#yes that animation i did a while back is in reference to this part

[crazyoffher]

TAKE YOUR PICK.

wednesday addams x fem!vampire!reader

summary: a werewolf attack leaves you in need of aid, though you find yourself aided in more than just your wounds.

warnings: smut (18+) — slight oral (r receiving), fingering, strap-on referred to as “cock” at one point, slight face-slapping, teasing, dirty talk, virgin!r, withheld orgasm. -> mentions of blood, wounds, werewolf attack, medical equipment, mentions of kidnapping, scarring, and dom!w + sub!r.

word amount: 6900+

a/n: yes you read that right, 6900+ words. i guess i beat you, didn’t i, my ⭐️ anon 😉.

“Our successor greets us with torture by this grouping.” Her words were dull, and as you turned to face her, you were met with her eyes boring into yours. You cocked your head to the side, easily bypassing a tree that would’ve hit anyone else. Your instincts were stressed by your venture into the woods with the murderous woman you labeled your enemy accompanying you.

Your skin itched. Badly. Though you would rather burn in the flames she created than take action for relief, you never dared to let the shorter girl win at her former pleas to have her partner switch, labeling it as having to not deal with your pollen allergy, but everyone knew of your rivalry.

It was no secret after all. You couldn’t count the number of times she tried to assist in your early death, ranging from simple pop-up attacks that your raging instincts guided you with to kidnapping you into the Nightshades library and torturing you—or more so, trying her best to—while reading latin incantations from a book that still scarred your mind to this day.

“You don’t have to tell me.” With your head shifted into it’s former state, staring straight ahead, you expected Wednesday to mirror your action. She hadn’t.

Your eyes darted all around the forest, searching for insects, animals, humans, or anything of the above that would pose a potential life-threat. Unlike Wednesday, you allowed yourself to feel fear because you actually cared for your life.  

You and Wednesday were similar, which was the root of your rivalry. She eyed you as a copycat, but you had always been who you were since the day you were born, and nobody could ever change you. You thrived in academics and sports, taking part in three education-related after school clubs as well as fencing, track, and a modernized human sport known as “soccer” to Americans during the summer.

You easily got more praise for your contribution to the school’s image, while Wednesday held the slimy silver medal praising her for being in second place, and her mind raged at the remembrance of it every time. She wanted to be number one above all else, but she could never bypass you. Hell, you even bypassed Bianca Barclay, forming a small rivalry with her when you first arrived at the academy.

“Would you like me to send you a photographed Polaroid of myself with my signature on it, or shall you continue to stare at me and soon trip over a rock?” Wednesday’s eyes furrowed at the end of the sentence, unable to hold back a yelp when she inevitably did fall over a grounded rock and faceplant on the floor.

You halted your movement, turning your head to the side to catch a glimpse of Wednesday rolling herself on her back, a hand over her knee from a wound forming due to her ignorant choice to wear shorts. “We have thirty minutes remaining to collect all we need for our botanical project. I’d suggest you get off the floor.” 

Before she could even comprehend what you said, she found herself looking up into your eyes as you towered over her. Once more, you cocked your head to the side, allowing a sly grin to form on your face at the sight of blood dousing her hand from the open wound. “And you tell me I’m the clumsy one?”

“You are.” She shot back immediately, her eyes narrowing at your facial expression of humor. You found humor in her; you always have. It was a key part of your romantic attraction to her, though that aspect had always been locked away as a secret, and your humor lied in her inability to keep up with you.

Whether Wednesday wanted to admit it or not, she had found her challenger. Someone who was undeniably better than her, someone who forced her to work harder to be the one at the top, though she knew secretly she’d always be trapped in second place.

You were better than her, and it annoyed her more than anything in the world. That’s why the discovery of her own attraction toward you scared her—the girl who dared not feel emotion. She blamed it on your well-behaved confidence and that stupid grin you flashed her from day to day. 

A grin she wanted to kiss off, she thought once, and she contemplated throwing herself off the balcony in her dorm room when she allowed that sentence to linger in her mind.

You laughed genuinely, your grin growing wider at the sight of Wednesday stumbling to get up, her face crinkling only so slightly at the pain that coursed through the entirety of her leg.

“You’re unfit.” A huff came from her, head flicking up to meet your gaze, eyes lingering on your standstill grin—your pink-lipped mouth—for a second deemed too long before she lunged forward and pushed you aside.

The force of her thrust caused you to stumble back and fall on a pile of leaves, blowing and coughing out a crisp leaf that found it’s home inside your mouth. At the force of her thrust toward you, Wednesday found herself collapsed once more on the floor, her body not correctly stabilized from her injury.

“So, not only are you clumsy, but you’re also an idiot.” You sat yourself upright, hands laid down on the floor behind your body to stabilize yourself, all the while watching the conflict in Wednesday’s eyes over whether she should shoot back or keep quiet.

She kept quiet, eliciting a small, almost unnoticeable groan that Wednesday herself didn’t catch at first. You heard it, though, your grin finding it’s way back onto your face as you practically jumped up, brushing yourself off with a flick of your wrists to your neutral- colored clothing.

You furrowed your eyebrows to see Wednesday still sprawled on the floor, expecting her to have risen up by now, even if a limp tagged along. “The big, challenging girl who fought off the reincarnation of Joseph Crackstone years ago can’t get up because of a wound on her knee.”

You spoke in disbelief, and Wednesday turned her head over to you with might. “Don’t you ever mock my accomplishments.”

“Well, we can’t even accomplish the task of finishing our botanical sciences project if you don’t take your small ass up and off the floor.” You bit back.

Fumed with rage and annoyance due to her growing short temper, Wednesday lunged up at you with all the strength she had in her body. The next second, you found your hands wrapped around her waist as you held her upright from falling again, the girl collapsing into your embrace with a snake-like hiss emitting from her.

Another groan came from her, not even bothering to hide it this time, too preoccupied with the futile stinging of her wound and the warming position she found herself in with you. “Alright, back on the floor.”

Her back met the homing place that was the floor once more, shooting daggers at your inexistent attempt to lay her down carefully, seeing as you dropped her onto the floor without care. Her hand found it’s way back to her knee, coating the skin in blood once more, and you sighed. “Move your hand.”

“No.”

“Since when did you become so stubborn?” She raised her eyebrows at you. “Actually, that’s a dumb question, but I’m not going to ask you again. Addams,” your tone became firm, seriousness rising up amidst your former face of humor, “move your hand.”

Her teeth clenched, jawline protruding out, and her eyes were in their usual wide state, as if she were thinking, but her mind was blank. You found impatience creeping up on you, not daring to alert your eyes to her dark red, bloodied hand from her gushing wound.

With a twitch of your eye, your hand shot forward and clamped on Wednesday’s wrist, pulling it away from her wound with force, and she let out a small whimper that she immediately tried to cover with a cough. Your eyes darted up at her for only a second, having heard it, before looking back down at her wound, which was open and wide.

“I will take you to the Infirmary, and then come back and collect all we need for our project.” You said your plan out loud, your eyes darting back and forth between Wednesday’s open wound and the pathway from which you and the girl had just come. “I am fine. Besides, you would only get all the wrong things we need, seeing as how foolish you are.”

“Foolish is what you claim me to be, yet you’re the one consistently in second place.” Without warning, you sank an arm under her bent knees and another under her back, picking her up in bridal style, to which her eyes drastically widened. You felt her tense under you, muscles contracting, and you groaned. 

“Oh, relax. Being tense will only cause your wound to bleed more, and before I know it, I’ll be carrying your dead weight.”

“Put me down this instant.” Wednesday fought, trying to wiggle herself out of your grasp as you started to walk back to the school grounds, leaving your grip on her to tighten. “No. And don’t presume that I care about your wellbeing either, because I don’t.”

She huffed, her leg jerking up when a low branch made contact with her wound. “Then why not allow me to continue with you?”

“If you haven’t noticed, we’re past the forest barriers that Nevermore set.” When she turned her head in response to your signal to the right, she noticed the wooden line fences that were more intended to serve as a signal for students to turn around than as a means of keeping them out.

“Throats get slit in this neck of the woods,” you continued, mindlessly drifting your eyes all over the forest in caution of any inhumane species. “I’d rather not have a Jason Voorhees copycat lunatic trying to slaughter us, and I can’t go far because you’re disabled.”

“It’d be your own death’s fault for trying to save me.” Her deadpanning words made you want to drop her and let her find her own way back to the academy, but you just let out an annoyed breath while gripping onto her thighs tighter. “Forgive me for actually having a beating heart, Addams.”

“You’re not forgiven, (Y/L/N).”

Soon enough, you found yourself back in the forest, with Wednesday’s presence long gone. You were kneeling down, collecting dirt into a small jar that you had sprayed with pesticides to clear it of any lingering bugs. You hadn’t noticed how the time flew past, the sun fading into the moon, and you took a moment to enjoy the stars, hands settled on your dirt-covered knees.

A sound rang through the forested area, causing you to snap your head in the direction of the noise. It was muffled, but it sounded too closely like the howls of the werewolves you’ve grown to make friends with, and that was enough for you to shoot up instantly from your kneeling position. With a sharp breath, you looked up at the moon, now taking on the shape of a full moon, and you gagged in growing fear.

You’re fine, right? They get locked in the Lupen cages; there’s no way one of them could’ve escaped theirs. Your mind raced for explanations as you crouched down to pick up all that you'd collected, ranging from dirt to plants, before taking steady steps in the direction of the academy.

You took precautionary halts so as not to make major noise, cringing in fear at the sound of a leaf loudly crunching under your foot, and you could hear the howls once more, closer this time. 

You took another five steps before you could hear the thudding stomps of a figure inching closer to you with every second, and you thanked nothing else but your heightened senses as you dropped all of what you held and booked it. 

You dodged tree logs and branches left and right, hands fumbling with your satchel to tear it off your body to release the weight it was holding, and your body shook at the thudding sounds ringing in your ears, inching closer and closer-

Until you woke up, spread out on the floor, and your hands dug around the surface of the floor to help you realize that you were still in the woods. Your body still shook, this time more violently as you gasped in pain, stings shooting all over your body and causing your muscles to tighten.

“Fuck!” You groaned out, clenching your stomach where it hurt the most to feel a liquid coating your skin of the same texture that dripped your hands with Wednesday’s blood hours earlier. Your eyes drooped, sullenly coming to the firm realization that you were bleeding out with a liquid you could not even view properly, the night still too dark.

You blamed it all on a werewolf not properly being contained, but if that was the case, why didn’t they kill you instead of merely injuring you? The thought of the beast not being a werewolf flooded out of your mind quicker than it came in. You could see the outline of large claw slits scarring the skin of your stomach, and you yelled out the most mind-scarring shriek as you forced yourself up.

You moaned out, “Oh,” in pain as you sat yourself on a log, scanning the dark forest for any signs of life, human or not, to which there were none, and you sighed in relief. You took off your jacket first before peeling the shredded, blood-stained white shirt off your body, leaving you with just your bra and an exposed, large wound.

Your eyes closed in despair, feeling the pain dull ever so slightly in your relaxing state. You bent over, to your body’s anguish, to grab your bag with a small first aid kit tucked into it. All the items within the mini-kit were dunked out on the log space beside you, and you hurriedly grabbed multiple anti-septic wipes and shredded open the packaging before pressing them onto your skin.

Fangs bared, eyes darkening at the severe pain, you dug them into your bottom lip and swished the wipes over your wounds before letting out a loud yell of agony. You threw the wipes to the floor when they were all left coated with a dark red, grabbing the bandage roll, and with all of your muscles tightening at the pressure, wrapping your stomach with the bandage that immediately turned red before sealing it with tape.

The aftermath was almost pleasurable; the pain was still there but lessened due to the lack of blood flowing out of you. Managing to stumble up, you discarded your bag on the floor before taking a step forward, your body hunching over immediately from the inability to stand upright, and you carried on in the form of a hunchback.

What Wednesday least expected on an early Saturday morning, 3:30 a.m. to be exact, was the sound of her doorknob snapping off from the door itself. Her eyes perked up, sensing danger, and she immediately dug under her pillow to grab the knife she stored there, pointing it forward with the sharp tip ready to plunge itself into whoever dared to intrude into her and Enid’s dorm.

She had only been released from the hospital a few hours prior, so it seemed as though her knee pain had subsided, but when she put her foot on the ground, it suddenly returned. She ignored the discomfort and advanced toward the opening door, ready to strike.

“Wed-” You threw the door open, stopping immediately when the tip of her knife bore into your throat, one step away from slicing into your carotid artery. Even in the harsh darkness, Wednesday could see the fear and agony in your eyes, the way you were breathing heavily and clutching your stomach, and the skin that your bloodied jacket had now covered.

In the dim light of her bedside lamp, she could see your black jacket with a huge damp spot covering it, clamped over by bloodied hands. Her eyes met yours, and you gulped. “I didn’t know who else to come to.”

Wordlessly, she stepped to the side, inviting you in, which you limped into, and she closed the door. Her hand met your shoulder, an odd warmth coating your body despite her cold figure, and she aided you to the bathroom, choosing to disregard the blood trail you were leaving behind.

A sigh left your mouth as you collapsed on the closed-lidded toilet, leaning all your weight on the material. Wednesday pulled out a medical kit from under the sink, one much bigger than the one you had previously used, and slammed it on the countertop. “So much for not trying to wake up Enid.”

“Do you want me to help you or not? Beside, if you even took a second glance around the room, you’d notice Enid is not here, but in a Lupen cage in form.” She spoke in hushed whispers, and you shut up immediately, shrinking under her gaze. You were better than her, yes, but that didn’t mean you didn’t get scared of her from time to time.

“Take off your jacket.” She said simply, still prepping rounds of wipes with anti-septic liquids on them for your bloodied wound, as the wipes you used earlier did not have much of an effect considering the size of them. Wearily, you zipped down your jacket, peeling it off of you with a grunt or two before throwing it away at the base of the bathtub. You laid yourself back, eyes burning into the side of Wednesday’s face, anticipating her moves.

After she had finished prepping the wipes, she grabbed a sewing kit from under the counter, and you gulped at the largely-sized needles that she pulled out along with them. “All I really needed was for you to clean it, Addams. I’m a vampire; I can self-heal.”

“This is merely a precautionary measure to not leave putrid-looking scars.” She placed the items needed beside you, removing her own jacket, and you noticed how she was still in what she considered “casualwear”, seemingly not changing out of her clothes before drifting off to sleep. “Odd coming from the person who has left me with multiple scars, and why didn’t you change?”

“What?”

Wednesday turned, giving you a full visual of her in a button-up shirt and vest, black slacks tucked in and still belted; sleeping couldn’t have been comfortable for her with a belt digging into her hip. “You’re still in your clothes.” You pointed it out, and she looked down at her choice of fashion before letting out a small huff and advancing toward you, taking up position to the right of you.

“I awaited your presence. I told you before that I wanted to get a start on the project so I would not have to do much with class dealing with you and your miserable antics of getting items confused. Not only do you show up empty-handed in the dead of night, but you are also scarred through your inability to defend yourself.”

She badmouthed you, all the while untangling her sewing needles with harsh movements, but you only focused on one aspect of her words. “You fell asleep waiting for me?”

At once, Wednesday halted her movements, giving you a dead look before turning around and grabbing the large anti-septic wipes, swiftly pushing them into your wounded stomach. You let out a long, loud gasp, groaning at the pain and taking hold of Wednesday’s wrist, trying to push her arm back but to no avail. “Don’t get cocky.”

Your head flew back in agony, your hand still clasped around her wrist with a bruising grip. “I wasn’t! I was asking!”

Wednesday glided the wipes along your scars, to your dismay, until there were little to no signs of blood yet, all the while mindlessly running her eyes over the scars on your body that she created.

It was the only way she could get her mind off your exposed torso and how your muscles gallantly flexed from the pain, unwillingly showing themselves off to her.

Your eyes were squinting, still a bit sore from the antiseptics, but when you noticed that Wednesday had not made any other moves, you let them go from your iron grip. Your gaze landed on her stance, lost in thought. “What?”

"I'm in the process of comprehending an attempt to stitch you together while you remain seated, while I, on the other hand, am standing." Her eyes glanced all around the bathroom, sighing contently as she tried to determine a possible way to play surgeon in a comfortable manner.

“Well, I’m not lying on the floor. Your bed?” You inquired, and Wednesday shook her head, her mind discarded by that thought. “I would like to go to sleep tonight in a bloodless bed.”

“Um,” you gulped. The first real situation droning through your head was one anybody wouldn’t dare share with Wednesday. It's a good thing you weren’t like anybody else. “Sit on me.”

Her head snapped to meet your eyes, yours innocently boring into hers, and she squinted. “What?”

“Sit on my lap. When I lean back, you’ll be able to stitch me up or... whatever it is that you plan on doing without breaking your spine.”

You could see the conflict in her eyes, and she took it into consideration, to your surprise. With a pinch to the bridge of her nose and a long, elated sigh, as a means of balance, she placed her hands on each of your shoulders before swinging her left leg over your body and sitting down on your firmly closed legs. 

“Tell nobody about this, or more of these scars,” she said, pinching down on a drawn out scar that sat just right under your bra, “will litter your skin.” You gave her a hasty nod, eager to put your mind elsewhere while your sworn enemy found a seat on your lap.

Without a word of warning, she dug the needle into your skin, causing you to let out an embarrassingly loud yelp of pain. Your hands flew to her shoulders as a matter of instinct, and you half-expected her to shrug them off, but she prioritized her sewing techniques instead.

The further she got into sewing the deep claw marks, the tighter your hands gripped her shoulders. You’d be surprised if Wednesday woke up bruise-free, as you could almost feel your knuckles turning white.

Wednesday found... amusement? The way your eyes closed at her stinging touch, the way your hands buried themselves into her shoulders, and how your thigh muscles tightened under her ass with every swift movement. She loved seeing you defenseless and submissive to her more than anything, finding profit in the means of mocking you later on if you tried to boast about your betterness.

When she had finally finished her stitching, she found herself still lingering on your lap, her movements awfully slow, even for her, to grab a couple large medical bandages and place them over her work. 

“Stay here.” Her voice was low while she slid off your lap, turning to leave the bathroom before returning a minute later with a baggy jacket in her hands. Your eyebrows furrowed as she laid the fabric on your lap, turning to wash her hands of any remaining blood.

You had a little trouble donning the jacket, which was made of Wednesday's fashion choice's baggy material but looked a little more fitted on you because of your lean frame. Your wounds, formerly the only thing clouding your mind, were long gone. You focused on the seriousness of your enemy’s actions, and the oddly warm jacket filled with her natural scent that was now clinging to your body.

“Why?”

“What?”

“When I came here, I fully expected you to push me away.” You leaned your body up on the toilet, hands running through your disheveled hair, and Wednesday directed her attention toward you. “But you didn’t, for some odd reason, and actually helped me—hell, you even sat on me—when you’ve been nothing but the cause of my terror ever since I’ve arrived at this academy.”

It was all nothing but the truth. Two years have passed since you made your flaunting arrival at Nevermore, head held high with nothing else on your mind other than the determination to be the best student the academy had ever seen, and so you accomplished it. Two years had passed since you crossed paths with the deadly Wednesday Addams, her mind still fresh from her praiseful battle with the former overtaker of Jericho.

Two years passed since you beat Wednesday’s boat in the Poe Cup; the Black Cats determined to win their second trophy in a row, and she swore you as her enemy that day when her eyes laid upon your smirking frame with the golden cup in your hand, sending her a wink of confidence that she mentally fumed at.

Two years had passed since Wednesday Addams made the dreadful discovery that, after all, her black, unbeating heart could feel love but that her taste was awful if she found herself attracted to her enemy. Now she found herself in the middle of her last year at Nevermore, freshly 19, and still rummaging in a cat-dog chase game with you.

Two years had passed since she found herself focused on nothing but her enemy, who was in front of her now, sitting on the toilet seat in her bathroom, all patched up, and looking at her with curiosity. “Are you going to continue to stare at me or answer my question?”

“I’m not required to reply to any of your inquiries.” Swiftly, she made her exit out of the bathroom, leaving you to stumble up on your feet and follow behind her like a lost pup. Your body felt awfully tired, though your mind was wide awake and racing with multiple thoughts at once, overloading and ready to explode any second.

“Add-”

“I’ve patched you up,” She moved to close the door to her closet, and in a rut of refusal to make eye contact with you, solemnly afraid that she’d instantly jump your bones- what? “So you may leave now.”

“I’m not leaving until you’ll answer my ‘inquiry’ on why you were nice, at least in my books, to me. You’re avoiding the question.”

You could see the clench in Wednesday’s jaw as she made her way over to her desk, tidying up the workplace in an attempt to distract herself from the conversation that lingered. “I’m unsure as to what you’re saying.”

“Addams-”

“Leave before I do something I’ll regret, (Y/L/N).” She snapped, finally meeting your gaze with wide eyes, and you furrowed your eyebrows. “Since when have you ever regretted something that included me? Did you not tie me to a tree on a full moon and bait me to the werewolves last year?”

Her eyes closed in annoyance. “That’s not what I mean.” And as she rubbed her face, you could almost feel the mixture of stress and uncertainty in her stance, almost as if she were holding back from something.

“Then what do you mean? I’ve known you for two years, and you’ve never failed to reply to me with a full sentence, whether it’s answering my question or barking out a snarky remark. Tell me what’s changed in tha-”

Your eyes were opening and closing rapidly in stress, causing you to not register Wednesday’s frame hurriedly marking toward you until you felt a body collapse into you and a smooth substance on your lips.

Huh?!

Your eyes shot open and wide. To confirm your suspicions, Wednesday’s arms were thrown over your shoulder while her body leaned into yours, and her lips smashed against yours almost desperately.

That’s what she presumed to regret. 

But it was something you longed for, unbeknownst to her, and you made it known when your hands found their way to her cheeks, pulling her in deeper. You could feel her lips tremble slightly in shock, unprepared for you to be pulling her closer instead of pushing her away.

Wednesday’s legs grew a mind of their own, taking steps forward and causing you to step back until the backs of your knees met her bed, and she tore her lips away from you for a breather. You took the separation as an opportunity to sit yourself down on her bed, all while your eyes never left hers in the process, and the smaller girl hurriedly found her former position on your lap.

“The moon is fading. Enid could come back any minute now.” You spoke between kisses, shivering at Wednesday’s cold touch on your warm skin, her hands slithering underneath the jacket you wore to rub up and down your back. “Then she’ll leave again, because she’s not going to enjoy what she’ll see.”

Your body visibly shivered at her words, or maybe it was just her fingers dancing along your spine, but either way, you found yourself completely engulfed in her and just her. The claw marks, the time, the physical confession—all of it was gone from your mind as Wednesday mindlessly pushed herself even farther into you.

She took a push too close, her body pressing up against your wound, causing you to groan and bite down on her bottom lip, fangs bared from the pain. Your lips never separated, instead pushing farther into them at the feeling and taste of Wednesday’s blood filling your mouths from her punctures, only spurring the two of you further.

“Lay down.” You obeyed immediately, finding nothing more hot in the moment than the husk in the smaller girl's voice, and manuevered from under her plushy thighs on top of you to lay comfortably on her bed. You were engulfed in her natural scent once more—the same scent you had grown accustomed to for over two years now, the scent that followed you everywhere you went.

You adored it, just as you adored her behind your hardening gaze most days.

Her eyes were narrowed, and you would have thought she was tired any other day, but you knew her look was one of need and want. Lust, to put it short, and you wanted nothing more than to fulfill her need, even if it meant submitting yourself to her in a situation you'd never thought you’d willingly put yourself in.

Just as she had earlier, she slid off your lap with a lingering touch on your hips. “Stay here.” 

And as quickly as she left, she returned, though this time with an item in her hand, and you knew exactly what it was. Your eyes widened, and your mouth drew open. Already?

“Yes, already.” Did you say that out loud? “You’d find me pathetic if you knew how long I have deferred using this. To use it on you.” Her eyes were filled with a dark, unmanageable lust that swam through her veins, and you could only imagine the scenarios that swarmed through your head. This wasn’t the Wednesday you knew, but it was one you anticipated figuring out.

“But I can’t just use this on you immediately, no.” A smug grin came across her lips—a sight that you, or really anybody else, rarely ever saw, and it was one you wanted to see more of. “No, I have to prep you, don’t I?”

“Prep me?” You asked, genuine curiosity lacing your voice, and her grin grew wider. “I’ll show you.”

Wednesday positioned herself back on your lap, putting the erotic object on her nightstand, within reach for later use, before pulling you into another kiss. It was bruising, and the kiss was ten times more harsh than before, but you would never complain about her being pressed up against you.

While you found yourself entrapped in her lips, her hands slithered down your body and toward your pants, grabbing the buckle of your belt and undoing it at a steady pace. That’s when it dawned on you—she was going to prep you for an object that withheld some... girth.

Your muscles tensed at the thought, and more so at the feeling of Wednesday pulling down your black jeans with ease, discarding your shoes in the process of leaving your bottom half in just your underwear. “Wednesday…”

She was simple. “Relax.” 

On the down low, she knew that this was your first time engaging with somebody sexually, never failing to notice your soft rejections of the girls and guys that tried to woo you on and failed miserably. It was an aspect she enjoyed even more now, and she wanted nothing more than to rub in the faces of all you rejected that they couldn’t get you to agree to a date, but yet she had you writhing underneath her, moaning her name.

Your breathing grew heavier as the seconds went by, hitching when Wednesday moved your underwear to the side with a slow itch of her hands, and you wanted nothing more than to grab her by the head and bury her in your heat. The lack of restraint you were feeling was lethal and ultimately surprising for a girl who rarely ever even masturbated.

“Such a possessing view.” She murmured in a low tone, her eyes dancing all around your core, and your cheeks flushed at her staring. Her eyes locked with yours, her mind racing at the sight of your eyes narrowed and staring down at her with silent pleads, and those pleads she fulfilled when her tongue darted out to take a swipe at your folds.

You whimpered in a tone around an octave higher than your usual voice, and your eyes widened at the sound that unwillingly left your mouth. It seemed to spur Wednesday on, allowing her to dart her tongue out once more and flick it over your clit, the nub that she wanted nothing more than to swell up with her mouth.

You let out another whimper—louder and needier this time around. “And sensitive. I can put that to use.” She dove her head farther into your heat, her lips wrapping around your clit and taking a harsh suck at the nub. Your thighs shut around her head, eyes never leaving one another, while she feverishly sucked your clit, needing to hear more of the high-pitched whines that left your mouth.

She pulled away soon after, to your dismay that you showed through your pleading whines, to allow a bead of spit to drip out of her mouth and onto your entrance, before taking her finger and rubbing her spit around the area. Your hips instinctively bucked up at the sensation, feeling yourself clench around nothing, and it made Wednesday want to elicit a laugh.

“The way I’m touching you now is a major privilege alone.” Her finger sank into your entrance, and she bit down lightly at the plushness of your thighs when she felt your velvety walls tighten around her. “I adore watching you like this underneath me; you make me want to fuck you braindead.”

She sank her finger into you until her knuckle bared against your heat, curling the bony stature inside of you and eliciting a light moan out of you. You already found yourself on edge from her husky words alone, and the curl of her finger inside of you didn’t help you from almost cumming embarrassingly fast.

“Already close? What a shame; I wanted to have fun toying with you.” Her mouth against her core made you moan from the vibrations, hands flying to grip her head menacingly and push her farther into you, almost crying out for the whole hall to hear when she slipped a second finger into you.

Her fingers picked up pace, thrusting in and out of you with force while the squelching sounds of your slick covering your walls made Wednesday feel a pit of need start to boil in her stomach, one that she desired to fulfill.

The two-on-two action on your core made you clench impossibly tight on Wednesday’s fingers, the ravenhead finding difficulty in her repeated movements. “Want to cum, yeah?”

You nodded profusely, your face growing red from your need for release and the way she released her lips from your clit with a pop. A small grin formed on her face when she pulled out of you, relishing in your whines of despair.

Eyes closed, heavy breathing—you were too blissed out, despite not achieving an orgasm from her underlying teasing, to notice Wednesday sliding off you, strapping the former item in her hand to her core. Her eyes never left your face as she strapped the item on, feeling more than fired up to make you scratch down her back with pitiful whines leaving your mouth.

And so, that’s what she achieved, eyes closing from the burning pains of your nails digging deep into her shoulders down to the middle of her back. Her own mind felt foggy watching the way her silicone became drenched in your arousal, the strap pumping in and out of you with ease, and the way you moaned straight into her ear—god, she regretted never taking your submissive state for profit more early.

Your thighs clenched around her hips when she bottomed into you, settled on her knees, and bent over slightly to curl the strap inside of you, hitting an unfamiliar spongy spot that had you sinfully whining with a hand clenched on Wednesday’s head. “If the entirety of humanity could merely glimpse you in your current state, they would swiftly recognize your rare moment of submissiveness,” her lips dove down, meeting your ear, “all submissive just for me.”

Her movements grew hard, her hands gripping your skin with a bruising force while her hips drove into you with no relent, finding a need for her own release. The so-called “devil” found herself groaning heavy breaths into your ear, all the while slipping a soft moan or two in that she couldn’t hold. The feeling of you finally beneath her, pleading and scratching at her for release, felt ethereal; all of her senses were on cloud nine, and it ignited a burrowed-down spark.

One of Wednesday’s hands removed from your skin, leaving behind darkened marks that would worsen with time to connect with your cheek, the slap making you roll your eyes back at how dirty it felt. “No connected nerves, and I can still feel you pulsating on me; you’re driving me crazy with it.” 

Your moans were muffled at the feeling of the ravenhead’s fingers shoving deep into your mouth, bypassing your uvula, causing a gag to ensue. Your lips wrapped around the digits, absentmindedly biting on them when the pit in your stomach started to burn like wildfire, making you tighten around the raven’s strap and force her to slow her movements, though still managing a speedy pace. 

“Don’t cum.”

The words you wished never left her mouth made you whine around her fingers; your body was too sensitive from your lack of sexual activity and masturbation over the years, making it almost impossible to fight your orgasm off. Her fingers briefly exited your mouth, only to slap your cheek once more before returning to their original location. “Just for a bit.”

The hold-off was tortuous; the muscles in your body tightened incredulously while your mouth pathetically sucked on Wednesday’s fingers in a pathetic attempt to tear your mind away from your orgasm. It didn’t work. 

The overloading, burning sensation in your stomach was almost uncomfortable; the fire burned longer than it intended to while you made putrid eye contact with the roof, Wednesday’s head snug to the side of yours while she drew herself closer to her own orgasm. The words that made  you sigh in relief, your body shaking after seconds of torture, finally came past the girl’s lips, and you adored them.

“Cum for me, la mia dolce metà.”

You obeyed immediately, allowing your muscles to untighten, and Wednesday’s fingers left your mouth, allowing you to spew out a large moan that, without a doubt, woke the entire hall up. Your hands dug into her shoulders, feeling her shudder over you from her own orgasm, though the only thing that left her mouth was heavy pants.

Alas, she pulled out of you after seconds of relishing in one another’s embrace, making you feel empty compared to just minutes ago. The tip of Wednesday’s cock directed to your swollen clit from her previous oral actions, pushing down with enough pressure to make your toes curl and a breathy sigh leave your mouth.

Wednesday had pulled herself up by now, and it was only then that you noticed the girl taking a mental screenshot of your body, more specifically your core and the way your cum leaked out of you at a snail's pace. She licked her lips at the sight, her eyes flickering up to meet yours, and you gulped.

“La mia dolce metà,” she whispered, hands running down your body and to your hips, “I’m not done with you just yet.” The edges of her lips tugged ever so slightly when she dipped her head down to meet your core, leaving you to moan with delight as your hand found it’s way back to her hair.

#wednesday addams #wednesday addams x fem!reader #wednesday addams x reader smut #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday addams smut #wednesday addams fic #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader #jenna marie ortega #wednesday 2022 #fanfiction #wednesday addams show #netflix #smut #x reader smut #xavier thorpe x reader #ajax petropolus x reader #enid sinclair x reader #enid sinclair x wednesday addams #wenclair #bianca barclay x reader #scream #you #lesbian

[philsrosesweatshirt]

hello (one of the) resident phannie data analyst(s) here with some parasocial stats on dnp’s movie tastes! following: distribution of dan and phil's ratings overall, movies they each rated 5 stars, their lowest-rated movies, and the similarities + differences in their tastes

(lore moment: yes i am a data analyst in my real job. yes i surprised myself with wanting to do this in my spare time. but then i remembered when we read dracula in college (yes i was an english major) and i graphed like, how many times dracula was referred to as vampire versus monster or something. so i shouldn’t be surprised.

first up, their overall rating patterns and by ~special status~ (i.e., wall-e, kill bill, avatar, lmao, plus big hero 6 for the fun of it)

dan’s rated 304 movies and phil’s rated 305. both of them have mean and median ratings of 4 with min 1 and max 5.

both rated kill bill vols. 1 and 2 a 5. wall-e got a 4.5 from dan and a 4 from phil (phake phans). both gave avatar a 3.5. and big hero 6 3.5 (dan) and 4.5 (phil)

rating distribution:

i did analyses here by genre but i need to fix the output (i’m writing all of these based on the markdown document from my phone on the subway, but i need to fix the outputs and i don’t have my computer. so those are pending but there are other genre analyses that i could do & haven’t yet!)

while i was sorting through the data i got the impression that dan overall rated movies higher than phil. so, among movies that they've both rated, here's some information

number of movies dan rated higher than phil: 65

Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, Return of the Jedi, My Neighbor Totoro, Back to the Future II, Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story, Phantom Mence, Donnie Darko, Attack of the Clones, Finding Nemo, Oldboy, The Notebook, Batman Begins, Brokeback Mountain, WALL-E, (500) Days of Summer, Up, The Hangover, Drive, The Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Life of Pi, Skyfall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Whiplash, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Room, The Hateful Eight, The Force Awakens, Manchester by the Sea, Deadpool, La La Land, Moonlight, Rogue One, Call Me By Your Name, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2., Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming, I, Tonya, Thor: Ragnorak, Phantom Thread, Roma, The Favourite, The Lighthouse, Toy Story 4, Midsommar, Ad Astra, Knives Out, Soul, The Green Knight, No Time to Die, Don't Look Up, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Turning Red, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, Glass Onion, Beau is Afraid, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Poor Things

number of movies phil rated higher than dan: 55

Star Wars (New Hope), Blair Witch Project, Requiem for a Dream, Memento, Ocean's Eleven, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Moonrise Kingdom, Iron Man 3, Gravity, Prisoners, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Imitation Game, Nightcrawler, John Wick, Gone Girl, Big Hero 6, Jurassic World, The Martian, The Revenant, Nocturnal Animals, Split, Get Out, Baby Driver, The Disaster Artist, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, The Greatest Showman, The Last Jedi, Ready Player One, Crazy Rich Asians, A Star is Born, Rocketman, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Joker, The Rise of Skywalker, The Invisible Man, A Quiet Place Part II, Greenland, Tenet, Malignant, Eternals, The Matrix Resurrections, Scream (2022), Nope, Prey, Talk to Me, Avatar: The Way of the Water, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

number of movies they rated the same: 99!

Alien, ET, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Se7en, Scream, The Fifth Element, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Magnolia, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Spider-Man, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Mean Girls, Howl's Moving Castle, Children of Men, The Dark Knight, Pontypool, Inglourious Basterds, Avatar, Toy Story 3, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Black Swan, The Social Network, 21 Jump Street, The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook, The Conjuring, Snowpiercer, Her, Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Boyhood, It Follows, Guardians of the Galaxy, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Interstellar, Ex Machina, The Witch, Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Your Name., Arrival, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, mother!, It, Blade Runner 2049, Hereditary, Black Panther, Annihilation, A Quiet Place, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel, Us, Avengers: Endgame, Parasite, It Chapter Two, Marriage Story, Uncut Gems, 1917, Black Widow, The Suicide Squad, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Dune, Last Night in Soho, The Batman (2022), Everything Everywhere All at Once, X, The Northman, Top Gun: Maverick, Bullet Train, Barbarian, Pearl, M3GAN, Dungeons and Dragongs: Honor Among Thieves, Evil Dead Rise, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3., No Hard Feelings, Saltburn, Priscilla, Society of the Snow, Saw X, Leave the World Behind

i didn't analyse this by genre or anything, but i could -- so if you're interested lmk!

the 5 movies with the most different ratings between dan and phil

- Iron Man 2 (dan: 2, phil 3.5)

- The Greatest Showman (d: 2.5, p: 4)

- Malignant (d: 3, p: 4.5)

- Scream (2022) (d: 2.5, p: 4)

- Beau is Afraid (d: 3, p: 1.5)

Interesting that even though dan has more higher rated movies, 4/5 of these ones phil rated higher.

next, their 5-star movies

dan's five stars: 80

Alien, Empire Strikes Back, ET, Blade Runner, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Stand by Me, The Grave of the Fireflies, My Neighbor Totoro, Back to the Future II, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Jurassic Park, Nightmare Before Christmas, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Toy Story, Fargo, Scream, The Fifth Element, Hercules, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Fight Club, Magnolia, The Emperor's New Groove, Donnie Darko, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Finding Nemo, Kill Bill, Oldboy, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Shaun of the Dead, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Howl's Moving Castle, Revenge of the Sith, Brokeback Mountain, No Country for Old Men, The Dark Knight, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Tree of Life, 21 Jump Street, The Avengers, Life of Pi, Skyfall, Under the Skin, Whiplash, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Mad Max: Fury Road, Sicario, The Hateful Eight, La La Land, Arrival, mother!, Blade Runner 2049, Avengers: Infinity War, First Man, The Favourite, The Lighthouse, Parasite, Midsommar, Uncut Gems, 1917, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Oppenheimer, Poor Things

phil's five stars:

Star Wars (New Hope), Alien, ET, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Scream, The Fifth Element, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Magnolia, Requiem for a Dream, Memento, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Howl's Moving Castle, The Dark Knight, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 21 Jump Street, Interstellar, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Arrival, Dunkirk, mother!, Blade Runner 2049, Avengers: Infinity War, Parasite, Uncut Gems, 1917, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Shawshank Redemption, Gladiator, Little Miss Sunshine

overlap: 39

Alien, ET, Gremlins, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Aliens, Home Alone, Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Scream, The Fifth Element, Titanic, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Magnolia, Spirited Away, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Howl's Moving Castle, The Dark Knight, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 21 Jump Street, Interstellar, Mad Max: Fury Road, Arrival, mother!, Blade Runner 2049, Avengers: Infinity War, Parasite, Uncut Gems, 1917, Dune, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick

& their lowest rated movies...

dan: matrix resurrections (1) , thor: the dark world (1.5), the rise of skywalker (1.5)

phil: crimes of the future (1), attack of the clones (1.5), thor: the dark world (1.5), don’t look up (1.5), the matrix resurrections (1.5), doctor strange in the multiverse of madness (1.5), beau is afraid (1.5), black bear (1.5)

not even chris hemsworth could save thor the dark world, i guess (kat dennings, though…)

movies they logged on the same date:

note that this is like, non-exhaustive, because this is only based on their diaries that list the date. i think in reality they've watched most of these movies together. frequently dan logged a couple days after phil which aren’t shown here. procrastination queen

Pontypool, Eternals, The Northman, Nope, Barbarian, The Banshees of Inisherin, Glass Onion, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Beau is Afraid, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3., Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Saltburn, Poor Things, Priscilla, Saw X, Leave the World Behind

movies that one logged and not the other:

dan but not phil: 85

The Exorcist, Stand by Me, The Grave of the Fireflies, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Home Alone 2, Schindler's List, Fargo, Romeo & Juliet, Hercules, Men in Black, Neon Genesis Evangelion, The Mummy, The 13th Warrior, Fight Club, The Emperor's New Groove, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, Legally Blonde, Monsters, Inc, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Scooby-Doo, 28 Days Later, Matrix Reloaded, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, School of Rock, Matrix Revolutions, Saw, Shaun of the Dead, Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Revenge of the Sith, The Devil Wears Prada, Borat, Casino Royale, No Country for Old Men, Death Proof, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, There Will Be Blood, Tropic Thunder, Slumdog Millionaire, Moon, District 9, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The King's Speech, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Tree of Life, X-Men: First Class, Prometheus, Argo, Les Miserables, Django Unchained, World War Z, Pacific Rim, Under the Skin, 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, The Babadook, The Lego Movie, x-Men: Days of Future Past, 22 Jump Street, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Theory of Everything, Green Room, Sicario, Spotlight, The Big Short, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Conjuring 2, Train to Busan, Hacksaw Ridge, Doctor Strange, Hidden Figures, Logan, You Were Never Really Here, Game Night, Isle of Dogs, First Man, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Suspiria, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Glass, Hustlers, Pig, Violent Night

phil but not dan: 86

Jaws, The Terminator, Beetlejuice, Die Hard, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Groundhog Day, The Shawshank Redemption, Leon: The Professional, The Usual Suspects, The Frighteners, The Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty, The Green Mile, Gladiator, Catch Me if You Can, Elf, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, Zodiac, Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, Juno, Lake Mungo, Twilight, Zombieland, Kick-Ass, Brave, Evil Dead, The Great Gatsby, Now You See Me, Monsters University, Man of Steel, About Time, Dallas Buyers Club, Edge of Tomorrow, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The Boy, Raw, Finding Dory, Suicide Squad, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, John Wick: Chapter 2, Lady Bird, The Ritual, Happy Death Day, Deadpool 2, Ocean's 8, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Bird Box, Booksmart, Crawl, Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Platform, Black Bear, Palm Springs, The Empty Man, The Innocents, Titane, Old, Free Guy, The Black Phone, Fresh, Watcher, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Ambulance, Aftersun, Crimes of the Future, Fall, Bones and All, The Menu, Sanctuary, Do Revenge, Smile, Hellraiser (2022), Mr. Harrigan's Phone, Plane, Missing, Infinity Pool, Past Lives, Knock at the Cabin, Scream VI

i’m interested to see how this varies by genre!

miscellaneous non-statistical things that made me parasocially emotional and/or laugh during this process:

they watched nope together on christmas eve 2022 <3

dan rated moulin rouge a 5 <3 nature boy <3

he also rated shrek a 5. of course. (valid).

4.5 from dan and 4 from phil from the notebook

5 from danny for brokeback mountain <3 and a 4.5 from philly

cmbyn, yes, has its issues, but dan rated 4.5 and phil 4

the shape of water got a 4.5 from monsterfucker phil lester (dan gave it a 4)

surprisingly phil rated rocketman higher than dan! surprising because dan liked so many musicals

dan gave hustlers a 3.5. i don't know why i think this is funny, but i do. phil doesn't have it logged or rated, lmao.

a 4 (d) and a 3.5 (p) for barbie!

phil gave twilight a 3. lol.

phil also gave do revenge only a 3.5. tragique.

phil watched a LOT of horror alone in october 2022 (aka while dan was on tour). anyway he's just like me <3

#dan and phil #dnp #phan #dan howell #phil lester #twitter says letterboxd should have been gatekept i say 1) know your phannie history! 2) this is nothing their usernames are so obvious you #think they didn’t know this would be found? be fr!

[punkshort]

look what we've become - ch.8

Chapter Summary: Your POV from captivity. You learn some interesting information about the Fireflies and run into an unexpected person from your past.

Chapter Warnings: language, graphic depictions of violence, blood, torture, one teeny tiny 'daddy' reference (couldn't help myself, more of a nod to the fandom than anything), infected, reader gets roughed up, description of injuries and pain

WC: 4.7K

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

"You said take the girl, so I took the girl!"

"I meant the fucking kid, not her!"

You stifled a groan, your eyes still shut tight, unable to handle the brightness from the overhead lighting. Your head was spinning, and if you moved too much, your stomach heaved, so you laid as still as possible, hoping and praying whatever was going to happen would happen quickly.

The smell didn't help, either. You had no idea where you were, but your cheek was pressed up against a cool, tile floor and the entire room smelled like rot. You heard a muffled, rhythmic thumping against a wall in the corner of the room. It felt damp and humid, like maybe you were in a cabin or a basement. And you definitely were not alone. Once you woke from whatever drug they had slipped into your neck, you did your best to still appear asleep, hoping that maybe you could find out some helpful information while your captors still thought you couldn't hear them.

The two voices continued to argue - a man and a woman - about the mix-up. Ellie. They were after Ellie, not you. That frightened you even more.

How long has it been since you've been taken? Hours? A day?

Joel would have made them leave. He wouldn't have kept her there after he realized what happened. If not to protect her, he would have moved to try to find you. As much as you didn't want him to come looking for you, to put Ellie in harm's way, you knew he would. You had no idea how many people were part of this group that took you, but it was definitely too many for Joel to handle on his own. And he wouldn't waste time going back to Jackson for help.

You needed to get out of there before Joel got himself killed trying to find you.

The voices continued to talk, the volume increasing, the words becoming clearer. They were getting closer to where you were tied up on the floor. Why did the one voice sound vaguely familiar? Did you know these people?

"We sent another crew out to fix your fuck up," the woman said, her shoes squeaking on the tile. "You better hope they find her, or it's your ass."

"Yes, ma'am," the man's voice said weakly.

"I know you're awake," the woman's voice said icily. Part of you wanted to remain still and call her bluff, but her boot was too close to your already tender head, and you didn't want to risk another hit. You allowed one eye to crack open, the light like an icepick in your brain. You brought your hands up to shield your eyes as you struggled to sit upright with your wrists and ankles tied together.

When you finally sat up, you leaned your head back with a sigh, trying to get your bearings and calm your churning stomach before forcing both eyes open to look at your captor for the first time.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," you croaked, surprised at how rough your own voice sounded.

Amy laughed and jumped up on a gurney behind her, swinging her legs back and forth over the edge, the motion making you nauseous the longer you watched.

Amy. Joel's ex-fiancée and the woman who helped lead the group of animals who took you both in long before you found Jackson, under the guise of it being a safe community but failing to mention that community ran on a very primitive form of currency.

"Yeah, thought you'd be happy to see me," she said with a chuckle, flicking her dirty blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Elated," you said dryly, sliding your eyes back closed.

"If it makes you feel any better, I wasn't exactly thrilled to see you, either."

"That does make me feel better, thank you," you snapped, opening your eyes again to glare at her.

"You do realize I hold the key to your release, right? Maybe treat me with a little respect," Amy said, the fake smile slipping from her face.

"You and I both know I'm not getting out of here," you replied, but she shook her head.

"Not necessarily. If we can't find the girl, you're our contingency plan."

You narrowed your eyes, the rage beginning to burn deep in your chest. Knowing you would regret it, you asked the question anyway.

"What do you mean?"

Amy smirked as she slid down from the gurney and bent down to look you in the eye.

"What I mean is, he would do anything to get you back. Including giving up the kid."

Something in you snapped. You lunged forward, swinging your head and smashing it directly into her nose. You heard the distinctive crunch right as the blood began to pour out of both nostrils. She stumbled back in shock, clutching her face while she howled in pain. Even though your head felt like it was splitting in two, you grinned. Worth it.

Once the pain subsided, she dropped her hands, her face smeared with dark red blood, her nose turning purple and swollen, clearly broken.

"You fucking bitch," she muttered. She took one step forward and swung her leg back, the toe of her boot coming in direct contact with your cheek. You squeezed your eyes shut, refusing to make a single noise indicating you were in any pain, not giving her the satisfaction. But the blood that was pooling in your mouth told a different story.

Amy laughed as she watched you spit blood on the tile next to you.

"You're gonna regret that," she said, walking backwards towards the door. "Your people really had us chasing you all over the goddamn place, even lost a few friends. I got some guys outside who would love to break a few of your bones for all that."

As the door slammed shut, you finally allowed yourself to take a shaky breath in and look around. Even though you were alone, you still heard the thumping coming from the corner of the room. You leaned forward, trying to see what was causing the noise, but all you saw was a small room with a stainless steel door sealed shut. There were gurneys everywhere, some of them broken, some not. Between you and the door there were six flat, stainless steel tables in front of what looked like refrigerators. Chancing a look up at the lights, you noticed some appeared to be the type you might see in a dentist's office or an operating room. Then it dawned on you.

You were in a morgue.

You couldn't be sure how much time had passed. You lost consciousness a few times. Amy wasn't kidding. The men she employed were pissed, and they took it out on you with every punch and kick. Each time you woke up, you felt a new pain somewhere in your body. A new broken bone or a new cut. Eventually, Amy returned, and even in your wrecked state, you still found a sliver of pleasure seeing her nose taped up and the dark bruise blooming under each of her eyes.

"Had enough yet?" she asked with a smirk. You snarled in response and spit more blood on the ground.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to tell me where Joel and the girl are," she said, holding her hands out to her sides like it was obvious.

"I have no idea," you said truthfully, struggling to sit up.

"Okay, why don't you tell me where home is, and we can start there?" she offered, and you laughed.

"You should just go ahead and kill me if that's what you want," you told her, glaring at her with one eye, the other swollen shut already.

"Don't think we won't," she said, tilting her head to the side as she regarded you silently for a moment, her thoughts clearly drifting to something else.

"What?" you asked her through gritted teeth.

"Don't you think he's a little old for you?" she finally asked, her eyes raking up and down your body. You knew it would always boil down to this. You knew she could never see past your relationship with Joel. What he was willing to do for you, what he has done for you, what she lost and would never have.

"What, do you have daddy issues or something?" she asked with a scoff.

You smirked as more blood trickled down your chin, the cut on your lip refusing to heal.

"Sometimes he likes it when I call him daddy, if that's what you mean," you told her. The face she made was worth the kick to the head. You giggled and coughed, the pain and the smell and the insanity of everything happening finally hitting home.

"He's gonna kill you, you know," you said with a grin, leaning up against the cool tile wall. "Even if you kill me. Especially if you kill me, he will find you, and he will kill you."

Amy was smirking at you, but you saw the look in her eye. It was fast, but you caught it. She knew you were right.

"We'll see," she said, backing up so she could lift herself up on one of the stainless steel tables. She watched you for a moment, blood trickling out of every wound, bruises deepening in color with each passing minute. You were pretty sure your arm and a couple ribs were broken and you most definitely had a concussion, but you refused to show any weakness. You glared at her from your spot on the ground, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

"Do you know what we do here?" she asked you. The question took you off guard.

"Other than torture people? No."

She laughed at that.

"We're trying to make a fucking vaccine," she told you, like she expected you to be grateful. You already figured that much out, but you didn't say so.

"How's that going for you?" you asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"It would be a lot fucking better if we had that goddamn girl," she told you. Her emotions were getting the best of her. You could hear it with every word, and it put you even more at ease. They were desperate.

"Oh, yeah?" you said. "That's a shame."

"Do you have any idea how many people sacrificed themselves for this cause?" she asked, her brows furrowed. You shrugged.

"Enlighten me."

"Countless," she said, jutting her chin towards the room in the corner. You looked over at the closed door. The thumping was fainter when you were alone, but now that Amy was talking, the noise started up again.

"There's a lot of people who are immune, you know," she began, and you felt your muscles tense. "So many of them gave their lives to help us find a cure. We are so close. Our doctor just needs one more, and that kid is the answer." You began to put the pieces together, and the noise in the corner was starting to make sense. You felt your stomach roll.

"Sounds like a really shitty doctor if they let so many people die," you told her, and she scoffed.

"He's brilliant. You have no idea how difficult it is to extract DNA in this type of setting, and - I don't even know why I'm bothering," she said, shaking her head. "The point is, that girl could save us all."

"You said it yourself. There's a lot of people who are immune," you mumbled. You could feel yourself fading but you fought to stay awake. "Find someone else."

"Fuck that," she said, jumping down from the table and crouching in front of you. "Where is she?"

"Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you," you whispered, your good eye sliding shut.

"Don't you dare pass out!" she shrieked, slapping you across the face. The adrenaline perked you up for a few seconds, but the blood loss ultimately won, and you slipped back into darkness.

You woke up to the sound of gunfire coming from the floors above you. The noise was faint, but it was distinctive. Pop, pop, pop. How long were you out for this time? Was it nighttime? There were no windows, you had no semblance of time other than the hunger that gnawed at your insides as more hours passed without food or water.

You blinked and looked around, confirming you were still alone before trying to sit up. The blood loss was too much, your head was pounding, and your side felt like you had been hit by a bus. Slumping back down, you took a few deep breaths before trying again. The gunshots were getting closer, and your adrenaline was spiking, giving you the little boost you needed to force yourself up. You looked down, trying to assess the damage to your body. Your upper thigh had a big, weeping gash, probably the culprit for the majority of your blood loss. Your one eye was still swollen but you could crack it open just a bit now if you really had to. Your cheekbone felt like it might be broken, and a few ribs were definitely broken, but at least your knees and ankles were good. If you could cut the ties, you could run. Or stumble.

As the gunfire got closer, the thumping against the door in the corner of the room got louder. There was no doubt in your mind at this point that they kept infected in there, and you just hoped you weren't still tied up if they got out.

Your brain was foggy, you were having a hard time staying focused, but the panic began to set in. Why was there gunfire? What was happening? Then a hazy thought drifted by in the back of your mind. Joel?

There was no way he could have found you this fast. He wouldn't have put the pieces together. You barely could keep up with what was happening. But then the door handle jiggled and a small form snuck into the room quietly and you thought you must have been dying. Surely, you were hallucinating, your brain short circuiting as it began to shut down, because there was no possible way Ellie was actually crouching in front of you, repeating your name urgently as she tugged on your restraints to no avail.

"Shit, hold on," you heard her mutter, setting the familiar looking hunting rifle on the floor next to her so she could fish her switchblade out of her pocket. Yes, you were most definitely hallucinating. Joel wouldn't have given her his rifle. Unless...

"Is he dead?" you rasped, finally finding your voice. Ellie paused with her switchblade hovering over your ankles and frowned at you.

"Joel? No," she said, shaking her head as she began to saw on the restraints, freeing your legs and then moving to your wrists.

"What's..." you tried again, but you could feel yourself fading and all you could hear was that fucking thumping in the corner of the room and the gunfire down the hall.

"We're getting you out of here," she said, tucking her shoulder underneath your arm and hoisting you up with a grunt. You muffled a cry at the pain shooting down your side, blood gushing down your leg again now that you were moving.

"Oh, fuck," she whispered, leading you over to a gurney so you could steady yourself before she dug into her pack for an old shirt. She bent down and wrapped it around your thigh as tight as she could, wincing as she double knotted it before she stood back up.

"Can you move?" she asked, her eyes wide with panic. You nodded, but you weren't sure. If Ellie had the rifle, where was Joel?

As if an answer to your question, Joel burst into the room and slammed the door shut behind him, frantically looking around before pulling a table over to barricade it. You must have looked worse than you thought because when he finally turned around to look at you for the first time, his face crumpled for a moment before he quickly collected himself and rushed over.

"What'd they do to you?" he murmured in your ear as his arms came up to wrap around your middle. You winced and leaned back, your hand coming up to your ribs to tenderly cover the spot he just squeezed.

"Fuck, I'm sorry," he whispered, his eyes raking down your body, trying to take stock of your injuries.

"It's okay," you said. His eyes flicked to the corner of the room where the noise was reaching a fever pitch.

"Oh, shit," Ellie muttered, her attention also pulled to the locked door.

"We gotta get you outta here," Joel said, seemingly making the connection much quicker than you did. "Can you walk?"

"I think so, but I can't go fast," you said, bending over and holding yourself up with your arms braced on the gurney. For the first time, you noticed the blood. He was covered in it. Splashed up his jeans and boots and all over his hands, some even sprayed on his neck.

"That's fine," he said as he began to push the table away from the door. The noises from the locked room got even louder as the table legs screeching on the tile floor.

"There's too many of them, Joel. We can't-"

"Yeah, we can," he said, cutting you off. He was turning to look at you, still in disbelief while he opened the door, not paying attention as someone pushed their way in, knocking him to the ground with the stock of a rifle.

He fell with a groan, his hands coming up to clutch the side of his face as Amy quickly locked the door behind her. She aimed her rifle at Joel's chest, and he dropped his hands to the side, staring up at her like he was seeing a ghost.

"What the fuck?" he whispered, and she smirked.

"Nice to see you, too, baby," she snarled, her nose still taped and her eyes still black.

"Who's she?" Ellie asked under her breath at your side, but you just shook your head. Amy glanced up and let out a shaky laugh when she saw Ellie.

"After everything you did, Joel, you still lost," she said. You looked between them, confused and barely holding onto consciousness. What did that mean?

"What the hell happened to you?" Joel asked her, his voice laced in disgust.

"I got with the fucking program, Joel! That's what!" she yelled at him before taking a step back, the rifle still aimed at his chest.

The door handle began to rattle violently with all the yelling. You could see it being pushed open a crack from the other side, then hands wrapping around the edge of the door until the lock broke and it finally swung open.

Joel scrambled to his feet and grabbed his revolver from his side while Ellie shouldered the hunting rifle as infected came pouring out, their screams making you wince.

Gunshots rang out, a few infected fell, but Amy's gun jammed and a runner knocked her down. She rolled off to the side and kicked it in the chest, sending it flying backwards right into Ellie, the gun falling from her hands.

You picked up Joel's rifle as quickly as you could in your weakened state, but right as you took aim at the infected's head, you watched its teeth clamp down around her arm. You both screamed, Ellie in pain, you in fear as you lodged a bullet right into the back of the runner's skull, its body falling limply to the side. You dropped the gun to the ground, too exhausted and weak to hold it anymore. Ellie scrambled up and swiped frantically at her arm, watching as the blood trickled out.

"Are you okay?" you asked, reaching out to her. She nodded and looked up at you, her eyes suddenly going wide.

"Look out!"

You ducked just in time to avoid getting hit in the back of the skull with Amy's rifle. She fell forward on her hands and knees, then scrambled to grab Ellie's ankle, yanking her down and pulling her against her chest.

You vaguely heard Joel's gun still firing behind you, taking down infected, when you watched Amy's arm wrap around Ellie's throat, her face going red while she gasped for air. You didn't even think, you just reacted. Ignoring the pain, you surged forward and pounced on top of her, yanking her arm off of Ellie's neck with every ounce of strength you had. Ellie rolled to the side, kneeling and coughing with her hand gingerly touching her red skin while your fingers gripped Amy's neck. She clawed at your hands, panic filling her eyes as she looked up at you helplessly. You put all your weight into it, squeezing with all your might and praying you didn't pass out before ending this once and for all.

In one last ditch effort, Amy dug her thumb deep into your wounded thigh, making you cry out and loosen your grip. She tossed you off of her and you collapsed next to Ellie with a loud thud. Forcing herself to her feet, Ellie stood over you protectively, her switchblade held shakily in her hand as blood trickled slowly down her arm and dripped onto the tile floor next to your head.

The room finally seemed quieter. You chanced a look towards Joel. He was standing on the other side of the room, surrounded by dead infected and panting for air. When he turned to the three of you, you finally noticed the huge gash on the side of his head from where Amy hit him. His blood dripped down his neck and below his collar, his shirt absorbing the dark red drops.

Amy grabbed the rifle you abandoned and swung around, aiming it at the pair of you as she walked backwards. Joel kept his revolver trained on her as he slowly made his way over to your side of the room.

"You just ruined all our chances at having a fucking life again, Joel," Amy seethed, her eyes boring into his.

"Should've thought about that before you took what's mine," he grumbled angrily, standing next to you now. You curled into a ball on the floor, the pain too much to handle.

"If you'd have just brought us the girl in the fucking first place, none of this would have happened and we wouldn't have touched her," Amy retorted, jutting her chin in your direction.

"The hell's so special about the kid?" Joel asked, but before she could answer, a telltale click, click, click echoed in the room, and you all froze. Your one good eye popped open as you watched a clicker stumble from the room in the corner, snapping its teeth and swiping mindlessly at the empty space in front of it.

Joel glanced down at your state, knowing he wouldn't be able to pick you up and get out of there in time. Ellie gripped her knife tightly as she watched the clicker get further into the room.

You could see the look in Amy's eye. She was glancing around frantically, trying to figure out a way to use this to her advantage. But lucky for you all, you thought of it first.

Carefully, you reached out in front of you, your fingers picking up the bullet casing on the floor from when you shot the runner. Before you had time to overthink it, you tossed the casing to the other side of the room, the metal clinking right between her feet.

The clicker turned towards her and shrieked, its arms flailing wildly. Amy panicked and backed up, but her sneakers squeaked on the tile and that was all the clicker needed. You watched as its hands gripped her shoulders to hold her steady while its mouth ripped violently into her neck. Blood gushed everywhere, puddling on the floor and causing her to lose her footing. Her screams reverberated in the room. You covered your ears, trying to muffle the sound until her screaming eventually stopped.

While the clicker was still distracted, Joel snuck up quietly behind it and lodged a bullet in its head, and the room finally filled with silence again.

Joel turned around as Ellie was helping you back on your feet. He noticed the blood dripping down her arm and his body stiffened.

"You were bit," he said, staring at the blood seeping through her shirt. Ellie looked down at it and then looked back up at him, shaking her head and backing away slowly.

"N-no, it's fine, really-"

Joel held up his gun, pain flickering across his face.

"Joel, don't," you said, but he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. She's bit, we can't-"

"Put the gun down, Joel, and listen to me," you told him, taking a few shaky steps to the side so you stood between him and Ellie.

His arm immediately dropped when you blocked his shot, and he looked at you with despair in his eyes.

"There's nothin' we can do, I'm sorry kid, but -"

"She's immune, Joel!" you yelled, cutting him off again. He froze, stunned, as his eyes flicked back and forth between yours and Ellie's.

"What?" he finally whispered.

"It's true," Ellie said from behind you, then she pulled up her sleeve and showed him her old bite. "Got it a couple months ago. See? It's all healed."

Joel stumbled back a bit, catching himself on the edge of a table as he tried to follow what was happening.

"Wh- how?"

"I don't know, some people just... are," she said, her gaze dropping to the floor.

"It's why they wanted her so badly. They were trying to use her as a guinea pig to make a vaccine," you added.

"You knew?" Joel asked, looking at you with hurt in his eyes. You nodded, your lip trembling.

"Listen, I would love to tell you everything I know, but can we do it in the fucking car?" Ellie asked, growing impatient. You could tell Joel was still struggling with this new revelation, but he knew you were in desperate need of medical care.

"You so much as twitch -" Joel said, storming over to her now and letting himself trail off.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Can we go now?"

If you weren't in so much pain, you might have laughed at how cavalier she was about the whole thing.

Joel found a beat up looking wheelchair and helped you into it. He instructed Ellie to push you while he led the way down the hall. He picked up an assault rifle from one of the dead bodies as he made his way to the elevator. You glanced around at the carnage as you waited for the doors to open, then looked up at him by your side.

"Did you do all of this alone?"

He looked down at you, his eyes lingering on your one open eye for a moment before nodding curtly. As you filed onto the elevator, you tried to examine him for any injuries, but aside from the hit to his head and a few minor scratches and bruises to his knuckles, he appeared fine.

The doors opened up on the main level and you gasped. If you thought the basement level was bad, it was nothing compared to the main level. Ellie pushed your wheelchair through the blood on the floor, her footsteps and the wheels leaving imprints as you went. Joel went up ahead to push some bodies out of the way and make a clear path for you to get to the front door.

"Truck's right out front," he said.

"Joel, how did you... do this?" you asked, still hardly believing what you were seeing.

"What'dya mean?" he asked, his hand on the front door, ready to push it open. You looked up at him and swallowed the lump in your throat, unable to comprehend what you were seeing. He let his hand drop to his side so he could kneel in front of you and pinch your chin between his fingers, giving you a gentle kiss.

"I did what I had to do to get you back."

Tag List @nana90azevedo @ninaminaromina @untamedheart81 @taz-97 @nastiasnow @amyispxnk @plz-be-solo @iloveramensm @caitlynsixxx @anoverwhelmingdin @harriedandharassed @jessthebaker @txtattoostark @merz-8 @sarahhxx03 @oscarissac2099 @motherjoel @silas-222 @b3l1nd5 @rocket-raccoon-silvie @missladym1981 @angie2274 @maried01

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fic #joel the last of us #tlou hbo #the last of us hbo #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller series #joel x reader #joel x reader smut #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #pedro pascal #the last of us game #the way we were joel miller fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #look what we've become joel miller fic

[luna-andra]

StepDad!König Headcanons (SFW & Wholesome) ✨

Image @cozyhuii (@miss_bozo on Twitter)

Headcanons I thought up of König being a step daddy to reader's kid

A/N: Y'all got my very first König headcanon list to 600+ notes earlier today and I had to pump this one out. I had been in a writing rut for a while (still kind of am? But I'm finding my way back) and this is my way of showing my gratitude. StepDad!König originally was something I did for me (König being step daddy to my kid? YES PLEASE) but I made this gender neutral (& gn kid) like the other ones 🖤

Domesticated!König Series: Part 1 Part 2

I write other stuff too! Masterlist here 🖤

👑 His reaction was the better outcome you had thought up when König found out you had a kid from a previous relationship. Why would that deter him from continuing to date you? He was a man that didn’t view single parents as “spoiled goods”, and would quite frankly curb stomp someone if they heard them refer to you as such.

👑 He was aware of the possibility of you postponing and rescheduling dates, and unfortunately they did happen. “Sitter canceled? No problem.” “Mom/Dad bailed on their weekend? I get it.” You were so relieved by his patience and empathy for the times plans would fall through.

👑 It was clear to König that you were going to hold off on introducing him to your child. He had great respect for that rule, it meant you were very keen on not having a revolving door of people coming in and out of that kid’s life.

👑 As time went on, he would always show an active interest in your child by asking how they are doing in school? Did they still like [insert movie/TV show here]? He hoped they liked the treats he had bought at the PX on base.

👑 But the one time you seemed extremely defeated and bummed out about another postponed date, he took his chance and threw out the idea of hanging out - the three of you - at your house. You hesitated, but it had been nearly long enough for you to be okay with it. The guilt weighed on you considering it had been a hot minute since the two of you had any time for each other. König was such a sweetheart, reassuring you that this is how he wanted to spend his time, with you and your kiddo.

👑 Almost every date after that became an outing with the three of you. He was referred to as Onkel König by your child, a title that warmed his gigantic heart.

👑 Came to every sports game/martial arts competition/band or orchestra event/etc. Became as active as the bio mom/dad (if they were still around) in their extra-curricular activities. He didn’t want to miss a single thing.

👑 Speaking of bio mom/dad/ex-spouse, he made the conscious effort to be acquainted with them if they were still present in Kiddo’s life. As long as they were cordial, so was König.

👑 Spoiled the hell out of Kiddo for Christmas and birthdays. They wanted for nothing and sometimes you hated it but were also thankful that he has come to love a child that originally wasn’t his.

👑 We all know König is of older age given his rank of Colonel. It’s so funny when he has to ask you about lingo the younger kids use. “What is bussies and why do they want to go there so much?” That was fun explaining it to König as his face grew intensely pink at his ignorance. It’s best if he comes to you every time he hears something new fly out of that kid’s mouth.

👑 He always used German terms of endearment for the both of you, and Kiddo picked up German the more time they spent with König. It forced you to learn too (you were already learning but you were putting in extra hours after bedtime to stay ahead of them).

👑 100% a prankster. And oh god… did it get out of hand quickly. You had to sit both of them down to scold them about putting soy sauce in your coffee when you weren’t looking; that was the final straw. No one messes with the morning coffee. 

👑 Came home with a puppy from the animal shelter because Kiddo got an A on their test (failed to mention to König that it was a test they had already got rewarded for).

👑 The only time you ever saw this man cry was at Kiddo’s graduation. They said to their friends “Can you take a picture of me with my Dad? He showed up in uniform for this.” He held it together for the event, but let the tear loose on the way home.

Likes & reblogs are always appreciated! Asks are opened for requests & ideas for others. Might do some for Ghost in the future ✨

#konig #konig mw2 #konig cod #konig call of duty #konig x reader #konig x y/n #gn y/n #gn reader #konig x you #konig headcanons #headcanon #call of duty #call of duty mw2 #cod #cod mwii #mw2 #call of duty fanfic #task force 141 x reader #stepdad!konig

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.60)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Life changes come in many many forms; courting gifts, leaving jobs, and...Murder

Tags: Slow burn getting warmer, Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, Trans! Tae, Transphobia, gender thoughts, workplace discrimination, flashbacks, murder, the word 'r*pe' is used to describe what Geumjae did to her but there are no graphic depictions of it, allusions to physical abuse, graphic violence, there is a brief moment where someone not in the pack touches the m/c's ass without her consent, blood, briefly implied suicidal actions- but it's nothing like what you haven't seen before.

W/c: 12.6k

A/n: i'll be attending my cousin's wedding at the time this is posted so! give me lots of love when you read it cuz i'm so nervous~ i've never been around so many fancy people before <3

Previous part ~ Masterlist

You dab at the skin under your eyes carefully. You know they must look red and puffy. Tae’s careful instruction to treat your skin well as all good baby pups should has somehow stuck.

Even here. Even now.

“Do people like always loose it with you? Like when they walk in, do they all cry?”

Your therapist (yes, your therapist) across the narrow room is the opposite of threatening; soft face, pulled back hair, neutral clothing that might just as well be out of a country living catalog.

You don’t know where Jin found her, what little medical booklet he perused like a take-out menu, or how much her services cost per hour. Those kinds of details were not for delicate little pups like yourself to worry over in his opinion.

Most of the time, you're glad not to have to worry about things like this. But right now you're chomping at the bit. Weighting your odds. The other unknowns hover before you. One sticks out. One you're most concerned about.

Is she trustworthy?

Nothing about Dr. Rima seems outwardly threatening, yet you curl in on yourself. She smiles, scrawling something on the top of her notepad before she answers, and something taught in you ticks tighter.

“You’re correct in assuming that most people I meet cry in the first few minutes when they meet me, but you are the first person to cry on my threshold. Most of the time people wait until they’re at least in the chair.”

That has a smile tugging at your lips, albeit unwillingly. Your smile is like a leashed wild animal, with too many teeth when you feel threatened. Contained for now.

If you got up and walked out right now, would she call someone to restrain you? Will you be committed if you tell the truth? Or are you just misinterpreting the stakes?

You are here of your own volition. Even if it was a condition that Jin and Namjoon weren't willing to budge on after the events of last week. It's not like the pack is having you put in a mental institution or something, although they did come with you today. For moral support.

The waiting room was stuffy and yellow, one of those little waterfall mirrors in the corner that you’d watched in a fog sat between Yoongi and Jimin while Jin filled out the necessary paperwork. His pen hovering over the small boxes every few seconds. He'd taken the afternoon off of work to make sure he was there, just to fill out paperwork.

Are you on any medications? Do you have a history with substance abuse disorders? Do you have any intent to harm yourself or others?

Sending glares to anyone who dared to come too close, Jimin had looked and smelled threatening. You're not sure he’d have let you go into an isolated location with her if she’d been an alpha. Jin too had looked close to snapping.

yoongi was the only one who looked somewhat calm, althoug his hand was tightly laced with yours (and a little sweaty)

It’s a wonder that the rest of your pack had agreed to stay home for this. This was just one of several concessions you’d made after what the pack has politely begun referring to as 'sad pup time' during your more vulnerable moments, and blatantly 'your breakdown' during less fragile ones.

But sweet words or not. The facts remain; You are here in this chair after a nearly tearful departure.

You’d met the therapist in the doorway, shaking in your boots, and upon being separated from your pack with the promise that they’d be just downstairs in the lobby, you’d followed her inside.

Yoongi had made a noise in his throat, making you turn back. Dr.Rima turned to watch as he’d pulled you in for a last-minute hug, ducking down to your level. “One hour, okay? We’ll be just downstairs. Text me if you need me.”

His eyes were heavy-looking at the stranger. Unwilling to let you go just yet. A little stalwart, a little standoffish.

“Take good care of her please. She’s very precious to us.”

Precious.

That much was evident by the nearly three-page document that both your pack alpha and omega sent through once Namjoon and Jin had selected Dr. Rima as your therapist. Dr. Rima has quite a bit of experience dealing with overprotective pack alphas and pack omegas. Let alone a pack alpha and pack omega who have such a clinical background.

Yes, you must be well taken care of. At least on paper.

She’s already itching a little, to get her hands on all the others. Packmates and their names are written out, as a part of all intake files. Large packs aren't so common anymore. Her eyes fix on one name; Min Yoongi (beta, mate) unemployed.

The big windows help it feel not so small, on the second floor, the trees block out most of the view of the park below. A small voice that sounds like Hobi whispers that it’s a shame she doesn’t have any plants in here, they'd do so well with all of this natural light.

Your knees clack together a little, moving listlessly, the anxiety in your body begging to be released somewhere.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Why don’t we start with why you wanted to come in today.”

You avoid her eye contact, looking instead at the tops of the trees, you don’t know why they haven’t changed color yet, all of the trees on your street are half bare already. She has a smooth inoffensive scent, but you’re mated to a beta so you know what to expect when it comes to the relaxing effects, the subtle haze at the edge of your vision. It must come in handy, having the biological upper hand, when it comes to patients in distress.

If therapists are rare, beta therapists must be even rarer.

You can practically hear Jin, “Nothing but the best for my pup.” There is a part of your brain that won’t ever turn off, appraising everything around you. The designer pumps that she wears. The knickknacks on her desks, there are no photos of any packs that she might call her own, just a pink calendar in the corner.

Your breath goes just a little bit rapid, just a little, hitching when you think of it.

“Did Jin tell you anything?”

“He didn’t. Although my secretary did inform me that he filled out the paperwork for you.” The air in the therapist’s office is cold. Cold enough that it has you wrapping your sweater sleeves over your knuckles.

Your cheeks heat “My pack they- get a bit- protective.” Your fingers circle your wrist. You’re glad that Hobi convinced you to take one of his sweatshirts. He'd had a strange look on his face while he zipped it up, and you'd had to worry and wonder about it the whole morning. You'd worried more once he texted, just after he must have gotten to work.

“I have kind of a history of self-destructive behavior and I- I kind fell into bad habits a few days ago and blew up. It was all kind of triggered by this like- thing that happened with me and my other packmate.” It’s surprisingly easy to tell the truth.

You’re a right side better than you have been the last few weeks, now. A little bit more present, less foggy. The doctor just looks at her screen and not at you. What is it with her asking questions that make you not want to lie? Why does it feel like you should anyway?

Dr. Rima reads between the lines, what you're trying to say without saying it. “Is there a possibility of you hurting yourself again?” She clicks at the screen a little rapidly.

“No.”

The truth is you have no idea. It seems best to lie in this situation. But you consider it; one of your packmates making the call that you are too much to handle, that you need more help than they can offer. You imagine what it would be like to be in inpatient care. Grippy socks and group therapy and probably observed mealtimes. Maybe Iv's and feeding tubes if it came to that. Away from the pack and away from Yoongi.

He’s just downstairs, but that feels too far. There was no way that he was going to let you do this alone, you wouldn't be surprised if he never left the waiting room.

It’s just a therapy session. The very thing that you once refused. But now that you're here you might as well heal, you might as well work to stop this endless train of brief highs and endless lows. you'll give it a go, why not? What do you have to lose?

And yet, the texts from Hobi remain unanswered:

Ho-🐝 (9:48): Hey, I’m really proud of you.

Ho-🐝 (9:48): I’m really happy I get to be your packmate. In case you ever worry.

Ho-🐝 (9:49): And your best friend too &lt;3

Ho-🐝 (9:51): Just so you knowwww

The pack has kept you substantially plied with little solutions since your breakdown last week. They haven’t let you rot like usual. They’ve kept your days full of little activities; nothing too extravagant or tiring. Letting you rest when you need to and encouraging you to get outside of your comfort zone when it’s clear you’re giving in.

It comes down to that more often than not; giving in or not giving in.

Not giving in looks like trips back to the beach with Hobi. Like going to the salon with Tae and shopping with Jimin. Or another workout class with Jungkook where you’d spent more of the time lounging on the yoga mat than actually moving your body. But you'd still tenuously agreed to sign up for more classes under the encouragement of Wonho and Jungkook.

And now twice a week, you’ve got a mat to call your own during any classes, in the back, if you decide you want it. Your callender hasn't felt so full in years, it feels strange, to have something to do during the weeks that isn't just scraping the bottom of the barrel and doing house chores. Strange in a good way.

Not all of the pack's solutions aren’t silly but sometimes, silly is a good way to push out the dark.

The morning after your breakdown; you'd watched your pack work, fighting back a flush. Sitting at the kitchen bar stool while Yoongi applied painter’s tape to the floor, not intent on keeping back paint this time, but marking it off for you.

You’re a little bit more determined this morning although your first night without nightmares in a little over a month had kept you in higher spirits. You feel more well-rested than you have in ages.

“You don’t need to- I promise- I’m not going-“ but your requests had fallen on deaf ears. Worry building until Jungkook stood up fast grinning up at you, pupils wide brown pools from getting scented stupid this morning.

(Scented stupid, you'd been scented by the pack too, had struggled a little against it, too shy as Namjoon dragged his throat along yours, squirming until yoongi held you down a little, checking with you each few seconds that you wanted that, that your squirming was really just needing to feel a firm touch, a dominant one.

You will go nowhere until your pack have had their right to you, scenting you up, making your scent gland tender and swollen under their teeths and tongues.

It felt so much better to be made to handle it, each of the pack, even hobi, hovering over you to scent you with their wrists and throats. until you smelled so claimed by them that you couldn't breathe without smelling it- Pack.

Jungkook had pouted until he'd gotten the same treatment, although the omegaspace haze had lasted longer on him than it had on you.

He stands up so fast that his hair fluffs. Catching himself on your leg with a giggle before he topples over. grinning up at you before pressing a sleepy sloppy kiss to your knee and then another to your lips,

“No pup zone!" Omega Space Jungkook can get a little bit ridiculous even at the best of times. He's got a case of the morning omegaspace zoomies as he giggles and nips at your nose. You playfully push at his chest. He doesn't budge.

"Your whole face is a no-pup zone." The dissatisfied pur-chirp he'd let out had sounded half hurt, half encouraged.

Namjoon had eased your discomfort. Pulling you from the stool to lean back against his chest, fingers drumming out a rhythm on your legs as Jungkook huffes into your throat.

Having this failsafe- this rule, does not mean that they think you’re going to fail, these are guard rails to keep you on track. Namjoon looks down at you, his full bottom lip tucked a little, not a pout but close. “This is the easiest solution, if you don’t go near it then maybe, maybe it helps.”

His fingers drum against your skin again, and you lean back into him. Uneasy but willing to let him soothe you.

So yes, you’ve been banned from the kitchen, banned from crossing that line that runs from the edge of the coffee stand and just in front of Tae's library room, to the island and over to the fridge. Unless there is someone else close by. You are not allowed here without supervision.

It’s a simple solution, limiting you from the place that you use to hurt yourself. Never mind the fact that there are dozens if not hundreds of other possible avenues you could use. Your creativity knows no bounds when it comes to pain, but you quiet that part of yourself when the desire for hurt gets loud.

You can’t say it hasn’t helped. But then again, the pack has kept you so busy since your breakdown that you haven't had any time to think of hurting yourself let alone put any plans into action.

Across from you, Dr. Rima waits expectantly.

"It was kind of triggered by this thing that happened."

The tip of her pen bobs a little as she writes. “Could you describe the event to me? Or is that something you're not ready to talk about?" You nod and she waits patiently. It takes you a breath to answer.

“A little less than a month ago one of my packmates and I found a dead body."

You feel a little vindicated at her inhale of breath. Wide eyes that say yes- that is something traumatic, yes, it's fair that it kinda triggered you into a more fragile state.

"It dredged up a lot of feelings about my past. Before that, I was kind of starting to feel s-safe which I haven't like, ever been able to feel."

“And your packmate?"

There is new treacherous wetness balancing on your waterline. “Hobi’s a lot stronger than me, his past and mine are really similar but he just- handles his better. A lot of the time it feels like I learn from him even though he’d tell you the opposite is true. He’s my best friend." Your voice goes quiet, "I love my mate more than I love anyone else, but sometimes- Hobi just- gets me you know?" You go a little misty-eyed. Hands tightening on Hobi's sweatshirt.

“Yet he’s not the one sitting in my chair right now.”

You close your eyes, "he's not."

“For what it’s worth- you can have more than one best friend.” Dr. Rima writes as quickly as she can, taking it down. “How long have you been romantically involved with him? Who came first, your mate or him?”

You jolt forward, “Oh no- we’re not- Hobi and I aren't-" You take a deep breath to clarify. "Everyone else in the pack is together but Hobi and I are just friends. We all have our like… little units?”

"Primary partners." Dr. Rima offers.

"Yeah, that." But even that doesn't really cover it, because while Jin and Namjoon are JinandNamjoon and Jimin and Tae are JiminandTae. Jungkook is everyone's problem (in the best of ways) and you and Tae are something else too. The pack's girls the rest of them would say.

(You and Hobi are, well, YouandHobi.)

It sounds weird to say it once it comes out of your mouth. It makes an odd choked feeling lodge in your throat. Too much hope and too much shame for hoping blooming in your chest.

“I don’t know if I want to talk about him.”

She folds her hands over her knees, setting her pen down. Dr. Rima has chubby hands, disproportionate to her body. They look like they'd be soft.

She reminds you of your mom a little bit.

“That’s okay, we can talk about whatever you want. What you want and need is going to be the focus of our sessions. You’re the pilot here. I’m just here to help you interpret your thoughts and feelings.”

She folds her hands over themselves, setting her pen aside, “Why don’t we talk about the last time you remember feeling safe.”

"Physically or mentally?"

"Either, you can choose."

The rest of the session passes frightfully quickly. You can’t say that you don’t cry again. When you finally talk about Geumjae, her smile quickly dissipates. You talk and talk and talk until your throat is raw. Until you’ve depleted the whole box of her tissues. She shows you she's got more hidden under her desk when you apologize, her secret stash gets a laugh out of you.

“The fact that your pack omega filled out your paperwork isn’t the most unusual, but his preference for daily meetings or every other day is a little bit on the nose for a pack omega, I’m wondering if you share his preference.”

“He’s just overprotective.” She eyes you like Jin has good reason to be. You don’t blush this time, a little more comfortable with Dr. Rima than you were at the beginning of this. “I think maybe more than once a week but not every day.”

“How does Monday- Friday sound?”

~-~

When you walk to the door with Dr. Rima Yoongi stands abruptly from his chair.

You can tell by the shiny edge to his to his scent that he doesn't want to stay here any longer than necessary. He gets the information about your next appointment and then tugs you out the door.

Jins got his legs crossed, fancy leather shoes glinting in the sunlight by the windows. The lobby is buzzing with people coming and going. This building isn't just a therapy office but a collection of other businesses with a few shops and restaurants on the ground floor as well. He looks up and double-takes when he spots you, not standing from his chair, but he opens his arms and you fold yourself along his side, conscious of the other eyes but this.

This you need.

You press your face along the column of Jin's neck, breathing his cream scent in deep.

“Oh pup.”

Your red-rimmed eyes are too obvious and you sniffle wetly, “It was okay, I like Dr. Rima.” He laces your hands together and resists the urge to pester you with questions. Yoongi's hand is still tangled in the hood of your (Hobi's) sweatshirt. Your therapy sessions should be yours and only yours. Yoongi and Jin do not have Dr. patient confidentiality.

And yet the need to know if that helped burns through them. They won't have to wonder for long.

By the coffee stand, Jimin waves and he returns to you when the barista hands over a bag of sweets and a quad of cups. Jin continues scrawling something out for another second before he’s standing and pulling you in for another chaste scent mark.

“Let’s go home.” It's somewhere between an order and a request. But no one disobeys.

On the drive back (37 minutes total) you're a little quiet. You let the sounds of the others be your buffer. You look down at your phone and stare at Hobi’s texts. You respond with just a little heart emoji when you finally still can’t figure out a good response and you're close to home.

Home is its usual conflagration of moving bits and pieces. Each of your packmates is like a shiny cog in a pretty clock, tick tick tick tocking along. Tae and Namjoon are at the table looking through some of the pack’s bills, the pastries and coffee cups litter the table with little piles of powdered sugar and cinnamon. jimin bought enough for the whole pack.

You look at them a little too long, although not because you don't want to eat them. It’s been a while, a few weeks since you’ve made something like that, but every single one of the pastries is something you know how to make. You don’t know why you keep looking at them.

Tae smiles at you, still in the doorway. and it makes you feel a little less like you want to burst into tears. Her voice speaks of the quiet time you have in the library (the tenderness of having someone else do your makeup, another person combing your hair). You hope you'll get some dedicated one-on-one time with her soon.

"Hey little lovely, How was it?"

"She put me through the wringer but I think she got some suds out."

She and Namjoon giggle and you smile small. and you can tell that Namjoon wants to ask you more but he doesn't after a pointed look from your mate. There are footsteps in the hall and before you can move to take off your shoes Hobi is standing in the archway.

Yoongi efficiently strips you of Hobi's sweatshirt with a frustrated huff. It's Kind of like he’s trying to peel away the sadness (your clothes are soaked with your sour scent, rainy and unhappy. Regardless of Jin’s scent mark, you kind of stink).

You might have overheard their words just before you got into the car. Jin's hissed admonishment. “A lot of people cry during therapy Minnie, she’s not in trouble, can’t you smell it?”

Your scent is mellow underneath the memory of your distress, going sweeter by the second. Yoongi wants all memories of your sad scent banished from the house. Hobi stands at the door to the hallway, shifting back and forth, his eyes a little warmer than usual, hands shaking a little bit.

You’ve caught him looking at you a lot since the night he ran away, in the quiet moments when he thinks you’re not noticing. Eyes a shade warmer than usual, a sweetened franticness to his scent. Nervousness and happiness mix like blueberries and whipped cream.

When he pulls up beside you during movie nights and sits thigh to thigh with you. When his hands intertwine with yours over his knee or sometimes or when he pulls your legs sideways across his lap. He looks at you like that when he's doing the small things and he's looking at you like that right now.

You know how love starts, that it starts with the small things.

Hobi resists the urge to open his arms. would you come to him? Would you fold your body along his front so that he could feel your heartbeat? Pressing again and again to the opposite side of his chest with every thump?

He doesn’t say hey, but he does step a little closer. Fingers reaching out. The pad of his index finger slides down the meat of your pinky till it reaches the ball of your wrist. His own special hello.

Your breath hitches, just barely, almost imperceptible if it wasn’t for how close he stands.

A look behind you says Yoongi hasn’t made himself scarce, instead fussing with the pack's coats. Now that it’s getting colder, they don’t all fit by the door. You look behind Hobi and find Namjoon watching the three of you, he raises a singular eyebrow.

“How was it? Bad?” Hobi asks, breaking the silence and the tension, drawing your attention back to him. The next breath you let out is a lot less heavy, and your eyelashes flutter as he steps closer. Hobi smells good, a little earthy, mellowing out his usual sweetness. Sweet for an alpha.

“It was kind of hard, I kinda wanted to run away for a bit at the beginning." You can't keep meeting his eyes with how intensely he's looking at you and they flutter down to his hands. "I almost did.”

"I'm glad you didn't pup." Jin comments, full of reproach, the mirror to you and Hobi as he leans down to press a kiss to Namjoon's forehead. Shucking off his lapelled jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his button-down shirt.

“If you’d have called me, I’d have picked you up. We could still like- run away, if you're down.”

But the house is starting to heat up, and Jin and Yoongi are starting to cook. The light is still honey-yellow happy. And you tip your cheek into his arm. He finally- finally lets his arms settle around your waist.

“Nah, not yet.” You drag out the syllable all playful, and something forbidden stirs in Hobi’s gut. “Jin’s making my favorite tonight. not until later?”

Hobi goes silent, pulls back, biting his lips, eyes flickering from your eyes down. and-

You laugh and Hobi blushes. “Just spit it out.”

Everyone’s been a little bit touchier with you since that night (a little more overbearing too). You won’t immediately chalk Hobi's touchyness up to what you're all thinking. But the affection makes your scent gland feel tender. Zinging when Yoongi steps up behind you and nuzzles into it, huffing again.

Friends can hug each other after therapy right? Hobi swallows thickly and you feel it against your collar bone as he pulls back and steps away from you. “I ugh- got you a present?”

You brighten up instantly, and Hobi's anxiety increases tenfold. A bit of casual mischievousness on the edge of your lips that always have Hobi feeling like he’s being teased even though he knows he isn’t.

“Oh? A present? You’ve never gotten me a present before!”

He kicks at imaginary dust bunnies, fighting back what he knows is a noticeable flush. “I ugh- still owe you, from the car you know and honestly it's not even like a big gift it's like- so small in comparison and-”

Yoongi huffs and continues to disrobe you. Pulling your sweater over your head when he’s not satisfied that your unhappy scent has dissipated. Muttering something like. “hopeless alpha” under his breath. Your tank top pulls up, inches of your hip and skin on display. It's nothing that Hobi hasn't seen before and yet the blush reignites. The sunshine to your morning glory.

“I guess you're right.” But it doesn’t feel like it. Hobi doesn’t owe you anything for that, not when it was so easy to give. Not when you’ve gotten so many late-night drives from that gift.

Hoseok got the idea for your courting gift, one morning while watching you say goodbye to Namjoon:

The pack alpha has always been a fan of goodbye kisses, good morning, and goodnight kisses too. The particular kiss that morning had ‘I’ll miss you’ written all over it. It was so pretty in the way that you lingered, arms around Namjoon’s neck. His hand is underneath your shirt on the small of your back. Such a small touch and yet so gently possessive that it had Hobi aching to see it.

Hobi is unfortunately prone to jealousy and it turns the back of his neck hot. Makes his hands feel oddly tender. He's distracted by the visual, the task of packing up his work bag forgotten. Hoseok’s shift at the flower shop doesn’t start for another few hours, and he’s waiting, watching, an unhappy voyeur.

You and Namjoon have quite the height difference, if he was in between the two of you he’d be the perfect middle ground. That’s just another stupid thought, another stupid thought in the countless number of stupid thoughts that he’s had. (I like my alphas a little pathetic, and nothing's more pathetic than an alpha pining after an omega.)

He grumbles.

Yoongi prattles on, more awake than all of them as he outlines what you have to do today to make progress on the house- which is to go find a place that sells cheaper tile than the ones you first thought of using in the bathroom on the first floor. And maybe change it up a little.

The bathrooms escaped the renovations somehow, and a few nights ago- Jimin had admitted how much they actually use it even though it’s not the pack's primary bathroom anymore. Now that it’s not in use, they’re more willing to part with it for a few days for some very necessary re-styling. it toes the line from vintage to old a little too hard. The yellow is a little…yellow.

Yoongi wants to go light and airy with the color scheme, like he did with the upstairs bathroom and it's seafoam and brown tones. But like with most of the house, your vote is for colorful. “How about a light blue-” Yoongi continues to argue while you kiss Namjoon a little senseless in the doorway, at least Namjoon seems properly dazed, chasing your lips when you pull apart.

“No- we don’t have a room that’s magenta yet!”

This starts the same argument as always; “We can’t make every room in this house pink for Tae.”

But goodbyes take precedence, and when you turn back and smile at Hobi he flushes, shy to be caught looking. He moves, stepping around you and Namjoon to put his water bottle into his bag when you shout, “Stop, Seokie!”

Seokie is a new nickname, one that Jin only uses in the quietest of moments that you've somehow adopted when you don't want to call him Hobi. Hobi always thought that if you’d use any other nickname with him- you’d use daisy (he might want you and yoongi to share that pet name). But he’s a good pup and stops what he’s doing. Every atom in his body every electron no longer circulates neutrons but circulates you instead. Pulled in by your gravity.

You’ve moved so suddenly that you’ve spilled a bit of your coffee onto the floor. Maybe kissing Namjoon has left you feeling a little dizzy too. Yoongi just sighs fondly and wipes it up. Jimin looks up from his phone, smiling when he sees.

“You’ve got a rainbow on your cheek.”

It’s a trick of the light, early morning sunshine refracted through the mottled window just right to cast a single rainbow on the wall and on Hobi when he steps in front of it.

You cup his cheek, finger skimming across where the rainbow sits.

"Pretty."

Hobi feels hot all over.

At Tae’s call of, “If I have to do my eyeliner one more time I’m going to scream!” You giggle and dart away from him. Going to tend to Tae with a soft reply of "I've got you baby."

Hoseok is left, blushing in the morning light. Staying still like you might come by and cup his cheek again, Like a flower staying still in the hope of pollination.

Hobi is left, wanting to scream and somehow demand you back, both would be fair. His plight isn't missed by his packmates, who lean in like a set of jackals, grinning ear to ear at hobi's flustered predicament.

She's going to send him into rut if she's not careful Jin thinks, but doesn't say. instead he teases, “You’ve got to leave in the next ten-minute Hobi.”

Only then does Hoseok move- released from his spell and finally losing the rainbow on his cheeks though they might as well have stayed with how happy and warm he feels. How absolutely incandescent the love is glowing in his chest. A full spectrum of feelings, longing for you to come back.

He almost trips over noodle, darting after you with his tail raised high, catching himself on the edge of the couch at the last second, one shoe on and one off, his water bottle falling and spilling in the process.

yoongi sighs, and stoops to wipe it up. Jimin giggles and pulls Hobi up by his hips, the alpha's fingers feel hot where they've touched him, scalding. “What’s wrong, omega got your tongue?” yoongi returns to his breakfast, throwing the wad of soggy paper towels into the trash.

Jungkook laughs, “It’s more like he wants an omega to have his tongue in her-“

“You guys are gross,” He pushes at Jimin’s shoulder finally moving right. Yoongi hides his smile in a mouthful of Captain Crunch.

Hobi doesn’t think about the rainbows again until his next afternoon shift. When the low angle of the autumn sun cuts through the windows and catches the suncatchers that they hang in the doorway of the flower shop and cast more rainbows- dozens of them really across him and the flower.

He remembers when you came to visit, how you'd lingered over them, looked at them a second longer than you looked at the plants.

It’s a bit of a kitschy display. Other polished stones and nick nacks sitting on the deep shelf along with some smaller potted plants. A little tray of rose-quartz stones falsely advertises themselves as ‘heat reducers.’

The colors start to blend, and the rainbows sway softly in the light, gentle and pretty. He snaps a photo and thinks about sending it to you, but doesn’t.

The store is blissfully empty of Hobi's coworkers when he selects three of them. It's quiet when he packages them in tissue paper, one with a huge pink stained-glass moon at the top, another with three tiers. Each of them is delicate and pretty in their own right. No one’s bought a single one of them in the last three months anyway. They'll hardly be missed. Hobi gives himself a fat employee discount.

Hobi is unfortunately bad at hiding things, especially when he's nervous. Luckily the pack alpha doesn’t have it in him to tease. Namjoon had in fact been only too encouraging and given him a pep talk just this morning about courting and courting presents.

“The worst that can happen is that she doesn’t like it- and then you just have to try again which you were already planning on doing anyway.” Namjoon is quite simply the best at courting. It doesn't matter which subgender; alphas, beta’s, and omegas have all fallen under his touch. At least Hoseok has the opportunity to learn from a professional. Somehow the thought that you'd compare him to namjoon doesn't cross his mind.

Hoseok isn’t good at the romantic gestures that courting necessitates. He’s more of the ‘there when you need him’ kind of lover. Ready to make the small changes to make his loved ones' lives more manageable. Ready with his car keys for adventures. Those parts are easy, this is out of his depth.

Especially when it comes to you. Even After the love confessions, (are confessions still confessions if they’re so internal?) Hobi feels mostly unmoored. About to shatter upon unknown shores.

God, crushes are so frustrating (in the best kind of way, the way that keeps you sighing and daydreaming, the kind of way that makes you look in the mirror a little longer).

Tae helped him half an hour before she started on the pack's paperwork. They'd spent an hour deciding which places were best to hang them to get the greatest number of rainbows. She had even fussed with his hair a little to make it lie right. Having him hop up on the couch so she could see Hobi's face from your angle.

Hobi wanted to make sure there were at least one or two rainbows when he shows you. But when he leads you to the sunroom, his hands over your eyes (the same position you found yourself in when Namjoon surprised you with the nesting pod) there are more of them than there were when he set them up, whole constellations swaying softly.

The suncatchers are pretty and twinkly sparkly in the golden hour light, and your lips part in a simple show of awe when Hobi tells you you can open your eyes. It's so bright, they send dozens of little rainbows across the walls and your nesting pod. Over the white couch and the fig in the corner.

It’s very very pretty. and when you turn back to look a thim, Hobi once again has a rainbow on his cheek.

Your eyes twinkle, but you don't say anything. you stay quiet for long enough that Hobi gets nervous. his anxiety makes him talk fast. “I hung them here- but you can put them wherever you want- in the kitchen or upstairs or I can get you more for any places you want to put them- or- or- ”

You just about tackle him, arms looping around his neck resting your weight in his arms that instinctively grip around your waist. Hobi teeters, unsteady with such a heavy heart, toppling both of you onto the couch as you cry. "I love it!"

You’re sprawled not lying across him but his hand goes out to support the way you cling and rub your face into his chest, a happy little chirp slipping past your lips.

The wild thing in Hobi’s chest settles, settles, and curls around you. Tight and protective like a vice. You pull back, and your smile is just as bright.

Hobi sags, and rests his neck back against the couch, "Good- thank fucking god- I was so fucking nervous-" You fiddle with the buttons on his flannel, it's one of Yoongi's. It seems fitting that you steal his clothes and he steals Yoongi's.

"What brought all this on?"

Hobi doesn't have a good answer, in the quiet with the rainbows, or at least an answer he's ready for. He doesn't say that this is a courting present, and he doesn't need to because instead of answering your question- he replies with one of his own.

“Wanna go for a drive later?” he asks, voice tremulous like he thinks you might refuse him. You’ve never said no to him before, never said not tonight only not right now. Do you treasure our little talks the same way I do?

“Sure, after dinner? like I said? Just-" You lean back against his chest, and Hobi’s hands go tight tight tight around your waist. Holding you close. Clingy. He does not slip his hand under your shirt to cup the side of your hip the way that Namjoon might, but the thought crosses his mind.

Hobi is a good alpha, he won't cross that line until you tell him it's okay. Until then a thin layer of fabric separates his skin from yours. You're still warm to the couch.

“Sit and watch them with me?” You ask quietly. Almost shy, like you think he’d refuse you. He nods and the two of you sit on the couch to look at the rainbows together.

Eventually, Noodle finds the two of you, meowing and hopping up to stretch out along your thighs. Worming his way between the two of you.

The rainbows don't last forever, but Hobi sits with you until they fade.

~-~

Tae’s library is just like every public library:

Tall windows, wide quiet shelves with room for the stories to breathe. A colorful young adult section and an even more colorful kid’s section. A bit aways from the tables and computers so that any over-excited pups don’t disturb the adults. Big deep beanbags for small children to cuddle up to while they ponder fairy tales and adventures only a plastic-covered book away.

Tae’s long plaid skirt barely makes a whisper along the ground. The colder weather has allowed her to live all of her cottage core fantasies, her dark academia aesthetic truly flourishing. Her shirt is a little translucent today, and the fading summer tan of her skin pokes through it in spots where her tank top doesn't hide. Pretty long earrings dangle and clink in the quiet while she works on her shelving.

Wearing her chosen clothing items at work has been a bit of a work in progress.

Most of Tae’s coworkers approve of her transition in that overly willing-to-be-an-ally way that middle-aged women who generally consider themselves progressive outside of closed doors all do. And the ones that don’t approve have swallowed their words with lingering sour eyes and raised upper lips after the general receptiveness to Tae’s social transition.

It's hard to know who's genuine with it, who just doesn't want to cause a fuss, and who just doesn't give a shit. But most of the time her outfits get one or two compliments and thats it. Tae would rather them say nothing than anything negitive.

Tae likes the quiet of the library at this time of day, the silence gives her enough room to let her imagination wander. Tae likes to file away books in mid-morning, when there are fewer people around and her humming is less likely to disturb any of the library’s patrons. She sings to the stories and they sing back, tempting her with every well-worded title and delicately chaste summary.

But she doesn’t just think about stories or the book she's writing (her book is currently giving her hell on the 30th chapter) No. Today- there is a much more interesting love story blooming in her head, in the pack's den too.

She’s been thinking about you all morning (Tae thinks about you almost every morning) there are even little poems scrawled on the edge of her newspaper. Lines that are you and a bit of Hobi too.

I wished that I might be your hair clip / to know what it feels like / to be pressed against the nape of your neck/ To be your suntan/ perched on the edge/ of what you show everyone and what you show no one/ To be the bearer of every freckle/ like the sky holds the stars/ To hold and never let go/ Like birds hold sunshine / and flowers hold songs.

Everyone had noticed of course, how much time you and Hobi have been spending together.

The pack had even talked about it during a quiet moment without you and Hobi. Yoongi’s lack of communication regarding you and Hobi. “I don’t know anything” he’d unsuccessfully lied, and nearly been heaved up and wrestled to the couch as a result. But Jungkook’s puppy eyes had unsuccessfully endeared him.

Yoongi has kept Hobi's secret, but it's kind of hard not to notice. Tae isn't a fool. Tae is a much better liar than Yoongi is- because when you'd come to her after your late-night drive to gush with her about Hobi and the rainbows over makeup. She hadn't said anything about what she knows.

Tae couldn’t tell you how many times she’d noticed little touches, Hobi’s hand lingering on the small of your back, grabbing your waist when he moved behind you in the bathroom. When he take the greatest care to set out his sweatshirts in the morning and even asks Jungkook to make sure they’re clean. They’re practically not even his sweatshirts anymore with the amount you’ve been wearing them.

Tae isn’t an idiot, she knows that Hobi’s finally realized it. While she doesn’t trust herself to play matchmaker given how poorly the first time she pointed out Hobi’s attraction went. that doesn’t mean she’s not going to park herself firmly on the edge of her fantasy land with a box of popcorn.

If they were gonna get married, would Hobi wear a red tux or black or grey? Her brain is already thinking of wedding dresses. One of these days she’s really going to have to make a Pinterest board. Hobi would probably want to do sunflowers, and that might clash with the red unless it was a fall wedding- ooh, and what about pearl details and daisies? a beach wedding might be a little too on the nose for you.

Tae is so absorbed with her shelving and her daydreaming that she doesn’t notice the sound of small shoes on the carpeted floor. Nor does she notice the light-up flash of tiny iorn man sneakers. Her musings are easily interrupted by a small tug on her skirt, shy almost. She startles a little, looking down at the sudden touch.

The little pup's thumb is wet from where it was clearly placed behind their bucked teeth. He's got wide brown eyes and soft-looking hair, Tae can't stop the smile that comes to her lips.

“I wanted to read a book but I couldn’t reach, can you help me? Please?”

Tae’s heart swells as she leans down to the pup's level. “Of course, I can! Why don’t you show me what one you wanted,” diligently Tae follows the little one a few isles over, tugged along by their insistent pulling as he tells her about the pretty cover.

The little pup turns back, furrowing his bushy brows up at Tae, “are you a princess?” he asks. Tae almost has to laugh, a bright happy gender euphoric feeling filling her chest, that feeling of I could be filling her.

She makes her whisper just a little more hushed, playing along, “Don’t tell anyone okay? It's a secret.” The little pup nods, eyes darting around like there are dragons that would threaten her.

“What gave me away?”

“Princesses wear long skirts!” the pup says cheerfully, like it makes the most sense in the world. He's a little too loud and Tae winces. He finally finds the shelve with the story. The spine glimmers pink and gold and Tae is unsurprised to find the illustrated copy of Cinderella. Not the Disney or PJ version, but the Brothers Grimm version.

Tae cringes at the pair of doves on the cover.

Tae doesn’t say that the little pup is too small to read a book so big, or that there is one with more pictures much more appropriate away from the young adult section. The child can’t be more than 6 years old.

But still, Tae retrieves it and delivers it to their waiting arms. The little one clutches it to his chest, thanks Tae, and then promptly plops themselves onto the carpeted floor right there.

He opens the first page, huffs, and then looks up at her imploringly.

“I just realized I can’t read.”

He pouts and Tae melts. Tae wonders where the pup's mother is, but really, there certainly can't be much harm in this. This isn't the first time Tae has been guilted into reading a story to a pup while their parents work or make use of the library's computers.

"Just the first page.” She intones, caution for the child’s hopes in her voice, she presses her skirt under her knees and sits on the scratchy carpet. The pup curls close to see the pictures. Resting his tiny chubby cheek in the billow of Tae’s big puffy sleeve.

Tae's chest is all tight as she reads. The pup is very well-behaved, he pauses, and asks questions in a soft voice only when Tae gives him space to respond. Tae easily ommits the parts that aren't appropriate. but tae finds herself watching the pup a little bit more as the minutes stretch.

In a few years with your own little ones around, will Tae become the defacto bedtime story reader? Will she do this with the pack's pups one day? Will she be the one to take that bright little light in their eyes that imagines things as greater and more and cultivate it? Her cheeks feel warm at the prospect, heart beating like a hummingbird's wings in excitement.

Your pups and Jin's pups too- they're gonna be so loved. Tae's gonna be the best mom to them, The best alpha too.

One page turns into two and then three. In this quiet corner with only Tae’s voice as ruler and god, the little pup hinges on every word. Until there’s another voice close by. An adult not wishing to be loud, a whispered name.

“Jae?”

Tae smiles up at the woman at the end of the aisle of books. Her smile turns sweeter when Jae hops up and runs to press his face into her jeaned thighs. Tae remembers how that felt, how every scent besides Tae’s own omega mother felt overwhelming and icky.

Tae stands with a crack of her knees and makes to hand over the book, “This makes a great bedtime story until about chapter 8, that one you might want to skip until he’s a little older.”

The woman makes to smile, but it only goes so far. Tae watches in perfect detail, everything in slow motion, as her eyes flicker down to Tae’s Addams apple.

She drags her child close by their wrist quicker than Tae can blink. Tae sees the moment that the child realizes this touch isn’t gentle, wide eyes going fear-stricken as he's tugged behind her back. And then it's all downhill from there.

I'll spare you the more vile bits.

But the saddest moment of the argument that follows (Which involves not one but three of Tae's co-workers to calm down the hysterical woman whose screeches echo around the quiet library) is when the pup tries to get his mother's attention. "Mom, I liked that she was reading to me."

"He" the certified Karen hisses, moving in a way that makes the pup flinch back. "-should know better than to corrupt a pup with such- such-" her eyes dart down and up, and Tae's skin burns. "Disgusting behavior."

The misgendering doesn't even sting. What does hurt is the eyes peering in. She isn't being quiet and it's causing many of the library's patrons' attention is diverted. Tae's coworkers have put themselves between Tae and the woman. But there still aren't enough people (enough packmates) in between her and the verbal tirade.

An hour later, after the woman has left after threatening to call the police, Tae talks with his boss and his boss’s boss. The room behind the front desk is glass, and he knows that the door doesn’t keep the sound of their raised voice out.

“I wasn’t harassing her child; I was just helping him find a book for Christ sake!”

The worst part is that this isn’t the first time that this has happened. No- since Tae came out there have been two other complaints leveled against her from bigoted patrons. Both right at the beginning before she got the hang of presenting how she wanted to.

At least those confrontations weren’t face-to-face. At least those complaints didn’t end with someone threatening to call the police and a pup cowering, tugged along too roughly out the door.

The little pup had glanced back at Tae, mouth in pout, eyes swimming with tears.

Even if the woman felt righteous in her anger, the least she could have done was not yell in front of the pup. Tae promises herself right then and there, that she'll never raise her voice in front of the pack's pups, not in anger.

The book has stayed on the counter at the front. Pink and gold and treacherous. Tae hopes that if anything, the pup finds it and reads the ending one day. Stories have a way of finding us, even when the world makes us let them go.

Now in the back room behind the check-out counter. Tae’s boss levels her with an expectant look, the kind that people give when they don’t want to be transphobic not really- it’s just so hard for them not to, so learned. Tae is the nail that sticks up. It’s bullshit really. Tae can tell it's bullshit before she opens her mouth.

“Really? He asked for Cinderella?”

“Yes.” Tae’s biting tone is an alpha’s tone, not a man’s, and yet she knows how it sounds.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I’m not lying.” Is Tae supposed to only help some children find the books they want? Is she supposed to look at them and make her best guess if they’ve got homophobic parents and skip them over? It’s not her fault that the sweet sweet pup’s parent was a bigot.

“I can’t help but feel like- you’ve got a personal agenda-“

"Charlie-" the district manager cautions.

Tae can’t stop herself from snapping, alpha anger sparking with the intent to burn. “Little boys should be allowed to read Cinderella if they want to” Rats and all. Her hands are shaking, and it isn’t missed by them. The room smells thick with Tae’s spicy cinnamon anger.

The district manager sets her hand on Tae's shoulder, and her anger ebbs just a little. “I think maybe you should go home a little early today, just to cool off. We can talk about it more tomorrow.”

Tae doesn’t want to go home early, Tae doesn’t want to go home at all as she packs up her books. Her bag lighter than usual, absent of the stories that she wants to take home. For once there aren’t any that she wants to read.

She walks to the train station because Jimin won’t be off work for another 2 hours and that’s when he’d usually pick her up, the last three days he’s gotten her flowers too; white roses the first day, pink the second, and red the third. She sends him a text.

Tae <3 (1:48): I left work early today, you don’t have to pick me up, I’ll get an Uber home.

Mini-alpha (1:49):!!!!!

Mini-alpha (1:49): What happened? Are you sure you don’t want me to pick you up? I can leave now.

Tae sighs, looking down at her phone while she waits for the crosswalk light to come on. Red still, green in a few seconds, she only has to wait. She can practically feel Jimin's nervous energy through the phone. it's a wonder he doesn't immediately call her.

It makes her soft. It isn't in Jimin's nature to give any of his lovers any space but he always makes an effort when it comes to her.

Tae <3 (1:53): No. It’s fine. I’ll talk to you when you get home.

Tae doesn’t want to talk to Jimin about transphobia again. At least not yet. It’s too much energy. It’s not that Tae doesn’t want to make what happened during Namjoon’s rut better. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk about it- it’s just that there’s nothing to talk about, the explanation of his actions are such a burden for Tae to bear. And Tae trusts that Jimin’s heart is in the right place even if he makes mistakes. And even telling Jimin off, yelling at him, wouldn’t change it.

Either one day Tae will not have to deal with bigoted parents, either one day she’ll pass and won’t have to worry, or she'll always be in this awkward middle ground.

Trans people are like toupees, you only notice them when there’s something off, something a little misplaced about them. Tae fears that most of all. Femininity, as much as she wants it, as much as it's hers to take, what if it won't ever fit right? What if she never passes?

Tae loves her job at the library, it’s the perfect mix of boring and safe and easy even if it doesn’t pay enough. But even as she's gained things like skirts and puffy sleeves, she's exchanged them for days like today. Really, the library was her favorite place before today and now, every step away from it makes her feel a little lighter. She's not even angry anymore, just exhausted mentally.

Tae decides to walk home at least she’s in her most conservative channel flats, they could use a little bit more wear and love and Tae’s thoughts are still too sharp. She dulls them to a palatable edge that all falls apart when she gets home.

You’re there, thank fucking god you’re always there when she gets home. You’ll always be Tae’s comfort person.

Tae opens the door with a creek and push of cold air, you're saying something to Yoongi turning with a toss of your hair, eyes brightening when you see her before you've even said her name.

You look a little healthier today, with a little bit more of a rosy glow to your cheeks and a healthy brightness to your eyes, not all glassy.

"Tae! You're home early!"

Tae will never stop being proud of how hard you try, and will never stop being a bit envious either because Tae-

Tae looks at you and wilts, bag flopping onto the floor, and predictably burst into tears.

"Oh- oh Tae."

"Baby girl-"

You and Yoongi are just about the best security blanket a packmate could ask for. You're so good as you pull her down to your level so you can kiss away her tears, maneuvering her like a perfect team onto the couch. Yoongi's strong hands slide off her shoes. Yoongi's fingers digging into her sore heel as you kiss away her every tear.

A substantial amount of babying and a Sos packmate in distress text later, and Tae is reclining across a freshly fluffed nest, the muscles in her body relaxed. The blisters on the back of her feet are bandaged and kissed. Every inch of her body is too.

You don't talk about it until after the pack's facemasks are finished, and hobi's clear coat has dried over the tiny nail sticker that you left. a small bumblebee.

Your skin smells sweet after a long long bath full of fancy bath bombs. Jinnie had also rubbed oil onto her freshly shaven legs. You helped, dragging it along oh so carefully to not nick her skin. Ending each pass with a kiss to her ankle and then upper thigh.

Tae’s head is in your lap now, cheek pressed against your (slightly chubbier) thighs. Her sniffles the background music as Tae gives her final recap of what happened.

Your nose gets a wrinkle in it when you go cross. "There's so much meanness to the world, I hate how people have to add to it."

Jimin’s anger leaves an undercurrent in the air, dragging the other alphas along, Hobi’s hands are strong where they dig into Tae’s shoulders, belly down in the nest while you play with her hair, braiding it back and forth. The attention makes her feel a little tingly.

“Do you know what her name was? Did you get a look at her car-“ Jimin asks, nearly barking. The library has cameras. Jimin knows it does.

Jin sets a hand on the back of his neck, a scruff threatening. “Down pup. Tae doesn’t need you to track them down.” Jimin’s teeth look particularly sharp in the light. For a face so soft he has quite the mouth on him.

“They made her sad,” he growls, but it's softer, more pointed as he crouches over her.

Namjoon’s quiet voice unlocks the whole world's worries, massaging gently down the column of Tae’s delicate neck, rough hands, worn tender touching her regardless. Namjoon is rarely ever so pointed, but it's logical, from an alpha's perspective, Tae knows what he hints.

"I think that if your bosses aren't going to protect you from people like that, then I want you to leave your job." Jin gives him a look like, 'Now you know where I'm coming from' but Tae's the important packmate right now.

Tae rolls Namjoon's words around her tongue, her hand loosely twined with his. Namjoon has the steadiest hands out of everyone in the pack and a few minutes ago he repurposed his surgery skills to do her nails. Took off the chipped red and re-did them because Namjoon knows she feels best when her claws are polished. He checks them now. Tapping them lightly to not smudge them.

It's a girl's night, the first girl's night you've ever had with the whole pack. Tae's face is still glossy from the face mask.

“I don’t think I want to quit; I don’t think that would help at all that’s not going to like- solve the world and all its issues.”

“No, but- if it’s making you more sad than happy. Then maybe it’s worth considering.”

Tae knows Namjoon’s not saying that she doesn’t make enough to affect the pack's finances, but that's still the truth. Hobi pulls himself along her other side and you watch him with heavy-lidded eyes.

Hobi presses a kiss to Tae's temple, “All you want to do is write every day anyways, and we just want you to be happy,” 6 heads nod their agreement.

Hobi isn't wrong; The last four weekends in a row Tae has woken up several hours earlier than the pack would usually stir from morning cuddles, just to get a few hours of uninterrupted writing done. She’s also spent nearly every night in her library room, staying up late after the pack has retired upstairs until one of you comes down and wrangles her upstairs. The pack's prettiest alpha needs her beauty sleep.

But is it enough to count on? Is it worth quitting her job over?

You duck down low, kissing the same spot Hobi did, your lips touching just a Tae away. a heavy breath wooshes out of her chest. "Yeah why wouldn't we want you to quit? If you're always here then I can always do this."

Your kiss is gentle, and it tastes like belonging more than Tae would ever be able to write, to describe. A love that makes you feel like you belong is a rare thing. And Tae's hand goes up to tangle in your hair, keeping you there for just a shared breath longer.

The next breath tastes a bit like freedom. It's scary to be free.

(But Tae leaves her 2 weeks' notice on her boss’s desk before the end of the next work day, and she doesn't feel bad about it one bit).

~-~

(1 year prior)

Maybe the truth is that the reason why you don’t feel you deserve agency is because you know what your agency looks like. The choices you’re willing to make when it comes down to it.

The secrets you tell and the lies you have buried deep in your pocket like one of Hobi’s found things. Something you can’t get rid of and cast back into the ocean. No matter how hard you try. There is something about murder that sticks, that stays no matter how many times you try to wash your hands of it.

It's not guilt, because you don't feel guilty for what you had to do.

Being backed into a corner can make someone do a whole hell of alot of monstrous things. And back then Life was monotonous. Back then there was Anguish without change.

Your life went like this: Go home. Get beaten. Get hurt. Get Raped. Wake up. Meet up with Hyejin. Make poison. Make pastries. Go to the Don’s house. Feed it to them. Listen to Moonbyul tell you to wait. Go home. Get beaten again and again. Get raped every night. On and on and on.

Clean up your blood from the tiles. Clean it from the carpet. Hydrogen peroxide and not bleach. Cover the bruises up with color corrector first before you put concealer over them.

Smile and tell everyone that your husband and you are perfectly happy. There will be a pup on the way soon enough, I'm so lucky to have someone who supports me, and I'm so lucky to have a love like this.

Go home. Get beaten. Get hurt. Get Raped. Go to sleep and don't cry because then he'll beat you for keeping him awake.

In the darkness that curls around you. Blood going tacky between your legs, you start to dream of wicked sweet things.

What you've been through would be enough to make anyone go crazy, Enough to make anyone consider drastic action. Enough to make anyone consider murder.

Enough for you to slide a pair of small syringes off of Moonbyul’s night desk and a small packet of arsenic too. You know how to make a simple syrup. You know how to mix in arsenic to it, how to make it liquid soluble without breathing it in.

You make it in the fine china and break it after so that you can throw it out without worrying. You get a beating for it but you hardly feel it when Geumjae drags you across the floor by your hair. It hardly breaks your heart when he steps on your ribcage with the intent to break bones because you know what you have to do.

After, with your own blood on your teeth, you make sure to leave it in the bottom of the trash, and ask the cleaning staff not to take it out yet. They're supposed to find it.

You don't care if you die, you just want to make sure the necessary villains are punished. When it comes to blame the person who is most to blame is you anyway. You are simply numb to pain, numb to your own anguish. Numb to the idea of your own death too. Geumjae's already killed you in every way that matters.

Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite; give a girl an enemy and she'll do dangerous things.

Your meetings with the Don and beta always go the same; gossip, and greetings. Sometimes when you come bearing bruises, they tell you to wait just a little longer.

Go home. Get beaten. Get hurt. Get Raped. Wake up. Just give it time for his temper to settle. Once you're mated it will get better.

Even Moonbyul and Hyejin tell you that planning the perfect crime takes time. That you'll be saved if you only wait. Help is coming.

Bullshit.

You’re tired of waiting for him to kill you, you're tired of waiting to die. You're smarter than all of them because you know exactly how to get everything you want and you're willing to do anything to get it.

The next time Moonbyul and Hyejin take you to the Don and Beta’s house under the guise of afternoon tea, you are prepared for war and dressed with revenge in mind. Your white dress knotted at the shoulders falling in a heavenly sheet, like an avenging angel, neither pious nor sinful.

You are a force of nature and nature does not ask when it takes lives.

What’s worse; the people that enable the abusers or the abusers themselves? Who is more to blame for the pain caused?

You are no longer hiding and you won't let them hide this time. The bruise on your cheek is purple and mottled, the rings of bruises on your wrists from his hands while he held you down.

When you smiled at Geumjae over breakfast this morning, there was only one thought in your mind.

You’re next.

Your agency looks like this; elegantly done hair your skirt a little short for fall. A basket of arsenic-backed goods in a basket as is usual. Fluffy pink cupcakes with the perfect Swiss meringue buttercream in little spirals.

A gentle smile at the beta when she opens her doors for you, letting the monster in, because you’ve been over enough times that she trusts you. You suppose that's your doing too, you've fooled her into thinking you're just another idiot girl who decided to marry rich and didn't bother to consider the strings attached. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, you bare your teeth when you smile.

Hyejin has helped on that front; over the past few months, she has taught you exactly the kind of conversation that the beta likes- the useless conversations about family drama, the small little bits that you let through about your husband’s opinion on which pup is marrying whom, which alpha is good or bad for the packs near dozen omega pups that aren’t mated yet. Which alphas are likely to be a liability? This kind of gossip is all information and strategy.

You might have lied in your call to her and told her you were fearful of one of the younger ones- and a conversation you’d happened to witness on a street corner, a shadowy figure that looked a little too severe not to be the authorities. Of course, these kinds of things have to be handled with discretion and ginseng tea.

The Don does not bother to turn down the TV when you walk in, sitting vulnerable in his recliner with his feet up. It doesn’t appear that he has any sort of inclination or plans to interact with you when you sit here at his kitchen table and talk. Instead, he lounges and watches his sports, loud because his hearing is so bad, nearly deafening.

It’s good. hopefully anyone nearby will not overhear.

You hope that if this goes south before you have a chance to confess that they find the letter you wrote at home; the one that says your husband is the one that put you up to this.

You know that the pack’s retribution will be swift, that any sort of alibi he has will be null and void with the evidence you’ve been leaving. A little trail of breadcrumbs that leads right into a pretty little grave for your husband. Even if you won't be around to see it.

You're already a friend of pain. You already find comfort in it. If they kill you (which they will) then at least it will finally be over.

You wait until the moment you know is coming, when the Don looks over his shoulder at you and comands “Be a dear and bring me one.”

You put one of your artfully created confections on a pretty gold-rimed plate and walk to his side, you lean over to put it in his lap as he indicates. the same way he does every time you come over with sweets.

The lingering hand on your ass is hardly abnormal. behind you the beta's tea cup clinks as she sets her tea down and says nothing. even though you know she notices.

He’s so busy coping a feel he doesn’t notice your other hand, going to the syringe duck taped to your thigh.

It happens quicker than the Don can blink. The most powerful man in the underworld can't be bothered to protect his life for a pretty little piece of ass. You smile down at him, and his hand squeezes the round apple of your behind.

His hand is still on your ass when you whip your arm around with as much force as you can and drive the syringe and plunger into his neck.

You must have hit something in his neck because he barely has a second to splutter before he’s going still and quiet. Mouth falling horrifyingly slack. His breath rattles and his eyes dart as his whole body is paralyzed near instantly, in the time it takes for his blood to circulate.

Two paces, swing, plunge.

The beta barely has a second to scream or stand to attack you. You are so much younger than they are. Your body might be fragile and frail but It’s still stronger than hers. Her brief scream is easily drowned out by the scratch of the TV.

She ends up on the floor, the icing on the cupcakes sticky as she falls into half of them, tossed onto the floor by your brief tussle as you straddle her struggling form. Her pushing gets weaker and weaker and she sobs.

It doesn’t surprise you when you see the black tracery of a dying mating mark itching up her skin.

One thing that the family had always been oh so careful of was to talk only in their mother tongue around you. Secrets are best kept when they’re spoken in foreign tongues. It was a way to isolate you. To make them speak English for you to understand felt like a beholden request. At one point It was a point of insecurity for you, always left out of the loop, always relying on your husband to keep you in the know.

You bend over her as her pushing gets weaker and weaker, the arsenic doing its job, causing numbness and the tingling of extremities before it causes paralysis and then coma and death. Your hair falls in a sheet over the beta’s face.

You’ve studied much over the last few months. Enough that you lean in close over her and speak your words in perfect Korean.

“You look so angry,” you croon softly, dragging a finger down her cheek. Spittle froths at her mouth as she breathes heavily. “You shouldn’t- if you want someone to blame you only need to look in the mirror.”

You lean in close until your lips brush her ear, “it's your fault you see- you're the one who lied" you mimic her voice, making it scratchy, "'just wait a little longer, it will be better for the family if you stay quiet." you laugh, "as if that where true, the only person it benefits is you. You where ready to let him hurt me and kill me if i just stayed quiet."

You wipe away a bit of spit from her lower lip, "You always told me how it was your duty to protect the family- but you only serve yourself. If you'd have done something, if you'd have helped me I wouldn't have had to do this. You just wanted me to shut up and die quietly.”

You switch back to English, “Well now it’s your turn.”

You watch her tongue go numb, paralyzed, but the poison hasn’t advanced far enough for her not to speak.

“Fucking- worthless bitch.”

You laugh and stand brushing some crumbs from your skirt. She’s already too weak to move, to shout, or fight you. You watch the light start to leave her eyes, winking out so slowly, like a dying star. But she still looks so pissed.

“You don’t have a right to be angry, you killed me first. You can’t blame me for fighting back.”

She gives her last breath and the TV plays on. Your shoe ticks her hand, her fingers twitching weakly. You watch as she gasps her last breath, a small smile on your face.

You sit at the table and turn the TV down. You wait a few minutes, but it quickly becomes an hour. You have yourself a nice little treat while you watch, turning the channel to a food network while you eat.

You really are a fantastic cook. The crumb on this batch is so nice you don’t even taste the metallic tang of poison. You eat through one, and then another, until the whole basket is empty.

Before you know it there is a concerned knock at the door. The lock clicks and turns when you answer it.

When Moonbyul opens the door, you laugh at the expression on her face. Licking the frosting from your lips. Even that is delicious.

She takes in their bodies, crumpled on the floor the frosting on your cheeks. The evidence. Both of them dying. A violence you cannot undo.

Her voice is somber. “Oh Pup, what have you done?”

~-~

Please Like, Comment, and Reblog <3 every word helps motivate me to write the next chapter!

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Come tell me what you liked about this chapter!

~-~

Notes:

this chapter is a very classic bily chapter, in the fact that there is a fuck ton of fluff and then bang the mafia bits just take you out. we needed to get back into the mafia bits of the story sooner rather than later though 💀

i felt like i was going a little too over the top with certain bits of puptalk in this chapter, but i really wanted to use it to show that like yeah- the pack has been treating her alot more gently since her breakdown, they've been babbying the fuck out of her, even if we don't get to see it :(

Hobi's texts are so???? Fucking cute?? He's so hopeless my god he wants to make her feel loved without actually saying it and i hope you read them and just go "oh, you're an idiot."

I have this whole elaborate backstory to how wonho's gym works with monthly subscriptions to classes where people can decide how many classes they want to take a week, ie gym dues for facilities and then discounted classes on top if they pay for it before hand, with several tiers.

this chapter almost feels clerical- this is definitely more of a set up chapter- where i needed to check off a lot of boxes, like hobi's courting present- before we go any further into the story. things are going to start amping up in terms of stakes pretty quickly.

That one part, where hobi is kinda malfunctioning after the m/c touches his cheek and everyone teases him feels the most representative of the pack as a whole. like that part where they're all replying- feels very real. i struggle a little to capture a sense of domesticity in concise ways, but i think this part is very tidy.

That little touch with hobi- where he touches her wrist and her finger, that touch has so much weight to it, i personally think the whole pack was tasting the sexual tension on the air, can you guys feel it too or is it all in my head?

idk why yoongi calling tae babygirl makes me so flustered but it does 🥵

i really wanted to work calling tae mommy into the chapter someway but tbh this chapter felt complex enough without it.

there is like- one plot hole in this whole story, and that is in the first chapter of the story when yoongi gets a call the person on the other line says "grandfather is dying." implying that his death wasn't instantaneous like this is shown to be. however, in my mind- the injections don't actually kill the don and beta but plunge them into a coma that they never wake up from- is this an actual possibility with arsenic poisoning- NO IT ISN'T lol, you're just going to have to suspend your disbelief for me.

the m/c has always been the person who killed the don and the beta- i've known this since like...maybe the 4th chapter? it wasn't in the og og plan for the story but almost everything in bily has been hammered out since then. and tbh you already knew she killed them just not that it was this violent! does this count as a secret???? idk! maybe!!!

she's a little murder baby just like minnie <3

#bts a/b/o #bts x reader #bts mafia au #bts poly au #bts omegaverse au #bts polyamory au #bts #bts fluff #bts au #bts gang au #bts hurt/comfort #bts werewolf au #bts angst #bts fanfic #bangtan #bts imagines #bts fic #bts fanfiction #jungkook x reader #yoongi #namjoon #jeon jungkook #jeon jeongguk #jung hoseok x reader #jung hoseok fic #hobi #kim seokjin x reader #kim seokjin fanfic #kim seokjin fluff #jungkook

[all444miles]

can you please do 42!miles with a baddie like a Megan type vibe? SHE HAS A PINK JEEP

💗💗💗💗

— SHE A BADDIE

— pairing: e42!miles x fem!black!reader — genre: fluff — summary: what its like for 42 miles to date a reader with a "baddie like megan" vibe. — a/n : i felt like i was a lil lazy writing this, sorry ! can yall tell i got excited abt the jeep n the attitude part.. its litch what kept me writing this whole thing 😭 also, a car creeper is those lil things u slide under to fix the underside of ur car — a/n 2: changed the way i start writin a jus a lil, petition for head over heels 42 miles supremacy !! + this was so fun.. like i was writing this n i was like "lemme be this when i grow up" LMAOOO so ty for the request anonnn, mwah and enjoy !!

MILES FALLS IN LOVE with you every second. like, honestly, just do anything, he's wrapped around your finger.

maybe he'll try and hide it, but you make him fold 24/7. you dont even have to do nothing.

it's just something about your energy, the way you dont give a damn about nothing, he just loves it. y'all are like beast boy and raven.

"mama, you killin' me right now." "hm? did i do somethin'?" "i love you so, so much. i swear, you make me weak." "aww, hun, I love you more." "yeah, keep dreamin'. now, lemme love on you."

hype man, hype man, HYPE MANN

when I say if you want to do anything he's here for it, he's here for it.

you wanna get your hair done? he's at your service.

you wanna go to the mall? he's already throwing you the keys to your jeep.

you wanna get your nails done? show him your options (he always likes the french tips, esp this.)

"Y'know Miles, i think this set ain't looking too good no more.." "You wanna get new nails?" "Mhm, wanna help me pick?" "'Course I do, let's see em."

does not care what you wear, he's always gonna say you look gorgeous. plus, he can fight. but, he's always got his hands on your waist. always.

you're your own girl, he knows that. he spoils you, yes, but he'll always let you do your own thing.

he can't explain it, but when you refer to him as "my man", or your anything, really, it does something to his heart.

yk when latto goes "ty to my man"? yeah, that's you.

"My nails? Yeah, my man helped me pick 'em."

you have attitude. Miles doesn't mind, he's a "yes ma'am" kind of guy, but if it's to him, hes gonna shut you down.

a lot of the times, you won't care, and it won't end in an argument, becuase he's still shutting you down regardless.

"Miles, you lost your shit or sum." "Amor, drop that tone f'me, aight?"

you are a party animal, and Miles? He'll just be in the back, watching you do your thing with your friends. If you ask him to dance with you though, he will for sure.

Will he throw money on you? Yes, yes he will. (Not sexual btw !)

Your jeep. He has his own car, but he honestly loves yours the best.

He helped you decorate it, all pretty and pink

He will happily get in your jeep while you blast Megan or Rihanna because c'mon now, who wouldnt?

I'm insistent he's good with mechanics, so he'll tune your car whenever you need him to, bryson tiller or tory lanez playing while he does so. (i'm losing my shit rn.)

"Cariño, ¿puedes pasarme esa llave inglesa? It's to ya left." (Baby, can you pass me that wrench?)

he'd say, sliding out from the car creeper under the hood of your pink jeep, sliding back in after you passed him the tool.

and after about 15 minutes, he'd come back out, putting a dirty cloth over his shoulder, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

its a sight to see: white tank top, slightly stained with grime from fixing your car; his favorite gold chain glistened in the sun, adorned with beaded glints of sweat from his neck.

"Aight, i think she's good, you can start her up if you wanna." "Yay! thank you for fixing my car, baby, I love youu."

you'd squeal, wrapping your arms around his neck to plant a kiss on his cheek, your pink tinted lip gloss staining his face.

"Ain't no problem princesa, I love you too."

© all444miles 2023. do not plagerize, copy, or repost my work in any way shape or form, without my permission.

likes, reblogs, comments and asks are always appreciated !

#— 🍧: 𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐔𝐏 ! #miles morales #atsv #earth 42 miles morales #prowler miles #spiderman #atsv miles #earth 42 miles #miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #miles morales x you #miles morales x black!reader #miles morales blurbs #black!fem!reader #atsv imagines #atsv prowler #atsv miles morales #spiderman atsv #atsv x reader #miles morales appreciation #miles morales imagines #earth 42 miles x reader #miles morales drabble #miles morales earth 42 x reader #miles morales fluff #miles g #earth 42!miles #42 miles morales #earth 42 #earth 42 miles fluff

[themotherofhorses]

masterlist | part one

Aemond Targaryen, who needs to be held back by Ser Criston Cole, as well as two additional kingsguards, when he confronts his mother. The prince yells and screams and demands answers, all but brandishing his own blade. But Alicent Hightower just stares at him with the same face she wore when he was ten and still dragonless and stubborn and constantly around the beasts. Her lips twist in a frown as she lets out a heavy sigh.

“My dear son, you should have known that this was going to happen. Did you really believe that I allowed you to marry the wretched girl for love? The same girl whom you suffered such terrible abuse at the hands of?” She shakes her head, “In the animal world, pray tell me which beasts are the ones most feared by men. Mothers. The princess would have been wise to remember that the very moment she rooted herself within our family.”

Noticing her son’s face, she soon adds, “But the debt has been paid now, and it is my promise to you that she will be left alone.”

He cannot do anything, he realizes, when his eye meets Ser Cole’s. He cannot avenge his wife or their lost child, no matter how desperately he wishes to. His mother remains the Queen Dowager, and to inflict such harm on her very being is a death sentence, and the prince cannot risk such foolishness and idiocy when his wife still needs him during her recovery.

With a venomous glare thrown her way, he leaves the room, but not without his mother making one final remark.

“And Aemond, my love, I am sorry about the babe. Would you believe me if I said that it was not my intention for her to lose it? We tried to save it, truly.”

He chooses not to answer.

Aemond Targaryen, who finds himself a pathetic witness as his dear wife grows into a shell of the young woman she once was. No longer does her lips curl into that bright smile that could rival the sun above, nor does she fling herself into his arms and kisses his face and neck and knuckles while declaring how much she loves and adores him.

Instead, she flinches whenever he nears and casts her lone eye downward, refusing to meet his gaze as if a lowborn girl. She refers to him as his royal titles only, and never the ones he gained when he became her husband and lover. When he kneels before her to change the bandages each morning and evening, and daubing the wound with the ointment the maesters provided him with, she mumbles out apologies, and the quietest begs for his mercy and forgiveness.

He never thought it was possible, but this pains him more than when she slashed his eye out all those years ago.

When it is all done, he pulls her to his chest and rocks her back and forth as if she was a new babe in the world. “My darling wife,” he mutters into her silver hairline, “My sweet girl. Oh, my beautiful girl. I will never forgive myself for leaving you behind that day. Forgive your damned husband, my love. Forgive me, I beg of you.”

He is met with only silence.

Aemond Targaryen, who has not spoken to his mother in weeks. It is a refusal on his part, despite Alicent making her own attempts, having lost her favored child. The hours he does not spend by his wife’s side, he is with his older sister in the royal playroom, watching his niece and nephews play with their toys on the floor. It makes him think about his own child and what could’ve been. A pretty babe, perhaps, with silver hair and violet eyes, no doubt of the golden blood of Old Valyria. He wonders if there ever will be another chance.    

“She told her that there was never any love for her.”

He turns his head to his sister, who has paused her embroidery to look at him with sad eyes.

“Mother, she had told our niece that you never did love her. That her losing the eye was meant from the beginning, and that you knew about it, and kept up your part so it could eventually happen.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, it was never like that. Yes, I will admit, I wanted revenge, and yes, I did hate her for what she did to me when we were both children, but all that was before I learned how good she was. How sweet and gentle and loving. My sweet girl, my princess, she gave me all the love in the world. She-” he feels his chest tighten greatly, leaving him heaving out short gasps and wheezes, “I love her. I love her more than she could possibly know. I never…I never wanted this. I love her. I love her so much,” and he tries his best to blink away the tears.

Helaena scoots herself closer and wraps gentle arms around both his shoulders, drawing him close. And when he cries into her neck, she whispers in his ear, “An eye for an eye, a son for a son. When the war is won, all will be good and done.”

Aemond Targaryen, who enters his chamber to find the Princess Rhaenys Targaryen seated on the bed, cradling his young wife to her chest. Through the muffled weeps, he could hear her talking to her youngest granddaughter, trying to coax out a response from the girl. When she fails to do so, the woman flattens her forehead against hers and tells her, “You do not dare leave me, my child, do you hear me? I have lost both my children; I will not lose you either.”

“Let us take her to Dragonstone, then,” he says, making his presence known. “I agree that she should be with her family. Perhaps being there will help her spirit.”

Rhaenys shakes her head with a broken chuckle. “Ah, Aemond One Eye. You must be a proud man, having gotten your revenge, it seems, as my grandchild is now without her eye.” She is gentle when laying the princess back down on the bed before standing up to face him. “Tell me, does this make you feel good? Better about yourself? More of a man, now that your wife matches you?”

His mouth twists in rage, but he is quick to bite down his tongue. “She was pregnant,” he chooses to say instead, watching as her eyes widen at his words. “The maesters believed the babe to have been a boy, and I was so excited to finally be a father. Your granddaughter, my wife, she was the prettiest sight, such that made me fall in love with her more every single day that passed.”  

“You loved her so much, you claim, yet you still maimed her.”

“No. It was not I who did this. You must believe me, Princess Rhaenys.”

“Then pray tell who it was?”

“My mother.” He sees the look on her face, and the way her mouth flattens into a tight line. “She had sent me to the North, to the Starks for business, so that I would be unable to stop her. When I returned, it had been done, and our child long gone. I wish for nothing but vengeance now.”

Maybe she believes him; maybe she does not. But he knows that Rhaenys will take her away from him, back to her home at Dragonstone, and will very likely deny him the right to follow them, despite him being her husband. He just cannot accept the thought of being separated from her, the love of his life, no matter how selfish that might sound. He glances at his wife where she rests, with her good eye watching the two of them. Such little life left in her, he sees, and he knows that keeping her here would be considered cruelty on his part.

“Her mother misses her very much, and when she learns of the abuse her only daughter has faced while here at the Keep, there will be a war to be fought. You realize that, right, Prince Aemond? Will you be ready for it?”

He knows that, but it is not the war’s responsibility- nor anyone else’s- to avenge his wife and child but his own. It is why he decides to help the Princess Rhaenys sneak out of the Keep with his wife when nighttime arrives, asking her to hand his sweet girl over to his older sister, her mother, so that the maesters there will tend to her.

With a final kiss pressed against her lips, he bids her a goodbye, and promises a fond reunion when everything has been settled.

Before they leave, his wife brushes her hand against his. It is the ever most gentle touch possible, but enough to garner his attention towards her.

“I love you, husband,” she smiles. “And thank you. Come home to me, please, for I’ll be waiting for you.”

Aemond Targaryen, who later sits near his siblings when their grandsire and mother receive a raven from Dragonstone, carrying the Princess Rhaenyra’s response to her daughter’s mutilation:

“An eye for an eye, a son for a son. My daughter and her babe shall be avenged.”

notes: show of hands for part three?

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x targaryen!reader #aemond drabble #aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #alicent hightower #rhaenys targaryen #house of the dragon #hotd imagine #hotd drabbles #vic writes 🧸

[drconstellation]

Come Back When You Can Make A Whale

This is going to contain some speculation for S3, so you know what to do! Or not do!

SITIS: What did God say? JOB: Um... I'm not sure. I didn't understand much. Things too wonderful for me. Ostriches came into it. SITIS: Ostriches? JOB: And whales. God's very proud of the whale. Went into some detail about... how great whales are. SITIS: But did They explain? JOB: [shakes head] I think the point was, if you want answers, come back when you can make a whale.

Whales, huh?

If you aren't well read, this could be quite the misdirection. It should be reasonably obvious, given who is doing the talking - Job - what he is actually referring to, then we can join a couple of dots to make some speculative leaps.

You still with me?

No? Then let us start with how do you make a whale?

By giving it another name.

Leviathan.

Chapter 41 of the Book of Job is all about the Leviathan, a great sinuous sea serpent with impenetrable scales and breath like fire. It sleeps beneath the sea until the end of days. Over time it came to be associated with any sea monster, then anything large, and what is the largest animal ever known to have lived? The whale.

The top of the matchbox is also worth a look. We have a skull and crossbones, which is classic Memento mori symbolism, fitting in with the resurrection theme of the Second Coming - but look at the way the address of the pub is spelt! Now, this not the same way it is spelt on the record single Maggie gives to Aziraphale; Goatgate is spelt as one word, not two. A little bit of searching reveals the meaning behind this fictional address that backs up and reinforces the quote on the side of the matchbox.

Strong's Concordance for 66 gives us "wild, savage, fierce." Goatgate is an interesting one, because it turns out to be a relatively modern term from the urban dictionary, and I'm just going to refer to the polite version of it here - it's another word for "mouth." So 66 Goatgate is a "fierce and savage mouth." Yes, that does sound about right - in more ways than one, once you know who it is. (If you want to look up the impolite version, go ahead - I'm sure you will still find the connotations very amusing.)

Our metaphorical Leviathan is Crowley. He gave the game away at the end of S1 during the appearance-swap.

This also means Aziraphale is his counterpart, Behemoth. Why - well, I made a bit of joke in my post here that he was playing at being a "river horse" while he wallowed in the bath of holy water during his part of the appearance-swap scene. Modern day scholars think the description of Behemoth in the Bible may be that of a hippopotamus in real life history. If that is so, I'd still be betting this is what the "dark horse" comment from Nina in S2E1 is foreshadowing.

Maybe none of this new to you if you've been hanging around the the fandom for a while. That's fine, I'm just trying to establish the scene. And the next bit we need to talk about is this one, where Job gets a lecture from God.

During this sequence, we hear lines that come from Job 38 and 39.

GOD: Job, if you have questions for me, I have questions for you. Do you know how I created the earth? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, Job? Were you there when all the morning stars sang together and all the Angels shouted for joy?

These lines are paraphrasing some of the beginning of Job 38.

Then we have:

GOD: Do you know the rules of the heavens? Did you set the constellations in the sky? Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you? Did you give wings to peacocks, Job, or teach the ostrich to run?

These lines are again, paraphrasing Job, half from 38 and half from 39.

So then, we need to ask, why highlight these lines in particular?

Job 38 is mainly about setting the boundaries of the universe around us. The Earth might seem impossibly huge to a human, but it started with a single stone at its foundation. Earth and the other planets obey certain laws as they move around the Sun. The patterns of the stars in the sky take so long to change that it seems like they are set and inconstant. Even the chaotic form of lightning respects its Creator and returns to its point of origin.

From the last part of Chapter 38 to the end of 39 God challenges Job with a list of animals. The theme here is about freedom and wildness. Whether it is a noble lion, a loathsome crow, a nimble mountain goat, the head-strong wild ox or the willing war horse, they all flourish upon the Earth under the sight of the Almighty. Even the mightiest and most fierce beasts of all, Behemoth and Leviathan, have a place, although only God has the means to control those two.

None of this needs a human to be involved. We are so often the center of our own universe, and try so hard to control every aspect of the world around us that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Shit happens. Some things are out of our control. That doesn't mean its your fault and you're wicked and damned to go to Hell because of it. And that was the point God was trying to make to Job. The world is a far bigger, wilder and chaotic than you can imagine, but its also incredibly beautiful, and it runs itself within the rules and limits that seem to be set by invisible forces you can't see.

So back to the script from the show.

The first set of questions from God could apply to both of the duo. They were both around when Earth was created and were more than likely there when the "morning stars" (the highest angels, such as Lucifer, Gabriel, Michael and angel!Beelzebub) sang together.

The second set of questions are the ones that seem to have got the most attention so far, with ops cross-matching them to things Crowley does in S2.

Do you know the rules of the heavens?

Did you set the constellations in the sky?

Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you?

Did you give wings to peacocks, Job...

(I make a suggestion this has something to do with Michael, but also see comments below)

...or teach the ostrich to run?

The first three of those questions are fairly straight forward, and I doubt many would dispute what they are referring to. But the reference to the peacock and the ostrich are more subtle and curious, and I would like to take a moment to look at the actual verse - because it is only one verse that is providing both questions - that is being paraphrased here.

Job 39:13 Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?

Did you realize that the King James Version of the Bible is the only one that mentions peacocks in this particular verse? All the other versions mentions the first sentence of that verse in relation to the wings of ostriches: "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly." The ostrich is considered a cruel and witless bird in the Bible, pleased with the way it looks, and seemingly careless about its young.

Why does that sound familiar...

Shax thinks this ostrich feather-clad angel in disguise isn't too smart either.

So using the peacock line is a curious choice in the script. Other than the "eyes" in the tail of the peacock having a connection to Michael's many watchful eyes on the world, it's still not clear how Crowley helped them upwards. Unless both lines are supposed to refer to Gabriel, and how the vain peacock was helped to both fly and run to a distant location in the stars.

Edit: Since I first wrote this, @beebopboom pointed me to some more peacock lore, and this helped me delve a bit deeper into them. Peacocks were associated with wealth and royalty, but they were also associated with immortality in early Christian beliefs. There was a belief that the flesh of the peacock did not decay after its death. The bright colours in its tail came from its eating venomous snakes, which reminded people of Christ becoming sin for humanity's sake (think of Crowley downing the laudanum to save Elspeth from Hell in the crypt in 1827, its a similar action.) The "eyes" on the males tail also represented the all-seeing eye of God. So we have a connection with both royalty and resurrection here.

(Oh - just as an interesting connection here - a number of the newer versions of the Bible not only don't mention the peacock in this verse, they compare the ostrich to the stork! The meaning is meant to be that the stork cares more for their young than the ostrich, but if you read the words at face value, you could take a double meaning away...)

Let us return to questions, answers, and whales.

Questions. Always questions. It's like the proverbial toddler who's always asking a never-ending string of "but, why?" for funsies and you just want them to shut up for a moment and think about the last thing you said first. They, too, are a bit like Job. They are the center of their own universe at that age, having not had much experience of the world. They have no grasp of how far it extends beyond them, and how little even we as adults know.

If at this point you're going "oh, no, no, no, no, op, please don't tell me the point of this meta is it's all ineffable," relax. I'm not.

The point was to set you up for some nice, juicy, awesomely sweet S3 speculation.

Because I believe Crowley will finally get to ask his questions of God.

(oh lordy, I made the mistake of taking a break to have a shower before trying to finish this off, because I was having trouble seeing how to finish this in a tidy way, and that caused me to have "shower thoughts" and now the nice sweet simple speculation has turned into a slightly bat-shit crazy kind-of one, although still on the same track as what I was originally thinking. Here goes...)

We have this three card spread from waaay back at the beginning of S1. We all think its something to do with the three babies.

What if its not?

Because we need something like this to happen again - Aziraphale and Crowley either side of a third protagonist. What if it's the King of Kings, Love personified, Jesus, in the middle? (Or Adam again, I wouldn't discount that option either...)

If you would look at the GIF and the screenshot together again and go, well that makes, sense, white for the angel on the right, and green for the demon on the left, I would jump up and shout at you - NO!

Look at the cards again! In the Tarot, that's the Ace of Swords on the right - it belongs to Aziraphale. It's a very powerful card, about new beginnings and change.* Lets call the one of the left Knight of Wands, which also represents the element of Fire. Knights are all about movement and journeys. Who owns the Bentley? And look what Gabriel has instinctively done with his hands - he has held his screen-left hand out to Aziraphale, the Sword, the angel who wears green, and his right hand out to Crowley, the Knight of Fire. The yin and yang qualities are actually swapped. That was what I was trying to tell you in this post. They aren't as obvious as they seem at first glance.

And love is the answer, it turns out. Did you see my comment the other day on another post? In Strong's Concordance 25 = to love.

Anyway, we should get a third parallel scene somewhat like this, and like when Aziraphale and Crowley took Adam out of time to talk to him in S1.

Only this time the three of them (with who ever is in the middle) should be having a talk with God about what is or isn't supposed to happen.

JOB: I think the point was, if you want answers, come back when you can make a whale.

Crowley could be a literal serpent (though I would be very surprised if he did manifest that way) but it should be a metaphorical Leviathan that stands before the Almighty to ask his questions and get his answers. And it will be that he has earned the right to be there, because he finally understands the lessons of Job.

@makewayforbigcrossducks I hope this answers one of your questions

*The Ace of Swords speaks of new beginnings, but it is a two-edged sword that can cut both ways. It is strength in adversity, victory out of struggle, good out of evil, a change in the old order on the way.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #job minisode #book of job #leviathan #behemoth #i only ever asked questions #come back when you can make a whale #gabriel #shax #did you give wings to peacocks? #teach the ostrich to run #king of kings #king of hearts #yin to his yang

[insidefernweh]

Well, hello.

A couple months ago one silly woman (me) decided that it’s time for creativity to take a hold of her and let something cool into this world.

And that’s how I decided to give birth to…a The Amazing Devil blanket. Or I might have dreamed it whilst being feverish. Who knows.

It’s been three months of stitching, embroidering, sewing, unmaking the mistakes, cursing, saying ‘waahheeey’ at the end of the complete step, cursing again and enjoying the hell out of the process of something being made into the realness. 

It is literally the embodiment of me. I love it and hate it equally. It has got my favourite quotes from the songs. Yes, that’s me — your favourite girl with maelstrom of lyrics instead of a brain. It also has got some of my blood somewhere along the stitches (did i do it on purpose to please the fae gods aka Joey and Madeleine? you’ll never know. hashtag blood magic.) I wanted to get it done for the Ruin Appreciation Week (though it contains lyrics from all albums) so that was me last week because it was very FAR from being done:

I’m posting the bigger picture + close ups of smaller details and songs’ lyrics. Please feel free to reach out if you want to see a better close up or just to pat me on the head.

I’m posting a video too. It’s silly so enjoey. (ha! see what I did here. that was a typing accident. it’s 1am now. forgive me my jokes.)

warning: the video include some probably offensive actions to the professional seamstresses. i’m only a humble ignorant person who decided to sew for the first time in her life. i do hope you’ll like it.

references used:

the central embroidery: TAD’s old picture from some posters back in the love run era + some sage and forget-me-nots

top right and left bottom corners: pictures of joey and madeleine

songs: secret worlds, the calling, inkpot gods, drinking song for the socially anxious, chords, farewell wanderlust, not yet/love run (reprise), that unwanted animal, battle cries, elsa’s song, wild blue yonder

UPD: A few of you have been asking about the quotes I used on my blanket/quilt and why I chose them so here I am:

If you ask me for my fire, just watch me burn — you know what, I recently started to interpret this line in a positive way? It was a recent thing I understood about myself. I always thought I was good at working/doing things well in the long run, when you have to do it patiently and for years but in my journey of self-discovery I realized that in reality I’m much better as a sprinter — someone who does an incredible job while being under the vast amount of pressure and when you need to do it in a restricted period of time; I will give all of myself to this project/work, every bit of passion I have, every bit of patience. So yeah. If you ask me for my fire — just watch me burn. But then I’ll hibernate for a month. 

Can’t you hear it howling? — OKAY HANDS DOWN PROBABLY MY FAVOURITE LYRICS/MELODY SECTION FROM THE WHOLE RUIN ALBUM. Even not the part that is sung by Madeleine, but the back voices Joey’s harmonies sing in the final chorus at 4:28 and till the end. OOOOH WHY SO GOOD.

If I don’t make it back from where i’ve gone just know I loved you all along — this is such a beautiful closing of the song. also such a tormenting thought. i love it.

Such endless blue — I’ve always been drawn to the dark blue colours, especially when I paint. I always run out of the blue watercolour because contrary to this song, it’s not endless :D I’m manifesting an abyss of blue watercolour for myself here lol

You say the words so often but I barely know the meaning — okay so Elsa’ Song is primarily pretty heartbreaking right? The more heartbreaking part being that it is sung as a lullaby. Who didn’t have that moment when the meaning of the words you’re saying slips through your fingers just because you said them too often? Who didn’t have that sad awakening moment of losing trust in a person just because they always promised something and never did it?

After summers of fasting I feel hunger at last — I’ve been thinking about tattooing this quote for quite a while now. It reminds me of my depressive state which very often returned to me in summer and every time it slowly creeped away, I felt the hunger for life in the early autumn.  Every time felt like an eternity. 

Is nought but fumble-falls and guns and tumbleweeds, love, run — my favourite quote from the superior use of the English language that is that section in Love Run. I am in love with it. All the phonetic twirls makes me shiver sometimes.

Well, hello my hollow Holofernes — ALLITERATION SUPREMACY!!  

I’ll sing silence and ask my glass of wine for guidance — i love to sit at home alone and stare into my glass. it doesn’t answer though. what about it. and again — to sing silence? OXYMORONS GIVE ME THEM

Go tell me how we fucked you up and oh my god, it’s so unfair — ah. the hardship of parenting/teaching. I was there, I remember it all too well. 

Let’s us waltz for the dead — the oxymoronic style of this line IS JUST A CHEF’S KISS. WALTZ? VERY SOPHISTICATED THING? FOR THE DEAD? NOT THAT PLEASANT TYPE OF A THING? mister batey let me boop you affectionately on the nose you are so clever.

#the amazing devil #joey batey #madeleine hyland #embroidery #ruinanniversary2022

[raydays-swap-au]

Rayday's Swap AU ~ Valentino

Sorry for disappearing for like uh over a week??? I was busy moving and such. Anyway, here's my swap Valentino design so yeah we ball. Not sure if I like it, but when do I like anything I create?

More information about the design + "sprites" under the cut

Why no wings - Firstly I decided to get rid of the wings since regular Angel Dust's design barely resembles the animal he's based of ( apart from his multiple limbs, and the multiple eyes I only realized was eyes on my second rewatch during that one scene. ) On top of that I also gave my swap Angel Dust more spider characteristics, so I thought it'd make sense to dial down Valentino's moth motifs ( though I think the moth motif is still pretty prominent in the design still. )

The star motif - Since Valentino will be in the role of Angel Dust aka he's pretty much a pornstar, I thought adding a star motif into it all would be fitting. I still kept the hearts though as they're a part of his physical body rather than his clothing.

Leg warmers and gloves - Yes, the fur on his legs are leg warmers. It's more obvious in the lineart, but whatever, you can't really see that. Either way, I decided to make both his leg warmers and gloves striped to reference the fur/fuzzy outline of regular Valentino's design.

Clothing style - I took inspiration from fashion styles such as gyaru and similar styles. While I didn't stick to the styles 100% they def played a role in the clothing designs. ( please forgive me if the clothing designs are bad I have no idea what I'm doing )

The little tufts of hair/fluff on his head - It looked wrong to leave him bald. That's it. Hate me for it or not, but these are my designs, so yeah.

Why I didn't use Angel Dust's colors in the design - Technically I did since the white is an off-white like Angel's rather than the pure white from Valentino's design, but still. The simple reason is imo that the soft pinks just didn't go well with the dusty indigo that is Valentino's skin. Maybe I'm just bad at designing characters, but I whatever.

The jewelry - It just felt right to add it. Also, the second pair of arms didn't get any bracelets to call back to how regular Angel Dust has different colored gloves ( and totally not just because I'm lazy )

As always, here's the sprites ( both with- and without the second pair of arms )

#rayday's swap au #hazbin hotel swap au #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel valentino #hazbin hotel au #hazbin hotel fanart #hazbin hotel swap valentino

[thealienfantasy]

Alien Fantasy-File 2: False Faced Humans (A.K.A. Humans with Masks)

This story in particular was inspired by a post from Recklessly Tall Tales. Ya'll should give her a follow. A lot of her posts is what inspired me to start writing my own. Here's the post for reference:

"Heh! Now this might be one of our best hauls yet!" The leader of a gang of Tecorrians responded. they were on a planet that was a bit more isolated from the more populated systems and thus made it the perfect spot for trades that would be deemed illegal on other galaxies. One of the partners ran his claw through the Draxilite Horn he had acquired from the sale. If you were to ask the Terrans how to describe the Tecorrians, they would tell you they look like a weird fusion between two animals native to their home planet. the Turtle and the Armadillo.

"I can't wait to show this to my clan. Everything will be built in our honor once they find out i've gotten my claws on one of these!"  "Are you sure about this? I'm sure the elders will know. They always seem to know when you've honestly conquered a Draxilite." His partner responded.

"They won't know. This planet is very close to the colony. they'll just assume i'm struggling but still braving through the beast!" "If you say so." A third voice chimed in. "Me personally. I'm looking forward to giving my mate this." He said as he pulled out a flower. "The humans refer to it as a "Silent Princess". Apparently it's a special breed of flower that has almost gone extinct on one of their planets. The dealer said he had to invade a human garden to get this." "Well, We better hurry and get off this planet before-" "Everyone hide!" One of the Tecorrians abruptly shouted. his partners looked confused as they watched him retreat in his shell. They quickly rolled behind a bush and waited.

"I don't understand. What are we hiding from?"

"Look over there!" The Tecorrian stuck out a claw and pointed. his partners peered from behind a bush and were confused at what they saw. It was a group of humans. Widely considered to be a fairly wild when they had a reason to be, but were otherwise pretty harmless. "Humans? Are you really concerned about them?" One of the chuckled. "i don't see any weapons on...wait." The Tecorrian voice trailed off. The scales on his shell began to shiver as his eyes landed on the humans. more specifically, their faces.

"Are those....?" "False Faces. Those are False Faced Humans!" One of the Tecorrians nearly shouted. he was quickly silenced. Most of the group now seemed horrified. but one of them remained confused.

"I don't understand. What is the concern? Why are they wearing those?" "Wait. Didn't your clan tell you about False Faced humans?"

"I've heard mentions of them."

One of the Teccorians peeked over the bush and then hastily retreated. "Those humans. the False Faced ones. They always have a terrifying story behind those false faces." "My father told a tale about one of them. it happened five years ago. A human got severely wounded and almost killed by one of the guilds in our village. But on the verge of death, He struck a deal with the Ah'Lufrit. The deity of fire himself. He had been brought back to life and had been granted the ability to spread fire. In exchange, He had to wear a hideous False Face. A black one with pitch black glass eyes and a very large snout with several holes. He then burnt down part of the village and wounded most of the guild before he was securely captured. "

"A False faced human did that? i thought one of the knights got to over confident during a weapon demonstration." "I have a story too. One of the clans in my village had visited on of the human colonies while they had a pandemic going on. And elder told us the humans were all wearing False Faces that resembled the Avian species of our system." "Are you sure it was a human?"

"Yes! The False face was protruding from the rest of the body and it seemed to be made out of something completely different! The worst part is, according to the elder, the face didn't move at all when the human spoke. it's like it's face was stuck that way."

"Really? You know. on the Subject of Human colonies. A close friend of mine had gone to visit one of the human planets. i believe it was called "Macbeth". The humans were hosting a ceremony there, celebrating the day they had first set foot on the planet. He returned completely horrified the next day. He had seen hundreds of humans with False Faces. all performing these coordinated dances. And they all had different False Faces. One had one that looked like the "Dragons" from human mythology. Another one had a False Face that looked just like a regular human. But it was baring it's teeth. My friend says it was one of the most terrifying things he had ever seen. Almost as if the Deity of Death was taunting him." While listening to these stories, The Tecorrian took one good look at the false faced humans. They all had the same False Face. Golden with the resemblance to a normal human face. But a few looked "Happy" while the others looked "sad". The Tecorrian found it mildly unsettling how the expressions didn't seem to change. Humans were known for how expressive their faces were. to the point where it could be pretty difficult to read a human. So to see their faces frozen like that. it just didn't look right. He wondered just what these humans did to end up like that? Did they make a deal? did they anger a deity and had been cursed to look like that? One of the humans put a bunch of logs together and then set them ablaze. creating a massive fire. He watched them surround the fire and stare at it. 

"Has anyone ever tried removing those faces?" "The knights that had managed to capture the human burning down our village did. Once the villagers pulled off the False Face, They said it was the most horrifying sight they had ever seen. It's as if the False Face had completely messed up his face. Many people took it as Ah'Lufrit sending us a message." "You know. Come to think of it. I've heard a few people at our bar talk about going to one of the Black Market planets in order to meet one. they said they were planning to see if they could bind them to their service."

"I...What fools!!!" One of the Tecorrians shouted, Alarming the entire gang. to their horror, one of the humans turned to look in their reaction. Feelings of fear and panic went through their Tecorrians are they saw the False Faced humans slowly approach.

"Oh no! No! No! No! Not like this!"

"Your holiness! Have mercy on me!"

"Scales to you all! i'm out of here!"

"W-Wait!"

They all quickly scrambled to leave. they didn't know what could possible happen if that False Faced human decided to confront them, but they weren't going to stick around to find out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Yo. I'm back." Jade declared as she lifted her comedy mask. "So what was that noise again?" Roy asked, lifting his tragedy mask while holding a fruit on a stick over the bonfire.  "Just one of those Turtle-Armadillo looking aliens. nothing to worry about." Jade brushed off. "Let's just get back to work. Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Yeah, look at how much space there is. And this is one of the more isolated planets. the perfect spot to perform without problems. This birthday party is going to be one for the ages!" Roy said with excitement.  "Riiiiiiiiight. But are the masks really necessary?" Jade asked as she looked at her comedy mask. "Of course they are! Carol is an absolute theater girl. She would never let me hear the end of it if we didn't go all out!" Roy said. "Now pass me that box. I want to test out some of the fireworks!"

#humans are space fae #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #aliens #science #fantasy #The Alien Fantasy

[garden-of-omegas]

⚜ FIRST MEETING [SPYXFAMILY - THE FAMILY] ⚜

┌── ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ••✎•• ──────────

characters: loid forger | yor forger/briar | yuri briar summary: the details of your first meeting with your future mate. warnings: spies, contract killers, references to assassination, references to torture, adopted families, references to war, yuri rating: sfw a/n: guess who finished the spy x family anime? i did! i love yuri so much, and i love the forgers so much, and i love so many characters so much! honestly, haven't felt this motivated to finish something in ages. i'm back bitches! hopefully i'll start getting faster at writing these too.

~🎕

└── ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ••✎•• ──────────

≿━━━━༺❀ loid forger ❀༻━━━━≾

✿ you were a hitman. you'd never really been anything else. you were infamously known as "dawn", though no one had ever actually been able to pin anything on you specifically, mostly because you could control minds.

✿ both your and loid's ages are... nebulous at best, though loid had been working as a spy for about a decade, while you'd been in the business for at least two of those.

✿ you'd recently come to ostania under an alias to work as a teacher at the eden academy. loid was looking for an alpha to play a part in his pretend family, and just happened to meet you while shopping for anya. the moment she realized you were a spy too, your fate was sealed. anya insisted on you becoming her new appa, and once loid realized where you worked he saw an opportunity. you on the other hand, thought that a marriage could be beneficial to blending in while on your mission.

✿ before neither of you got to the point of actually proposing (a fake marriage) you received a mission to retrieve some valuables, a mission loid had also gotten. after several shenanigans, the two of you run into each other out of disguise, get chased by a bunch of smugglers, and loid proposes to you to the sound of explosions. you say yes. obviously.

✿ loid found you inconspicuous, a bit odd but sweet. admittedly, anya's love for you might've made him a lot less suspicious than he might've been if he actually paid any attention to literally anything about you. loid was handsome, and that was about the extend of your initial thoughts. a decent man, with a good job, and an adorable daughter. the perfect cover for any spy, which you should've probably thought about a little harder.

≿━━━━༺❀ yor briar ❀༻━━━━≾

✿ you were an... "interrogator", let's put it that way. but also the heir of a mysterious earl, who'd been kind enough to take you in when you were a child and taught you to be the person you are today, to be "the bloody prince".

✿ yor was 26, while you were 25. your father had recently started insisting that you find yourself a spouse, as you were soon to start training a child of your own.

✿ you actually met while working. you were having a "conversation" with a target, trying to get the names of some traitors out of him when the thorn princess showed up to kill your target. you fought about it, you even tried using your powers against her but they didn't work. she pretty much kicked your ass, and you barely got away. after finding a place to catch your breath, you realized that you found your almost killer to be heart-poundingly beautiful.

✿ you met yor a few days later, having met your new protege (a cute little girl by the name of nel) just the same day. she noticed yor and complimented her looks, which got you interested in her as well. while you were still a bit hung up on the mysterious beauty who almost killed you, yor seemed sweet and the type to not ask too many questions. thus, you asked her out on a date, and became a bit infatuated when she got flustered by the whole thing. she still said yes of course.

✿ yor found your secret identity to be impressive, if a little cruel. not that she could really speak on it. but meeting the real you, she thought that you were the most handsome alpha she'd ever met. if only you didn't fluster her so much. you enjoyed both sides of her, not that you knew they were the same person. she was strong, she was beautiful, she was everything you could possibly want in an omega. but you weren't actually looking for love, as you claimed to yourself.

≿━━━━༺❀ yuri briar ❀༻━━━━≾

✿ you were the leader of an anti-government organization, still in it's starting stages. but for the most part you were simply going to school, trying to quickly get yourself through schooling to start truly working towards your goals with your comrades.

✿ you were 17, on your second year of college, while yuri was 14 and already on his first year of college. it'd been three years since you started your group.

✿ to put it simply, you and him were put together as roommates. you'd been impossible to find a roommate for, and yuri didn't get along with any of his classmates, so the administration thought that the two of you could just bother each other. and bother each other did you, both of your personalities clashing together the moment you met. especially about your views, even though you didn't dare to actually talk about your true beliefs. but it was hard, yuri was far too talented at riling you up.

✿ you remained roommates for the last two years of your schooling, and it was a disaster up until that point. but there were moments of peace, where yuri would help you with your school work and you'd look after him to make sure none of the older students bothered him. but most of your relationship was full of bickering and disagreements.

✿ yuri thought that you were the most annoying roommate one could possibly have, not for your habits or anything (you were actually pretty strict about keeping the place clean) but your personality. he admittedly did get a bit of a crush on you already, but would never admit to it. yuri was a kid. an annoying one, but an understandable one too. you didn't actually hold anything he said too seriously, and mostly just enjoyed riling him up because he'd act all huffy and cute about it. if he wasn't so stubborn about his beliefs, you might've asked him to join your cause.

#⚜ garden walks #omegaverse #a/b/o #alpha!reader #x reader #spy x family #loid forger #omega!loid #yor forger #omega!yor #yuri briar #omega!yuri #spyxfamily - the family

[kaythefloppa]

Wild Kratts - Our Blue and Green World: Part 1: Review [Spoilers]

Welp, here it is, the Wild Kratts TV movie (not to be confused with the feature film they've been teasing us with since 2021). There's been a lot of hype around this special and season, especially with how much the latter was being hyped up during the hiatus. Let's see if the blue and green bros were able to deliver: Spoilers under the cut

Well, this is certainly an attention grabber!

This entire live action intro is shot and edited like an animated Wild Kratts episode, it's glorious.

Woah, intro change!

They said the thing! They said the thing!

HELP THIS IS SO RELATABLE. Also, THE BOYS ARE FIGHTING

Lmao I don't think they do it very often, but using animals/nature in their insults is very creative.

Also, whooping crane episode when?

This entire song is mercifully short. Like most character sung songs in Wild Kratts, it's not good, but this at least is clever in its lyrics and its visuals. It feels like a Disney reference at best and I am content with that. I also ADORED seeing the Draco and Walrus Suit return again. It's arguably the best musical number in the series. No, that is not saying a lot.

MARTIN WHY ARE YOU THE ONE WHO'S MIFFED YOU NEARLY MUFASA'D YOUR LITTLE BROTHER

CHRIS WHY ARE YOU MILDLY INCONVENIENCED YOU GOT ACRAPHOBIA FALLING FROM THAT HEIGHT

When I first saw the clip, I thought that they were going somewhere with this, like they'd activate Peacock Powers at the end when they recognized the compatibility and blue and green. But nope. Wasted potential is an understatement.

Also, where the fuck are they right now? In a previous shot there was Target the Chameleon, implying that they've been to Madagascar, but that is an Indian peafowl, and as far as I'm concerned, they don't live in Madagascar. Were they just having an off-day? These animals have little to nothing to do with the plot when they really shouldn't have, so I don't see why they couldn't have just shown a projector image or something.

Remember when I joked about the Wild Pony Power Suit returning in S7.... fuck you Apollo.

Man, they are eating it up with the animation here. It's hard to tell with screengrabs but man, is it fluid.

The first half of this episode is mixed. While it feels like the brothers are incredibly stubborn, it also does make sense for them to be this fixated on their favorites. So I can totally buy this. It could've been insufferable to watch, but it wasn't.

As if YOU haven't spied on them since the first time your dorito-headed ass showed up on screen

Did you find that funny? Because not only do they do a similar joke like that later on, but they follow through on that joke in the most unexpected way you will shit your pants when you first ingest it.

Oh my god if they make a Creature Power Suit off of that bird, I will take back any diss I've made, that is so beautiful.

Good to know that Aviva put the button near the chest and not near the back.

Maybe it's just me but this is kinda pushing it. Chris is literally getting his organs crushed, I think that should matter more than A) being right or B) trying to get 2 people to stop fighting.

I'm loving the callback and what this leads up to but ew, all this does is remind me about how ugly bright the color pallatte in S6. Really glad they fixed it in S7.

HELL FUCKING YES

This episode finds really unique ways of showing how the two different biomes are interconnected. It's like Rainforest Stew's (very brilliantly handled) message only to a larger degree. Kids can learn a lot from this.

I fucking love this episode, man.

Honestly, the way they write Paisley in the first half of the episode is very in-line with her character. Most shows that do what this episode does has them be out-of-character as a set-up, but here, she's just roasting the fuck out of Zach. Once again, recontextualized entirely in the climax.

HOW THE FUCK DID HE GET TO MADAGASCAR FROM THE GODDAMN AMAZON IN ONE AFTERNOON THAT IS LIKE MORE THAN 1,000 MILES AWAY?? ARE ANACONDAS THAT FAST?????

Also, INDRIS!!!!! :D

I was frankly expecting this to horribly backfire but spoilers, it doesn't. This actually winds up working. Common Aviva W.

To be continued.... will the blue and green rivalry end? Will one prove superior over another? And will they be able to stop Zach and Paisley and save the planet earth? And will this change the adventures of the Wild Kratts team forever? Stay tuned for part 2!

Pros:

The live action segments.

The animation of the earth's model.

The musical number not being ass.

Paisely's catty behavior.

The Anaconda Suit.

The inventive ways they show how the stability of the Earth is complex. There are a lot of ways it functions and thus a lot of ways it needs to survive

The comedy.

Cons:

The villains do not do anything until the second half of this episode. In fact, they're left completely in the backdrop. I expected them to make their prescence known and for Aviva to invent the discs to get them together for the SAKE of fighting the villains. But no. It makes the stakes feel hollow, which is the opposite of what they should be gunning for in an hour long special that they hype the shit out of.

CONCLUSION:

It was an "okay" set-up. It did live up to some of the hype it had, but not all of it. Honestly if it wasn't for the second half of this episode, this movie would be mediocre or slightly above average, but no. They do pick themselves off the ground and... they do jump the shark. But we'll get to that next time

#spoilers #season 7 spoilers #wild kratts #wild kratts season 7 #paisley paver #zach varmitech #kratt brothers #2d kratt brothers #2d martin kratt #2d chris kratt #I lost sleep over this episode istg #Youtube

[surplus-of-sarcasm]

#32

TW: Knives, references to violence, restraints, bruises/wounds, flirty? 

I am literally sauurrr sorry for being so inactive but college is destroying me. It's been so long since I've written too, so I do hope the quality of this piece isn't affected. Missed u guys 💙

"Do I scare you?" the hero asked, her voice devoid of any emotion, all while her eyes stared straight through the villain like he was transparent, searching for something in his expression. 

Except his face remained defiantly blank, looking up at her, fire in his honey brown eyes, surprisingly not sparing any effort to attempt escaping his restraints. 

When the hero stuck one of her nails into a small, open cut on his neck, the villain bit back a wince, an irritated frown tugging at the corner of his lip. "Yes," he supplied, his tone even and calm, not even hostile, trying to render himself as passive as possible. 

Except he'd licked his lip in that quick, almost imperceptible manner, something he only ever did when he lied, something the hero wasn't supposed to know. 

But she did. 

"Stop lying," she snarled, sticking her nail again in the cut.

"The hell do you want, Hero?" he snapped, hissing as her finger left his cut. 

The breaking point. The point where the villain was done placating and playing along and already back to his normal, wild state, where he could care less about whatever earned the hero's ire. 

She'd spent the last three hours mostly in silence, only ever talking to ask the villain a question she knew would irritate him. He held up surprisingly well, even though his self-preservation instincts were usually nowhere to be found. So she wondered why he'd act so placidly in the beginning.

The villain liked to talk. He did most of the talking during their fights. The quiet drove him insane, and now he had his teeth bared like an animal, murder in his eyes and tension in his jaw.

This was the part where the hero should've laughed or slapped him across the face, or done anything just as cruel.

The truth was that they'd both been nothing but cruel to each other, enemies by virtue. The villain had beat the hero black and blue, had called her a myriad of flithy names, had screamed at her because of how much he hated that she was quiet. In turn, the hero made sure that every nick with a knife and every punch against skin had left a mark on the villain. She fought to scar, not just to incapacitate. She knew the scars were more a wound to his ego than his body, proof she'd hurt him.

And yet, the villain had pulled her out of a ditch and bandaged up her nearly destroyed leg, effectively saving her life when he had no business being there. In turn, she'd pulled him up when he almost slipped off a roof during one of their fights. 

And situations like that would only keep happening more and more often, almost a staple of their atypical relationship. The villain would laugh, would crack a joke, would be so careful with her wounds, would be anything but his usual abrasive self. 

And the very next fight, they would be even more horrible to each other, as though whatever had happened the day before had never been, as though cruelty was the only language they could speak. 

The hero didn't have friends. They were another luxury she couldn't afford. Her teammates weren't actively cruel or anything of the like, but the agency left no room for any semblance of friendship or love or all the things the hero wanted but could never really have. And the villain wasn't her friend. He wasn't supposed to be anyone. But he was genuine, almost the only person in her life who didn't sound and act like a robot. He'd had actual conversations with the hero. And maybe she was not stupid enough to think that made him any good, but maybe she was stupid enough to think that made him mean something to her.

"Answer me, Hero," he snarled coldly, tearing her chain of thought in half. 

The hero didn't consider spending any time on thinking of an intelligible response. People weren't logical when they were desperate.  Desperate was the hero's hand cupping the villain's jaw so gently that the shiver up his spine was still awfully intense, even with his numb body. Desperate was staring into the villain's eyes, watching the way his lashes fluttered, as his eyes told a completely different story from the harsh frown on his lips. Desperate was the hero's lips on his cheekbone, warm against his skin, shy, terrified, staying there for a fleeting moment that still felt like too long and retracting away with shame written all over her features. 

"I'm sorry."

Villain's eyes had widened, even though it seemed impossible they could grow any bigger. "I- come closer again," he half-whispered, all the roughness from his voice gone. "Lean down a little." 

And the hero obliged, even though it went against every single thing she'd been taught, and in turn the villain's lips were pressed to her jaw, careful but in no way timid. They weren't supposed to be velvet-soft, and hints of the villain's spicy cologne shouldn't have still managed to be distinguishable through the blood and the sweat. But of course the seemingly impossible was happening. 

"Yes," he answered, "you do scare me, but not in the way that you asked, so I was lying," he continued against the hero's jaw.

And she hated how palpable the relief was when he hadn't licked his lips. 

"This is how you actually kiss someone." The smirk on the villain's face may have been merciless as he pulled away, but it was clear he was trying to break the tension that they could have sliced through with a blade. 

God, the hero could barely breathe. She never knew something that felt almost forbidden could feel so right. She was scared the villain's response had been a trick and more scared that it hadn't. She wanted to scream at him and slam her fists into his body, to split his rose-petal-like lips with a jagged streak of crimson. But more than anything, she wanted him close enough to her that they were breathing each other's air, she wanted to kiss his face again, properly this time, so that it truly felt like something, something that set the hero's nerves on fire.

The hero had pulled out her twin knives, cutting through his ropes with one, while the other remained pressed against his carotid artery, as he still remained sitting on the chair. 

Except the villain had pulled the knife out of her hand, slightly scratching himself, and he got up, twirling the knife with his hand and pressing its cold, flat edge to the hero's jaw, his breath warm on her face. "Don't fight it. That's all you've done, all I've done, and I'm sick of it." 

And in all honesty, so was she. Sick of having no one, sick of wanting someone who was right there and yet so far away, sick of pushing a knife into the skin of the same boy who had bandaged her bleeding knuckles and made fun of the stupid kids' designs etched on them, the only thing he had, the next day after it happened.

The hero nodded, slowly putting her knives away when the villain handed her the other blade back, slinging an arm around the villain's waist, surprisingly small for someone so athletically built, but not any less attractive. 

"Let's go home. I mean, my place," the villain suggested, utterly exhausted, but a hint of a smile was still there in his words as he wrapped his arm around the hero's shoulder, his fingers gripping onto the fabric of her suit a little playfully. 

And the hero simply nodded, mirroring the villain's own soft smile.

Emotions are hard to understand, no rules or logic existent that could ever explain the power they hold over a person; the power that the heart exercises so ruthlessly over the mind. And yet nearly nothing could ever leave one feeling so certain, so absolutely euphoric to the point that not even the entire world would seem to matter compared to the one person love tethers you to. 

✨️Le Taglist: @larinzz @syberianjade @lateuplight @altu-interactions @enbious-prince @astr0-mj @thelazywitchphotographer @a-fucking-simp-00 @addictedsandwhichaki @justalittlecorrupted @quaggasus @adamswrongchild @vernilliom @mothmancommitsarson @starssabove @kurai-hono-blog @talkingsperm @muffinrebel44 @sunnynwanda @annablogsposts @cardboardarsonist @itsmyworld23 @onlywhump @m3rakii @crotchgoblin69 @wtfevenisausername @pendarling @avloki-pal @kaiwewi @those-damn-snippets @genuinelythioehat-is-whump @ghostofnorth

Wanna be on the taglist? This'll take you there!

#prompt #snippet #hero x villain #enemies to lovers #f/m #whump #female writers #writers on tumblr #angst #heroes and villains community #fiction #romance #tw blood #tw bruises #tw angst #tw restraints #natalia's writing #tw knives #ahh villain is a certified babygirl #fatal flaw? murderous #waist? tiny #hotel? trivago #flirty x flustered #hero/villain

[bsd-fan]

Soukoku and the mafia

After a million years, I’m finally back with an analysis. I’ve already kind of analyzed Dazai and Chuuya as individual characters but I purposefully left behind something that was fundamental for both of their characterizations and that played a big role in molding their actual personalities. Yes, I’m talking about the environment they grew up in: The mafia.

Because the length and the complexity of the topic, I decided to make an entire post just about this. Obviously there will be spoilers of the anime, manga and light novels so be aware of that.

*Also a friendly reminder that english is not my native language, so I apologize if there’s any grammar or ortographic mistake or if something is worded in a weird way, I just hope is not bad enough that you can’t make sense of it at all. This is also extremely self indulgent and extremely long.

I’m gonna start by establishing the main premise of this analysis and the idea I will be defending in the next parragraphs:

The mafia is literally the worst place for skk to be in (and yes, I’m talking about BOTH of them)

Now this is a bold sentence because the immediate response would probably be something among the lines of “well duh, the mafia is a horrible place for everyone” and yes but also no. The mafia affects soukoku in a special way that is vastly different to how it affects the other characters in the mafia.

I’ve found that the mafia is one of the most misunderstood points in the series (Cycle of abuse, I’m looking at you) so I’m gonna talk about it. Back in chuuya’ analysis, I talked about how he shouldn’t be in the mafia. I wasn’t talking about this in terms of “Chuuya is majorly speaking a good person” and “The mafia is a morally bad place”, that’s pure bullshit and certainly not what I was referring to.

When the fandom talks about the mafia there are two major points of view. Either they saw it as hell incarnate or they see it as the “bad” protectors of the city, kind of a twisted family. And while both of this opinions are not /completely/ wrong, they’re also NOT right. Once again, the problem is that the fandom /still/ insists on assigning a moral category to something that is far more complicated than that. Yes, it’s the mafia, it’s literally a place of crime, it’s /obvious/ they’re gonna do morally bad things but they are also an important part in the tripartite framework and a major reason of why the city is still standing, this are not mutually exclusive. And that’s because the mafia is not a morally oriented organization.

The next biggest mistake when it comes to this topic is thinking of Mori and the Mafia as synonyms. People loves to blame Mori for every single thing that happens, there is always an entire section of comments that always claim “Normalize blaming Mori for everything” and that’s just /plainly/ wrong. I need you to understand that the mafia existed before Mori and will exist after Mori and it still will require of a leader that have certain type of characteristics. The reason Mori is the perfect leader for this organization is because he perfectly represents the mafia ideology NOT the opposite. Is Mori who adapts himself to the mafia, not the mafia adapting to him. Obviously he is in charge and he gets to influence and dictate the actions of the organization, the same way the old boss did (and he made a shit hole out of it) but the mafia as it core exists as a concept that can not be altered not matter who is in charge of it. And that’s what we have to understand.

Let’s start by defining it:

“An economic body that uses violence as it’s currency” -Mori

And that’s it, that’s the first and most important thing you gotta understand about the mafia. It’s not about bad people doing bad things for the sake of it. It’s not about morally grey people saving the city because of the good in their hearts. The mafia as it core is about money, is about benefits, is about gaining the most. It’s an economic body.

They will kill, kidnap and torture? Yes but they won’t do it because they’re bad, they will do it only if there’s something to gain out of it. They save the city and stop the other criminal groups? Yes, but it’s not because they are secretly good people. It’s to maintain the monopoly of the crime in the city and protect their territory where they have all the money and where they do their negotiations. There /are/ people in the mafia who genuinely care about the city like Mori, Chuuya, Tachihara or Hirotsu, I don’t doubt there are other people as well who cares about it but those are personal motivations that have absolutely nothing to do with the mafia as an institution. Because the mafia as it’s own entity only cares about the gains and losses.

So when we talk about the main difference between the Mafia and the ADA is not about morality. Both organizations are full of morally grey people, both of this organizations are ready to do criminal activities if required. The main difference is the objectives behind them. The ADA is a organization of people for people.

“There is no agency more valuable than human life”- fukuzawa about the ADA, first light novel

The ADA is about doing their best to help people, is about prioritizing human life above everything else. And when they do criminal acts? It’s because it was the only way to preserve as many lives as possible.

The mafia on the other hand is about gaining money and resources and it’s about securing the survival of it as as Institution doing whatever is necessary to achieve it.

“These magical stones always led to violence and bloodshed, and the only thing that could stop this violence and maintain a stable system was even more violence”— Chuuya, stormbringer.

In the last chapters we realize that even though the ADA as an organization technically doesn’t exist anymore (because they were seen as a terrorist group) they still can perfectly exist as long as the members are alive. They can make another organization but they can’t just replace one of their members, that would be a critical hit for them. That’s abysmally different to how the mafia conduces itself. It doesn’t matter how many people die, they can be easily replaced but if the mafia as an institution falls? Then they lose everything. So this means, that the ADA will sacrifice the organization as many times as necessary if by doing it, they can protect it’s members meanwhile the mafia will sacrifice as many people as necessary if by doing it they assure the survival of the mafia as an institution. And this has been shown again and again and again. It’s because of this main objective that the mafia by definition and independently of Mori, needs to be: Extremely Rational, utilitarian and deeply Machiavellian because if not, then it wouldn’t be able to survive. The mafia as an institution requires someone who will put the needs of the organization over personal feelings and even over the members of the institution if that’s the best option..

And that’s why Mori is the perfect leader of the organization, because he is the textbook ideal of what a Mafia boss should be. Mori is not known for being the cruelest or the evilest. He is known for being the most logical, not matter what. For always being cold and rational.

“Dazai, Do you know why I’m the boss? (…) I don’t posess an incredible skill like you or chuuya. Instead, however, I am a little better at something than the two of you. I can always predict exactly how many men I need to send into battle”- Mori, stormbringer.

To illustrate this better let’s talk about the death of the old boss and Odasaku.

First thing to understand is that people is not stupid, they always /knew/ that Mori killed the old boss. For fuck’s sake even the sheep who were a group of literal /kids/ that weren’t even part of the mafia knew that there was no way that the old boss died of naturally causes and casually left the mafia to Mori who coincidentally happened to be his doctor. They all knew but they are collectively playing pretend. Why? Because they recognize that Mori is the best option, because they know that Mori won’t sacrifice them without reason, he won’t ask them to do useless things. Every single action that Mori takes is for the benefit of the organization, is logical and can be defended using rational arguments and when he decides to sacrifice someone there’s also a reason behind it. And that’s the best option possible for a place like the Mafia. The mafiosos chose him because of it, but make no mistakes, if the time comes where Mori is more a liability than an asset then someone will most likely kill him and take his place exactly the way he did. That’s the way of the mafia. Just like Mori says, even in the top, everyone’s is a slave of the organization including himself.

Odasaku’s death was carefully planned and I’m not denying that there were personal reasons there, I’m not denying that part of it was to specifically aim to Dazai, being as part of training him to become the next boss of out of fear of Dazai killing him, Mori did this move knowing that Dazai was gonna be affected by it. But as much as all of you would hate to listen to it, it was also the most logical course of action. Just stop to think about it. You have this incredibly powerful asset, someone who is extremely competent, someone who is insanely strong but you can’t use him because he refuses to do any important task, he refuses to kill. He is basically wasted talent. But then there’s an opportunity to gain something extremely valuable (the ability’s permission) and you just have to eliminate one powerful group of people and hey, your liability happens to be the /perfect/ person for the job, so what do you do? What Mori did may be horrible but also was a genius move. He destroyed an entire organization while sacrificing one single person who was useless to him anyway. He gained something that was vital for the organization with basically no losses. Yes, he sacrificed the children and that’s fucking sick and horrible but they weren’t his responsibility, the organization was. The kids weren’t part of the organization, sacrificing them doesn’t translate to any significant losses to the mafia. That’s why Dazai is so frustrated by the end, because he lost his best friend, he is suffering but he can’t deny that Mori was logical about it, he can’t deny that that was rational. Even in beast there’s this whole part explaining how difficult it was to defeat mimic without oda, do you know what does that mean? Dazai probably sacrificed a large number of people to do it and even if he didn’t why would you as the Leander of the organization would take the most difficult path when there’s other that is far easier and cheaper? And just like that, every single one of Mori’s actions can be explained with a logical process behind it.

I feel like the biggest argument to understand that even though Mori represents the Mafia ideals, the mafia is still an independent organization of Mori is Beast. He is not the mafia boss in beast but the mafia basically remains exactly the same organization, akutagawa is not suffering but Atsushi is. People are suffering exactly the same, the only different thing is /who/are the ones suffering. Sure, someone can argument that Dazai was not trying to be the best leader, just to save Odasaku but the whole point is that generally speaking he had to make enough of a decent job to maintain the order in the city. Under Dazai’s command the mafia was more powerful than they were with Mori in charge. And it’s horrible, but that’s the only way to rule it. Otherwise the whole organization would fall apart. So to summarize the horrible environment of the mafia is NOT because of mori. We already saw the mafia in charge of the old boss, of Mori and of Dazai and the environment is kind of the same with slightly worse or better differences and that’s because again there are parts of the mafia that can’t be altered independently of who is in charge.

“A leader is simultaneously at the top of the organization and still a slave to it as a whole. You need to be willing to get your hands dirty to keep the organization afloat and thriving. A leader develops their subordinates and places them wherever they best fit and disposed of them if necessary. I will gladly perform the most heinous acts for the sake of this organization. That’s what it means to be a leader”- Mori, fifteen

Mori is far from perfect, he is horrible and sick and also have lots of personal interests, he also uses the organization to a certain degree to achieve them. But this is not fake. He will put the organization over everything else. That’s what it means to be the boss of the mafia.

So now that we got that out of the way and we learn to differentiate Mori from the mafia and we now understand that the mafia is not a moral organization but an economic body, we can start explaining why the mafia is such a terrible place for Dazai and Chuuya especifically. Let’s start with Dazai. We already discussed it but for the mafia to accomplish it’s main objective it needs to have certain characteristics.

Rational

Utilitarian

Machiavellian

Do this words remind you of someone?

“Your blood is mafia black”

Have you ever wondered why even though chuuya is the one with the greatest body count, Dazai is the one that always seems to be like the worse of them? Why Dazai is the first one to come to mind when they talk about the next mafia boss?

It’s because just like Mori he perfectly embodies the ideals of the mafia as an institution. He is brilliant, kind of apathetic, cold, rational, manipulative and he is naturally an utilitarian (philosophy that believes that the best action is the one that produces happiness to the most people) and Machiavellian (ideology that puts one’s goals over everything else, discarding the moral consequences and the ethics qualifications) this can be summarized to one simply sentence: Dazai is the type of person who is result oriented, it doesn’t matter the means, just the final result and that’s exactly the kind of ideology that the mafia needs to exist. And that’s just part of his natural personality.

So why the mafia is such a bad place for him if it seems like it’s the most natural place for him to be?

If this is the first thing that came to your mind:

Then you’re wrong and I’m here to spit in this idea of cycle of abuse.

Okay so first of all, people refer to “cycle of abuse” to the wrong thing. You’re actually referring to intergenerational abuse and even more than that you are all thinking about the /individualized/ abuse of one person to other than then replicates the same thing in someone else. Thing is, if we make this cycle we will arrive to Mori and I just wrote half a bible of why this is factually incorrect, so don’t make me say it again. Then, there’s the second biggest issue here, this is /incredibly/ reductionist. There /are/ parallelisms in this relationships, yes. But I need you to understand that even though they were indeed abused to a certain degree, they are all part of the mafia which is an abusive place to begin with and by definition. There was no way for them to not suffer this and they weren’t the only ones, everyone in the mafia was abused one way or another and it came from different places not just one specific person . Now let me start with the thing that bugs me the most of this cycle.

It obligates me to defend Mori

See, I can perfectly understand Dazai and Akutagawa being here because even though Aku was manipulated and used for more people in the mafia than just Dazai is a fact that he was the main abuser. It’s true that is was a target abuse and that was repetitive and degrading every single time. Akutagawa is now basically a glorified Pavlovian experiment thanks to Dazai. Yes, Dazai cares for him, yes Dazai actually was trying to teach him and to make him stronger. The intention here is secondary, akutagawa still ended up deeply traumatized and with a pathological need of recognition to survive.

Now akutagawa and kyouka? This one is more questionable because we know that Kouyou and Akutagawa had kind of a twisted version of shared custody when it came to her. So kyouka was abused for more than one person and not necessarily in an intergenerational abuse so the cycle is no longer a cycle right? But okay let’s go with it. We have actual canon proof that akutagawa abused her replicating Dazai’s methods with him so it can still qualify.

But Dazai and Mori? WHERE?

In all the story there’s no proof that Dazai was abused in this way by Mori.

It simply doesn’t exist, it’s just a headcanon that became so popular that everyone started to believe it. Yes, Mori exposed Dazai to a murder when he was fourteen and that’s a form of abuse, true. But have you noticed that most of the mafiosos got into the mafia when they were teenagers or even literal kids (Q was six, gin was also younger than Dazai) they were ALL exposed to this form of abuse. This doesn’t make it okay, of course but it’s not the kind of individualized abuse that you all love to talk about. “He manipulated him” true, he also manipulated oda, Ango, Chuuya, Q, etc. Again it certainly wasn’t personal or out of place for a mafia boss. And again IT’S NOT A CYCLE. We also have absolutely no evidence of Mori being physically or sexually abusive towards Dazai. He psychologically abused of him? Yes but once again there’s no evidence of it being worse than it was with other people. It’s plausible of course, because Dazai worked directly under him but for the most part it doesn’t seem like he was specifically horrible towards Dazai. You want to talk about Mori being horrible with someone? At least choose the right person because yosano is right there. Dazai had most of this personality traits before meeting Mori, so it’s not like Dazai was a perfectly sane and happy kid that would’ve been normal of he was picked up by a good person, he was not ranpo or yosano. Let’s also add that Dazai seemed to be incredibly desensitized to violence even at fourteen. We can’t blame Mori for his character traits but we can certainly blame him because he made them worse.

So if not for this, then why Dazai shouldn’t be in the mafia? Is not for the abuse, is not for the moral implications, then why?

Easy, the real reason it’s because of Dazai’s core as character. Dazai doesn’t care for the mafia, he doesn’t care for power and even though he naturally seeks the benefits out of every situation that also is not his core as a character. His core is and always be: Humanity. That’s what Dazai is looking for, that’s his nucleus as a character and that’s the reason the mafia is the worst place Dazai can be in, regardless of his abilities.

Dazai gets into the mafia trying to find a reason to live, trying to understand humanity so that would make him close to his own and it really seemed like the perfect plan, it was logical. The mafia certainly is a place where death is part of life, emotions are raw and most often than not genuine. Then why It didn’t work? Why his mental stake kept deteriorating more and more? Because it took him farther away from his humanity. I’ve said it before but the reason Dazai felt inhuman is because of a permanent sense of alienation and isolation. Dazai already has certain characteristics that make it harder for him to establish emotional bonds with people. His brain also moves faster than everyone’s else’s, so for him is so /easy/ to stop looking people as individuals and look at them as pieces to use and discard. The mafia is the worst place for him to be because it enhance this characteristics, the mafia impulses him to use them because that makes him the best asset but that also makes him incredibly miserable because it worsens the alienation thus increasing the deshumanization. Also the mafia makes him intellectualize as a coping mechanism which worsens his self awareness that to begin with is pretty poor. That’s not all, because of the nature of the mafia Dazai who already has trust issues ends up even worse so it isolates him even more. The only moments he seems to be closer to his humanity is with people like chuuya or Oda, and the hilarious thing about it is that they both are basically the opposite of what the mafia represents. More than that, Chuuya actually obligates him to go back to earth and start acting less as a god and more as a human being.

Which also explains why the ADA is better for Dazai than the mafia. Is not because of morality, is because is an organization that revolves around people so it obligates him to interact and create relationships with people, and even if they’re not 100% honest. It still decrease his alienation and isolation and being him closer to his humanity. That’s the reason the ADA is the best place for him.

Similarly but in a completely different way there’s chuuya, except that he is a thousand times more tragic than Dazai and every time I stop to think about him I want to sob, scream, throw up.

Dazai has the characteristics to be the perfect mafioso but his nucleus make it impossible for him to be one. Chuuya doesn’t have the characteristics to be a mafioso and also has the same nucleus as Dazai.

So the premise is: The mafia and chuuya are irreconciliable ideas and it’s a miracle that it’s still working.

We already went through everything that the mafia represents, we already know that by /definition/ the mafia is a place where you have to deshumanize other people and yourself in order to survive. It’s not a surprise that is the WORSE place in the world for the two people whose whole characterizations revolves around humanity.

But in chuuya’s case, his whole personality and ideological system directly clash with the mafia. Is fucking tragic. Let me remind you that chuuya gain his whole sense of humanity and identity out of the relationships he makes with people. Chuuya /cares/ for people, that’s just the kind of person he is. You CAN’T ask him to start viewing this people that are /everything/ to him just like chess pieces that can be sacrificed at any moment. That would be the equivalent of spitting in his sense of humanity, to take away his reason to live and his identity. That would completely break him. So chuuya keeps making bonds with people and suffering Every. Single. Loss. Because the mafia is a place of sacrifice and he can’t stop it not matter how hard he tries. And that it’s also devastating in a whole new way.

“His eyes were tainted with Darkness just like everyone in the mafia. It was a murky darkness-one that viewed human lives as mere numbers”- about Arthur, fifteen

This is the mafia, this is the mindset needed to be there. This is also precisely the opposite of everything that chuuya is. Chuuya survives because he can’t view human as numbers. People are the most precious thing in the world for him.

This is chuuya Nakahara:

You value your friendships and make decisions accordingly. I suppose you could call this human nature- Adam, stormbringer

Chuuya is in a place where people die and no one cares, because they were simply numbers, because they don’t exist as individuals not really.

“Countless people died, but the incident hardly remained in anyone’s memory”- stormbringer

The flags died and no one aside from him cared, after that he made new friends that were also killed in the same fucking year and once again nobody stopped, just him. The mafia just replaced them and acted like it was nothing. And meanwhile:

“-Chuuya you smell like incense. Did you go visiting those graves again?- shirase about chuuya, stormbringer

Chuuya keeps visiting those graves because even when no one remembers them, he does, because they were his friends, they were individuals. Hell, leave alone his friends, Chuuya fucking goes to talk to Arthur’s grave. That’s the type of person he is

Chuuya is emotional, he is straightforward, he is honest, he /cares/. Chuuya’s so opposite to the mafia ideals that it would be funny if it didn’t make me want to eat glass. In order to be in this organization he has to go against his personality, against his values and against his moral code. Do you have an idea of how tiring that is? Of how much that affects him? Even if he refuses to notice? So chuuya solved his conflict, he found his humanity but he did it in a place that constantly tries to take it away from him.

Now, how has he survived this long then? Because he has developed coping mechanisms but this only slow his downfall. It won’t stop it.

His first coping mechanism is one that I find /incredibly/ interesting. And I’ve never seen anyone talking about it: Selective deshumanization

This existed before the mafia but Chuuya made it stronger after becoming a mafioso. I’ve said it before, even though chuuya has so many hero like characteristics the reason he is a morally grey character is that he chooses. He decides that certain people are more important than others, he knows that he can’t protect everyone, he knows that in order to protect his people, he will have to sacrifice other people. So chuuya deshumanize that group of people as a defense mechanism, he needs to stop himself from looking at them as individuals. If you want examples of it, there’s Dazai, Randou, Addam and Verlaine. At first I really thought that it was a coincidence but it happens enough to be an identificable pattern. When skk met, Dazai got obsessed really fast, chuuya didn’t. Chuuya tried to keep his distance as much as possible because he knew that Dazai was an enemy. He didn’t make personal questions even though it was obvious that he found Dazai’s behavior weird, he refused as much as possible to give him personal information and more subtle but more important, Chuuya absolutely refused to call him by his name. He used lots of insults but never his name even when it was clear that he knew it, that was him trying to keep as much emotional distance as possible. And the moment he used it? It was over for him, because from there it doesn’t matter how much he tried he could never stop himself from looking at Dazai as a human being, worse than that, he ended up understanding him even against his wishes. Same happened with Arthur, he was just another crazy man obsessed with Arahabaki but the moment he talked about Verlaine? About how he was doing everything for his friend? He became a real person, he could identify with. Addam? Was just a bothersome machine, he also refused to call him by his name but by the end of it chuuya was using corruption because he considered Addam a friend that he loved regardless of his origin. Verlaine fucking ruined his life and killed the most important people in his life but once chuuya understood his reasons and his past, he empathized with him and defended that he indeed was a human being at the end of the day. What I’m trying to say is that chuuya tries to keep his emotional distance by deshumanizing people but he kinda fails. A LOT.

The second one is the anger. Chuuya can’t express his emotions easily, a lot of it came from the fact that he always had to be the strongest so it was impossible for him to express vulnerability and then he went into the mafia and if there’s a bad place to be vulnerable, this is it. Chuuya deals with every strong emotion transforming it into anger because that’s an emotional he can control. The devastating thing is that It doesn’t only apply for bad emotions, even when he is happy or grateful he feels like he can’t express it and that makes me want to jump from a very tall something.

The third one is evasion. I find this particularly funny because in almost every fanfic Dazai is the one that evades his feelings and just decides to stop thinking about certain stuff when in canon the one that does that is chuuya. Dazai intellectualize as a way of dealing with feelings because he doesn’t know how to process them, and he overthinks a lot because he can’t stop himself from doing it. That is why his brain is his worse enemy. Chuuya, on the other hand, just evades. He supress all the emotions that he can’t exteriorize as anger, he supress his worst fears and his biggest insecurities, he put all of it into a mental box and throws away the key. But they are still pretty much there, lurking in the dark. Most of his “instinctual” actions are in reality guided by all of this things that he is trying so hard to hide.

And the last one? Is probably the worse one. We already establish that Chuuya can’t deshumanize the people in his group so he tries so absurdly /hard/ to protect them. He is always ready to sacrifice himself if by doing it he can save the people he loves, he carries too much, so the rest won’t have to do it, he takes the worse jobs, he is in the front lines, he is always ALWAYS the one to be hurt first. It may seem different but he is basically in the same situation as he was with the sheep. Except that now is not his people that are asking for his sacrifice, now he is doing it himself. Because he knows that the people he loves can be stolen from him in any moment, so he over compensates by doing everything he can to avoid it.

“The moment you get your hands on something worth going after, you lose it”- Dazai, Dark era.

Not in the same way, never in the same way because that would be sacrificing his humanity but chuuya’s thought process is not that different from Dazai. He doesn’t avoid relationships, though, he does everything in his power to avoid losing them JUST LIKE DAZAI DOES. Dazai knows that he can’t control everything, he knows that the world is absurd and full of irregularities but it’s terrifying to live in this kind of world, so he tries to predict everything, he tries to be three steps ahead of everyone else even if that make him feel less of a human being, because maybe then he can make a difference, maybe then he can protect what he has. Chuuya does basically the same thing, in order to protect his people, he will be the strongest, he won’t fall, he won’t ask for help, he will be the one carrying everything. Do you have an idea of how lonesome that is? To know that you can’t depend on anyone? Chuuya is a people’s person but he is so incredibly /lonely/. He can never be their equal because he is too busy trying to protect them. And this happens because the mafia is just like this, a place of sacrifices. A place of losses. It’s not a place for long lasting relationships.

At least two of this coping mechanisms lead him to deshumanization even when he tries his best to avoid precisely that. So chuuya basically lives in the worst dilemma in earth and this much contradiction will kill him one day.

The only reason he is still able to be there is because in his position as executive he had never been in a position in which he had to choose between his friends and the major benefit of the organization.

Chuuya as the next mafia boss? is laughable

The whole organization would crumble in DAYS. And that’s because chuuya goes against the single most important principle of the organization.

He is loyal to the people in the mafia, not to the organization

Chuuya will sacrifice the whole organization in a minute for its members, that’s literally the OPPOSITE of what the mafia stands by. He can’t sacrifice in cold blood a friend, he just can’t do it, that goes against everything that he is. He refused to sacrifice Adam even though at that moment that seemed like the only option to save the city and the mafia and he still REFUSED. Because he simply can’t sacrifice a friend. It’s impossible to him. Q is another good example of how much of a terrible leader chuuya would be. Believe it or not killing Yumeno was the opposite of what a proper mafioso should’ve done. There’s a reason Mori ordered to bring Q alive and that’s because rationally speaking yumeno is a weapon, killing him won’t bring back the people that already died and honestly speaking Q’s life is far more valuable than most of the mafiosos but for chuuya? It wasn’t the case, he couldn’t be rational because /his/ people died because of Q because for him was more important to prevent this from ever happening again than to use Q.

So to summarize chuuya is stuck, he can’t leave the mafia because that could be to go against his identity and sense of humanity but staying there is slowly killing him because it obligates him to go against everything he is and to be completely lonely in a place that is dead on deshumanization. So he basically lives in a state of pressure and constant stress while feeling trapped and saying to himself that he is where he should be. The ideal place for chuuya, funnily enough would be the ADA. And I’m not saying this for Dazai but because of the objectives of the ADA. A place that is oriented to people, a place that values relationships, a place that revolves around protection. It drives me mad everytime I think about how ridiculous ADA coded chuuya is only to be in the mafia.

Okay so basically that is the end of the rant, if you read all the way to here, congratulations and thank you for your time.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd chuuya #bsd dazai #soukoku #bsd #bsd spoilers #analysis #mafia analysis #bsd mori #me fangirling about chuuya #what’s new #this somehow is longer than the two past analysis #sorry for being depressing

[matthias-the-tulip]

my updated list of parts i hope they keep in the red, white & royal blue movie

(updated after i reread it in a day) (a lot of these are just funny lines that add absolutely nothing to the plot but they make me laugh)

• the MAGAZINE 😭

• “he has the personality of a cabbage.”

• “i want to hear you gush like he's your fucking prom date.”

• alex makes a long loud fart noise


• “i'm going to throw up on you” at the stables (doesn't look like they're at a stables in the trailer 😒)

• “i'd rather be waterboarded” also at the stables (again, doesn't look like they're at a stables)

• “i bet he has a secret lovechild,” nora says. “or he's gay. or he has a secret gay lovechild.”

“it's probably in case i see his equerry putting his batteries back in,” alex says.

• midnight ice cream on instagram

• “i didn't know you wore glasses.” (henry's wearing a suit not pyjamas and alex is not wearing glasses what's that all about!)

• awkward fist bump on “this morning” (does not look like it’s a chat show in the trailer but also would a royal even go on this morning)

• star wars stan henry 🥹

• “not impressed, just surprised.”

“at what?”

“that you actually have, you know, feelings.”

• henry is beginning to smile…

• “do you MIND?” in the cupboard at the hospital

• “you're not the prince of me” 😭

• “i'd rather not be the little spoon.”

• henry's feet in a mop bucket

• “locked in a cupboard with your elbow inside my rib cage.”

• “i cannot believe even mortal peril will not prevent you from being the way you are.”

• “are you psychoanalysing me? i don't think royal guests are allowed to do that.”

• “is that the time you threatened to push me into the thames?”

• “no booty calls.”

• “it was like you were trying to set him on fire with your mind.”

• june's (nora now i guess 😟) plot to murder woody allen

• “don't let the papers print lies about me after i've garroted myself with my tie.”

• “you are the thistle in the tender and sensitive arse crack of my life.”

• “yes, famously the most sinister of all animal sounds, the gobble.”

• “cornbread knows my sins.”

• the whole turkey situation really

• “buy a summer home in majorca with the turkey”

• MR WOBBLES

• “jabba” cakes.

• henry watching bake off

• “you're jeff goldblum”

• “yo there's a bond marathon on and did you know your dad was a total babe”.

“I BEG YOU TO NOT”

• “it sounds like you did your best.” 🥹

• the new year’s party being referred to as “the legendary balls-out bananas white house trio new year's eve party” (white house duo now 😭)

• “please do not attempt to steal my shine. you will fail and i will be embarrassed for you.”

• “says prince fucking charming.”

• get low playing at the new year’s eve party

• alex’s reaction to get low playing at the new year’s eve party

• “christ, you are as thick as it gets.”

• alex falling while running with june (nora now i guess 😟) cause he was thinking about henry

• “he's gay and you're hot, so.”

• “still waters, deep dicking.”

• “prince henry is a biscuit,” nora says,
“let him sop you up.”

• they know each other's sleep schedule and alex gets in a bad mood when he doesn't talk to him 🥹

• “you're not going to kill him, are you?” she says.
“probably not,” alex tells her

• “shut up, shut all the way up, oh my
god”

• alex pushing henry up against a wall!

• “i mean, er, should we, i dunno, slow down?”henry says, cringing so hard at himself that one eye closes. “go for dinner first, or-“

• hooking one knee around the back of alex's thigh 😉

• ”i'm going to die,” henry says helplessly.

“i'm going to kill you,” alex tells him.

“yes, you are,” henry agrees.

• alex fixing his hair for him 😢😢😢

• henry singing god save the queen (king i guess) to make his 🍆 go away

• “i am going to do very bad things to you, and if you fucking ghost me again, i’m going to get you put on a fucking no-fly list. got it?”

• “you were jealous,” alex says. “you want me.”

• henry calling alex bossy 😂

• alex literally just insulting henry while he’s going to town on him

• “do you ever stop talking?” henry says. “such a mouth on you.”

• “hi,” he says, when he reaches henry’s eye level.

“hello,” henry says back.

“i’m gonna take your pants off now,” alex tells him.

“yes, good, carry on.”

• fucking eyelashes

• when he's done, he presses a sticky kiss in the crease of alex's leg where he'd slung it over his shoulder

• the mattress shifts, and henry moves up to the pillows, nuzzling his face into the hollow of alex's throat. alex makes a vague noise of approval, and his arms fumble around henry's waist, but he's helpless to do much else.

• the tip of henry’s nose catching on alex’s

• “for fuck’s sake, man, you just had my dick in your mouth, you can kiss me goodnight.”

• monocles for babies 😂

• “i don’t like that look,” amy says. “you look…sweaty.”

• “what in the rich-white-people-sex-dungeon hell?”

• the whole polo kit situation. henry slowly putting his boot back on the floor

• “i’ve thrown men in the dungeons for less.”

“hey, don’t threaten me with a good time.”

• paris!!! leaving directions to the cheese

• “you're a mad, spiteful, unmitigated demon, and I'm going to kiss you until you forget how to talk.”

• birthday floggings et al and the buttercream!

• alex’s heart going weird at henry on the boat and having to put his head in his hands

• “i don't give a damn what joanne has to say, remus john lupin is gay as the day is long, and i won't hear a word against it.”

• “i will staple your dick to the inside of your leg”

• “i did get both of the gay kings.”

• “deflowering the darling of the republic.”

• “i'm not ... historically great at talking about things,” henry says.

“well, i wasn't historically great at blowjobs, but we all gotta learn and grow, sweetheart.”

“wasn't?"

“hey,” alex huffs. “are you trying to say i'm still not good at them?”

“no, no, i wouldn't dream of it,” henry says, and alex can hear the small smile in his voice. “it was just the first one that was.. well. it was enthusiastic, at least.”

“i don't remember you complaining…”

“yes, well, i'd only been fantasizing about it for ages.”

• baby. (!!!)

• “i miss you,” alex says before he can stop himself. he instantly regrets it, but henry says, “i miss you too.”

• “i want to ... put my fingers in his mouth...” she moans, sounding horrified.

• just the whole karaoke bar situation. plz. toilet stall hookup!

• “bisexuality is truly a rich and complex tapestry.”

• o captain, my captain

• “if only you had known the mighty work of thine loins would be undone by a gay heir who likes it when american boys with chin dimples are mean to him.”

• the fruity truth: my favourite english author is jane austen.

• “when at wimbledon”

• “i want to see a cage match between your grandmother (grandfather i guess) and this fucking ghoul running against my mom”

• “and you are good. most things are awful most of the time, but you're good.”

• “he is truly a picture, wearing an expression of bewildered panic and absolutely nothing else.”

• “jesus tits”

• henry falling out of the wardrobe and just. sitting on the floor. (zahra finds him in the wardrobe instead :()

• “i thought you were getting into international relations or something.”

“i mean, technically-“

• “you're literally putting your dick in the leader of a foreign state, who is a man, at the biggest political event before the election, in a hotel full of reporters, in a city full of cameras, in a race close enough to fucking hinge on some bullshit like this, like a manifestation of my fucking stress dreams, and you're asking me not to tell the president about it?”

• all of zahra's quips tbh - “every time i see you, it takes another year off my life.” - “ask me if i'm afraid of the crown.”

• SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION WITH
FOREIGN MONARCHS: A GRAY AREA.

• EXPLORING YOUR SEXUALITY: HEALTHY, BUT DOES IT HAVE TO BE WITH THE PRINCE OF ENGLAND?

• FEDERAL FUNDING, TRAVEL EXPENSES, BOOTY CALLS, AND YOU

• history, huh? bet we could make some. (the emails plz like i need at least some of them read aloud over a montage or something)

• “some saucy tart once tried to impugn my virtue against an oil painting of him, and in the halls of memory, some things demand context.”

• I GUESS THAT MAKES YOU. THE MF. NORTH STAR.

• “i thought you might need to, like, have a catholic moment about this or something?” 😭

• “santa maria is watching!”

• skinny dipping!!!

• “philip is the heir and i'm the spare, and if that nervy bastard has a heart attack at thirty-five and i've got malaria, whither the spare?”

• alex's meltdown outside kensington. very important. - “how 'bout i just keep yelling and we see which of the papers show up first!” he turns back to the window and starts flailing his arms too. “henry! your royal fucking highness!”

• “jesus, could you stop being an obtuse fucking asshole for, like, twenty seconds?”

• “i fucking love you, okay?” alex half yells, finally, irreversibly.

• “what do you want?”

“i want you-”

“then fucking have me.”

“-but i don’t want this.”

• “a whole lifetime of fine. that’s not good enough for me.”

• henry nuzzling his nose behind alex's ear.

• alex laughs and grabs his head and aggressively kisses his cheek, smashing his face into the pillow.

• “next time we shall visit some of the george Ill pieces and see if they burst into flame.”

• DANCING TO YOUR SONG IN THE MUSEUM

• “i completely fucking love you” and the ring and the chain

• “once shaan managed to dislodge him from the chandelier”

• henry’s email about memories and grief and the first time he saw alex

• “jesus, be a gay beard”

• henry and alex in the car after the fake date

• “i will physically fight your grandmother (grandfather i guess) myself if i have to, okay? and, like, she's (he’s) old. i know i can take her (him).”

“i wouldn't be so cocky,” henry says with a small laugh. “she's (he’s)full of dark surprises.”

• “your spine's a ridge i'd die climbing”

• “check the fucking news, you horny little miscreant”

• “it’s about to be gay DEFCON five in this administration.”

• “then fuck it.”

• the big group hug

• oscar saying “give ‘em hell.”

• “you're my mean friend.”

• “jumping off cliffs is kinda my thing”

• I 😭 LOVE 😭 HIM 😭 ON 😭PURPOSE 😭 they can't leave that out if they do i'll kill someone

• “what are we even defending here, philip? what kind of legacy? what kind of family, that says, we'll take the murder, we'll take the raping and pillaging and the colonizing, we'll scrub it up nice and neat in a museum, but oh no, you're a bloody poof? that's beyond our sense of decorum! i've bloody well had it. i've sat about long enough letting you and gran and the weight of the damned world keep me pinned, and i'm finished. i don't care. you can take your legacy and your decorum and you can shove it up your fucking arse, philip. i'm done.”

• “for what it's worth,” he says to philip, “that is the bravest son of a bitch i’ve ever met.”

• “we banged it out last night” + high five

• “i've been gay as a maypole since the day i came out of mum, philip.”

• all the support for them 🥹

• bea pouring the tea on philip's lap

• “you know, i think all that cocaine i did must’ve really done a job on my reflexes!”

• henry pulls alex close and kisses him, whispers, "i love you i love you i love you."

• never 😭 tell 😭 me 😭 the 😭 odds 😭

• “my life is a cosmic joke and you're not a real person”

• “you are the absolute worst idea i’ve ever had”

• “listen, you've had your first big sex scandal. no more sitting at the kids' table.”

• how to love each other in plain sight

• “holding henry’s hand atop his own knee” in the portrait

• “all this fundraising for sobriety is going to drive me to drink”

• “i'm the prince of...here” 😭

• “you spent a month of your gap year talking to yaks in mongolia, h.”

• “i know it's a lot, but you give people hope. so, get back out there and be alex.”

• the super six 😭 (fantastic five now i guess)

• the picture of them on the cover of the magazine

• henry fixing june's hair 🥹 (NORA NOW I GUESS 😟)

#rwrb #rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #red white and royal blue movie #red white & royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #casey mcquiston