniacobaltpayne - @buckyandgeraltsupremacy - @cookielovesbook-akie - @diabaroxa - @love-the-abyss - @sasakipsposts

#din djarin fanfiction #din djarin/reader #mandalorian fanfic #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #mandalorian x reader #din djarin

[sukunasbabygirl]

Despite not fixating in the Owl House much, It’s only natural for me to occasionally think about the Wittebane story because I am in fact a nerd.

I also realise that there’s been stuff on twitter again about how it’s immoral to like Philip’s character which… that’s a story for another day, but trying to understand his character is nowhere close to condoning his actions, and when it comes to the witch trials, we have real events we can analyse to try and understand where the roots of Philip come from. I know they likely weren’t allowed to go so far in the Owl House’ case, but I would love if media in general explored the mania surrounding witches in a more nuanced way than how it’s usually portrayed, this being in regards to the New England Witch Trials mainly, but it would be interesting to see other witch crazes explored and what not.

Back to Philip Wittebane though, I think what people fail to understand about the mania surrounding witches, is that at the time the threat was very real, and there’s typically a disconnect between these events and now due to the centuries of difference. We often villainise and even dehumanise the accusers without realising that this is a phenomenon that still occurs today - on the internet no less. People accuse and create false evidence and then we turn our backs on people, even when the evidence doesn’t always make sense. That is, in a simple manner of speaking, what the trials were, bouts of paranoia and false accusations leading to more and more deaths and imprisonments and fear amongst the masses, and this nature would be highly influential on children who can’t yet grasp what’s really happening.

It’s hard to understand Philip when we can’t connect to what he went through, but if you think of it as something you’re familiar with, it does become easier. He’s still a terrible and vile person, but when he was a child, he grew desensitised to the death around him, and even associated it with being accepted. As we know Gravesfield was a dangerously paranoid town, and a child is going to be influenced by the adults around them, and family too, gestures to Caleb. And if you want to call young Philip a heartless murderer, then I’m afraid you’d have to do the same for Caleb, because we see in the Hollow Mind portraits that Caleb joined in and encouraged the deaths of supposed witches. The difference between him and his brother is that he changed, and Philip did not, but that is a discussion for another day.

And it’s always worth noting the fact they grew up in a strictly Christian environment, and even though I was a Catholic not Protestant, the same principles apply when it comes to Christianity messing you up, and lord above, it can really mess you up. Top ten reasons why he’s like me. Seriously though, Christianity was a focus point in a Puritan’s life, and they would keep journals and devote their lives to God for the most part. The fear of damnation was very real and these pacts with the devil even moreso, and when things went wrong, it would be so much easier to blame the devil and his servants than to believe in the cruelty of God or in the idea that they themselves were doing something wrong to anger him.

And that’s exactly what Philip does later down the line. He blames a servant of the devil for his brother’s fall rather than believe that he’s in the wrong, and that his brother has strayed from the right path. While this isn’t explicitly said, it’s again something we can infer from historical context and vague hints in the show, I mean Philip does call the Isles another word for hell. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to question the fact he’s in a place that is essentially hell, and instead takes it as a mission to rescue his brother and cleanse hell.

Side note on that actually, I’d have to double check but this purging of a hell-like place reminds me vaguely of the Book of Revelations and how when Jesus rises again, Hell will be like a second death and those who have not accepted salvation will cease to exist or be cast into a lake or sulfur… I’d have to double check that though. It’s definitely not an intentional thing, but you know, it may be something running through Philip’s mind. Also it paints him again as similar to the anti-christ or the false prophet, taking the place of Jesus as saviour but really leading them all to damnation.

Before you ask, yes I am reading way too much into this and finding things that probably weren’t even the point but you know.

I guess in summary: it’s hard to understand Philip’s character without the historical context, and it’s even harder when you twist the historical context to be black and white, in this case the witch trials and Puritan society. Understanding his character will never be condoning his actions. I find his character fascinating because he is a display of what would happen if you put a devote Puritan man into the modern world. Did I think it was done well? Not really. Did I still enjoy seeing his character unfold? Yes! He’s a despicable man, but it’s completely acceptable to look at a despicable fictional character and wonder ‘what made you this way’?

There’s also a whole other discussion about how his control over the Isles reflects colonialism and how he converted people with their own beliefs and culture to what is essentially Christianity, using a belief they already had (The Titan) to spearhead this, something I’ve touched on before a few times but an in depth analysis would be interesting. The show touches on this directly once I think? And there are clear differences is the isles before and after, so I believe this was very much the intention.

I’m starting to get off track now, so I’ll end it here, but hello again Wittebane fandom, I make my brief return and now I won’t exist again for five thousand years.

#the owl house #toh #toh analysis #emperor belos #philip wittebane #wittebane brothers

[proxylynn]

Would you forgive Adam for attacking Charlie’s hotel?

[If he had a real reason for it, then possibly. But honestly, his reason for attacking the hotel is petty due to being made foolish in front of his boss and other higher-ups. His ego was dented and so he targets the one thing he knows Charlie cares about to make her hurt for this transgression. A blow for a blow, this seems fair in his eyes.]

{Funny enough, I find it kind of charming how Adam is with Charlie. You'd think as, well, this is Adam and his first wife is Charlie's mom and this would cause him to loathe her...but...no. Adam doesn't hate Charlie or even is bothered that she's Lilith's kid. You can tell who he sees as his real enemy by how he addresses her. "Lilith's little hottie." and "Lucifer's brat." Lucifer took his wife, possibly also his other wife too, cost him his home, and all the good that he had or could have been. That's who he hates and what he dislikes about Charlie. Because he can see Lucifer when he sees her.

During their first meeting, Adam was initially friendly with Charlie, only to begin teasing her, openly and verbally mocking Charlie because of her idea to redeem sinners. Not her. Despite being his descendants, Adam hates sinners and believes anyone who was sentenced to damnation in Hell deserved it. So Charlie's idea of redeeming the damned is laughable and goes against what he knows is the status quo.

In "Welcome to Heaven", it's implied he would have kicked her out of Heaven if it hadn't been for Lute advising him not to start a confrontation. And in "The Show Must Go On", while he still mocks Charlie about wasting her immortal soul on those who wasted their own, he is still engaging in conversation because this makes zero sense to him.

"ThEsE sInNeRs ArE mY fAmIlY! Do you even hear yourself?"

Adam wasn't even taking her seriously as a threat till she stabs him after Charlie's patience gave out. He even is genuinely surprised she hurt him because she's just "Little Miss Butterflies and Rainbows", only after that does he take the kid's gloves off, discarding the "do not harm Hellborn demons" rule, and treats her like he would any sinner demon...before daddy Lucifer shows up and things got dead.

This dynamic in a weird way kinda feels like Adam is an uncle to Charlie but he's that out-of-touch set in his ways kinda guy that doesn't get invited over but will show up uninvited, cause chaos, then bounce. Charlie, being herself, tries to get along with him but eventually sees why the family never talks to him unless it's important and the only reason she's often the one dealing with him is because they either don't want to or because she's the only one that won't punch him within the first five seconds he starts talking, only for her to explode on him after having enough leading to the cops being called on Thanksgiving.}

[Sweet lord, look at what this man does to my brain for me to analyze like this off of a simple question!]

#ask op #hazbin hotel lore theory/headcanon #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel adam #charlie hazbin hotel #adam hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel

[xxlovelynovaxx]

My womanhood is a sword and my manhood a shield -

I was forged this way after all.

.

For my masculinity to be a weapon,

it must be blunted, made safe with femininity,

as if butch womanhood and femme manhood

are not still considered dangerous and subversive,

but all poison and no blade by their elements of pink,

like gums with no teeth.

.

It must be raised only in service of protecting others,

never myself. Never my traitorous manhood,

dangerous and toxic without poison -

a weapon that can never be a tool of creation,

only destruction.

.

To use my femininity as a shield for others

is to acquiesce -

to give into "brainwashing",

because the only way I am allowed to demand my autonomy

is by violence against the only people in my reach.

.

And tainted by manhood as it is -

it's not real, it's a cover under which

I invade spaces made sacred by blood and bleeding,

despite being a goddess bleeding countless drops

to shape the temple of my body.

.

I can only defend myself by attacking.

If I attack my womanhood is stripped from me.

If I defend myself my manhood is stripped from me.

If I am silent my gender is stripped from me.

.

And even in the havens of the deities and freaks like me,

if I am a man I am privileged for my chosen masculinity and assigned femininity,

if I am a woman I am privileged for my chosen femininity and assigned masculinity,

always hysterical -

further a traitor for the actual assignment being a secret third thing-

what privilege is it for claims of sanctuary

to be met with further violence?

.

I am pushed into manhood or womanhood

as much as denied it,

either basically a cis woman or basically a cis man,

the sum total of my gender a cute effort at playing pretend,

until I do not fit in those boxes,

messy, unpalatable, deviant, "broken";

then the differences etched in every line of my identity

are "corrected" by actually breaking me.

.

To defy categorization is

to be put in a cage.

.

I am whatever identity you hate the most.

My gender is that of the fae,

ephemeral and fluid as nature,

on a more literal level than you are capable of knowing.

.

It is a thing of delusions which I embrace,

in tarot, moon, death, and tower all at once,

illusion and change and the power to topple systems,

a phantasm that is more a threat than the material.

.

I am the mirror which forces you to confront

the violence in your own bared teeth

and the cannibalistic blood running down your throat.

If you think this passage is addressed to another,

then it's meant for you.

.

I said I was forged this way,

every family I have ever met was only hammer, anvil, and searing heat,

I was only mined to be shaped into a thing of use.

.

I cannot distinguish between the cis and trans people,

who joke about raping and forcibly impregnating me,

(despite my intersex anatomy rendering that only enough a possibility to still be part of the threat)

who reduce me down to the genitals they think I had at birth,

who replay the violence of forcing a dyadic label on me in a gruesome tableau,

who find me inherently violent and invasive,

who label me sex predator and sex pest,

who label my erasure and hypervisibility in equal measure

both a privilege and nonexistent -

.

I remain only what is useful to anyone in their eyes.

.

All while the greater portion of my identity is cut away and discarded

like fat on a piece of meat,

do you hunger for the flesh taken from me?

.

What a privilege to receive all the violence of all worlds,

writing itself into the very memory of my flesh -

for those of you that are programmers,

how much data must I overwrite the data contained in my DNA with

for the trauma program to be irrecoverable and unlocatable?

.

This is an open letter to cis and trans people alike:

the ones I can't tell apart not for identity but for violence,

the ones to whom I am weapon and weapon's wounded,

and always, always, from te/rf and self-proclaimed tranny alike,

that spectre of eternal damnation that you call privilege

in concert with the sisters and brothers who want to kill you or wish you dead,

while ignoring the one aspect of privilege w(hit)e actually share,

and the others you hold over me outside of gender -

.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Perhaps we should put it on a high shelf with the rest.

.

I am not a weapon but a person,

and as such I can make use of the edge

given to me by trannies and transphobes alike -

.

but take note,

of the way I use it making food

cutting thread to weave bandages

sharpen it without using your bones,

and when the time comes to go to war,

it'll be at the throat belonging to the boot on our necks.

.

I'll continue to obfuscate my identity -

which is being more genuine with it than you have ever known how to be,

be a cloaked stranger turned away from my own family:

.

I will direct that hunger into a taste for ichor -

Patriarchus, White Supremacius, Colonalius,

Gender Essentalia and her sister Bioessentalia,

Ableius, Sanieus, Antisemitia, Antizigania -

a pantheon too wide and united to name them all here.

.

The flames of the forge will not make me invulnerable,

but they will turn me into a force powerful as a forest fire,

and yet precise as life itself.

.

To the members of my own community:

I'll burn down our cage without singing your hair,

and then once our oppression is no longer a threat,

then we can talk about how you coated your teeth in their self-same venom

despite how it numbed your tongue and throat.

.

And to those outside it who have the actual privilege

that makes our necks look like stepping stones,

this staircase will crumble beneath you,

and you'll have to live with that we are better

than to rebuild it out of your vagus nerves.

.

Though I am within my own rights,

to wish you all to choke on your own hypocrisy,

and be subsumed by the assimilation you pretend to reject,

I simply wish for you to find the safety I'll never get to find in any one of you,

and for unconditional love and acceptance to devastate you utterly.

.

You'll get your liberation

be it that you may be dragged there kicking and screaming,

I know I am a sacrifice you're willing to make,

but my survival has been a radical act of resistance for this long.

If you think this part is for you,

it is, but it is not only.

Society if you weren't so self-centered:

.

Nah, you're not really to blame,

no more than anyone else.

.

I'll reforge my gender into a Muirian madness,

all the horrors of love and inherent violence of power,

and a little bit of bones and schizophrenic lesbians and

how many memes can you identify in this poem alone?

.

I'll plunge myself into fire and take hammers to my bones,

and make myself into something useful for all of us,

by virtue of that being useful to me.

.

Swords and shields can be melted down and reforged.

The pressure I am under and heat I face for being me

will never turn the soft animal of my flesh into diamond,

but even within a cage I retain autonomy over my own personhood.

.

I will not let your violence remake me into you.

#poetry #my poetry #trans #intersex #nonbinary #queer #genderqueer

[ambiguouspuzuma]

The Recipe

It was a recipe for disaster. At least, that's what the book said. Mayhem, malice, and everything between. Ingredients salt, oil, candles, goat's milk, one clove of garlic and a smattering of cloves. Preparation time twenty-five minutes. Summons a demon and binds them to their master's will.

Serves one.

"Are you sure this is the real deal?"

"I don't know." Roz had found it in one of the old books upstairs, the dusty tomes she collected as much for the aesthetic as anything else. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

"I mean, shouldn't it be eye of newt, toe of frog, and all that?" Mari was a close enough friend to humour Roz's eccentricities, but that didn't mean she didn't harbour her own doubts. "Not stuff that we can pick up from the local supermarket."

"I just hope that table salt is fine," Roz said, pouring some in a wide circle on the floorboards. "They didn't have those fancier pots of seasalt flakes, or the pink Himalayan stuff you see nowadays."

"I don't see how it matters," Mari said. "It's salt. What's it going to do? Surely any demon worth his salt won't be deterred by some."

"How should I know? Maybe they're like snails."

"My dad says you can put down bark, or copper, and it works the same in your garden. Do you think a copper ring would work on demons?"

"I don't even know that this one will." Roz threw her hands up in the air, accidentally spraying a handful of salt across the room. "Look, I don't know if demons are real, or if this ritual is real, or if I'm doing any of this properly. But I'm going to try it, and we'll just see what happens."

With Mari's questions out of the way, Roz proceeded with the remaining set up: a chalk pentagram within the circle, dribbly candles at opposite points outside it, and a stick of incense that only seemed to incense her asthma. Her personal hell was a perfume shop, or one of those places that sold rainbow coloured bath bombs, so perhaps her person demon would feel suitably at home.

She took a puff on her inhaler, reached out for Mari to hold her hand, and began to read the incantation from the page. It was in Latin script, but not in any language she recognised, so she hoped that her pronunciation was close enough. She'd struggled in French at school, and this felt like it had slight higher stakes: as much as she'd feared the displeasure of Mme Blanc, she hadn't carried the threat of damnation to the underworld.

"Oh, great. Teenage girls. Why am I not surprised?"

The demon arrived in a foul mood. He was short, covered in crimson spines, and slightly smoking at the edges, but he wasn't entirely unlike Mme Blanc in his demeaning demeanour. Someone had clearly surfaced from the wrong side of the sulphur pit.

"Uh, hi." Mari was looking to Roz to say something, but she wasn't sure what that was. The book hadn't been clear on that part, and she hadn't even expected to get this far. Did they introduce themselves, or was it a bad idea to give their names? Was that demons or elves? "Thank you for coming."

"You say that like I had a choice."

"Sorry. So... what's the deal here? Do we get three wishes or something?" Mari gave her a nudge. "Is that together, or each?"

"Free samples?" the demon answered scathingly. "No, there's only one deal here. You can have anything that it's in my power to give. But first, you must pledge over your soul."

"Oh." Roz looked over at Mari, who seemed equally lost. "Can we have some time to consider?"

"Sure, waste more of my time." The demon seemed to smoke more when he was annoyed. Perhaps that had been why he was smoking to start with. "It's not like I'm busy."

"Thanks."

The friends backed away into a corner, not knowing whether it made the slightest bit of difference as to whether the demon could listen in, but feeling the need for some veneer of privacy. Roz kept a subtle eye on him in turn, but he seemed to have taken the opportunity to sit down and rest his head in clawed hands. Even if he could hear them, he looked like he would try his best not to.

"Did you have any thoughts?" she whispered.

"You mean you didn't think this through?" Mari asked in turn, her whisper more urgent. "Even with the three wishes thing?"

"I wished for it to work. I never thought it would."

"Doesn't the recipe say anything?"

"No." Roz double-checked the instructions, but there was no serving suggestion. "I've got nothing off the top of my head. I'm guessing you're the same?"

"I'm just here to back you up. You can do whatever you like, but I don't want any part of any deal for myself."

"Fair enough," she said, then gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Thank you."

They returned to the edge of the circle, where the table salt lay undisturbed. If the demon could cross it, he didn't seem to have tried; if this was his portal back to hell, Roz supposed this was the equivalent of loitering in the doorway, waiting to be allowed to leave.

"Sorry," she told him. "I don't think there's anything I want more than my soul, really. It's kind of my most valuable possession."

"Of course," the demon sighed, but he didn't look surprised. "Another cold call, just wasting my time. Are you going to banish me now?"

"Almost," Roz said. Something about the way he'd said it made her pause. "What about you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is there anything that's in our power to give? Forgive me for prying, but you don't exactly seem too happy in your current role. Job satisfaction is important. Are there opportunities for advancement, work-afterlife balance, that sort of thing?"

"Oh." For the first time since they'd summoned him, he seemed interested in what she had to say. "I don't know. I haven't really thought about it, not knowing any alternatives."

"We can help with that." Roz looked over to Mari, who nodded. "We can't offer any otherworldly pleasures, but, well... worldly pleasures? We can start off small, if you like. Have you ever tried a cookie?"

#writing #original writing #creative writing #short story

[electricbluebutterflies]

putting ear over their heart for the prompts :')

Early-era Jessica/Leto, PG-ish, also on ao3.

Jessica stays, after.

She’s been doing that more and more often, on the nights she is asked for. Like most of the behaviors she’s picked up in these few years, this one surprises her, another new shade of a life she may be defining in her own way. So much unexpected, so much-

She stays, and the strange part is she actually wants to.

They have cultivated routines, which is to say that she knows what she’s good for and she was lucky enough to be placed in a situation where that is respected. Some core part of that man’s soul likes her, damned if she knows how, and-

Now is no time for analysis of the dynamic, she decides. She’s tired, pleasantly worn out from recent activities, and she doesn’t want to move, and she can’t-

“Did I harm you?”

Such caution unprovoked, if not outright worry. She has done nothing, she reminds herself, she has done so close to nothing and still-

“Not in any way that seemed intentional,” she replies after a few moments. A glance down at her body reveals what may be a few light bruises on her hips, but if she can’t feel them then they don’t even count, and-

“Not quite what I asked.”

Her current position is challenging for eye contact anyways, and she shifts her body and buries her face against a pillow. “Your concern is a kindness, but… an unnecessary one, for now.”

She feels fingertips on her back, pushing her hair away from her skin – she has observed a tactile need in that man, always doing something with his hands, touching her far more than necessary, she ought to get rid of that habit, she ought to-

“You’ve gotten softer. It’s strange.”

He does not mean harm, Jessica reminds herself. That is not their way. Such a comment from anyone else might make her tense or self-critical, but in this moment, their bodies so recently separated…

“Is it pleasing?”

“I can’t imagine you could ever be anything else.”

There’s something concerned in his voice still, like he doesn’t yet know more than he should but he will in time, like she would still be treated the same if she exposed her vulnerabilities. There are so many conversations they have not had that might make domestic functioning easier if that is to be their path, and… some of those may be unnecessary, Jessica thinks. She’s done some underestimating too, failed so slightly but anything less than perfect is damnation, and yet-

“I could be,” she says after a comfortable silence. “If I had reason enough.”

She turns her head again just in time to see a look cross his face like he doesn’t quite believe her, and she knows she has done something wrong but she can’t quite pin what, and-

“I’m not sure that would work.”

Two years, she thinks, two years of being underestimated by every living thing she’s had to deal with on this planet – no, underestimated has been the better option, there are some who fear what she might be and still see her as a threat even though she’s all but made herself one with the walls, even though she has been perfectly-

“How so? I am more than capable of-“

“I would like to think I’m well aware of your capabilities,” he murmurs, fingertips tracing patterns on her back like he does when emotions start to come up. “That is… perhaps a part of the problem. You have been frightfully easy to fall in love with, thorns and all.”

Well, now he’s gone for it. If ever there were a reason to run damage control, to lace her voice immediately and nip that feeling before it turns contagious…

She can’t. She won’t. She’s not sure there’s a difference between those two little statements.

What harm is there in expressed affection, she wonders. It is as real as anything could ever be, she knows that much, built over time and she hasn’t made it easy but something in that man wanted her from the moment their lives became entangled, perhaps even needed her, not to possess but to exist alongside and isn’t that the original meaning of her official status anyways and-

“And if I can’t respond in kind?”

“You have responded enough. You didn’t run, you’re still here in my bed and looking in my general direction, you’re not even yelling yet and-“

Don’t tempt her, she wants to say and won’t. Both of those overreactions crossed her mind, and she still didn’t-

“I do care for you,” she breathes, shifting her body closer, shifting so her head is on his chest and she can focus on his heartbeat somehow perfectly steady despite everything. Something inherently calming, she thinks, as she knows she is to him as well, something impeccably balanced as all placed dynamics ought to be and-

“More than enough.”

“I can’t use such strong words yet, but… I do accept the affection. I do trust your heart and your judgement.”

He knows what a strong compliment that is from her, and there’s a pleasant silence as he processes, as they both do, as-

“More than enough,” he repeats like that’s the end of everything and somehow it is. “More than I could ever ask for.”

She wants to believe this too, but she knows this may be one of the only polite lies he keeps against her. The truth is made clearer as she slowly drifts out of consciousness, aware that he does not follow her, and she hears dreams spoken in a quiet voice, ways to bind them, a direction desperately wanted and-

When the time comes, she will respond. Not now. Not yet.

#ebf writes fic #leto x jessica #queue

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

You know why Batman and Spider-Man have such a good rouge gallery? Because those enemy’s make sense and a reason to be the like that in concept

Bane and rhino are made to test the heroes strength or resolution in some cases

Black cat and cat woman are made to make the hero think about leaving the heroism for love/lust going against their responsibility’s

Scare crow and mysterio are made to test the resolution

Joker tests their integrity and green goblin the consequences of their responsibility’s

Or for parallels

Joker and green goblin are the total opposite of the hero which only desire is to ruin the life of he’s foe

Doc Ock and the penguin had the power to be good but used it for evil

The lizard and man bat are twisted reflections of the heroes

But when we talk about hawkmoth… what is the thing that makes him the perfect main enemy of ladybug?

Does he challenge ladybug in any way? He’s not a rival in intellect, no because he has shown to be pathetic in he’s plans

Does he challenge her strength? he barely fights and there’s only 1 real fight which lasts like 5 seconds and she loses while the rest is just intense looks at each other

Challenges her resolution? Every single fight is just about resolution no matter if the enemy is a tank like Stone heart or a trickster like Volpina

Her integrity or responsibility? No because the Akumas and Miraculous totally destroy the concept of having to kill a enemy to stop him making the question “Is sparing such threat a good idea?” Something none existing

And the parallels?

She wants to be a designer,he’s a designer,He corrupts,she cures and creates

Super forced, the history is about how Gabriel wants to bring her wife back by using the miraculous while he makes the life of he’s son a HELL but he gets to be free using one of the miraculous he’s father wants, what’s ladybug place in this?

The only enemy’s of Marinette that fit are Lila because somehow she gets to manipulate everyone who loves Marinette forcing her Resolution to her maximum

While Chloe is a total opposite of Marinette with many parallels

Stupid,lonely,lazy,irresponsible,bully,with a awful family and everyone hates her

But all those traits together aren’t something someone would despise but just feel bad even if Chloe is a bully making her damnation even worse

Is like Venom from spectacular Spider-Man being a total opposite of Spider-Man which everyone felt bad for and every fan of the show would’ve liked to get redeemed but that couldn’t be possible because it got cancelled

Why is hawkmoth Ladybug worse enemy? Because he’s the only enemy,

Hawkmoth at least was decently sympathetic in season 1-2 but in season 3-4 he loses all redeeming traits making him not only generic but also bad in concept or parallels just because Ladybug isn’t the right nemesis for him

The thing about Hawkmoth is that there was honestly a really interesting idea here to make him more of a foil to Ladybug. One of Marinette’s biggest goals outside of Ladybug-related stuff is to confess her feelings to and start a relationship with Adrien. With how often the show highlights Marinette’s crush on Adrien and Gabriel’s determination to save his wife, there was a chance to compare and contrast how Marinette and Gabriel expressed their feelings for their respective love interests, and show how far either of them are willing to go in order to make them happy. Since the complications associated with romance are supposedly a main theme, use this opportunity to teach the lesson about the idea of romance, supposedly seen as a force of good that always prevails, twisted as it’s used as an excuse to justify certain actions, like Gabriel wanting to rewrite reality itself, and how Marinette can struggle with such temptations.

Another thing the writers could have done to make the rivalry between Ladybug and Hawkmoth deeper is to focus more on the fact that Gabriel is a big name in the fashion industry, something Marinette has a huge interest in, by making their relationship one that’s like a mentor and protégé. Show Gabriel taking Marinette under his wing as an apprentice and have the two spend more time together, with the irony to the audience being that we know who they really are. The thing with Gabriel is that he rarely interacts with anyone in his civilian life for us to really get invested in his character as Hawkmoth, so this could give more focus to this conflict. It would make future conflicts all the more tense because you know the reveal would be very groundbreaking. Right now, even though Gabriel is the idol of one of the main heroes and the father of the other, it barely affects the plot and characterization revolving around the three, and does even less with their identities than what the show does with the Love Square.

Part of the reason that we’re pretty much stuck with only Hawkmoth is because of how nonexistent the rest of Ladybug’s “rogues’ gallery” is. Nathalie was only really active as a villain for a few Season 3 episodes before being benched thanks to rules about using a broken Miraculous that were never clarified, Lila only gets to be relevant to the plot when the writers absolutely need her to, Chloe is nothing more than very unfunny comic relief, and while I’m not sure if he’s actually a villain, making Felix the only one to actually outsmart Ladybug loses a lot of its charm because he gives away all the Miraculous he could have had to Hawkmoth for no real reason. These characters have little to no screentime in comparison to Hawkmoth, so it makes his flaws even more apparent because we have more time to see how incompetent of a villain he really is.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #ml salt #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #shadowmoth #shadow moth #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir

[sapphire-weapon]

Not to rattle the cages, but for all of their so called, "sexual tension", Leon and Ada have a startling lack of intimacy. Everything they find out about each other most likely is learned from reading sterile, impersonal dossiers and not from any meaningful conversation.

And the only quality time they did have with each other took place completely off-screen and it's not even entirely clear what happened because it was only referenced in a single blink-and-you'll-miss-it throwaway line of dialogue in Damnation. (I'm willing to concede that it's likely they banged, but it's also just as likely that Ada blueballed him and ran off, because her follow-up question of "You're angry with me, aren't you?" doesn't make sense if he actually came LMAO But that's beside the point.)

But... at the same time... I don't think it's that simple. There's more to it than that.

God, I'm really about to make a case for Aeon, aren't I? Damn my dedication to this series's canon. Let's think of this post as the Aeon haters' guide to understanding Aeon, because it's fucking canon whether we like it or not. Goddamn it.

To start off, there's a difference between knowing someone well and being intimate with them. I've talked in the past about how intimate Luis's death scene was in RE4make, and Leon and Luis knew barely anything about each other at the time of his death. But that doesn't take away from the intimacy of the scene.

I feel like a similar principle applies to Leon and Ada.

Ada was with Leon throughout the majority of what was objectively the worst night of his life. Nothing else comes close to Raccoon City in terms of what it did to Leon -- no matter how much greater of a threat he faces logistically, it's still not as bad as what happened to him in Raccoon City. So, Ada knows Leon in ways that no one else in the series does.

Claire got a glimpse of the old Leon -- arguably, the "real" Leon -- but that's all it was. A glimpse. They weren't together long enough for her to really get to see what made him tick or to understand the perspective he was bringing into the city with him -- but Ada got to see all of that. And there's an intimacy to that all on its own -- especially when you consider that, after RE2, Leon starts building walls around himself made of machismo and bad one-liners that eventually wash away beneath a sea of liquor, which then dampens and darkens everything around it.

But no matter how fast he tries to run from himself, or how many walls he tries to put up, or how hard he tries to become someone else, there's still one person in his life who has seen and remembers who Leon S. Kennedy really is, and her name is Ada Wong.

He's allowed himself to be weak in front of her, to fail in front of her, to get frustrated and angry and overwhelmed around her -- and there is a real intimacy in that kind of vulnerability. And not once has she ever judged him for it or held it over his head or tried to harp on him about how he's changed -- because, to her, he hasn't changed. She can see through all of those new defense mechanisms he's put in place and knows that the core of who he still is is still intact. So, she silently allows him to work through whatever it is that he needs to work through while still trusting that he'll always be who he's always been -- and that's pretty fucking powerful, honestly.

And that's why he feels like he can't let her go -- because he's afraid that, if he does, he'll be letting go of the very last piece of himself that's still alive and holding on from before all the trauma set in.

The sad reality of the ship, though, is that that's not true. If Leon were to let Ada go, he wouldn't be letting go of his old self. Because, while Ada has seen the old Leon -- has met and known and spoken with him -- she is not what's keeping the memory of the old Leon alive; she is not the actual bearer of his legacy. Sherry is.

Even though Sherry wasn't around Leon nearly as much as Ada was and didn't get to know him the same way, that doesn't matter. What Leon doesn't see is that he didn't give up who he was because of Ada. He gave up who he was because of Sherry. He did it for her sake -- to save and protect and take care of her.

That's why he almost breaks down and cries when he sees her for the first time in RE6, when he's never done that when reuniting with Ada. It's because Sherry is carrying with her so many of the pieces of Leon that he left behind in order to properly fill the role of a federal agent. Doing what he did for her makes him more of a father to her than William Birkin ever was, and Sherry knows this. That's why she didn't think twice about following in his footsteps and jumping at the opportunity to become an agent herself -- and, to do that, she trusts Derek goddamn Simmons when she really shouldn't have, but she does it because she's still carrying the old Leon's optimism and trustfulness and faith in humanity. Again: she's following in Leon's footsteps, and the old Leon is the only Leon she ever really knew. Even if she didn't know him nearly as well as Ada did.

I think, on some unconscious level buried deep within his psyche, Leon knows this -- but it's a reality that's too painful to face, so he doesn't. Instead, he projects all of that shit onto Ada, because it's easier that way. Besides, he's been doing it for so long already, so why stop now? There's comfort in the familiar, and Ada is nothing if not familiar.

But, to go back to what I was saying earlier about Ada trusting that Leon will always be who he's always been -- that's also why he believes in her in RE6 when no one else does. Part of it is his projections about his past self and all that bullshit, but there's also an element of... "she would do the same for me." Because she has. She's been doing it for years.

And in that specific regard, there is a real maturity to their relationship that doesn't really get enough attention or praise from the fanbase. The whole "sexual tension" thing is stupid, and you're right to point it out in your ask as being stupid, because Leon and Ada's relationship isn't about sex -- and it shouldn't be! And that's why that line in Damnation is so fucking pointless and stupid AND I HATE IT lmao Leon and Ada's relationship is about two people who accept and trust each other without judgement, even when they really shouldn't.

NOW.

WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID.

EVERYTHING I JUST WROTE OUT IN THAT HUGE WALL OF TEXT IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO THE OG STORYLINE. THE REMAKES DO SOMETHING VERY, VERY DIFFERENT WITH LEON AND ADA. And honestly, the massive changes to their relationship are really the #1 major reason why I believe the remakes are a completely different timeline of events -- because so much of what I just said is not fucking true for the remake versions of Leon and Ada. It's just straight up not true.

Remake Leon does not accept Remake Ada for who she is (he literally asks her to fucking change, for god's sake!! LMAO), and he definitely does not fucking trust her. RE4make basically erased the canonicity of Leon/Ada as a romantic relationship. It's not there anymore; it's no longer a canon romance; it's gone. If it's anything still at all, it's one-sided unrequited Ada having fallen for Leon, and him not being able to get away from her fast enough.

But that doesn't mean that their relationship is lacking in intimacy.

We've talked before about how Remake Leon is touch-starved as fuck -- and touch seems to be his love language. And while Leon is greedy and sneaky with the touches he steals from Ashley in RE4make, none of those little touches that the two of them pass back and forth come anywhere close to Ada's touches in RE2make.

The scene between them on the shuttle is very intimate -- and not just because she kisses him. It's the way she sits so close to him, the way she leans into him, the way she keeps a hand on his knee and gently caresses it with her thumb. It's the way they both speak in more hushed tones, the way she tries to be soothing with the tone of her voice. It's how she kisses him -- close-lipped and gentle, meant only to ease his anxiety and quiet his mind (and also get him to shut the fuck up for two goddamn seconds. god I respect her so much for this LMAO).

And not just that scene, but it's also present in the way she patches him up after he gets shot. We don't get to see it, but if you look again at Leon's bandages? She had to strip him the fuck down in order to do that LMAO home girl was sitting there unbuttoning his shirt and going "this sucks he's unconscious this isn't even fun. pain in the ass." And when he wakes up? Sure, she's gone, but he definitely knows that she had to have been all up in his business in order to do what she did -- and she left her coat behind with him as a fucking blanket and I'm sorry but that's so cute. IT'S CUTE. I'LL ADMIT IT. But it was probably a moment for him of "Wow. She really cares." -- because, again, touch is his love language. AND BOY DID SHE DO THAT A WHOLE FUCKIN LOT.

So, basically.

What I'm trying to say is.

Leon and Ada's relationship is poorly written and poorly executed and I hate it for a myriad of reasons, most of which involve the fact that it limits Ada's character and waters her down to a really unnecessary degree, but... I can't bring myself to say that there's no there there. Are they the hot and sexy spy vs spy ship that the director of Damnation desperately wanted us to believe they are? Absolutely fucking not. Is the ship predicated on only semi-resolved sexual tension? Also fucking no.

Does any of that actually matter...? Again... No. It doesn't matter. There is something to it. Even if they are still mostly strangers to each other, knowing facts about each other isn't what's important about their relationship. It's knowing who the other is at their core that's important.

At least, in OG.

In Remake, Leon can't fucking stand her by the time of RE4. And if anyone tries to say otherwise, they're fucking delusional.

Though I honestly believe that if either version of Ada learned more about who Leon was in the day-to-day, she'd probably like him a whole lot less. Leon, shave your face and stop drinking and why are the fucking Beastie Boys playing in your car when you're driving to work and holy shit are you really watching Casino for the third time this week oh my god

#resident evil #resident evil 4 #resident evil 2 #leon kennedy #ada wong #meta analysis #AND NOW I NEVER WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS SHIP AGAIN