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a-b-riddle · 2 days

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Can’t stop thinking about poly141 who get so wrapped up in their own bullshit they begin to neglect reader. So you leave 🤷🏼‍♀️

It wasn’t a big deal at first. You understood that their jobs were intense to say the least. You own a bookshop, which in itself was exhausting, but you understood how they could get carried away with work.

You had excused the many delayed returned texts or missed FaceTime dates when they were deployed. When they came home, they almost always made it up to you. Showering you with attention and quality time.

But the past two returns home have been… different.

Usually at least one of them made a beeline to your shop or your loft if it was too late in the evening. You always held your breath when it was just one of them.

“They’re okay.” Was the usual answer. “Everyone made it back okay.” It was only then that you could melt into whoever’s hands you were in.

After one of their recent returns home you had voice to Price that you didn’t appreciate several days passing after they came back and no one had bothered to tell you. He had snapped. Arguing that a mission doesn’t finish just because they land back on soil. There was paperwork and debriefing to be done. If and when they wanted to see you they would.

He didn’t apologize until later. Crawling into your bed, using one of the keys you had given them. Blaming the stress. How they had almost lost Johnny for the reason of his outburst. What else could you do but forgive him?

So you had given them space after that one. Not holding it against them to decompress before seeing you.

The next time was the final straw. Solidifying how little they cared about you and how much power you had given them.

Johnny had come in around 7 one evening. He was dressed nicely, for civilian standards. You were reading a book on the couch when he had let himself in. You were wearing on of Simon’s sweatshirts and panties. He took you in for a moment before scooping you up.

He fucked you absolutely stupid. Adamant on having you cum on his tongue, his fingers and his cock. You were only able to bask in the afterglow of him filling you up before he started pulling his pants back on.

“What are you doing?” There were times that you would practically need a crow bar to get Johnny detached from you just long enough to relieve yourself. You had gotten many a UTI courtesy of Mr. John MacTavish.

“Dinner with my family tonight.” He explained by the time he was already buttoning his shirt. “The youngest just graduated and ma’ feels the need to go all out.” Now came the tie. Johnny was actually wearing a tie. To go to dinner. “A fancy dinner in London.” He huffed. “Meanwhile I’m out scufflin’ with bloody fuckin’ terrorists and I get a pat on the back.” He gave you a peck on the cheek before heading out the door. Promising to call you later.

You just sat in your bed. Still naked. Almost in shocked. He had fucked you and just… left. You were close to a panic attack as you called Simon.

Simon wasn’t the one to cuddle and coddle. But there was something so soothing at the sound of his voice or even how his heavy body felt perfect laying on top of you. Yes. Simon wasn’t the time to lift you up with words, but he was your own security blanket. Just having him close helped.

“Can you come over?” It wasn't unusal for Simon to be the one to come later in the evening. Insomnia was a bitch to deal with and you could sleep through the sounds of whatever he played on the tv. Most of the times you were content laying your head on his lap as he ran his hand along your head as if he were petting you. It was a bit cringe, but it knocked you out every time.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. The low timber of his voice already calming you.

“Johnny came over.” You sniffled. “He just fucked me and left.”

“Not surprised.” He scoffed. You could almost see him rolling those deep brown eyes of his. “If you wanted to cum, I’m happy to come over and help.”

For whatever reason, that only seemed to make you more upset. “You’re not listening.” You said, trying to spell it out for him. “He left. Like didn’t even stay and cuddle just left. Fucked me and left.”

“That’s why you’re calling me crying about?” He almost seemed… annoyed.

“Yes!” You said, nearly snapping. All of the tension from the last several months coming to the surface. “I’m not just a warm body to keep a bed cozy until you assholes decide you need to get one off.” Assholes. You called them assholes. “This isn’t what we agreed to.”

“Johnny is Johnny.” Simon tried to defend, not really caring to continue the conversation now knowing that you weren't in any sort of physical harm. “He wanted his dick wet and from the sound of it, that’s what he did. Don’t hold it against him because he had other things to do.”

“It’s not just Johnny leaving.” Your throat felt like it was tightening. A telltale sign you were close to crying. Whether from sadness or anger you weren't entirely sure. “The only time any of you want anything to do with me anymore is to fuck.” You missed date nights and lunches. You missed texting any and all of them about your day, about theirs. About new books. You had been trying for months to tell them over dinner one of your books got picked up. Yours was being traditionally published.

None of them had bothered to even try penciling you in.

“You got yours.” You heard the popping of a can top. Simon was settling in for the night. Once he popped a top at home there was no getting him out. He wasn't coming for you. “I don’t understand what you’re bitchin’ to me about. Yeah, in the beginning we indulged ya a bit? Dressed you up, took you out. But you should have known spreadin’ them legs of yours wouldn’t end with one of us puttin’ a ring on your finger.”

You didn’t know what to say. What could you say? These were the men that pursued you. Initially, individually, but when tensions became to much they offered a solution. All of them. Four times the attention, of the affection.

Four times the love.

But also four time the neglect. Four times the amount of heartbreak and disappointment. Loving all of them meant putting yourself in a position to let each of them hurt you in their own way and they had.

John's constant state of snapping at you as if you were one of his men.

Johnny swinging by as if you were just a fuck buddy. Not even bothering to give a peck before leaving.

Kyle essentially ignoring you for weeks now. Ghosting you for hours or having to cancel on date nights last minute or claiming that he really did forget that the two of you had planned to meet for lunch.

And now there was Simon. Telling you that all you meant to them was what was between your thighs.

Spreadin' them legs of yours wouldn't end with one of us puttin' a ring on your finger.

None of them ever intended on making this into something more. That much was clear now.

You didn't know what to say to Simon. You couldn't think of a witty retort. You couldn't find the proper insult to whirl his way. You couldn't convey just how much his words had hurt.

So you did the only thing you could.

You hung up.

#captain john price #kyle gaz garrick #simon ghost riley #call of duty #john soap mactavish #angst #grovel #we love a good grovel don't we girls

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zanarkandskylines · 2 days

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listening to fortnight got me thinking about bakugo and reader having a very brief fling, something that happened in the past during their 20s, but stuck with both of them for years.

i touched you for only a fortnight i touched you, but i touched you

fast forward to living in the same city, the two of you now in your 30s and end up becoming neighbors by happenstance. you're both married to other people since you only talked in shared friend group settings after said fling.

all my mornings are mondays stuck in an endless february

you watch his wife water her flowers in the garden out back while making coffee in the kitchen every goddamn morning. you have no clue why it irks you so much, that the sight of her stupid smile makes you wanna punch her lights out.

occasionally, you run into bakugo at your mailboxes after a long day at work. small talk is the only thing you two can muster - a comment about the weather or harmless compliments about each other's appearance.

"sure rained like hell yesterday."

"nice sweater, your wife buy it for you?"

"god, it's too fucking hot today."

"that dress looks nice on ya."

one night, both of your spouses are away when a storm comes raging through the city. your power goes out, leaving you in the dark because your stupid husband forgot to replace the generator. from your windows, you see bakugo's household has power and decide to hightail it over for some company.

he answers the door with a confused look on his face. "the fuck you doin' in the rain? get in here!"

bakugo makes you a coffee to share with him in the kitchen, bullshitting through the night like you used to do as twenty somethings. it felt natural, your heart soaring as you watched him laugh and retell jokes from the past. when the conversation died down, you blurted out something you didn't plan to vocalize to anyone.

"i think my husband's cheating. sometimes i just wanna kill the bastard."

caught off guard by your admittance, bakugo quirks an eyebrow at you in response. "little extreme, but i'm sure that could be arranged."

"would be cheaper than a damn divorce. that asshole would take everything from me."

he snickers, taking another sip of his coffee. "think my wife's doin' the same. comes home late and shit, never can tell me why."

"how'd we get stuck with this shit luck?" you retort, forcing a laugh from your tightened chest.

"could be worse. we're neighbors, that's fuckin' lucky for me."

i love you...it's ruining my life.

"oh? i'm starting to think that's not a coincidence anymore."

bakugo sets his mug on the countertop, turning to face you while crossing his arms over the broadness of his chest.

"might'a convinced my wife to move here. thought maybe we could be friends again."

"so you bought a fucking house next to me instead of just calling to go to dinner?" you ask mockingly, a smirk on your face as you awaited his bullshit answer.

he shakes his head with a grin of his own. "sure did."

i love you...it's ruining my life.

"how come you never ask or invite me over then? we're literal neighbors, kats."

"pretty sure my wife's scared of ya. plus, i want time with you, not us."

that makes your heart skip a beat.

"hell of a way to say you miss me." you pause before setting your own cup down on the counter. "i'm glad you're here."

"me too."

right as he's approaching you, the front door swings open.

"babe, i'm home!" his wife calls, handful of shopping bags. she sees you standing in the kitchen aside bakugo - you give her a soft wave.

"oh, hi. i didn't expect company tonight."

"her dumbass husband forgot to replace their generator. just helpin' her out."

she gives him a glare, tilting her chin up at him, almost condescendingly, as she assesses his answer.

"how unfortunate. stay as long as you need, i'm gonna go put this away."

and with that, she leaves for their bedroom to unload her shopping haul. once she's out of earshot, you turn to bakugo and chuckle under your breath.

"oh yeah, she hates me."

bakugo rolls his eyes. "let her be miserable, it's her strong suit. come on, let's go take'a look at that generator."

the generator works just fine, you unplugged it before coming over.

you were curious if there was a spark leftover between you two, only to find the fire was not only stoked, but never fully extinguished.

blasty tags; @slayfics @maddietries @queenpiranhadon @starieq ✨

#bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo #bakugou katsuki #bnha bakugou #mha bakugou #bakugo x y/n #bakugo drabble #bakugo imagine #bakugou headcanons #bakugou drabble #bakugou x y/n #katsuki bakugou #☆.rei writes

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tra1nchi · 7 hours

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Omg Imagine fucking your sons teacher so he won’t fail his classes🫣

Best dad ever reward,,MINORS DNI!! Top male reader,, Dilfy reader woah,, Degradation,, over desk,,

Your son was a hassle,, you wouldn't say he was a disappointed nor was he a burden but getting calls from the principal of his school multiple times a term was not something you enjoyed!!

He would always come up with bullshit excuses that he was only messing or that he didn't mean to!! But you knew better,,he was your own son!! You could obviously tell when he was lying,,

Getting called in by his teacher to have a one on one meeting,,showing up in your best clothing to show your sons teacher that you weren't some deadbeat dad that was condoning this kind of behaviour!!

What you didn't expect was that his teacher was cute,, his soft brown hair and clothing that seemed more suitable to a librarian then anything!! No wonder your son calls him a nerd,,

"Sir! I'm so sorry to call you here today!" The teachers voice was soft as he apologised,,motioning you to take a seat infront of him as he sipped at his learning themed cup,,

He waited patiently for you to take a seat and once you did,,he seemed almost too grateful for it,, "I called you in for..this" His tone was apologetic as he handed you your sons report card,,which was almost all Fs the whole way around!!

The teacher wasn't ready for how you'd react,,most parents would scream and shout while others would frown and seem close to tears but you,, you didn't do anything of the sort!! >□<

He was bent over your desk,, his ass up as he gripped onto the paperwork!! Your cock moving in and out of him with provision!! It was like you knew exactly where to hit eachtime!!

"Fine! Fine, I'll change everything to an A! Please just, Let me cum please..!" His whines were pathetic as they reverberated around the room, his eyes trembling as he tried to not focus on the pleasure your dick gave him!!

Forcing him to change your sons card while you were still inside!! Watching his shaky hands type in the computer and spanking his ass for every misspelled word!! >□<

#{anon asks}#{h4rny ask}#top male reader #{top male reader}#sub male character #x bottom male character #bottom male character #x top male reader #dom male reader #x dom male reader

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shuttershocky · 3 days

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Is there any power scaling discussion that will inevitably make you feel the need to respond, no matter how irrelevant power scaling is to the actual media in question?

"How did Nero defeat Vergil at the end of DMC5 he's only 1/4th demon he should be much weaker wahh wahh plot armor"

First of all, Nero won because he wanted to win more than Vergil did. Second of all, Vergil's used to fighting an agile clown like Dante and not a brute gorilla like Nero who has no problem with just grabbing him and slamming him into the dirt repeatedly until he cries uncle.

BUT ALSO we know that human blood fuels demons in Devil May Cry. They have to consume it to grow their powers, which is why these guys keep powering all their infernal machinery with blood and why the tree whose fruit is kingmaker of the underworld must feed on human blood.

Before Nero, it looks like Vergil and Dante's strength came from being the sons of Sparda, who was Mundus' strongest soldier and was able to solo all of hell for his lady love.

But honestly I think a lot of their power comes from their nature as hybrids. When Urizen consumes the same fruit that made Mundus king of the underworld, he gets torn a brand new asshole by Dante working with an 8 year old's logic (if Vergil cut himself in two with the Yamato, maybe stabbing myself with Rebellion glues both my sides tighter?) and it actually works.

Not only is Dante's SIN Devil Trigger form written down in Nico's notes as matching (or even surpassing) Sparda's peak, he crushes Urizen both before and after the latter consumes the fruit containing human blood worth millions, completely mystifying the demon king because what the fuck kind of bullshit powerup is that?

Urizen's only able to match Dante's strength once V fuses his human self back into him to recreate Vergil.

I think being a demon-human hybrid basically acts like an infinite human blood battery. It's already inside you and never runs out because your body just makes more blood. The demonic side isn't granting the power, it's granting the abilities; the human side is the gas fueling this killing machine.

The whole time Sparda was turning on his own hell legions for Earth pussy he was unknowingly stumbling into the blueprint for creating unbeatable demonic super soldiers, and had no idea.

Every time Dante defeated the likes of Mundus or Argosax they must have been calling horseshit because there's no way they're getting destroyed by this buffoon just because he's Sparda's son when fighting skills aren't something you inherit like it's hair color, not realizing Dante's powers are fueled by his own blood (and plenty of self-stabbing).

This means that Nero is not inherently weaker than Vergil or Dante by having less demon in him, because it's the hybrid nature itself being their strength.

While Nero's powers aren't as mature as theirs, his demonic strength is enough to grab both Dante and Vergil's SIN devil trigger forms and push them back when they charged at full might, and in fact he's physically strong enough to lift giants like Goliath and ragdoll them around like their name is Bluto and he's just eaten a can of spinach.

Dante even points out at the end that Vergil cut off his own son's arm for more power and the son still kicked his ass anyway. By the end of DMC5 Nero doesn't need the Yamato anymore to do Buster moves, he can shape his own aura into arms to punch and grab things just as effectively, making him completely independent from actually using any devil arms to fight (he only needs human weapons like Lady does). He's strong enough that Dante trusts him with protecting the world by himself while Dante goes to hell, which is a big ask given you know, everything in DMC 1-4.

TL;DR - Nero strong

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starshipdecay · 3 days

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Toon Zelda redesigns! I've never been fond of the Toon Zelda design, and these girls deserve some individuality. Design notes and rambles below the cut :D

(time to turn the proper grammar off i aint capitalizing all this. warning: i am verbose)

first up, tmc zelda!

shes the one most like toon zelda, since i felt like the vibes fit the *most* (though not a lot). also, with her place on the timeline, i could justify a lot of bits, like the wings and the cape

the cape! obvs it comes from the toon zelda base design, but also it involves skyloftian fashion! i take the timeline as a challenge, and i once saw a take somewhere that the skyloftians all wear their family crests (most often birds lol) on their person. zelda here (and link too) do just that, wearing their family crests on little caplets. on the back is, of course the royal crest

i went very cutesy princess for her. tmc has such a *whimsical* vibe that i feel is very. muted? by the fact its stuck with the toon style. so i wanted to put in that vibe here. also her sprites make it look like her skirt is super poofy, so how could i not?

curly hair: i wanted something interesting, and most zeldas have straight hair. so! adds to the cuteness

i didnt draw it so well but she (and link) both have very sleepy expressions. zelda especially just has a sleepy expression in her sprite, its quite adorable.

shes not as decked out as other princesses, cuz i see tmc taking place before the royal family really starts to get *royal* as we see it. shes still of course got a tiara and some embroidery tho.

Tetra! her base design isnt all that changed from the original. her name is a fun hc of mine tho. i think "von Hyrule" sounds better as a surname than just "hyrule". shes not zelda, but shes still a descendant.

(WW) princess z (as i call her)

I went more oot zelda vibes for her, since she would be closer, temporally, to oot. i also went very warm, since ive never seen the flood as a *warm* endeavor.

shes got the shoulder danglies, as most zeldas have shoulder armor of some kind. the danglies instead of actual armor are supposed to kind of evoke a royal sea captain kind of vibe.

shes ghostly, with a fish-eyed stare. shes been dead and gone for a long time. shes also a bit taller and a few years older than tetra (as of ww). shes just some spectre the king saw in tetra, not at all a close match

tetra, being smaller than princess z, doesnt fit into the clothes. the dress is too big for her (as is in canon gd that skirt is WAY too long for her), the coat is baggy. the role of a princess *literally* does not fit her.

the ribbons! theyre my replacement for the wings, and they represent the wind in the game! since its represented by white lines, the ribbons are a perfect symbolic match. (also, a note, tetras hair is shorter and coarser than princess z's)

i mostly bullshitted the blue panel but the vague idea i gave it was 'a hope for the triforce to give good fortunes to the people' (pictured as dots, mostly behind her arms)

Pirate Queen Tetra

ph! about a year has passed, and tetra has really grown into her own! as well as literally grown!

shes still tetra, pirate and captain, but shes incorporated that royal heritage into her identity: quite literally! she made piecemeal of the original outfit (what was left of it anyway after the fight), and added bits and pieces to her new life.

she also takes full advantage of said heritage to call herself pirate queen. its great for branding. whos gonna say she CANT go by pirate queen?

the seagull feather is from Aryll. only crew member tetra wears a trinket from (who can say no to that ball of sunshine! certainly not tetra)

not many notes. yall can see whats there. (also she still wears her hair in a bun, its just in a low bun (you can almost see it) when she wears her hat)

st zelda!

first note is: shes not a princess! shes an heiress of the company tetra had made and left behind. hence her title of Lady zelda. ("new hyrule" rly just like-- the ending of ww was *literally* that hyrule is dead and thats okay. how did they miss that :sob emoji:) also calling her Lady Zelda fits with the train vibes

shes in a 1880s style bustle dress because 1) i am OBSESSED with bustle dresses. i love them. so much. 2) the more historical vibe works really well with trains! also a lot of the other outfits in the game have late victorian vibes, so shes certainly not out of place.

her hat (and gloves): any proper lady has a hat on when going about town, however, when she gets body snatched, she pulled out her hatpin to use (ineffectively) as a weapon (she IS tetras great-great-granddaughter), causing her to lose her hat *and* hairdo.

shes still got the hatpin in her ghost form, too. she uses it to threaten people for funsies

Ribbons! on the topic of hairdo, her ribbons! visually tying her to tetras design, the ribbons here instead take on the image of train tracks, with her pin (on the left side) evoking a train engine. the pin also makes her look rich and girly. when her hair comes undone, this makes the ribbons all loose, like how the train tracks disappear in game. (the hat also kinda connects her to tetra)

thanks for reading :D i hope you liked reading this as much as i liked typing it

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listonstuff · 2 days

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I am seeing alot of criticisms for tay like never before. This album release was the last straw and more people are coming out and calling out her bullshit. Her antics are exposed now and im so shocked at how many things she got away easily bc of her innocent facade she was pulling all this long. Even i was blindfolded.

Incredibly disgusted by her behaviour of her openly claiming racist man and calling her own fans vipers. Im glad some swifties are calling her out. She might have seen the blacklash. Did she really think she can get away by openly claiming a racist piece of shit and no one would be bothered about it? Even willing to mask out her good girl facade to defend this… creep?

Her silence now really tells that she is seeing the criticisms now. Many music critic articles calling her out and her quick buck album release really tells all she care about is milking the profit and not passion for music.

Only twitter is the cesspool that rides for this lame album. Every social media is sick of her relentless advertising of her mediocre album. Does she know that her only fans will listen to her music and no one even casual pop music enjoyers wouldnt peek into her music anymore. Her 2014 had solid pop hits garnering fans even tho they dont listen to her. Sadly no one is excited for this except her fans.

I wont doubt at all when she pulls another stunt to clean her image off and her hard pr will publish articles about how forgiving and generous she is even though she couldnt let go of the feud that happened decade ag by involving the child too…. Pathetic

I used to be her fan but looking at her state and the moment she decided to dare and flaunt that racist man, she lost so many of her fans. Is it so hard to stay away from that man who openly claims that he would je*k off to dehumanising black women porn ? Such a downgrade from dating a man like joe, an outspoken Palestine supporter to this sleezebag and not to mention her defying silence and refusal to utter a word about Palestine is so…. The allegations about her ideologies are so true right now…. A white billionaire with questionable tactics with no respect to her own self and her not speaking a word about ring wingers aryan goddess worshipping thats happening for years and yet she wants to entertain both side by appearing a liberal queen but not so liberal to piss off her conservative audience.

The soon she realises, the better it will be. Inorganic star status wont withstand long. Swiffers comparing her to mj please

#anti taylor swift #taylor swift #swifties #anti matty healy #ttpd #joke of a woman #ex swiftie

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bestworstcase · 6 hours

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the only purpose of the shock collar was to subjugate, enforce cinder’s status as an object the madame owned. she neither chose it nor wanted it—and in the end, it was just a necklace. cinder breaks it with ease, with one hand. anyone might have set her free at any time with, literally, no more effort than it would take to lift a finger.

(do not try the bullshit nonsense about cinder’s enslavement being legal with me. slavery was abolished after the great war, and when the madame is displeased she brings cinder into the kitchen to torture her behind closed doors. adopting an impoverished orphan from a foreign country and using a collar made to look like a pretty necklace is how she gets away with it, enabled by the complete indifference of her wealthy patrons to the plight of the "adopted child."

the thematic point of rhodes is that he enforces the law only when it’s convenient for him to do so: he knows cinder is being abused, but he’s a regular patron of the hotel and he chooses not to say or do anything to intervene until he recognizes cinder as a threat to the madame. “hurting them won’t make your life any easier.”

we see this pattern reoccur again and again in atlas, that those who hold political or economic power flout the law without consequence or contort it to work for them while those beneath are subjected to strict, unforgiving enforcement. everything robyn does before the election is legal and above-board but the ace-ops openly treat her like a criminal and hound her about obeying the law, while ironwood misappropriates construction materials earmarked for mantle. this is the idea that rhodes embodies.)

so the greatest injustice of the collar is that it had no real power, by itself, over cinder. she could take it off whenever she wanted, except that she was not allowed to; no one willing to help her, no safe haven where she could find refuge after, and when she becomes desperate enough to resort to violence to free herself she is immediately prevented from doing so by a huntsmen—exemplars of moral virtue as they are intended to be—who tells her that in order to be good she must endure seven more years before she is allowed to leave without her guardian’s permission.

as an instrument of control, the collar can exist only through the willingness of the hotel’s patrons to participate in the fiction that cinder, having been lifted out of poverty by the madame’s generosity (look, she even gave the girl a lovely necklace!), is now earning her keep, learning the value of hard work. pay the scars no mind. rhodes intervenes to keep protect the madame, and his fondness for cinder is circumscribed by that motive.

the first time he leaves after he begins to train her, rhodes says goodbye by placing his hand on top of her head; cinder flinches—

—and the scene cuts right to the collar:

in the same mode, the madame electrocutes cinder in a panic as cinder strangles her, and rhodes’ final act is to place his hand on cinder’s head, scaring her—

—after which she cuts him down and stands upright to remove her collar:

the collar and the gentle (unwanted) hand are one and the same, two faces of a single instrument. carrot, stick. neither figures cinder as a human being. rhodes is only gentle until she disobeys him, whereupon the covert violence of their first meeting is reified: he enters her only ‘safe’ place to catch her in an unlawful act; his first action is to pass judgment; his second, to draw his weapons.

now, that’s not yours, is it?—huntsmen are called to embody a heroic ideal, to protect others who cannot protect themselves. rhodes places his own weapons into cinder’s hands and declares that he will train her as a huntress on the condition that she agrees not to protect herself; he releases himself from his duty to protect her by moving her into the category of people who do not need to be protected, and thereby makes her both guardian and grimm: as a child who will become a huntress it falls to her to protect her family from the monster of herself.

thus she’s forced to become an active participant in her own abuse; before she can break free of the collar, she has to bite the hand that held it in place.

now to the grimm. during the montage of cinder’s training-and-abuse, there is a particular sequence that goes like this: rhodes and cinder spar with wasters late one night, he disengages and gives her an approving nod; we cut to cinder kneeling before the madame in the empty lobby, dusting a glass statuette of a sabyr for inspection. her work is found inadequate, and the madame finds quiet satisfaction in reminding cinder of the power she has over cinder:

then the madame walks away, and although cinder strives to maintain the performance of being unaffected—indifferent—she can’t:

in contrast to the scenes preceding cinder’s bargain with rhodes—wherein the larger-than-life glass statues looming over the lobby alternate between prominently visible or just protruding into frame and cinder’s face is an open book of angry resentment—this is the only instance of a grimm figurine being clearly visible and in focus during the montage, and also the one time cinder’s mask slips to reveal her anger.

similarly, in the time-skip at the end of the montage, the glass sphinx sitting on the coffee table in the mid-left is removed to signal the passage of time, with no other changes made to the decor:

but guess who’s back as soon as the situation reaches critical mass?

glass wolf. glass dragon. glass shoes.

the point is, throughout the flashback midnight leverages these glass-grimm to symbolize cinder’s true self, her anger which protects her and which the gentle hand demands she extinguish. the fantastical gilded opulence of the glass unicorn depends on cinder staying quietly in her cage. no, it isn’t fair—the gentle hand admits this—but it is her moral imperative to serve others. in this distorted unreality the defenseless and the indefensible become commingled. a huntress, as salem would have it, is a defender who lives and dies to protect a lifestyle. or she is, as ozpin defines it, one who guards the peace by killing monsters.

cinder’s instinctive understanding that this is not fair—that she is not nothing—that she has been wronged—is the monster she must slay to become the hero of this story, the story of the glass unicorn and madame and rhodes and all of atlas. and in the end she can’t.

rwby has never been precious about depicting blood, but there is no blood in this scene: not not on the floor, not on the bodies, not on her weapons, not a single drop upon her white shirt. her hands are clean. in shadow, the monster snaps the chain around her throat and turns to looks up at the moon—and its light reveals what is true. her tears, her scars. a child who deserved better than she was given. a child who did nothing wrong.

ahem.

Keeping [grimm] in captivity has proved to be an understandably difficult task, as the creatures tend to either die, or kill those who imprisoned them in the first place.

hm! anyway. the narrative function of this flashback is to provide context and contrast with the scenes that follow.

to review:

the collar’s power is enforced by communal indifference and complicity.

the madame, though unaware of him, depends on rhodes to keep cinder under her control; rhodes intervenes to protect the madame from cinder.

the gentle hand is an equal to the collar, a mechanism of control by which cinder is made to participate in her own abuse, and when she disobeys, it turns to iron and inflicts violent punishment. even when he is gentle, cinder flinches under his touch.

by training cinder to fight but forbidding her to defend herself, rhodes casts her into the role of both guardian and grimm: she is expected to protect the madame by slaying her anger and turning the other cheek.

the glass grimm figurines symbolize cinder’s anger, which protects her. when she defends herself, cinder metaphorically becomes grimm: the monster of the glass unicorn is destined to be hated and hunted for the rest of her life, and the monster of the glass unicorn is a blameless child who refused to let herself be hurt. grimm, in this story, are good.

also note

the similar framing here.

now!—from the moment cinder wakes up, it is abundantly clear that she expects to be met with brutal punishment for her failure. “you—you brought me back here… we failed.” she’s horror-stricken at finding herself in this place and that hardens into terror as the reality sinks in that she is within salem’s reach.

later, on the bridge, she affects calm until salem pauses in front of her; her eyes snap open. she shrinks into herself at the sound of salem’s voice but hangs on every word. when salem mentions the winter maiden, cinder grits her teeth and braces herself.

cinder associates salem with the madame: that is why without you, i am nothing falls out of her mouth so easily when salem tears her down in 8.1 and again when salem threatens her in 8.4—those are the words to make the pain stop, to appease, to demonstrate that she is contrite and repentant and grateful. she believes that this is what salem wants to hear when cinder has displeased her. and she is, at the top of the bridge scene, waiting for the torture to begin so that she can choke it out again and survive this humiliating ordeal.

except that is not what salem wants to hear.

by now salem knows beyond any doubt that “without you, i am nothing” is what cinder believes she wants to hear, and it is obvious to anyone with eyes that cinder expects to be tortured. whether salem knows cinder’s history or not—i don’t think she does, not in any great detail—she knows people well enough to put two and two together. salem knows, then, that cinder expects to be tortured into groveling self-denigration.

she doesn’t want cinder to expect that from her. there’s no other reason for salem to be so thorough in dismantling the expectation.

if she wanted to make cinder afraid, the more effective way is to decline to torture her at all: cinder is so certain that salem will hurt her that withholding punishment entirely will only convince her that salem intends to wait until the moment she lets her guard down, or some other form of deferred retribution all the worse for being delayed.

whereas the most efficient way to puncture cinder’s terror of being tortured is—somewhat perversely—to actually torture her a little bit. because cinder does not BELIEVE there is any possible outcome in which salem spares her, if salem wants to introduce the possibility of mercy she first needs to enter cinder’s reality, where mercy doesn’t exist, by proving she can and will inflict pain to answer both defiance (“you chose to disobey my specific instructions”) and failure (“just to fail again…”)

a brief burst of pain to express displeasure instead of holding cinder under torture until she breaks isn’t really merciful, but it’s the lower bound of what cinder will be able to trust and it eases her into the idea that salem is lenient.

then, “and i’ve realized it’s all my fault. you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up; you deserve so much more than i’ve given you.”

aside from being a straightforward subversion of cinder’s clear expectation—cinder thinks she will be abused without mercy until she breaks, salem stops and absolves cinder by reframing cinder’s disobedience as a natural consequence of her own failures—salem has a few specific things in mind here.

the most obvious is the reversal of what she said to cinder in 4.11: “i thought you were the girl who wanted power. did you lie to me? then stop holding back.” and she’s also pointedly walking back things she said yesterday, in 8.1 and 8.4: “all you need concern yourself with is your ability to act when i tell you to” and the “she thinks; she wants…” bit are here flipped into implicit praise for cinder’s tenacity in pursuing what she wants and implicit apology for standing in her way.

but the most interesting angle to consider is that this is salem’s response to “without you, i am nothing.” salem does not verbally respond either of the times cinder says that to her in 8.1 and 8.4; the first time, she dismisses everyone with a gesture, and the second time she just walks away. both reactions are in line with what cinder expects—after all, the point is to remind cinder that she is nothing.

however, cinder has—from what we’ve seen—never spoken to salem this way before, and given she seems genuinely taken aback when salem shuts her down in 8.1 i do think it’s likelier than not that salem has never demeaned her like this before, and that together with having been in atlas for months is what surfaces the trauma association with the madame and thence the appeasing behavior.

so consider how this looks to salem.

the last time she spoke to cinder, she said “you’re free to speak your mind,” and cinder whipped around from the window without hesitation, outraged: “i don’t understand! working with bandits? leaving ruby alive? what’s the point? we’re strong enough to take what we want by force!”—not even a ma’am in there. cinder addressed her like she saw herself and salem as equals, notwithstanding that salem had final say, and salem clearly didn’t have a problem with that.

several months pass. salem is displeased about the loss at haven but trusts that cinder will make an effort to recover the lamp; she is also worried enough for cinder to toss her plans and divert nearly everything to atlas, not that she’s willing to admit that’s why.

cinder walks onto the bridge and the first words out of her mouth are “my queen.” a few minutes in salem curtly informs her that no she will not go rampaging after the winter maiden and cinder’s answer is a demure, “of course; without you, i am nothing.” and then a few hours later they quarrel about it and cinder repeats those exact words in exactly the same tone again.

unless salem knows cinder’s history in far more granular detail than i believe cinder would be willing to divulge, that’s… a really strange shift in behavior with no clear reason; yes, she had to make up the loss at haven (and she did), and yes, salem was unusually mean to her, but neither of those things add up to this plainly well-practiced self-abasement from the girl who only a few months ago did not appear to have a humble bone in her body. once might have been sarcasm; but twice within a few hours?

whereafter cinder ran off to attack the winter maiden and almost died again and salem had six hours to pick all of this apart in her head while cinder lay unconscious.

why didn’t she respond to cinder saying “without you, i am nothing,” if that is not what she wants from cinder? well,

“you disobeyed my specific instructions, just to fail again, and i’ve realized it’s all my fault.” both times cinder said that, it was in response to the specific instructions that cinder disobeyed when she went after penny: you will act when i tell you to, and you will remain here. six hours, salem had to think about this. “you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up; you deserve so much more than i’ve given you.”

salem does not think of cinder as nothing. even when she is deliberately being mean, she makes a point to say that she values cinder (“just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn–”). cinder holds the key to her victory and cinder is also important to her in ways she cannot bring herself to admit except that she keeps bending her plans further and further for cinder’s sake. the first time cinder says “without you, i am nothing” to her, she seems bemused (brows up) and then wry. the second time, she doesn’t react at all.

then because she left it there, cinder nearly dies and is unconscious for hours. and once she wakes up salem hits her with:

this is my fault

what you want matters

i should be lifting you up

you deserve better

i will help you

IN A CLASSIC SALEM MOVE she does not actually say what she means, which is “you are not nothing,” but she finds an impressive number of ways to say it without saying it in just a handful of lines. and:

she doesn’t touch cinder, but instead she offers, gives cinder a choice to take her hand or not, and this matters because no other character has ever given cinder that.

in 2.1 cinder touches roman’s face to assert her power over him; she does the same to pyrrha in 3.12 right before killing her; she slaps emerald in 3.7.

in 5.9, cinder reacts to watts grabbing her wrist like this—

—and then sets his hand on fire. in 8.1, emerald starts to run over to embrace her, cinder snaps her head around and snarls “quiet.,” stopping her in her tracks. and after she wakes up in midnight, when emerald rushes into the room and grabs her, cinder tenses and verbally lashes out before jerking her hand away.

cinder really does not like to be touched and that all traces back to:

rhodes patting her head. which is what he’s reaching down for when cinder kills him, because this time she senses him moving to touch her and can’t take it.

cinder bristles and retaliates whenever anyone touches her, and outside of grappling during fights the only times cinder ever touches other people is to hurt them or to remind them of her power to hurt them, because that is what touch means to her; it’s something those with power do to those beneath them, and something the weak must endure.

for salem to offer her hand to help cinder up is strange and unsettling; it breaks the rules. and cinder is very hesitant to take it—her fingers shake—but she does, and it isn’t a trick, salem pulls her to her feet without hurting her.

whereupon cinder’s whole demeanor transforms from terrified incredulity to calculation. she doesn’t understand what just happened, but she knows touch is an instrument of coercion and a way to inflict pain. if salem were like the madame, she would not have done any of that; if salem didn’t touch her with the intent to harm her, then there are only two possibilities:

one, that salem’s resemblance to the madame is superficial and she is actually much more like rhodes; or two, that salem is the weak one and cinder holds some unknown degree of power over her.

the instant this thought enters cinder’s head, it becomes urgently important to figure out which it is, hence the murdering of colleagues and stepsisters and lying to salem’s face that cinder gets up to immediately afterward. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT THIS IS A POST ABOUT THE GRIMM ARM. AND THEMES.

wheeze. okay

in the glass unicorn, cinder has two parental figures—the madame and rhodes—who act in synchronicity to keep her in her place. shock collar, pat on the head. stick, carrot. she is tortured and made to refract this violence inwards, against herself, by turning the other cheek. within this narrative, the symbolic purpose of the grimm is to protect cinder and cinder herself is symbolically identified as grimm; just as black glass is her signature in in the present, the white glass of the hotel’s grimm figurines reflects cinder’s starkly white-and-grey uniform.

glass, cinder. glass grimm, glass shoes.

unicorns, classically, are said to be ferociously wild and dangerous beasts tamable only by the touch of a maiden. those who hunt unicorns, then, should solicit a maiden’s assistance. she goes out into the woods alone; the unicorn finds her and docilely, fearlessly lays its head upon her lap and goes to sleep; and thus the hunters take it. this manner of hunting unicorns is called entrapment, and among medieval and renaissance depictions of unicorns it is by far the most common motif.

in the world of remnant, if unicorns are real then they are undoubtedly a kind of grimm.

gestures at cinder, the fall maiden, who can tame the grimm. who feels for them. maiden. unicorn. maiden. unicorn.

the story of the glass unicorn is a story about a maiden-monster whom a huntsman instructs to tame herself lest she be hunted forever; an entrapment of the self; in the end she hears the baying of hunting dogs in the distance and awakens to the truth that she too will be killed, in spirit if not in body, if she obeys the huntsman. the unicorn is not to blame, and the maiden is right to protect it, and the unicorn is, has always been, grimm.

bearing all of this in mind,

is the grimm arm another collar?

i don’t think it…is, actually, in any sense except that cinder forms an association between the madame and salem in 8.1—the collar and the arm are diametric opposites, mirror-images of each other:

where the collar was fragile and easily removed, the grimm arm is part of cinder’s body. where the collar derived all its power from pretense (it’s only a pretty necklace!), the grimm arm is impossible to mistake for something other than what it is. where the collar’s sole purpose was to inflict pain and remind cinder of her place, the foremost purpose of the arm is to replace cinder’s missing limb. where the collar was forced upon her and she hated it, cinder trained hard to master her new arm and has grown more comfortable with it in every new volume.

paired with the way grimm function symbolically within the glass unicorn narrative, as representations of cinder’s justified anger and desire to protect herself… well. maiden, unicorn. lol

is it then an iteration of the gentle hand? that’s a more interesting question, because salem’s abuse of cinder is really quite a lot more like rhodes than the madame, but then there’s also… the reversal. rhodes’ affection for cinder is restricted by his interest in protecting the madame, and when cinder disobeys him he attacks her presumably with the intent to arrest her for murder. whereas salem has repeatedly and increasingly rearranged her plans for cinder’s benefit, and when cinder disobeys her, she reconsiders her treatment of cinder and offers an apology.

and obviously—

—we have the way rhodes touches cinder’s head, which at best makes her tense up in discomfort and at worst scares her so much she kills him to make him stop, mirrored in the same episode by salem offering her hand and cinder choosing to take it.

salem is not by any stretch of the imagination good to cinder, but midnight places her in juxtaposition with the madame and rhodes in order to clarify the difference between salem and the parent-figures of cinder’s childhood. it’s salem who tells cinder that she isn’t nothing, that she deserves better, that she was right to become defiant when salem was cruel to her. it’s salem who gives cinder a choice to let salem touch her or not.

everyone who gets where the wind is blowing with cinder understands, because it is obvious, that her turnaround is going to be incited by someone showing her mercy, which will shatter her view of the world and open a door for her to change. but… that “someone” is salem. it is literally already happening.

the first crack is salem telling her you deserve so much more than i’ve given you, as she pulls cinder to her feet.

and cinder doesn’t know how to parse that, she has no frame of reference except the madame and rhodes and she’s superimposed them both onto salem; the discrepancies, the pieces that don’t fit, are small right now. they will get larger, and the cracks will keep widening until the looking glass breaks.

which is why the grimm arm is related to the collar in the specific way that it is, with cinder flashing back to her childhood and the pain salem inflicts ending when cinder shifts emotionally from helpless fear to defiance and salem then explicitly affirming the rightness of cinder’s anger. the moral of the glass unicorn narrative according to rhodes is that what cinder did is unforgivable, and she will never escape it; the moral according to salem is that cinder did the right thing, and deserves better. the symbolic function of the grimm figurines in the glass unicorn narrative is to represent cinder’s self-protective anger. salem, grimm, uses cinder’s grimm arm to make a point that cinder should get angry when salem mistreats her, and then rewards her for being defiant.

is that a really fucked up way for salem to make that point YES OBVIOUSLY but no one else is even trying. lol

little steps.

(whispers into a cup) the grimm arm is also a metaphor for learning to be vulnerable and trust others not to harm you

cinder feels its pain. when it’s severed, it hurts, but also grows back. it’s both powerful (superbly strong, inhuman flexibility) and vulnerable (aura can’t protect it). salem can use it to hurt her; it connects them both together, so salem knows she’s alive and cinder knows when she’s back. it refused to bond with cinder until she let go of her fear and welcomed it.

the shattering trauma that made her what she is now was rhodes telling her that defending herself made her an irredeemable monster. the grimm figurines in her childhood story symbolize cinder’s desire to defend herself. the grimm arm is part of her body that connects her to salem in a way that salem can abuse to hurt her, but salem is also the first character to look cinder in the eye and tell her that she is right to defend herself. both cinder and salem are in the early stages of developing villain -> hero arcs.

your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness, salem says. remember that it comes with a cost. take care to protect yourself; there is only so much i can do to aid you. cinder wants to be strong, but she is terrified of weakness, and it is the terror of weakness that drives her, that must be faced, that must be resolved before she can find peace. her story isn’t about “learning to be satisfied with the power she already has” it’s about learning to be okay with being vulnerable. with having weaknesses.

like an arm she can’t shield with aura, that grows back when it’s severed, which she feared and then hid in discomfort and now accepts as a part of herself. just because salem can hurt her doesn’t mean that salem is incapable of choosing not to. salem could also, like, smash cinder into a gory pancake with a snap of her fingers.

it’s a story. about trust.

#blah blah blah ''but her shoulder—''#cinder doesn’t care.#v8 is HER volume and not one #single solitary HINT that cinder is #even a little bit concerned about #this thing putting up roots?#none of you would survive sirin hárohȧm lmfao

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olderthannetfic · 21 hours

Note

Let me write a few more ableist bullshits https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/748245873503420416/i-really-hate-how-easily-it-is-to-notice-that?source=share

People are so insanely uncomfortable with something being deemed disabled, or under some type of disabling condition, that they'd rather try and remove the status of disability and make it something different. Who cares if the classification of "disability" is the only reason you can get help for it through insurances, healthcare or whatever other options exist across the world? Disability, the concept, the word, the idea, the entire thing, is somehow viewed as icky.

People are so disgusted by the idea of disability, that the moment it isn't visually obvious, you're not deemed disabled and will have to deal with harassment and other vitriol against you. It's more comfortable to accuse everyone of lying, than accept that some disabilities aren't obvious.

In discourse about privileges and rights, both queer and poc people, and their allies, feel too fucking comfortable trying to call out and belittle disabled people and even downplay the suffering of disabled people. Your suffering is only allowed to exist in tandem with another "oppression", and even then it's only ever second to those other ones.

People writing shit like "I don't see this person's disability I see their beautiful smile/personality/whatever the fuck." As if being visibly disabled is an otherwise ugly blemish you need to look past to see that disabled people are fucking human beings who deserve basic respect and being viewed as normal humans.

In fiction:

Certain disabilities are only allowed to exist as an aesthetic, but the moment it actually has to impact a character, it suddenly doesn't. There are too many people who want the idea of disability for some reason, but don't do anything with it. Here's a character who has problems walking... whoops now they suddenly don't have that problem when it would be too bothersome. It's also often that just specific neurodivergencies are permitted as well.

People, especially those not affected by certain disabilities also don't like it when disabilities have "adapted" in different settings. I still remember the discourse about Toph from ATLA not being a good blind character because she could "see", which obviously negates everything about her being blind... No it fucking doesn't. Disabled characters are allowed to adapt, and have their own way of moving around, disabled, especially blind, doesn't mean "useless worm".

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thexmistress · 2 days

Text

The Dilemma

Sukuna x Reader

🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮Warnings:: Angst of course, slight mention of sex, manipulation, toxic relationship, spineless reader, etc etc :p 🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮

That feeling you get when you try your hardest to reach out but your efforts go in vain. That feeling you get that rises up from the bottom of your stomach….. traveling up your chest… then to your heart where it festers…. The pain is so unbearable but for some reason you find comfort in it…. It gives you reassurance that you still have some fight in you… still have hope that you can keep the remnants of your relationship from deteriorating. You started off strong at first, you truly did, but now it just feels like you’re in the middle of ocean trying to keep afloat on a wooden plank. You felt useless and overwhelmed.

Looking down at your phone you see that all 6 of your messages were read by Sukuna earlier this morning. Your last message being a ‘Good Morning ❤️’ accompanied by a ‘Read 7:34am’. You knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. You should’ve known this was coming and prevented it but you kept opening your mouth and kept fucking things up. Chuckling to yourself as you put your phone down and continued to paint on your canvas but that feeling again was starting to creep up to your chest, and before you knew it, your eyes began to water while you struggle to keep your hand straight. Who knew drawing a line could be so hard? You try to focus on the painting but your mind keeps going back to the last conversation you guys had 2 days ago.

🝮🝮🝮🝮

“I just think it’s weird how she’s always calling you….. like I understand you guys are friends but really baby? It’s literally 12am… I think that’s a bit much…” you peeped at the clock on the nightstand and noted the time was actually ‘12:40am’. Your voice that once held passion and certainty came out timid, scared that if you said something wrong it would upset him, but even then your efforts go in vain as you see your lover roll his eyes at you and sigh heavily as he began to rub his face with hands exasperatedly.

It’s that feeling again. You feel it bubbling in your stomach as you instantly regret what you just said but it was already too late the moment he opened his mouth and began to invalidate how you feel like usual. It was always the usual to you so much to the point where you started to second guess your own feelings. Your gaze that was on the floor flickered back up to him catching a quick glance at his eyes but the moment you seen the annoyance that flooded his eyes you quickly look away not being able to handle the way it made that feeling in your stomach skyrocket to your chest. “Are you really starting this bullshit again? Really Y/N?”

His questioning lingered in the air for a few seconds until he felt even more annoyed by your silence. “Well you brought it up right? Why you not saying anything? Look at me when I’m talking to you like a normal fucking adult!” The tone of his voice made you snap your eyes up, holding back tears but the stinging feeling it was causing in your eyes wasn’t helping. “Why are you crying? Why-��, stopping mid sentence he pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers and sighed, “Listen. I’m not going to explain this again. Mei is just a friend. I don’t see you making this a big deal when Yuji or one of the bros call me around this time. Mei is a bro. A. Friend.”

🝮🝮🝮🝮

That’s right. Just a friend. Okay maybe you are toxic….. you make a mental note to not bring that up again but you’re starting to feel it. Starting to feel tired of everything. The no text backs unless he feels like it, how he’s so quiet on the phone and you’re always carrying the conversation, the ‘parallel play’ that you’ve become accustomed to and the fact you didn’t even know it was a thing until you were on Reddit asking strangers were you wrong for wanting to spend time with your boyfriend alone instead of always sharing him with his bros. You will always remember that day but only because of how much his words shattered you.

🝮🝮🝮🝮

“Bro what the fuck! Kill him!” Sukuna was yelling at his monitor fully engaged in the game with his headset on both ears but the volume was still loud that you can hear the giggles of his friends through them. It was the typical people in the PlayStation party; Satoru, Yuji, Suguru, and Utahime. You peeked at him but returned your attention back to your kdrama you were watching on your phone (had to get romance from somewhere right?). You couldn’t help but to start to feel annoyed and a bit angry at the fact that you were supposed to be over his house to spend time with him since he was off from work today. You usually wouldn’t mind this but lately that’s all you guys have been doing and it’s starting to bother you. Come over his house, sit on his bed while he plays the game then fuck.. How Romantic.

Before you went home you spoke about how you felt and how it feels like you were getting the bare minimum since you were the main one who would suggest hanging out or making plans, the main one calling first, the main one trying to make conversation because if you don’t speak he’s more than likely not going to start a conversation…. It’s like you’re just here. You were nervous and felt like you just committed blasphemy for even letting that slip out your lips and apparently he thought the same to because he gave you a look as if you just stabbed him in the chest and you can’t really remember all the things he said but what will forever stick to you was when he said,

“why are you measuring my love with ‘effort’? If you love me and I do give you the bare minimum that should be enough.”

🝮🝮🝮🝮

You didn’t even noticed you stopped painting until you started to sniff realizing that you were crying. You put down your paintbrush and wiped your tears and nose as you picked up your phone to see no notifications from Sukuna as expected but you couldn’t help but to feel a little hope that he would text you. It’s been 2 days since you’ve heard from him and you’re trying really hard not to come off as clingy so you’ve been sticking to texting him and not holding it against him because like he always says he’s a bad texter.

You go on instagram to see that he posted yet another story and you can’t help but to start another turmoil within yourself…..

‘Am I truly asking for too much?’

‘Am I too invested?’

‘Is it too much to ask for a clingy, emotional available boyfriend?’

You sighed as took a picture of the almost finished portrait of Sukuna and posted it on your instagram story before sending it him with a text that follows ‘Almost done! 😊’. You were about to put your phone down until you felt a vibration causing you to look back down at the screen to see him reply ‘❤️’. Suddenly you felt lighter and that nagging feeling went away causing you to feel nothing but relief.

See, he still loves me.

#sukuna x reader #sukuna angst #angst #fanfic #jujustsu kaisen x reader #jjk angst #jjk sukuna #sukuna #oneshot #toxic relationship #toxic love #yuji itadori #gojo satoru

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dinogoofymutated · 2 days

Text

SFW!Cable/GN!reader - Pt 2.

@gildedjerk YOU DID THIS TO ME. I was supposed to finish my homework an hour ago but I wrote this instead. I literally haven't written a part 2 to anything this quickly ever. what is happening to me

Read pt 1 here :)

TWS: Angst with happy ending. Falling buildings, minor depictions of death, timeliness bullshit, big man cries and we smooch him. Possibly part 3 if the mood takes me

For the first time in a long while, Nathan is panicking. Buildings in the city are crumbling around him, sentinels closing in around every street corner- and he can't find you. He calls out your name, and you don't respond. He reaches for you, searching for your mind with the telepathic ability he can spare- and he can't feel you.

He can't feel you.

For the first time, he's more struck with the absence of your running mind than he had ever been annoyed by it.

He should have gone with you. He never should have let you split away from him. The two of you were a duo. No matter how much grief you gave him when you first started to tag along, he couldn’t imagine life without you. He refused to. Cable narrowly dodges a falling fire escape, and he knows he’s running out of time. He calls for you, again, and again- and there’s no response. He can’t let this happen. He won’t.

Cable bolts down the street as the smoke billows and the world crumbles. The device on his wrist beeps, and his blood runs cold when he realizes it’s a warning. Still- he perseveres. He follows the psychic echo you left behind, rounding every corner he can, staying on your scent like a bloodhound. He wouldn’t leave without you. Not again.

He’s getting closer, he can feel it- but his fear only grows, knowing that you were so close, and yet he can’t feel you. He can’t find that beautiful mind of yours. He can’t find your memories. Your nervousness. Your running mind. He can’t feel that love he was so afraid of anymore- and he is so scared for an entirely different reason than before.

He follows your trail through a warehouse, weaving in-between the machinery as he hears the distinct sound of a sentinel, but he’s horrified when he realizes it’s not coming towards him. Towards you. It’s walking away. Cable exits the warehouse, and on the other side, he finds… nothing.

Cable finds rubble. The building in front of him is rubble. He hears the shrieking of metal as the building on his left begins to fall, but he’s preoccupied. A beeping is heard, but it doesn’t come from him. It sounds again and again. Never stopping.

Cable sees the blue light from underneath the rubble, and he finds a device identical to his own. It’s still attached to your arm, but you are not there. Your mind is not there.

The building to his left finally gives in to the weight and falls.

A stabbing influx of… something, strikes Cable’s forehead, and he wakes up in a cold sweat, lying on the cot in the safehouse. His body is disoriented, his mind chilled with something more than just horror. Cable realizes that it wasn’t a dream, It was a vision. It was the future. A future.

It was real. It felt so real. He’s not entirely sure it hadn’t happened. Cable sits up frantically, looking towards your cot to find you. But you’re not there. His mind is still addled by the influx of information, powers mixed and scatterbrained, unable to find and feel. The one thing it still seems able to do is keep the virus at bay. He’s stumbling as he stands. Cable slams the bedroom door open, that cold horror all he can think of as his mind cannot find you in its haze.

He moves through the house like a storm cloud, opening every door, searching for you in the same meticulous manner he uses to search the house for threats.

You find him before he finds you. Having heard the commotion, you exited the kitchen, stepping into the hallway halfway wondering if there had been a breach in the security.

“Nate?” The footsteps stop abruptly when you call out for him, only to pick up the pace a second later. Cable looks absolutely furious when he exits a spare room, storming over to you in a manner that almost makes you afraid he’s going to yell at you.

But he doesn't. The moment Nathan reaches you, he takes hold of your face, and he kisses you like he’d never get the chance to kiss you again. It’s desperate, almost forceful- but after a moment of confusion, you kiss him back. His hold is all-consuming, presenting his love and care for you out of urgency, and necessity. Nathan only pulls away when his thoughts pull back together. He looks at you in shock, like he himself hadn’t expected the kiss to happen. He looks worried. Scared. You pull him down by his collar to kiss him again- if only to wipe those emotions clean from his face. Tears are running down his face, but he can’t bring himself to pull away from you like he had so many times before.

He kisses you again, and again, hoisting you up into his arms when his back starts to hurt from bending down to reach your height. Nathan sets you on the kitchen counter, finally pulling away from you- and he begins to sob.

However afraid he was to fully experience the love you had for him- the fear of losing you without showing you his love had triumphed it all. You hold him close as he sobs into your shirt, wrapping him in your love. You don’t know what started this. What set him on this path when yesterday was spent the same as any other day for the two of you- dancing around each other. Leaving the ties blurry. Leaving your love unclear, choosing not to tread through the rapid waters just yet. -but what did that matter anyway, when he had kissed you with such intense emotion? You’re concerned for him. You’re worried for him. You love him. You love him. You love him. Nathan wants to bury his mind so deep within your thoughts, like a warm blanket that kept all of his self-made fears of intimacy at bay. That made them disappear.

Nathan doesn’t want to show you what he had seen. What someone had made him see. He doesn’t want you to experience the fear, the pain. Despite all of his confusion, his pain, what he did know was that he was never going to let that happen. He didn’t care what timeline he had to tear apart, what plan for the future he had to ruin. He had lost so much in life, but he wasn’t going to lose you. Not again. Not ever.

#x men 97 #x men #x men comics #x men 97 x reader #x men headcannons #cable headcannons #cable x reader #cable xmen #cable imagines #nathan summers headcannons #nathan summers x reader #nathan summers #c

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bigball-thefrog · 2 days

Text

The Mighty Sand Dragon And The Maiden:Crocodile X Reader pt3

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Pt1 Pt2

The third and final part of the dragon Crocodile series. This was probably one of my favorite things to write. I hope everyone enjoys it and I'll be back again next week

Warnings/Tags:

Fluff

Mentions of blood and injuries

Mentions of cauterization

Fantasy AU

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Reader POV

It had been a year since I first fought Crocodile and I have been training hard to finally take him down. I have been thinking about our previous fights to try and think of what his weakness could be and I think I might have figured it out. It must be water! Because of his powers as the sand dragon, he can turn into sand, and water makes sand clump together and makes it harder for the sand to move around so freely like it does when the wind blows! It must be he weakness as well. So for my journey I packed my usual supplies but this time I also kept a secret bottle of water under my clothes so I could catch him off guard.

I made it to the entrance of his cave and put my bags down, gripping my sword and keeping the bottle of water strapped to my leg I walked closer. I was about to call out for him when I heard sounds of a struggle coming from inside the cave. I put away my sword and walked inside. Not too far from the entrance I saw Crocodile on the ground, bloodied and bruised, and a knight standing in front of him. I walked closer and spoke up, "What the hell are you doing?!" I shouted at the knight. He was startled with my sudden presence behind him but spoke, "Ah, young maiden. I am just slaying this dragon that has put you under his spell!" "Spell?! What spell??" "Oh, you poor thing. Everyone in town has noticed your disappearances every couple of months and everyone has noticed that you always leave in the direction of the Sand Dragons cave. So you must've been put under his evil spell and for he past year, have been forced to do his evil bidding!" "BULLSHIT!!! I'VE BEEN COMING HERE TO DEFEAT THE DRAGON MYSELF BECAUSE I WANT TO CHANGE MY OWN DESTINY OF BEING A POOR HELPLESS MAIDEN!!!" The knight was shocked at my reason for coming here. He then started laughing right in my face, "That is hilarious! See, you are clearly under the dragons spell, no maiden has the strength to defeat a dragon!~ Worry not maiden, I shall defeat the dragon and escorts you back home safely, maybe you can even reward this handsome knight by being my little bride~" The knight winked at me and held up his sword to deliver the final blow to Crocodile. Quickly taking out my sword, I got in front of him and blocked his attack. The knight looked shocked again and became frustrated, "Stand down maiden, stop defending this evil creature and let me kill it!" "No! This is my destiny and I am not going to let you take it away from me!" "This behavior is traitorous! I'll have you executed with this dragon!"

Crocodile POV:

I layed on the ground, holding my wounds as I watched the maiden take on the knight. They are a brave one for risking being a traitor to their kingdom just to kill me. Something in me felt uneasy seeing them in a serious battle this time, all the times I fought them I just did it to amuse myself, but now this was an actual battle, one that could end in their death. I didn't like the fact they could die but the pain from my own injuries prevented me from getting up and helping. But then that damm knight raised his sword and slashed them across the face, and that made me see red...

Seeing the maiden fall to the ground and crying out as they held their bleeding face gave me a burst of rage fueld adrenaline, I got up and growled. Sand surrounded me and I transformed back into my dragon form. Once the sand disappeared I roared loudly and caused the ground to shake, the knight fell and looked up at me in fear. He didn't even have time to gain his confidence back before I stood on him and crushed the lower half of his body. He screamed in pain but I didn't move, I began to use my powers to suck every last drop of moisture out of his body. His body slowly began to shrivel up, all the moisture in his body gone like rain on the dessert sand. Within a matter of seconds his body was nothing but a husk and armor, I stood over him and this time I completely crushed him, when I moved my hand there was nothing but dust, I bent down and huffed and the knight was gone...

I looked back at the maiden, still bleeding and my face softened a little and I turned to them. I transformed back to my human form and knelt down next to them, I used my hand to hold them up and wiped their little tears away with my thumb. I looked down at the injury and smirked a little, a scar right across the face, just like mine.... Hearing their soft cries of pain snapped me out of my thoughts and made me start to think of how I could help, I looked at my hook and got an idea. I brought the hook up to my face and gently began to blow fire on it to heat it up. Once it was red I looked back at the maiden, "I'm gonna help, but it's going to hurt like hell, do you promise to try and keep still while I stop the bleeding?" the maiden nodded and gripped onto my arm for support. I carefully placed the tip of the red hot hook on the cut and started to cauterize the cut. They screamed and cried more but thankfully didn't move much as I continued to stop the bleeding. I managed to stop the bleeding on her face and removed the hook. They stopped crying and was just breathing heavily now. Seeing them no longer injured I let out a sigh of exaust and collapsed next to them.

Reader POV

My eyes widened when I saw Crocodile collapse next to me, they look exhausted and were still injured as well, if he didn't receive any medical attention soon he might die. Remembering my supplies I brought I quickly ran out the cave to grab my bag. I kneeled back down next to him and got out all the medical supplies I brought. I took the water bottle out from under my clothes and used a towel to clean him, ironic that I brought this extra water to kill him and am now using it to save his life. After cleaning him I took out a needle and thread, disinfecting ointment and began stitching up what I could. He grunted, feeling the needle piercing his skin and looked up at me, "What on earth are you doing? Isn't this what you wanted? For me to die.." "Well yes but I wanted to kill you myself remember? I didn't want some stupid knight to do it... So I'm saving you know so I can kill you properly later.." He chuckled and leaned his head back to try and relax while I stitched him up. "Thank you... For rescuing me from that knight." "No problem. He had no right to injure a maiden such as yourself.." I smiled a little and spoke again, "Kind of ironic that it was the dragon that saved me and not the knight." we both chuckled and went quiet again. After patching him up he sat up again and we just stared at each other, eventually I got the courage to ask a question I've always wanted to ask, "Why is it that dragons always kidnap maidens? And they usually come back unharmed, even after days of being with the dragon, why is that?" Crocodile pondered for a second then sighed, "Truthfully, we're lonely. Creatures are scared of us in our dragon form, and in our human form we're still fear because of the wings and tail. Other dragons are assholes and we don't get along with each other.. We're usually just looking for a companion that won't leave us... That's why we go after maidens because they're usually described as kind and loving creatures..." my heart went soft and I got closer to him, "How come you haven't taken a maiden? Aren't you lonely?" He scowled, "I don't need a companion. I've learned to not let people come close to my heart..." I frowned and looked down, "How about I stay with you?" He looked at me confused and was about to say something but I cut him off, "I stay here and train to fight you and you don't have to worry about getting close to someone because you already have a heads up that we're going to fight. That way you know not to get attached and you have some company!" Crocodile looked at me still skeptical so I added in, "Also, if I go back home without the knight, I'll probably be executed so you're stuck with me." He rolled his eyes and sighed before muttering out, "fine..." I raised my hand to shake his and he gripped my hand tightly and shook it, "You have now officially been taken by the dragon, it is now your duty to set yourself free from my clutches or else you'll be mine for the rest of your life, deal?" He asked. I nodded, "Deal!"

And so started my new life with the dragon I was going to kill..

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I'll post next week and to those that have made requests I'll get you next week probably but I promise you I will write your request and post it, it just may be a week or two before I get to it. I love you all and see you next week

Kelly🐸

#one piece #one piece anime #oneshot #crocodile one piece #crocodile x reader #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #one piece x you #op crocodile #crocodile op #one piece crocodile #sir crocodile #crocodile x you #crocodile x y/n

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