Tumgik
#& her becoming less evil or whatever
ailinu · 2 years
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And there we go.
#finished wheel of time 15 minutes ago and i have *thoughts*#won't voice them all here and now but book spoilers follow: ye have been warned#i'm a little surprised we didn't have more major character death#oh we pulled out all the stops on our thousands of minor characters but for the major ones?#we pulled a lot of fake-outs#which is. something. i don't know how i feel about it#that said egwene hit me like a fucking train#very well done---particularly since i'd had less fondness for her than some of the others?#she felt a little... undefined to me. i guess. but that could just be me. but her death: holy fuck. forget about whatever rand's doing.#which is fair. i think. because rand is doing The Problem Of Evil and his conclusion is Free Will Good.#which is fine?? i guess??? i'm glad he had his moment of growth and realized that Get Rid Of Bad is not a solution that maintains free will#but unfortunately i care a lot about the problem of evil and would have loved to see more nuance#but to be fair this also ties in with. like. the real exhaustion of pretty much this whole book being battles.#and with so much of heroism being conflated with violence against an unquestionably evil force#there is no provision for the tua'than in the Dragon's Peace. they are not represented in the talks#their presence at the battle is a surprise; their brief philosophizing a capitulation that they will owe their survival to those fighting#we end the series without knowing if the song which has been found has been returned to them#where evil requires force of arms to be defeated and heroism is valued at participating in that fight i think--#--it is difficult to dig into pacifism. and i think that's especially true when killing becomes easy to excuse#because something is irredeemably and unquestionably evil#but to be fair: i could be overblowing this a bit. it's been percolating for a while haha#overall though: much to think about. will keep you updated.
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writersdrug · 1 month
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Nectar and Bane - Pt. 1
Pairings: Hunter!König x Witch!Reader
Pt. 2
Summary: König is hired to hunt down a pesky witch by a warlock, who paints you as the most evil thing in the past three centuries. With the promise of finding true love (or, the closest thing the warlock can offer: a brainwashed woman who is forced to dote on the hunter), König sets out on his journey. However, you aren't what he was expecting at all, and he develops a newfound obsession with making you become his.
Warnings: dubcon, mentions of rape, manipulation, kidnapping, sex pollen (kinda? If you squint? not really, but better safe than sorry), corruption kink, mentions of blood and violence, mentions of consuming human organs, unrequited pining, angst at the end, death (not for main characters), cowgirl, missionary, mating press, biting, hair pulling, nipple play, power imbalance, handjob, obsessive thoughts and behaviour (please let me know if I missed any!)
Notes: thought I'd try my hand a fantasy au version of cod, or at least of König. This is really long (over 15000 words) so I split it into two parts. The next part is pretty much done, I'm just exhausted and wanted to at least crank out half. Let me know if you would like to be tagged in pt 2!
ps if anyone has any suggestions or tips on how to make collages or banners for fics, pleeeaseeee lmk
translations at the end
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Watch your every step. From the moment you step foot into those woods, you can’t trust anything you see.
That’s what the sorcerer had drilled into his head before he had begun his journey. He called you dangerous, cunning… “A sneaky, meddling bitch…” he had grumbled over the table in that crowded tavern.
Two small pouches, one of silver, one of gold, sat in between the two patrons on the table. Stains of ale and coffee rings littered the unvarnished wood. The wax of the thick candle had trickled down and formed small, hardened pools at the base – its flame flickered weakly, casting unflattering shadows against the man’s weathered features, and making the portentous hood covering König’s face only that much more ominous.
He'd listened warily as the sorcerer described the witch – you. Tens of centuries old, too much knowledge and too little wisdom to use it sensibly. You take whatever you want by whatever means possible, and your favored method was using your physical assets and the promise of sexual devotion to coerce those within your web to do your bidding. “Sometimes it’s for her personal gain – sometimes, she does it for fun.” The warlock added bitterly. “Akin to a serpent, she winds you into her embrace, and then crushes your bones before she swallows you whole, saving your heart for last.” You’d done it to him, ensnaring him into your alluring trap, before stealing his spellbooks, his potions, his most prized collections… and vanishing into thin air.
An enchantress, König had concluded.
The warlock’s request? “Kill her. And be quick with it. The sooner this earth is rid of that swine, the sooner we can all rest. And, better yet – bring me her eyes! Potent things, witches’ eyes can be – of course, that is if they’re still working. If the bitch has gone blind, don’t waste dulling your dagger. A handful of her hair would do just fine.”
König had killed much worse for much less, and this sounded like it would be on the simpler side of things. A few days’ worth of hunting and a quick, efficient kill – hopefully, one of his easier jobs, although with the way the sorcerer described you, that might not be. He’d dealt with magicians before; up until now, they had been rather boring to hunt – tedious, but nonetheless, boring. Most of the time, they tried to end him with some elaborate incantation in the few seconds remaining of their life after he’d ambushed them. His silver blade would be slicing across their throats before they could utter five syllables. They were always so intent on murdering their victims slowly and in a flashy manner. With König’s preference for a more immediate result, he was usually the one collecting the fingernails, teeth, and tongues.
(Over time, he’d had noticed that it was always sorcerers ordering the assassination of other sorcerers. He wondered why they had so much of an issue amongst themselves, but he didn’t question it. Whatever kept him fed and paid for his room, he would do it.)
The picture the warlock was painting of you, however, made you seem much craftier and more calculated. You couldn’t resist the glamorous ways of murder via magic – it was written in your nature as a witch. But you played the game with your charisma and wit, too; something magic users didn’t typically rely on (half of the time, because they weren’t charismatic, nor witty). You waited until your assailant would fall to your wicked charm, before dissecting him like nothing more than a toad for your cauldron. If not an easy kill, you at least sounded like you would be an exciting one – but König knew he could get something more from this client for killing you.
“What more can you offer me?” he asked.
The warlock chuckled. “The gold is insufficient, is it?” he leaned forward and hunched his shoulders, speaking in a hushed tone. “Tell me, what do you desire? Recognition and respect? Revenge against someone who’s crossed you? To bring back a loved one from the dead? Or, perhaps, to find a love of your own?”
König’s shoulders tensed, and the rest of the warlock’s utterances fell on deaf ears. Could he possibly give him a chance to find himself someone to love? Someone that he and only he can worship? It was true that he would be happier to live alone, in whatever way that would allow him to be independent of society… but the thought of being able to live alone with someone, someone who was devoted to him, someone who could decorate his hut with signs of life and warmth, someone with a kind smile and a sweet voice, someone who he could spend hours upon hours with, memorizing each curve of their body, the taste of their nectar on his tongue…
He called it love. Others would call him insane. He’d heard it all before – how no one would ever love him, given his profession, his awkwardness in carrying a conversation about anything normal other than how sharp his knives are, and how he uses them… that, and the fact that he never shows his face (“He must be hideous under there…” they would speculate). Nonetheless, he still craved the devotion of an obedient, warm body waiting for him in his cabin at the end of the day – once he did get a cabin. Why should he be denied what everyone else wants?
He knew he was a hypocrite; he couldn’t expect someone else to be so willing to leave everything and run away with him. Not with his insane ideations and obsessions – hell, not with who he was as a person. But if he killed enough healthy rabbits to keep her fed, and if he fucked her hard enough that her eyes rolled back into her head and she couldn’t muster enough strength to escape the mattress… would she ever care about what kind of man he was?
The warlock smiled slowly. “Of course… that’s what all of you sick bastards want.” He said, leaning back and folding his arms. “If it will seal our contract, I will give you whichever woman you choose. I’ll make her yours, and only yours, with unconditional love – even for your damned soul.”
A fair deal, König had thought. Which is exactly what had him currently trudging through the dense woods, searching for any traces of a witch – a sack with two loaves of bread and some apples hung over his shoulder, along with his well-worn tashka stuffed with the coin he had earned over time. His sword was strapped to his hip in its sheath, his dagger (a short sword, when it was compared to the average person) stuffed into the lead-lined, deerskin sheath on the side of his boot; and a pelt, heavy and thick, hung around his shoulders. All he had to his name.
König had done a day of research on you – testimonies and sightings of you ghosting the perimeter of the woods at an early age, hoping to lure some poor soul away as your very first victim. “I imagine she was a succubus in her previous life,” the warlock had spoken, “maybe too much of a whore for even the devil to handle.”
He had caught you one night by luring you to his cabin with the scent of a savory meal. Guessing by your inexperience, and the way you avoided using words as you snarled and thrashed in the warlock’s grip, he assumed you had not yet reached one hundred years old. You were still young and fresh-faced, appearing no more than twenty to human eyes. “After a few decent meals, and reintroducing her to the work of her past life – she’d settled in as the perfect student. It almost felt like having a pet.” He added with a smug smile.
König questioned how happy you were with being reintroduced to the work of your past, but he didn’t comment on it.
After living with the warlock as his student and whore for a few centuries, you turned into a strong, young witch. You didn’t care to go into town, preferring to stay at the cabin and watch over the brews whenever he had to make deliveries or run to the shops. The warlock had no complaints about your desire to stay holed up in his home – fewer people to ogle at you, fewer glimpses into a more civilized life that might tempt you to run away. He’d much rather you be a brooding, antisocial bitch, than watch one of his clients stare at you with a yellowed, lustful grin, like you were some harlot in the window of a brothel.
On one particular day, without any indication of what you were planning, he had returned home from his rounds to an empty cabin – not just empty of you, but of his potion stock, his rarest ingredients, and his most prized spellbooks. He’d run into the woods in fury, screeching your name and hurling threats into the trees around him – but you were gone. Not a trace of you could be found within a five mile radius of his home.
It was like you had never been there, save the absence of his personal belongings.
In König’s opinion, you didn’t strike him as an extremely dangerous individual. Sure, the warlock had harped on and on about how cunning and deceiving you were – but all you had done was lie to him. And from the way he had described the conditions you were under, König didn’t exactly blame you for running away. Maybe this job was a waste of his time…
Still, he couldn’t find it in him to complain, despite the nip of the mid-autumn air, and the fact that he was embarking on what might be one of the most treacherous endeavors of his career. He was getting a decent payout for it – that is, if he lived to finish the job. Additionally, the scenery was a comfort to his journey; wiry birch trees stood high and thickly clustered, their brown and black spots like ever-watchful eyes, staring at the gargantuan hunter as he moved. Their golden leaves mimicked the light of the sun, the real thing blocked out by the overcast skies. A whisper of wind flew by his ears, carrying down and blowing the leaves further along his path with a gentle sigh. As if nature herself was telling the world to be quiet, be still, and prepare for winter.
It was times like this where König became unsure of himself. What if he hated having someone else to care for? What if, deep down, he preferred the silence and the solitude? But then, the loneliness would strike him. The longing to be understood (if that was humanely possible), and the desire to have something warm, alive, and sentient to acknowledge him. It consumed him on those sleepless nights, perfectly warm by the hearth of whatever inn he resided at, yet so hollow without having someone to wrap his arms around.
A swaying movement in the branches above pulled him from his thoughts. Hanging down by a twine thread, tied to one of the spindling birch branches, was a tiny, burlap pouch. It reached a few feet above König’s head, and was drenched in a dark, thick liquid that dripped rhythmically onto the forest floor. Looking to where the drops landed, he noticed the matter on the ground was decaying – a steaming pile of rot was all that was left of the leaves that were once there.
He frowned. The trap was clever – for a witch in their first century. König had expected something a bit more dangerous for someone your age. Maybe the last hunter had been too gullible, and you stereotyped them to all be oafs. Or, maybe you were too old and couldn’t craft traps with the same skill and precision as your younger self.
He drew his dagger from his boot and quickly sliced the twine thread. The pouch dropped to the floor with a squelch, landing in the very puddle of death it had created. The liquid beneath it bubbled and hissed, and the bag soon dissolved to reveal its contents: bits of bone – a kind of reptilian foot, from the looks of it – dried pomegranate seeds, and a fuzzy layer of mold, all appearing to be drenched in some kind of blood.
He carefully stepped around the stinking mess, his eyes turning back onto the path to continue his hunt. He both hoped for and against finding more evidence of your existence. He wanted to get back to town as soon as he could, so he could hole himself up in an inn until his money began to run out – all the same, his mind craved a puzzle and a chase. Though, with how old you were, he doubted there would be much of a chase.
More leaking, swaying hex bags hung from branches as he trudged on, pointing him in the right direction. He didn’t bother to quiet the sound of the leaves beneath his footsteps – the rustling of the wind through the foliage was doing the job well enough. He held onto his dagger tightly, his other hand on his longsword, as he carefully toed through the dense forest. He had to be close – the smell of fennel and turmeric settled around his presence, along with the babbling of a nearby stream.
The sound of a distant tune danced through the trees. The voice was soft, yet clear, and whoever it belonged too was much too confident that they were alone in these woods. König wondered if it was actually you, and not some poor soul who had been foraging for the autumn mushrooms and berries – but he was nearly a day’s trek into the forest. No one would dare come out this far, unless they wanted to be alone. And, they were potentially hiding from something; their own past, perhaps.
He cautiously followed the sound of the tune, still disguising the sound of his own steps within the rustling leaves and wind. His heart thrummed with both uncertainty and excitement; he always did get too thrilled at the idea of a struggle and blood covering his hands. He took a deep breath in through his nostrils, focusing his attention on the voice that carried through the trees, pulling him closer and closer… He gripped his dagger tightly as he crept, reminding himself of the warlock’s warning: cunning, sneaky – be on your best wits.
The voice brought him to the edge of a clearing. The birch trees parted and encircled a few meters of earth, and a few bushes huddled along the far edge, dotted with purplish berries and thorned branches. A wicker basket, woven clumsily and rather lopsided, sat on the ground and caught each berry and branch that was tossed into it. A figure knelt in front of the bushes, carefully plucking the berries with thin, delicate fingers, stained purple from the juice of the berries, and nails that might need a trim soon, unless they were intended to be claws.
The cloaked figure confused König. The voice was too melodic, too clear and fresh for an old witch. He had assumed you weren’t much younger than the warlock, but still old. He remained a few yards away from you, shrouded by the trees and dense foliage outside of the clearing.
It was when you turned your head, dropping your handful of berries into the basket, revealing your face, that he realized how wrong he had been in his assumption.
Your skin was soft, he could tell even with the distance between the two of you. Your lips delicately moved as you sang your tune, your eyes sparkled in contrast to the dull autumn colors that surrounded you. Small wisps of your hair danced around your cheeks as the wind caressed it. Your entire body looked soft, warm, and pliable… exactly what he needed. Craved.
It wasn’t hard for him to imagine it: leaves tangling into your hair as he pressed his fingers around your neck, pushing you to the cold ground and watching as you gasped for air. He’d use his knife, but not to kill you. He’d drag it over your hardened nipples, watching them perk up even more at the prickling sensation, before he’d carve his name into your stomach. Smear your pretty blood all over your pretty face, watch as your eyes widen with horror, as you question how someone can be so deranged and cruel, how he can take so much pleasure in something so vile and horrible-
Or maybe, he could convince you that he just wants a fuck. You looked like you could use one – when was the last time you’d had someone’s lips on your breasts, or their cock in your cunt? It had certainly been too long for him… he couldn’t imagine how long you had gone without being thoroughly ravaged, living in these woods all alone. He could take care of that. He could be gentle, for a little while; holding your wrists above your head as he pushed you against a tree, whispering praise and encouragements into your ear, “… so gut, so Schön, genau so…” taking you from behind as your nipples perked up from the rough texture of the bark, listening to you whine and moan in that sweet voice of yours as he lets out months’ worth of pent up frustration by thrusting his cock into your warm pussy, over and over and over until you scream and tighten around his length, milking the cum right out of him as he fucks you deep, maybe sinking his teeth into the junction of your neck-
He growled quietly, palming his rapidly-growing erection as he tried to clear his head. Stay focused. Kill the witch, and then you’ll get what you want.
Remember the warlock’s promise.
Even if he didn’t need you to satisfy his needs, he could still make this interesting. Not like you could outrun him, anyway.
He stepped into the clearing, and as if by some ironic joke, the wind died down immediately. The crunch of his heavy boots was enough to make his presence known to any living thing within a mile radius.
Your singing stopped. You whipped your head in his direction, and immediately a look of fear fell upon your face. For a moment, the two of you were frozen in a staring contest. You reminded him of a doe, staring at the crossbow of the hunter you had noticed, wondering if this being was actually dangerous, or nothing you needed to worry about. He wondered what he must remind you of, and he wished to hear the panicking thoughts flitting through your mind.
Finally, you broke the trance – you gasped, stumbling backwards and awkwardly standing as you ripped a pathetic, little knife from your boot. You faced him and pointed the knife at him – you held it improperly, and if he truly wanted to make this messy, he could easily make you stab yourself in a struggle. He wondered what it would feel like when your nails dug into his rough skin, dragging marks down his forearms (or his back, if he played his cards right).
You pulled the thick cloak tighter around your body – you were tiny. Well, everything was tiny compared to König. But you were unexpectedly small. With the way the sorcerer had described you, he had expected you to reach his shoulders at least. But there you were, craning your neck to look up at him with fearful, owlish eyes.
“State your business!” You demanded, your voice cracking slightly.
König chuckled in response. You really were too pathetic for your own good, weren’t you? He took you in – your lips were pulled into a frown, parted slightly to reveal your perfect teeth, the way the fabric of your cloak quivered where it bunched in your fist… perfectly ordinary things that ordinary people do. But, besides the fact that you were a witch, something about you made it all so captivating.
“Hey!” you shouted, bringing his eyes back to your gaze. Your fear had given way to a judgmental ire. “Gods, have you ever seen a woman before?!”
König scoffed. “Woman? Yes, of course. I’ve seen witches, too. None as young as you, however.”
Your eyes widened in panic once again. You stretched your knife out towards him as he stalked over to where you stood. “S-stay back! I’ll kill you!”
Your meek threat didn’t slow him down. He continued his advance until he had corralled you against a tree, your one hand bracing against the trunk behind you, and the other holding the knife under his ribcage. The only thing between his flesh and your blade was his linen tunic, which wouldn’t do much to protect him should you decide to stab him – but were you capable of that? Your eyes were so filled with fear as they stared at him, your chin to the sky to take all of him in. Your fingers trembled around the handle of your knife as if the prospect of having to nick him made you uneasy.
“Not with magic?” he asked, his eyes flitting to the bush next to you. He plucked one of the berries between his thick, gloved fingers, rolling the onyx sphere between his thumb and middle finger before squashing it.
You pouted (a sight König could never grow tired of). “I’m not a wi-“
He snatched your forearm, and you yelped, dropping the knife to the forest floor. His fingers easily wrapped around you; he wondered how easy it would be to break it.
“Don’t lie, now.” He ordered, his eyes narrowing with a hint of annoyance. “You’re not good at it.”
He released your arms with a shove. You scrambled back with a fearful expression, swiping the blade from the ground. He watched with interest as you stood several yards away from him, pointing your weapon towards him once again.
“Fine.” You said, holding yourself a bit taller. “You’re right. What’s the crime in that?”
For a moment, König was lost. Why weren’t you trying to weaponize your magic? It was almost as if you had forgotten you weren’t a human. For someone who was supposed to be a cunning bitch, as the warlock had put it, you weren’t very smart.
“I’m not here for justice.” He replied, wiping his glove on his shirt. “Just doing my job.”
“Hunter?” you asked.
He extended his arms – gods, he could have crushed a pillar between those arms – as if presenting himself to you. “Was it not obvious?” he asked, and you could hear the smirk in his tone.
You huffed. “Well, you’re not a very good one. Most hunters don’t make conversation with their prey.”
Prey. He liked that you understood your position, that he was the one in charge here. Maybe you were a clever girl…
“I like to listen to the begging.”
“Begging?”
“For your life.” König folded his arms over his chest, inspecting you closely. The only thing you had to protect yourself was your cloak, and that hardly provided a shield against the wind. Even though you were obviously wary of him, it wasn’t wary enough. You had spoken too many words with the hunter, and had it been anyone else, you might have been dead long before now.
You seemed malleable – book-smart and spitfire, yet all too gullible. Easily manipulated. Just what he needed to brainwash you into loving him. Or, at least, being his pet. You’d never truly love him, he had come to learn that from experience. But maybe, if he could somehow convince you that you needed a big, scary man, who could protect you and fuck you nicely, it would be enough to make you stay. After all, you were too naïve to be alone out here, weren’t you?
Could the warlock perhaps make you his prize? It’d kill two birds with one stone, he could convince you to return whatever knickknacks you had stolen, and your presence would never bother anyone ever again – besides him, but of course, it would never be a bother to bed you every night.
Your expression turned sour. “I don’t beg.”
The tone of your voice sent a shiver down his cock. He’d have to pound that little attitude right out of you.
“Who hired you?” You asked indignantly. The knife in your hand had slowly lowered, now pointing at his feet. Your initial fear seemed to have worn off. Were you brave, or just that stupid?
“It doesn’t matter.” König replied.
“It does to me.”
“You don’t know? How many people have you wronged?”
You scoffed. “I haven’t wronged anyone. People just don’t like it when you call them out on their atrocities.”
König hummed. You had a point. “Your teacher – the warlock.”
For a moment, you scrunched your face in disgust. Teacher. Only a fool as mad as the warlock himself could consider he was any such figure in your life, other than a torturous one. Then, you sighed, shoulders slumping defeatedly, the knife now aimed straight at the forest floor. “That old toad can’t even kill me himself…” you muttered. “What payment did he offer you?”
“He promised me anything I desired of your possessions.” König replied, taking note of the change in your presence. He purposely left out the warlock’s promise to find him a “companion.”
“And what would you do with cursed fig seeds, or stag’s blood?” You asked, folding your arms over your chest (which, König noted, framed your breasts perfectly). “I have no gold – not enough to be a reward for the trouble of killing me.”
“He gave me three hundred gold coin, too.”
Your lips turned down into a scowl. “That’s all?! That absolute hypocrite!” You lodged your knife into the tree behind you and placed your hands on your hips. “I took everything from him, save that disgusting old shed he called home, and that’s all he’ll pay to kill me?!”
Your outburst pulled König from his obsessive staring. “You’re… insulted?”
You turned back to him and huffed. “Well, obviously.” You retorted. “I stole all he had to his name, and he treats me like a fly buzzing in his ear. I deserve a bit more recognition than three hundred gold coin.”
“You admit to it, then.” König said, stepping closer. You appeared to be too angry to notice how near the hunter was to you. “You are a thief.”
You laughed – a sound that König did not expect to be so sweet. “I’ve done much worse than thieving, mind you.” You shook your head. “And he’s done even worse to me.” You sighed, pulling the dagger from the tree trunk and sheathing it back into your boot.
Once again, he was reminded of how small you were. Why weren’t you afraid of him? Sure, you had the advantage of magic while he did not, but you weren’t even acting defensively anymore. You treated him like a traveler who had stumbled across your path, starting up conversation and sharing your story.
“What has he done?” he asked, his interest in you growing by the second. An outcast, despised, hated by others. He felt that the two of you were kindred spirits, and he would not risk losing a connection so rare – one he had never felt.
“You mean he didn’t even tell you?” you said, sounding more hurt than anything else.
“He did.” König sheathed his own dagger as a peace offering. “But I’m coming to think he was not entirely truthful.”
You sighed, looking down at your basket, then back at König. “I suppose I could tell you, since he brought you all this way to kill me. Walk with me – but keep your dagger away. And if you try anything, I’ll slit your throat. Understood?”
He suppressed the urge to laugh. Could you even reach his throat? “The warlock said you would lure me away to your hut, and carve out my heart.”
You huffed disappointedly, walking back to the bush near König. Completely calm, like he had only ever come up to you with the intention of finding a friend. “And yet, he’s still alive, after all the chances I had to kill him. We can stay outside of my hut, if it eases your mind. I’ll let you make your own tea, too. But if you aren’t set on killing me right this minute, I really should return to start drying these out.” You held up your basket. “Before too much time passes, and I can no longer use them.”
König had never given his prey more than a few moments to try and beg their way out of his crushing hands. He couldn’t believe he had even given so much lenience to your baseless trust in him – what he should have done was take the opportunity to grab your face and snap your neck. But he was starting to doubt the warlock’s testimony; you were a thief, yes, but had you really committed any crime? Or were you simply just taking the revenge you deserved from your captor – or, as the warlock called himself, your master?
König sighed. He gestured his hand out, signaling for you to lead the way.
You frowned. “First, give me your word.” You demanded.
“I will not harm you.” He said, with a hand over his heart. He didn’t care about forcing you to make the same promise – you were harmless enough. He did, however, make sure to avoid saying that he wouldn’t touch you. Although he was developing a few ounces more of respect for you, who knows? Maybe you would find a reason to drag him into your hut and satisfy both of your needs – and, if he was lucky enough to get that far, maybe you’d offer for him to spend the night in a warm bed, and he could be saved from sleeping on the cold earth for one night.
His word seemed promising enough to you. Threading your arm through the handle of the basket, you began marching through the woods, watching the ground carefully as you stepped over roots and twigs.
König followed by your side, watching you from the corner of his eye. You really were helpless – all it would take is a strong push from him, and you’d be tumbling down, maybe hitting your head on a stone, or rolling down the mountainside until your neck snapped. Even if the fall didn’t kill you, he could easily land one hit to your chest and pierce your lungs with your own ribs. But here you were, worrying more about the uneven forest floor than the lumbering creature by your side.
“What did he tell you?” you asked, pulling him from his fantasies. “About the beginning, when he took me.”
König laughed in pity. “He made it sound like he caught you, not that he took you.”
You sighed. “He didn’t catch me… well, I suppose he did. More like how animals are caught.” You adjusted your grip on the basket, still watching the ground beneath you. “I was the botanist’s assistant before he came along. Stared at me like I was naked. He would come more often than he needed to -  asked me where I was from, who my father was – things I didn’t understand why he needed to know. I still don’t.”
König didn’t understand himself. He continued to listen, the sounds of his footsteps drowning out your quiet ones. He began to wonder just how much of the warlock’s testimony was true.
“He came to the shop one night.” You continued to recount the story. “I was lighting the lanterns in the greenhouse. It was storming, and I didn’t hear him. He bludgeoned me and dragged me into the streets like I was some sort of animal.” You paused, turning your own words over in your head. “I suppose I was, to him.
He brought me back to his cabin – that’s when he started the curse. All I remember when waking up is feeling sick. I tried to stand, but it- everything felt heavy, like I was stuck in mud. I managed to crawl outside, and he was there. Saying my father wouldn’t recognize me, that he had killed the old lady at the botanist, that everyone would think that I had killed her… that I would be burned if I returned to the village. That I would forever be an outcast as long as I lived – as a witch. As what he made me.”
You paused again, for longer this time. König looked down at you, observing how your face twisted in… disgust? Anger? Your eyes were somewhere else, possibly somewhere where you could light the world on fire, drain the life from everyone who had ever done you wrong. König had felt that same hatred before, and he had learned to let it pass. You were still stuck there, wishing you could drive a blade into the warlock’s neck – and more.
“You stayed, then?” König asked, returning his gaze to the trees before him. “Why?”
You scoffed. “It’s not like I could go anywhere, not during the change. For the first fortnight, I couldn’t do anything but crawl on the ground and wail. And he let me – I’d get to the edge of the woods, and he’d be there to drag me back. Drug me into the hut at night and held me, fucked me, saying he was protecting me and similar bullshit. Of course, he was right; at that moment, I was as good as dead if I had ventured out on my own. And once I’d gotten my strength back, I was still a new witch. I’d never be accepted into the village – witches never are, despite the warlocks being the vile ones – and I had no idea how to live as one. So I relied on him for a while, until I knew enough to make it out on my own.”
König hummed in thought. Despite the initial desire to snatch you himself and have his way with you, his fists clenched at the thought of you being dragged around by the warlock. This life wasn’t one you had chosen, and yet the very person who had forced it upon you was killing you for it. It made something within him boil, something deep and buried, that he had thought had been tucked away for good.
You didn’t deserve any of this. He was fighting with himself in that moment, but the desire to show you what you should have been given was consuming him. He wanted to tell you that he knew what it was to be an outcast, he knew what it was like to feel lonely and crave being alone at the same time. To wish that you had the power to hurt anyone you deemed deserving of it, yet to have that someone who would never hurt you.
He would do it. He would be that person for you, he would be the one to kill for you. He knew he was getting ahead of himself – after all, he was hired to kill, you, not fall for you. And he knew it was just another one of his delusional fantasies… but he couldn’t help himself. You were like him, which was something that he had not yet been able to find. Something primal in him told him to sink his teeth in, to hold onto you until you stopped your struggling and realized that this would be good, for the both of you.
He was insane. But did it matter what he was, as long as he could give you what you needed?
“So, yes-“ you continued, bringing König out from the depths of his thoughts. “- I stole from him. Took the books he used to teach me, maybe a few ingredients for potions, a few seeds to start my own garden… but compared to what he took from me, I might as well have taken a loaf of bread.”
You stopped suddenly, and König came to a halt beside you. You nodded your head to the scene before you. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”
König looked ahead: the trees parted into another clearing, larger this time. A rickety hut leaned against a wall of rock, made of thin, birch logs and mud slathered on top to keep out the wind. In the center of the clearing was a large stone, positioned near a pile of ash and rocks. A log lay near it, possibly another place for someone to sit. A small garden sat closer to the creek before your hut – it didn’t look to be doing very well, but that was expected as winter approached.
By the creek, there was a large, twisted oak. Its roots hung directly off of the bank and down into the water. Its leaves had fallen to the earth and mingled with the rest of the foliage by now – the entire thing had crimson paths winding around it, hauntingly similar to blood-filled veins. Several pieces of clothing and fabric hung from the branches and swayed in the autumn wind.
As you marched ahead, placing your basket down by the makeshift firepit and disappearing into the hut, König took a few, cautious steps forward. He was both charmed by the simplicity of it, and despondent that you were forced into this lonesome sort of life. He wanted to drag you from this measly hovel and show you something better.
But how? He was no better off than you were. All his earnings were spent on a room at the nearest tavern and a decent amount of ale to help him fall asleep. He never cared about having a home, as long as he had a place to keep out the cold. He didn’t think it would be good enough to drag you back to the village and convince you to spend the night with him in a thin-walled, noisy inn… but, even if he didn’t end up killing you today (something that seemed more and more likely with each passing second), he refused to leave you in this hell. If it was a cozy cabin, built so far away from civilization for the sole purpose of privacy and comfort, he could understand. Maybe even plead his case to you so you would let him stay. But this – this was a last resort. A broken down spot in the woods that you made for your banishment, for hiding. This wouldn’t do.
Call him insane. Call him crazy, hopeless, sick in the head… maybe his desires were founded on the thought that he would give you what he had never received.
You emerged from your hut, the thin, wooden door clanging shut behind you. You looked at him with a puzzled expression. Why was he still standing at the edge? You wrapped your cloak tighter around yourself and made your way over to him, your hair blowing across your face.
He watched as you stopped in front of him, your brow creased with question. Your head tilted back to look up at him, yet any traces of fear that you had shown earlier were gone. You looked at him like you’d known him for the past hundred years. It made his heart ache within his chest.
How could anyone have painted such a wretched picture of the woman who stood before him?
“Is everything alright?” you asked, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “Like I said before, if you’d rather we stay outside-“
König interrupted you, reaching down and grabbing the sides of your arms firmly. You sucked in a breath warily, but you were still not afraid of him.
“I- you-“ Scheisse, what is he trying to say? He wanted to take you away, he wanted to show you how similar the both of you were to each other, he wanted to show you what (he thought) love was – slow, gentle, possessive, and strong. He wanted to keep you in his pocket, both to keep you safe from the world, and to make sure you couldn’t be taken from him. He wanted you, you, you –
This is insanity. He knew it. But that didn’t stop the fire in his chest, and the questionable throbbing in his trousers.
You knew. Your eyes said everything as they softened, as your lips pressed together into a knowing, sad smile. Were you going to turn him down? Would you say that you preferred it this way, that you liked being alone and living like a prisoner on the run? You took his face in his hands, and he had a foreboding sense in his gut that you might tell him to leave.
Quickly but gently, he cupped one hand at the back of your neck and pulled himself down to you, pressing his lips to yours before you could speak. It was only right, he thought, as he held the kiss – you didn’t understand that he could help you, he could build the life you deserved and keep you safe from any other hunters and warlocks. He placed his other hand on your lower back and pulled you in, moving his lips against your own and praying you wouldn’t deny him.
Like an angel answering his prayers, you tilted your head and wrapped your arms around his neck, standing on your toes and kissing him back. He tugged his teeth at your bottom lip, and you so graciously allowed his tongue to slip past your teeth, letting him taste you. He whined, flooded with relief that you didn’t try to shove him away and call him deranged.
His cock was quickly growing hard, but he ignored it. Right now, he needed to figure out exactly what he needed to say to make you-
A raven’s call tore through the air, piercing his thoughts. It was much too close than any bird would naturally be.
He tried to turn his head in its direction, but you dug your fingers into his hair, making him stutter and freeze on the spot. He grabbed your hips, about to pry you away-
You pressed your lips firmly to his, and he heard you faintly muttering incoherent words against him. The world around him was suddenly showered with colors: purples like the berries that had stained your fingers, oranges like the leaves that were scattered across the ground, silvers like the thick clouds that blanketed across the sky… The black spots on the birch trees suddenly blinked and flitted across his vision; thousands of them stared at him, and he heard your sweet laughter echoing in the distance as the world spun, spun, spun…
He felt the cold earth press to his cheek, and the last thing he remembered was a sickening ache in his stomach.
He should have heeded the sorcerer’s warning.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"… so gut, so Schön, genau so…”
... so good, so beautiful, just like that...
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charliemwrites · 3 months
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Making this a separate post because the idea has evolved a bit:
(Was talking about this in the discord if it looks familiar)
I’m thinking less of a 1 to 1 Greek god au. I’m thinking it’s more of a theme to their dynamic and in parts of their story.
Johnny is a reincarnation of some ancient, nameless (or many-named) god, associated with dark forces. He’s not evil incarnate. But he is something of a representation of “darker” human nature. Anger, bloodlust, impatience, selfishness.
Persephone!reader, by comparison, is sort of a personification of gentler human nature. Patience, mercy, altruism, gentleness. She is less “awakened” so to speak because her mother has been a major limiting factor in her life. Like, helicopter parent to the extreme.
Persephone!reader goes to her aunt Laswell as a sort of compromise. See the world, the real world, in a controlled sort of way with her aunt watching carefully over her shoulder.
Problem is, no one is expecting the dreams to start as soon as she gets to base. Dreams of a man that scares her as much as tempts her, and encouraging the worst and most selfish of her impulses. She doesn’t tell anyone - why would she? They’re just dreams.
Captain MacTavish scares intimidates her, even though she insists that he doesn’t, looking him in the eye with her chin tilted up defiantly. When he’s on base he finds all sorts of ways to cross her path, sometimes teasing her into an indignant fluster, other times telling her off for “distracting recruits”. Always, always has an eye on her, even if it’s not his own.
Once things come to a head (I haven’t figured out how yet) Persephone!reader insists it isn’t fair. And just because they’ve been something in the past doesn’t mean they have to now.
Johnny, of course, is utterly amused. She’s barely got any idea what’s going on, but sure, she’s going to deny forces beyond life and death.
They strike a deal. When he’s away (for months at a time… a season’s length, even) she can run and hide and do whatever she wants to “escape” him. If he cant find her within a week of coming back, then he’ll leave her be and she’s “free”.
(She scoffs that he’s going to cheat, using her aunt and all of her connections but he just scoffs. As if Laswell would help him over her own niece. And as if he needs the help.)
He always finds her within a day of coming back from a mission. No matter where she is or what her name is. No matter how well she covers her tracks (even with Laswell’s help). He comes to her with gifts.
At first it would be sweet if not for the smirk on his face and the realization that she’s “lost” again. He brings flowers of all kinds, and green plants in little pots. Then it’s a new sweater, a nice coat, a piece of jewelry.
And then… and then they get worse. A bullet is the first sign. It’s just a whole bullet, her name engraved in its side. Then it’s a casing, the bullet clearly having been shot. He tells her it went right between someone’s eyes. The “gifts” become patches from enemy jackets, pretty stones splattered with dried blood, a human tooth.
It’s awful. She hates it. She can’t ever make herself say it (or believe it). And when he’s gone, she physically can’t make herself throw them away. Shes tried and tried, and the last time she put a real effort into it, she ended up on the floor having a panic attack, sobbing and calling Johnny.
(He purrs at her through the phone, gunfire background noise while he soothes her back inside. His voice keeps her company while she makes a tea, readies a bath. Tuts at her to call him again when she’s tucking into bed. She refuses to acknowledge that she does.)
Similarly, she finds herself getting or making things for him. For his inevitable return. Cigars and his favorite whiskey. Making patches for his uniform. A leather bracelet with her initials on a silver charm. A ring with an inlay the color of her eyes. Doesn’t even realize what she’s doing until she’s home or the thing is done. She’ll hide them away for months with no plans of giving them to Johnny. He inevitable finds them within his first week home anyway.
(There’s the one time she bakes for him, humming as she measures and mixes ingredients. Lets him steal tastes from the bowl and lick flour off her cheek. Only realizes what she’s done in a domestic haze when he’s eaten the sweet treat and thanked her for it.)
And when he’s home…
The deal is that when he’s home, he gets to treat her like his. Climbs into her bed, grumbling about pillows being a poor substitute for him. Steps into her shower midway through, ducking his head so she can shampoo and condition his hair with her gentle hands. Dresses her in his clothes, in his dog tags. Always has a hand on her, even in her (their) home.
And he delights in yanking her into his lap - especially in public. When his team comes to visit (and they always do) he lounges with her on his thigh. He’s also kind of a dick. Like he’s courteous to servers (mainly female ones because chances are they won’t flirt with his girl) but pretty much any stranger talking to him or his Persephone is met with smarmy asshole behavior.
It’s to the point that she just fusses at him to let her talk to people. And he’s happy to do so, amused by the way she charms people. He only intervenes when someone is rude or a little too friendly with her. She’s had to break up bar fights before because god knows his men won’t try to stop their captain.
She is literally the only being in all of history that can tell him no and stop and he’ll listen regardless of the situation. She has to actively remind herself that it’s not healthy and she should not be a little flattered about it. And she’s not. (She is.)
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ssvnormandysr-1 · 5 months
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Something I find hilarious about god Gale ending is that he becomes exactly the type of god he said he wouldn't be. On the boat, he said he's essentially sick of gods hiding behind AO, not helping mortals out despite having the ability to, but still demand prayers and devotions from them. he said his mortal heart would keep him true and he would be making gods better, instead of joining them. That doesn't happen. God Gale becomes exactly the type of gods he despised - whether he realizes it or not. He says that he's the god of ambition, not god of "consequence of ambition" when asked if he would support evil ambitions as well. Well! By that logic he absolutely would've supported the chosens of the dead three. He cares about establishing his domain and portfolio - whatever moral consequences happen from that, he can no longer care any less.
if you play as Gale origin, when talking to almost every single companion you have a dialogue option to say basically "have you considered praying to me? I might help out if you do..." thereby demanding their prayer & faith - his help does not come freely, if it comes at all.
he swore to keep his mortal heart but one of the first things he says in the epilogue was "gods, was Faerûn always so dull?" If you romanced him and tell him that he's no longer the man you fell in love with, he says "I guess I shouldn't have expected a mortal to understand." Gale, my guy, you literally became a god literally only 6 months ago. If this is how you are after 6 months idk how you'd be after years.
he says he wishes to better the gods - all he has done is avoid Mystra because he knows she would not give up her domain and also most likely destroy him, and make a dry joke about another god. Sure, perhaps without it being shown on screen he has done some things to "better the gods" but somehow I doubt it. if you play as his origin, his dialogue options to "how have you been doing" consists only of basically "oh I've been establishing my domain"
idk man . I think god Gale is fucking hilarious. He became a god 6 no ago and thinks he's the total hotshot now. He cannot once not mention the fact that he's a god and you should pray to him. He can turn Tara into a hairless cat. He wears a fucking toga when he can wear literally anything else he wants as a god. He's a cringelord supreme and it's so funny.
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frasier-crane-style · 7 months
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Why The Last Jedi doesn't work as subversion is that it continuously requires the characters to act like they KNOW they're characters in Star Wars and not LIVING the Star Wars.
I'll give you an example. Rey. In TFA, her parents are simply missing and she's waiting for them to come back. In TLJ, she suddenly thinks they're an important secret for Kylo to reveal to her because she's pathologically suppressed the truth that they're drunks who sold her for alcohol money (or, you know, blue milk money, whatever).
But why would she ever think that she had an important family or heritage unless she knew she was the protagonist of a space epic and having an important family or heritage is something that happens to those?
Or DJ. The Benecio del Toro character is supposed to be a subversion of the rogue with a heart of gold trope. But why would Finn and Bangs ever think he's a rogue with a heart of gold that's implicitly trustworthy? They find him in a prison cell and have no reason to think he has any loyalty to the Resistance--he even gives a speech about how he considers the First Order and the Resistance to be equally bad!
In ANH, both Luke and Obi-Wan treated Han like exactly what he was, a mercenary, who had to be cajoled into helping out until finally he showed his true colors by attacking the Death Star. They didn't know they were characters going through a story arc. The Sequel Trilogy characters act like they do, until Rian Johnson pranks them by twisting the story arc they had no reason to think they were participating in.
And the entire Luke storyline is a subversion of the entire idea of mentorship. Luke doesn't teach Rey anything. She doesn't need to be taught anything. It's unclear why she even thinks she does, given that she already beat down Kylo Ren with ease, but, again, character in a story. She thinks she needs a training montage, Rian says "she doesn't get a training montage!", and scene.
It's all very meta and post-modern and taken at face value, it doesn't make any sense once you ask obvious questions like "Why shouldn't Poe know that there is a plan to save the fleet?" Defenders of TLJ dismiss those obvious questions because they see them as unimportant next to the post-modern gamesmanship the movie is really concerned with, but Star Wars doesn't work like a Scream movie, where the characters are largely obsessed with horror movies and then, ironically, placed inside a horror movie.
That's a kind of cynicism that doesn't really work for Star Wars; you can't do a sincere narrative about the triumph of good over evil when the characters are mostly convinced there's no big difference between Good or Evil winning.
To go back to ANH, Obi-Wan is emphatic about how wonderful the Jedi were, how tragic it was that they were wiped out, how awful it is to live under the Empire, and how important it is to fight to restore the Republic. That's the baseline of sincerity that this kind of primordial mythmaking needs to work.
With TLJ, most every character on both sides are cynical, foolish, corrupt, power-tripping, shrill, pompous... most of all, incompetent. It seems less like an epic battle between the noble and the venal--more like two competing cliques of sitcom characters, only one of them is inexplicably Nazi-themed. You're left pretty much adrift, with no characters to sympathize with and no conflicts to become invested in, just visuals and 'themes'.
But children can't get invested in themes or subversion. Neither can most people. It's the province of the elitist to care about subtext over story--the sick doldrums of modern art--and Star Wars isn't for them. It's for the people.
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flowersadida · 3 months
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I know people have already talked about this topic, but I want to too.
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There are a lot of jokes on the Internet about how Katara constantly mentions her mother as if it were the most important event, but...
Isn't that so? I mean, in the life of a little eight-year-old girl, this is truly the most important event in her life and she wants to share it.
Katara took on the role of an adult too early, and she didn't have the opportunity to work through this problem with anyone, because she's already an adult => she cannot afford to rely on someone. But she needs it, and that's what traveling with Aang gives her: the opportunity to find children like her and share with them the burden that she has been carrying all this time. Note that Haru, Jet, and even Zuko are people who not only have experienced loss, but also have some kind of responsibility for others: for their family or even for a group of people. She doesn't tell adults about this because she isn't looking for care, she's looking for understanding of her feelings.
The problem is that it's not enough for her. Her sadness turns to rage because the further the story goes, the less satisfied Katara becomes.
The closer the heroes get to the end of the war, the more angry Katara gets: first at her father, then more specifically at Zuko. And, in the end, she finds the cause of this anger, as well as the opportunity to satisfy the thirst for understanding of her grief - the murderer of her mother. She needed revenge not just because it was fair, but because from the very beginning of the series, Katara was looking for an opportunity to calm those feelings that were rushing out. And her attempts to do this by expressing the problem were not enough. She needed more, and she got it by facing the biggest monster in her life.
In general, the “monster” metaphor obviously speaks not only about Yon Ra, but also about Katara herself. Or rather about her anger. Judge for yourself: she had to restrain a storm of emotions from the age of eight; she began to reveal her grief only in the first season, that is, at the age of 14. She ignored her pain, pushing it deep inside until it became a raging monster rushing out. And what Katara really needed was to face it. So when she flies to find Yon Ra, she also finally meets the version of herself that she has carefully ignored and hidden for the benefit of others.
It's funny that Zuko is the one who helps her. In general, it was his complete understanding of Katara in this matter that amazed me. He, like no one else, knows what it’s like to face your inner demons and knows how useful it is for knowing yourself. And how dangerous it is when you're alone in it. So he accompanies her to keep her safe. So that she has a person on her side who will be there, no matter what choice she makes. He will support anyone. (I'm crying because of how beautiful it is wasgffv💖)
(A small antikataang insert: this is the reason why their relationship doesn't work. Aang only supports the right decisions, even if they require Katara to sacrifice inner harmony, while Zuko will simply support her for whatever choice she makes. It's funny because Aang has to keep balance and as a monk he knows a lot about that. The show focuses heavily on the theme of yin and yang, that is, the balance of good and evil. In order to achieve internal balance, Katara needed to turn to internal evil, because she tilted this scale towards good. She was imbalanced to begin with, and instead of understanding this, Aang insisted on continuing the preponderance of good. It’s as if he doesn’t understand that the preponderance of good is as bad as the preponderance of evil, and this will only harm Katara. I hope my point is clear)
Finally, Katara finds inner peace when she faced everything that was raging inside her, when she did what she needed and poured out everything she ever wanted. Every word about her mother led us to this moment, as did Katara herself.
And do you know what the point is? Why am I telling all this? It's all a character arc that unfolds linearly over three seasons.
Now think back to the arc of Aang, the main character of the show, in relation to his family. Did he bring them up in seasons two and three in a way that was linear? I mean, the one who constantly grieves over his father's death should have been Aang, because he learned the pain of loss so recently, he didn't have a chance to get used to it. But even in the episode SR, Aang compares the loss of mother not to the loss of his mentor and father, but to the loss of Appa and his people. It’s as if he doesn’t care about the individual connection with Gyatso and it’s nominal.
Katara, on the other hand, has emotions that she smoothly carries throughout the show and resolves in it. She has a huge number of Chekhov's guns, which each fire at its own time. Her feelings about her mother, the development of these emotions and their resolution are the most beautiful thing about this show along with Zuko's arc (even though I have problems with him in book 3).
And making derogatory jokes about it like Katara is whining and annoying is blasphemy. After all, she's the only one of the Gaang who has a single development arc throughout all three seasons, this must be respected
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captainmera · 4 months
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My God I love your depiction of the Wittebane brother ❤️
Do you think there might have been a chance that your Pip wouldn't kill his brother when Calec goes to Demon Realm? He seems way more tolerable of weirdness and is actually curious about the taboo things. That it makes me wonder if other steps were taken by people around him, maybe he would make different choices and not turned into a brother-killing genocide goop man. Obviously, the blame is still his for what he did, but I can't stop wondering what if.
And him getting along with Evelyn instead of hating her right of the bat is really cute.
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Thank you! :D <333
He grew up with this theatrical bisexual of a brother. Pretty sure the reason Belos didn't give a hoot on the Boiling Isles about queer stuff is because he kinda knew, and accepted, that Caleb was kinda queer. In some cases, people can ignore or bend certain rules for people they love. Even disregard them or pretend they don't apply or exist.
(long rant about writing and narrative foils and blah blah under the cut)
Unlike Caleb, I think Philip is the sort that only picks-and-chooses whatever rules he feels will supports his personal wants/thoughts and tosses the rest.
Caleb was not hiding it as well as he thought he did. lol.
I think that, sure, there was probably a turning point for Philip.
And absolutely, people around him influenced him. He's just a kid, a vulnerable one at that, in a protestant Christian cult.
I kinda like to think of it as a corruption arc. Mostly because it seems (to me) that the whole reason Luz was meant to have a depression-arc and Philip getting all "YoUrE JuSt LiKe Me!" thing was because.. There was supposed, I think, to be similar beginnings for them.
But Luz, in season 3, got depressed and felt a lot of guilt, so her arc is going from this happy-go-lucky kid interested in different things, to a depression arc where she questions herself. While Philip has a corruption arc, where he gradually goes from a well-meaning kid interested in different things, to evil and delusional.
I am also combining Luz, King, and the Collector into Kid-Philip's themes.
King is fascinating as a pre-narrative foil for kid-Philip. I think. As King was very clingy to Luz and didn't want her to leave, he too had a delusion about his own importance (disregard that it was kinda true in the end there). King tried to dictate (in that book episode) about what his and Luz' book should be about, how it should go, and it really hurt Luz' feelings. In the end, they solved it. But as a narrative foil, I think for the Wittebanes, they probably had a similar struggle on a larger scale, and it didn't get resolved.
The Collector, too! They're desperate to be close with someone, anyone, who gets them and wants to play on their terms. Kinda like Belos wanting him and Caleb to be witch hunters. Not accounting that Caleb is his own person outside of him-- Which, if you think about it, Caleb made his whole life (in my version anyway) about taking care of Philip. So I'm sure Philip felt like he really was Caleb's entire world. And then suddenly he wasn't. Because of a witch. The Collector, despite having this incredible power (just like Pip having his brilliant brain) is still a child and using their power in selfish ways. Not intentionally, I think, just out of a fear of abandonment or isolation.
I personally am in favour of nobody-is-born-evil-but-anyone-can-become-evil kinda thing.
I would like to explore how Philip gets corrupted.
I am slowly influencing Philip in my fanfic with little things that will, eventually, boil down to not so great moments.
The thing about delusions is that the person truly believes in it. Philip believing he's a hero has to make sense and feel believable.
Belos is a jerk. Philip isn't, yet. He becomes that jerk. But I don't want to write a sociopath. I also don't like using less-favourable mental illnesses as an "easy way out" to write why Philip became Belos and a genocidal maniac.
I have strong feelings about de-stigmatizing mental illnesses in writing, without romanticizing them or leaving out the really awful and less discussed sides of it. This includes diagnoses within all the clusters of the DSM5. I will not sit here and say I only support a diagnosis like Autism or GAD, and not things like Histrionic or Borderline.
And including people with MH issues and personality disorders is important, too, as well as not trying to downplay them.
People throw around Belos with things like Narcissism and Psychopath, without actually understanding what those means or what the different types there are. For example, is he a grandiose, oblivious or a fragile narcissist?
Yes, these disorders are looked down upon. A lot of people who have them aren't very nice people. But that doesn't mean they're evil or have no heart.
Lots of children can display early signs of these, and in a rough time like the colonial 1630s of America, it is not unthinkable that those rough times bred some dysfunctional people. I'm sure Philip has his own slices of pie as far as mental health goes, just like Caleb and many other struggling people.
But, I will not write from an angle that implies Philip just has darkness from the start in him.
There's a reason why I had Caleb go on a rant about being born evil in chapter 5. Because puritans, and Christians alike, at the time - truly did believe bastards were just... Half people. Did you know that if an orphanage found out a baby was a bastard, they wouldn't let it suckle the nursery goat's udders. Because they were afraid it would soil the milk and, in turn, might give the non-bastard babies bad influence. Somehow.
With that kind of logic in your culture, it's no rocket science that people would put nonsense together and think it made sense.
I'm much more interested in how puritanism and witch hunting culture influenced and corrupted Philip into becoming who he became, and why he refuses to budge on his beliefs to the point of murder.
As the owl house, the show, has commentary on systems influencing cultures in a bad and positive way. But in particular, the one Belos tries to influence the Demon Realm with; being a not-so-great way. So! With that as a clue: what made Philip turn bad, most likely, was partially the puritanism and its extremist ways. I think TOH is also a bit of a nudge at the HAYS-code of Hollywood and how it has trickled into most all the American culture-core. As it's both trickled into schools, morality, politics and other things outside cinema.
Just pointing at him and going "He's a sociopath because he became a genocidal tyrant" is, to me, cheap. Not only does it further stigmatising mental illnesses by implying only a disorder can make someone do such evil things. But it also disregards the most horrific truth of all; that the true monsters are people not at all unlike yourself. And that they, too, were children once.
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thechekhov · 4 months
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Dungeon Meshi Quick Reacts
CH.30 (Good Medicine)
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I kind of assumed that things would get worse from here...
...yeah, there's no 'but' to that. Getting Falin back so quick was too good to be true.
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Aren't those the ghosts Falin talked to? They could be friendly.
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"ee gads! a hairless little man!" I'd be frightened too if Chillchuck was suddenly behind a door I'd just opened.
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Chillchuck, buddy, less than 24 hours ago you threw a knife directly into a dragon's eye. You can take care of some worgs, right?
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Senshi's a card carrying member of the smells-okay-to-me-chief club.
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Orcs be like 'oh, dragon's gone? Hm. Curious' and then just carry on. Wouldn't you be worried that something took out the dragon? Could be even more dangerous than the dragon itself.
I feel like at this point Falin might be just that.
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MOUTH TO MOUTH RESUSCITATION!
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Marcille, I don't think you have a lot of options.
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......just realized those moose antlers are holding up her rack. Talk about a pushup bra. Damn. Respect.
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Wait go back to that "create monsters to do their bidding" thing again. Was that the little mini dragons or does that include larger monsters like the dragon itself?!
OR something that was IN the dragon, controlling its actions and make it act irrationally? Is that why the Sorcerer wasn't surprised to see Falin as a separate thing outside the dragon? Was the assumption that whatever THING it was had escaped and become Falin?
And for all we know... it kinda had. It had merged with her spirit....
Or maybe I'm way off.
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Congrats on the larger story plot! :D You're now in even more danger! Hoorah!
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Chillchuck, a normal person would just go 'I'm leaving, pay me'. You're giving yourself away, worrying for them.
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I can't hate him for the reasoning here. The deeper you go, the less likely you are to be found. The only person who cares enough about Marcille and Laios and Chillchuck to find their bodies are.... each other. So if they're dead here, they're likely dead-dead.
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I want to nestle into her bosom and live there as a little creature.
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Moreso than when she was literally in the gullet of a red dragon?! Come on, be reasonable. At least she's alive now. And remembers who she is.
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Ooooh friendly ghosts. Makes sense why Falin was so chill about them.
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All the more reason to believe there's something to be done!
Love the doggo yawning behind Chillchuck.
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He's a coward, but being afraid isn't necessarily a sign of weakness. It's a sign that you realize how dangerous a situation is. Cowardice isn't stupidity, no more than ignorance of danger is bravery.. I think the orc leader is maybe realizing he's not doing it for completely selfish reasons. Mad respect to her though.
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It WAS Falin, wasn't it? It wasn't as if it was a thing pretending to be her. She was there, and she was revived successfully, and then the soul confusion thing happened.
......damn. What a small holiday they got, before the next horrible thing happened...
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hey, Marcille is not dumb! She's got loads of braincells! they're just all focused on doing evil stuff and being gay.
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🎯
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That's right! It's just like you, Chillchuck!
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Was that... there before?
Oh, okay, no, it was. Hm.......
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This stupid man is about to full a Falin and jump out a window to go look for her, isn't he.
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Gods, this sucks for him so much. For all of them. Because they.... they WERE successful! They rescued Falin! They brought her back from the head! They DID that!
But now, instead of getting the reward of it, she's just gone. Is it better, because she's alive?
Or worse, because the threat is even more nebulous?
If they all died, would it be worth it?
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who's the coward...? he's ready to go back.
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For Falin, they went down there. They risked themselves.
For them, after talking to him only a bit, the orc leader went from 'hey, nice snack for my dog' to 'we're helping you get that girl back'.
It's about the CONNECTION!!! IT'S ABOUT HELPING EACH OTHER AFTER LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER!!!
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bueckerssturns · 18 days
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softcore
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pairing: Chris sturniolo x fem! reader
warnings: mentions of drugs, wounds, drowning, cursing, and more.
word count:1146
recommended songs: bittersweet tragedy by Melanie Martinez, softcore by the neighbourhood, and reflections by the neighbourhood.
theyre 18/19 in this story.
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“My muse” that is what he called her and she loved it, she would get him through his darkest times. Their relationship was the most beautiful thing in the world, if people saw them walking down the street they knew that they were deeply in love just by how they looked at each other. but what people didn’t know is how their relationship was behind closed doors, not everything was sunshine and rainbows.
Two months and three days. That's the amount of time he had been distant. And it was driving her crazy, she wanted her boyfriend back. She felt the relationship slipping away but she was determined to make it survive. Even if it's the last thing she does. She didn’t know the reason as to why he was being so distant. The things he had gotten himself into that she wasn’t capable of knowing about.
“What do you mean you can't make it tonight? Chris, we’ve had this planned for weeks now. Could you possibly cancel on them?” she asked, “baby, as much as I want to you know I can’t.” he replied with a frustrated sigh “yea, whatever, it doesn’t matter do whatever you want.” she said “babe, don’t-” he was cut off by the sound of the call hanging up.
He sighed at the memory, it had been a week since that argument. He knew he had to go talk to her about the way he was acting but he didn't have time to do so, he had to be on that boat in less than twenty minutes. He decided to just say fuck it and head to the yacht, he could make it up to her later.
What he didn’t know is that y/n was right behind him following his every step. as he stepped on the dock getting into the yacht y/n several steps behind him. once she got on she hid behind a pair of stacked boxes.
“I’m done doing these deliveries for you ash, it’s becoming too much for me” he told the older man as he shifted uncomfortably “now, why would you decide to come to this trip if you were just going to quit?” the man spoke, rubbing his face in frustration “i have personal matters to take care of and this job is pulling me away from” he stopped when his eyes met hers.
-
her eyes widened as she realized that he saw her, she quickly ducked behind the boxes trying not to make too much noise. “who is this guy” “what does chris have to do with him?” she thought trying to stay as quiet as possible. as she slowly backed away she accidentally ran into a box knocking it over making it fall with a huge bang.
The sound of the box falling made the two talking guys look the way the sound came from. Shifting uncomfortably at the two pairs of eyes that were on her “this isn’t the bathroom..” she awkwardly giggled before trying to run away.
Before y/n could get far enough a big hand grab her hair and pull her back to be face to face with him, “do you know who she is?” asked ash as he pointed his gun to y/ns head. Chris hesitated as he bit the inside of his cheek in nervousness, fear crosses his eyes before replying: “no.” but ash knew chris like the back of his hand, he knew chris was lying “well then since you don’t know who she is and she was clearly spying on us, you know what I have to do right?” asked ash making eye contact with chris an evil glint in his eyes.
Chris slowly nodded his head, biting his cheek again before chris could utter another word ash pointed his gun at y/n and shot her. The power from the gunshot pushed her back causing her to stubble into the water. “Y/N!” screamed chris as he launched forward trying to stop her, but before he could reach her ash got in the way.
“I thought you didn’t know her, lying is bad christopher, and you know what i do to liars” spoke ash as he got closer to chris. chris quickly pushed through him diving into the water for his lover.
the deeper he dived the deeper he felt he was going to lose her, he should’ve known since the beginning that this would happen. but he wasn’t thinking straight, he got consumed by the thrill of the drug dealer world and how nothing could ever happen to him again.
he finally reached her arm pulling her up with him, once they reached the surface swimming to the dock. chris started coughing from all the water that he had accidentally swallowed as he reached upwards to get to the surface “please don’t be dead” “please don’t be dead” chris kept repeating as he laid y/n down on the wooden deck.
tears streaming down his face as he did cpr on her, he looked around for at least a person to help him. he didn't know what to do but he did know one thing; he couldn’t lose her. not today, not tomorrow, never.
-
that night he stayed up thinking, he knew it was a dangerous thing what he did and he knew he couldn’t keep her around anymore. he loved her way too much to see her get hurt or worse killed.
he knew he had to do the right thing, that being he had to break up with her, even if it hurt him. he couldn’t see her suffering from his mistakes.
the next day he went to visit her in the hospital, flowers in his hands eyes bloodshot red from crying all night long. but when he saw her, it took everything in him to not break down in front of her.
“babe, hi i wasn’t expecting to see you so early” said y/n a smile on her face as her eyes met her boyfriends, “baby? are you alright?” she said softly the smile slowly fading away.
he just shook his head “i’m sorry” he said his voice breaking he looked up to keep the tears from falling “but you know I can't involve you in this and the fact I obviously can't protect you the way I want to. this isn't safe, y/n.” he said looking at her tears streaming down his face “c-chris what are you talking about?” she said worried.
“i’m just saying i can’t do this anymore y/n it’s not good for us. what i do is clearly dangerous and i don’t want you near any of it. so to keep you safe, im ending it here” he said biting the inside of his cheek before leaving the room. “i love you.” he whispered once the door closed behind him.
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this was written when i was running on a few hours of sleep, then no sleep and then when i was tired so sorry if its bad ☹️ when i have the time and motivation i promise to make this better 😭.
tags: @bernardsbendystraws @patscorner @lexisecretaccx @junnniiieee07 @sturnioloblogs @sturniol0s @raysmayhem-72 @endereies @breeloveschris
comment on this post if you want to be added to the list:)
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dollysilena · 1 year
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no grave can hold my body down
(i’ll crawl home to her)
ryoumen sukuna, before he was a curse, was once a man.
genre: female implied reader but can be read as gender neutral, reincarnation au, unrequited feelings, unedited ngl, inspired by work song by hozier, angst angst angst
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long before ryoumen sukuna was a demon, the king of curses with four arms and two faces, he was once a man.
though, that has been long forgotten in history. sometimes, he even forgets it himself. the habits of being a cursed spirit had erased whatever was left of his mortal self from hundreds of years ago. he only enjoyed the carnal desires of blood, lust, and revenge. he had long forgotten what human emotions were, jealousy, anger, love. 
atleast he thought he forgot what all those were, up until he looked at you through the eyes of his new vessel.
ryoumen sukuna was once a man, who had a lover.
he swears his blood runs cold and he wasn’t even aware that could happen anymore. there you are, standing before him, hundreds of years after you died. 
over the course of a millennium of carnage and curses, your once distinct face had become hazy with time, until eventually he chose to forget you completely. he had no use for the memories of his once-human self. he was a demon now, afterall. but what a twisted curse chance of fate it was, that the reincarnation of his past lover had manifested infront of him, no, rather, it was infront of his new vessel. 
you had no idea who he was, much less that he was inside of yuuji itadori, watching you from afar.
he hadn’t even realized that curses could still feel and it repulsed him. what use could he have for you now? a mere human had no value to him. you don’t even remember your past life.
but he remembers it all.
it was easy to chose to forget, but there’s still an echo of you in his mind. the memories still crept through him like unrelenting roots to a tree. 
he remembers the way his hands, before they were covered in markings and his nails became claws, roamed your skin under the silk of your robes, as the cicadas buzzed outside and the first petals fell from the trees above you. your skin was illuminated by lantern light as he recalled the shape of your lips, stained like they bit into ripe fruit. but the memory that sears so deeply into his mind was the way you looked at him without fear.
there’s a bittersweet taste washing over his tongue, and it isn’t blood. he almost thinks it’s sorrow. it’s too similar to fear, for his liking. he swallows it back down, and buries it deep somewhere in himself where he hopes it will rot away.
he doesn’t act, no, that would be impulsive and too human. something he used to be. instead he watches you from the eyes of his vessel. 
and from his glimpses of you, even after hundreds of years, countless reincarnations, you’re still the same. for once, his focus isn’t on the simple demonic pleasures he’s grown accustomed to, they’re on you. a foolish human, the kind he so despises.
he wishes that it was as easy to despise you.
he feels you creeping through him, and not just in memories this time. it’s like webbing ivy, slowly but surely growing and entangling him. 
he recognizes the crinkle by your eyes when itadori gets you to smile, the familiar lips he begins to crave again, and worst of all, the tenderness of your eyes when you look at him without the thought of evil whispering in the back of your mind.
he wonders that if you’re still the same now, then maybe your love is still the same too.
but no, you’re not looking at him, you’re looking at the brat he’s trapped in.
he buries the grotesque thoughts of longing deep in the chasm of what used to be known as his heart. but he realizes it was never quite gone. 
it’s sickening really, he has no use for menial things like feelings, and he has no use for you. atleast that’s what he tells himself when he sees, feels, you press a chaste kiss onto itadori’s lips.
he tries to ignore the dull ache in his bones everytime you kiss itadori afterwards. but like your feelings for the damn brat he’s caged in, the dull ache grows into kindling, and slowly burns into a fire. 
it’s been so long since he’s felt anything that he almost can’t place his finger on what it could be, but he reit’s undoubtedly hatred. it consumes him like a fever.
it’s hatred for itadori, for making him watch this stupid puppy love from his internal cage. it’s hatred for himself for being foolish enough to degrade himself, the king of curses, into yearning for a human. it’s hatred for you, for making him feel again.
then came the deal.
“one: when i chant “extension,” you’ll hand over your body for one minute. two: you’ll forget this promise– i’ll promise that i won’t kill or injure anyone during that minute.”
of course he struck the deal as a means to his greater plan, but there was a whisper of a thought… he could see you again.
it’ll only just be once, he tells himself, just to finally put an end to this idiotic pining. it’ll be the means to an ends, and once it’s over, he’ll simply find a way to get rid of you. either from his thoughts or just entirely. he ignores the way he actually can’t bear the thought of that happening.
“extension.”
he then finds himself in a memory. the one he keeps replaying over and over.
the image is nearly identical, you laid beneath him with a flushed face as your delicate eyes gazing up at him without a trace of unease. he only realizes it’s not a memory when he realizes he’s in the modern age, where you aren’t outside listening to cicadas as cherry blossoms fell, but to whatever music you have playing as you laid snugly in your bed.
“yuuji?” you hum from beneath him. your voice makes him snap back to reality.
you seemingly hadn’t noticed the switch between the two. though, there would be no way to, considering that the markings strewn out over his body were only noticeable to himself and itadori. you, stupidly and thankfully, were blissfully unaware.
“what are you doing?” you giggled from beneath him, the sound too familiar for his liking. “kiss me already.”
he’s taken aback by the brazen request until he realizes you still think he’s itadori, your lover. for a brief moment, he’s repulsed to say he considers it. he should refuse, and extend himself back to his domain. while he’s done worser things than a simple kiss, kissing you seems too… vulnerable. it would anchor him too deeply into what he thinks is human. but you, laid beneath him, pliantly and unmistakably beautiful, makes him crave it too badly enough to reason anymore.
he finds his way to you, and the craving develops into a hunger. you’re warm to the touch, the once forgotten taste of your lips now familiar again. he feels the hairs on his neck rise when your hand gingerly comb through his locks as you melt beneath him. you’re consuming every inch of him and he feels as if he’s being burned away in a fire.
no bloodlust, carnage, or other carnal pleasure could satisfy him anymore. now that he’s remembered how it was like to touch you, to be touched by you, he couldn’t go back. not now, not ever again.
but the minute is over in the blink of an eye, and he finds himself in his domain, now left with only a pit in his stomach, and the feeling of you still ghosting on his lips.
ryoumen sukuna was once a human. but you still are. and you could never love a demon.
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convoloutedinjoke · 11 months
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Rating Disco Elysium characters based on how funny I think their kinks have the potential to be
Harry: the DSM of getting off on things. He likes piss he likes feet he likes the idea of being soooo small and tiny you could step on him like a bug, and while none of these things are funny on their own they are when he does them on account of his being a clown. He would also fuck a clown, incidentally. 8/10, knocking two points off because this lacks the element of surprise.
Kim: Leather and uniform fetishist. No wise guy shenanigans here. Will fuck you serious will fuck you professional. His strap is extremely normal, his daddy/boy dynamics are not a laughing matter. 4/10 because he wants to have relations with his car and is embarrassed about it
Jean: No idea what gets him off but he genuinely believes whatever it is means he’s evil and weird, making him the proud owner of The Worlds Funniest Kinks. 9/10, steals mustard from the homeless without remorse but has a moral crisis every time he cums while fantasising about getting gangbanged in a holding cell. Sad!
Trant: not funny. too passionately open about the things hes into. if you tried to make light of his trampling fetish, he would recite the wikipedia entry on cock and ball torture to you from memory and look delighted to be sharing his interests with you the whole time. 3/10
Klaasje: not funny to most on account of being conventionally attractive and good at billing her sexual encounters as suffused with romantic, literary ennui but it SHOULD be funny to be such a Lana Del Rey motherfucker in the sheets so I’m pulling rank and saying 7/10
Joyce: cringefail class dynamics fantasies. Bodice rippers and the opposite of CEO erotica feature heavily here. This wouldn’t be funny if not for the fact she literally owns a yacht. Also wants to get stabbed a little bit. 5/10, probably read the elysium version of lady chatterlys lover as a teen and still jerks off about it.
Garte: a normal man if there ever was one. has kinks but they aren't funny. wears a bra sometimes and it looks cute. 1/10 probably fun to hook up with and a decent communicator
The Deserter: given the 5 decades of loneliness, im willing to bet his brain has rewired itself into having some interesting potentially bug-related reward pathways but whatever he's got going on is too sad to laugh about. 0/10 :(
Sunday Friend: his kinks would be funny on anyone else, but he’s very very very boring. 2/10, you can pay a twink to do raceplay with you, but it wont dispel the grey miasma of being a mid tier government employee
evrart: I don’t know honestly, the lying and manipulating and petty power plays scrambled my brain despite the rube-Goldbergian elements of all his little tasks. Maybe he’d do predicament bondage? Uh. 3/10. Id let him hit, but he also has kind of a Wallace n Grommit thing going on so I can’t say 0
Steban: big on role playing but isn’t very good at it. Starts giggling halfway through when it becomes apparent how silly the fake muttonchops are. 4/10, less funny than it could be because he has a sense of humour about it
Ulixes: probably has a guro thing but also hasn’t had sex since he started focusing on reading theory and feints at the sight of real blood. This should be less funny than pretending to be Kras Mazov in bed, but he takes himself extremely seriously. 6/10 until he starts getting laid again, then still 6/10 but for other reasons
Gary: cuck chair. 10/10. I am not elaborating because I’m tired now, but someone else made a convincing post at one point
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utilitycaster · 2 months
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To elaborate on this post specifically with regards to Worlds Beyond Number, well, Suvi says it all, really:
They love being on my tab, they love having fun, they love being protected by me, but they never listen to me and they don't care.
Because here is the thing. Suvi is of the Citadel, which is part of the Empire. We do not have a full understanding of the geopolitical system but as a rule an empire is participating in conquest; sometimes two empires both exist and attack each other and so the exact scenario gets very gray and complicated but I think we do all agree the Empire is not great.
Suvi is of the Citadel. She holds a position of great privilege within the Citadel. This is in part because her parents were, as far as we know, betrayed and murdered by an enemy of the Citadel (having themselves been, again, based on what we know, reformers and rule-breakers as well as extremely capable spies) and she was adopted by one of their closest friends, who became the Sword of the Citadel.
She is not the Citadel. She is a 20-year old who was primarily raised within it, with all of the above complications of her parents. She is not single-handedly responsible for every action the citadel takes. She is not personally trying to stop Ame or Eursulon, only saying that there will be consequences if they leave. Consequences that she has experienced after Ame ran into the kudzu and Eursulon went after Naram and they all attempted to break Ame's curse; consequences she knows will become more and more dire if she continues to disobey Steel, particularly a direct order; consequences that already resulted in Ame being in a coma for a month. (The court-martial, I will say, is entirely on Suvi; the rest is not).
And in all of those situations: Ame and Eursulon were, as Suvi says, happy to have Suvi's purse pay for room and board, and her wizard's staff open doors, and to be put up and fed at the Chantry, and take the skyships, and train at the Citadel and have a marvelous time there. It's been several days and they could have left sooner, and they didn't. It's very "no ethical consumption under capitalism, which means that I can do whatever I want" rather than like, attempting to make slightly less harmful choices from Ame and Eursulon. Their choices aren't coming from a principled stance against the Citadel and Empire; they are coming from a "well, thanks for all the fun and the safe place to stay and the resources for research but you told me not to do something I wanted to do and I won't wait an hour to try and see if we can come to a solution that works for everyone."
For that matter, they're making these choices in part because of what a wizard of the citadel is saying to them; and yet Suvi's presence was said by that very wizard to be crucial to Ame's survival, and they're still not waiting.
[stepping outside of all of the above and the below: I think all the actions being taken, as a listener, are fucking great because this is D&D and conflict is fun and also all of these characters are like, the equivalent of 20 years old and level 2; this is not me saying Suvi is right and Ame and Eursulon are wrong. Rather, Suvi is no less right or wrong than the others, and she is extremely justified in feeling hurt and angry and that her friends are willing to take and not give.]
Something I've found in a lot of sf stories but especially actual play is a pretty strong and frankly, weird bias within the fandom of exactly this nature, as the linked post said. Someone affiliated with an empire or a power is somehow, as an individual, responsible for every harmful action that power commits. They're brainwashed. They're evil. They don't get it. They just need to come around to the right mentality. And that right mentality is, of course, that of the good rural person with nature magic. They are a leader within their small community and hold an immense amount of power over them - and perhaps beyond - but don't worry, they use it correctly. They're wise and they're right about everything.
Except they're not. They are frequently either idealistic to the point of ignoring the realities of the situation, or very limited in their viewpoint, or do not realize the immense privilege of being in their position as both a person in nigh absolute benevolent power within a small domain and also the only person with that power. Those wise, provincial, nature-based characters rarely understand that to exist within a complex and yes, extremely flawed and even ill-intentioned system like the Citadel is to be, even as a person with privilege within that hierarchy, a cog.
Suvi cannot just leave. She exists within a vast system and she is not stupid or brainwashed for acknowledging the realities of it. I think that yes, a very possible path forward for her is one in which she grows to question the Citadel's practices. I also think that to treat her as the embodiment of this entire empire, or to expect that her only way to be a good person is via a sudden about-face at the cost of everything she has, when she is a level 2 apprentic, is not just overly simplistic but flat-out incorrect. And I think that to assume Ame is objectively correct for not waiting a very brief amount of time for Steel (when, in fact, one could argue she should have left immediately upon being contacted; she had been absent from her duties for months already) is similarly oversimplifying to the point where one's conclusions are no longer useful.
Recall that witches' familiars are said to embody the traits within them that, to be an effective steward of their position, they often must set aside. Ame has been letting hers lead her.
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i-smoke-chapstick · 3 months
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Mal!wally with an equally obsessed reader? Jade West style? wow, that looks hot.
,CHERRY BOMB’
-EVIL!WALLY CLARK X READER-
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⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 ; yandere/evil hcs w wally clark, with an equally obsessed jadewest!reader!
⋆ tags/warnings. wally clark x female reader. obsessive behavior. wally being feral! Also, made reader more like Jade! So this includes Jade’s aesthetic and some physical attributes such as peircings, etc.
♫ “Down the streets I'm the girl next door, I'm the fox you've been waiting for.” ♫ Cherry Bomb by The Runaways
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𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐊
• Let me just say, wow.
• Anon you are right- because you two are the hottest couple in that goddamn school.
• Wally looks at you with so much adoration. Knowing you belong to him, that he has you. That you’re just as infatuated.
• He is hard
• In all seriousness, he loves you. You reciprocating that is all he’s ever asked for. It’s perfect for him.
• He’s a naturally jealous person, although he will attempt to cover it up. The more you let your jealousy be known though, the more he finds it hard to control his. He becomes comfortable with his outbursts.
• Becomes less nice with you, more rough.
• “Whats the matter? You can take what you dish out, yeah?”
• You love it. And it spurs him on.
• He has a bad habit of picking at your peircings, invading your private space.
• In his eyes, you two are now mutually devoted to one another. There is no such thing as personal space.
• As Rhonda said, he is a golden retriever. His dedication and loyalty has only increased ten-fold now.
• Speaking of Rhonda, he won’t let you anywhere near her. Nuh uh. He hates seeing you two- the matching black outfits. You two look like you belong together, and in his words;
• “It just pisses me off. Don’t talk to her.”
• Aside from this, he is facinated with your aesthetic. He makes you watch the breakfast club in the school library with him at least ten times over, telling you how much you two are just like Allison and Andrew.
• He was a highschool jock. He was used to having the cheerleaders fawn over him. The difference is; he never paid them a passing glance. But you? You are his everything. The light of his life. He practically worships you- loves you like a dog. So when you show your devotion, whether it be a snide comment to someone your jealous of, or a full on makeout session in front of whatever ghost holds his attention (as if he even has an attention span), it makes him weak in the knees.
• I mean this literally. He’s definitely the type to get on his knees for you, reassuring you in MANY talkative whispers that he is only yours.
• “They don’t mean a thing. Not to me. They are nothing. Nothing compares to you, (Y/N). Please, trust me.”
• If you want someone out of his life just say the word- and they are gone. You’ll never see him around them again.
• If another ghost asks either of you out, he makes it a point to show off your relationship blatantly. He is unafraid of PDA. And if they persist? Well, someones getting clocked in the face by a 6’2 athlete. Even if he was the one said ghost was hitting on.
• He’s hopelessly devoted to you.
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ystrike1 · 5 months
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The Bondservant - By Jezz (8/10)
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Finding solace in dependency isn't ideal, but I can't judge this particular couple for their choices this time. A slave and an unwanted daughter. What a toxic combination. When that slave returns with blond hair and a title I'm sure you can guess what happens.
Sioanna is a failure, and she doesn't understand why. Her mother died in childbirth, and apparently she was excellent. Everyone loved her. She was a legendary beauty, even though she was of low rank. Her modest match of a husband was handsome, and loving. Better than any boorish rich man. She bore a handsome son, but her perfect life was ruined by the specter of pregnancy.
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Sioanna really isn't like her mother. She has a stammer. She's a loner. She comes from a countryside family with money, so she can't really buy her way into popularity. Her father and brother are both cold to her, so she lives in isolation. She lives trying to please them, so maybe one day she will get the chance to live glamorously like her mother.
She doesn't even seem to genuinely love either of them.
Her fruitless cute act is just that.
Both men are itching to marry her off.
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Martha, the nanny, does what she has to do to help Sioanna survive. Her brother is a bit of a sadist. Martha gently encourages Sioanna to join him. To take part in the bullying. To be arrogant. To be the lady of the house any way she can. I don't think Martha is evil for doing this. Sioanna can't fight back. She's a woman, and even noble ladies have it rough.
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Sioanna's brother likes to gamble. He likes to hit people, and he's extremely insecure. Men have it hard too. Being a countryside man makes marriage and money harder, and money is literally the only thing he cares about. He torments the servants because...gasp...Sioanna isn't a failure! They both are. Sioanna with her stammer. The great Heir Eli, with his anger issues and his gambling addiction.
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Twaine resents them both. He wishes he had better children, but he's been dealt a dumb hand. He ponders about how he will use his children, when they're so weak.
Sioanna wants his love.
That's a mistake.
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Cruelty gives Sioanna a drop of courage. Martha encourages her to be less submissive. She's only 16, but she has to do something. The clock is ticking. At this rate she will be sold into an unfavorable marriage. Twaine cannot be won over with love. Eli is a lost cause, who has been kicking his sister around the hallway since she was a toddler.
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We meet Étienne.
Twaine brings him home. He claims the slave is a gift for both of his children. A friend. A sparring partner.
Twaine tries to drop a couple hints. He practically winks and says the truth out loud.
"Doesn't Étienne look like nobility?"
Sioanna is too scared to notice this hint.
Eli is too focused on beating the boy to a pulp to notice.
Twaine sighs. Étienne is clearly some kind of lost noble, who was sold into slavery for unknown reasons. Twaine found him by coincidence, but he recognized Étienne. Twaine is not the kind of man who would save another person, for any reason.
Étienne is money, or power. Possibly both, but Sioanna is completely unaware. She's dumb because she has been taught nothing, and she is constantly haunted by her brother.
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Eli bullies Étienne IMMEDIATELY, and he does it hard. Sioanna joins in to entertain Eli. She believes it will make him less violent. She is trying to help Étienne....but she's also trying to help herself.
It backfires.
Eli orders her to beat him, hard.
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Sioanna doesn't enjoy playing the part of the cruel lady. She hates looking at Étienne while he suffers, but it's him or her. Eli will beat both of them if she doesn't....do it.
It's not a shock when they become friends.
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Sioanna is kind and beautiful under her stutter and her cruel lies. Étienne says he will be whatever she needs him to be. He looks at her like she is everything.
They do fight.
Their mutual obsession becomes hard to handle.
Étienne leaves, but he returns to take her as his bride, with the same obsession in his eyes.
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catastrophichues · 6 months
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smth that like. i end up thinking abt a lot is the way vil is a character whose in-game experiences are really mirrored by a big chunk of the way fandom treats him.
vils beauty is smth that he’s been villainized for his entire life. he’s too beautiful, too gorgeous, and in the minds of many, that automatically equates to things like “mean/evil/cruel.” as if his beauty = villain
and that perception is one he struggles with. no one lets him play the role of hero bc a lot of the time, a hero is someone the audience roots for and relates to. but no one can “relate” to vil bc his beauty others him. neige has a beauty that is innocent but also attainable. that’s what makes him the perfect hero. for some reason, it’s almost unfathomable to most that someone beautiful who also cares about being beautiful could be smth other than a “mean girl” or a villain.
and the thing is, vil does care abt beauty! and that’s okay! valuing beauty is not inherently evil, and the way fanon (and when I say fanon, i obviously don’t mean everyone, there’s also a lot of ppl who see vil and actually understand the complexities of his character) twists that to “forcing his standard upon others” is honestly wrong. vil holds himself to such a high standard, but the “standard” he’s holding others too is being the best versions of themselves they could be.
his correcting epel on language usage is literally not smth sinister or classist. the EN translation didnt get the translation accurate. correcting epel was literally abt being aware that not many would be able to understand epel if he continued to speak in that dialect, and in other cases, seen as rude. he was preparing epel for future opportunities and circumstances. epels grandma literally switches her way of speaking when meeting the boys at Harveston, so it’s not smth that’s got zero precedent.
and in cases where vil is believed to be envious of others beauty it’s like—who doesn’t feel jealous at times? he mentions being a little jealous that silver does nothing with his hair and yet it’s so fine. that’s understandable! vil is someone who puts work in his beauty. he doesn’t just coast on what’s already there he exercises. he cut out mayo even tho he loved it bc he ended up breaking out. he holds himself to strict food regimens. he makes beauty products. so like-this envy? it’s healthy, he expresses it, and then he gifts silver self-made hair and skin products. bc his envy doesn’t manifest as wanting others to be less than him. it manifests as appreciation and wanting to see improvement. bc!! he’s a good person!!
ive seen fics and content where it’s like “he values beauty/his figure over the lives of others.” my dudes. this man literally sacrificed his youth and beauty to save idia/close the underworld. “Oh but he regretted it! and he got it back!” yeah he cried his heart out who WOULDN’T! and as for getting it back—learning a lesson or making sacrifices shouldn’t always hinge on like whether or not the character makes these sacrifices continues to suffer or whatever. like redemption (even tho he rlly doesn’t need to be redeemed) doesn’t only become valid if someone suffers or if suffering is constant.
vil gets relegated to roles like “the bitchy ex” or the “mean girl” or someone who is constantly cruel and vain and a bully when that’s literally the antithesis of what vil is.
so for that, i really really appreciate the content creators who write fic or make art where vil as a character is more than the villain he tries so hard not to be.
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writerslittlelibrary · 6 months
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I'm your mother now, chapter 3
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masterlist series masterlist
part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8
summary: when you wake up in a strange room, you soon come to realize the amazing Black Widow, who appears to be the perfect role model for girls all around the world, is greatly deranged…
pairing: Dark!Natasha x teen reader
warnings: yelling, a lot of swearing, dark themes, kinda evil Natasha
genre: angst
words: 2188
a/n: chapter 3 is finally here! I find it a little short but it's mainly a filler chapter anyway. I hope you enjoy and don't forget to let me know what you think :)
(also, I have big plans for the next chapter, so definitly stay tuned to meet auntie Yelena)
If you'd like to see something in future chapters, or have any ideas, please let me know and maybe I'll use them
You do not have my permission to repost, copy or translate my work
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You had been living with Natasha for about a week now, and while she was absolutely terrifying to be around, you found yourself enjoying her presence more and more. You hated yourself for it, of course. How could a person possibly enjoy the situation you were placed in?
Living with Natasha was like walking around on eggshells, on bare feet, while continuously getting cuts. When you did whatever Natasha said, she was happy. She treated you like she loved you, and you wouldn’t get hurt.
However, you tried that, and she didn’t seem satisfied. For the past 2 days you have been complying to whatever Natasha said. Doing whatever she asked of you, but it didn’t seem like Natasha was very pleased with it. 
She wasn’t hitting you, nor yelling at you, but she didn’t seem pleased. 
You couldn’t understand her. You decided if you became like a rag doll, you wouldn’t get hurt, and Natasha would be happy, but she wasn’t.
Yesterday Natasha yelled at you. You had been following her orders the entire day. Smiling whenever she told you to smile more, eating whenever she told you to eat, but you couldn’t find it in you to do it with any emotion. Maybe that’s what she’s so mad about?
She wanted you to be her daughter. She didn’t want a rag doll, she wanted a person, yet every day you spend with Natasha you seemed to become less and less of a person. 
Today was no different. Natasha had woken you up like any other day, giving you a bath and picking out your clothes. You were all set for another day of being stuck in the house, left to do whatever Natasha had picked out that day. 
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You were watching tv, a privilege you earned for being such a good girl, according to Natasha. You didn’t really feel like watching it, but because it was a reward you felt like you had to, or you might make Natasha mad. That had been your main goal this past week. Avoid getting Natasha mad, and with that avoid getting a punishment. It had worked, mostly. You carried a few bruises here and there, but nothing to bad. 
Watching tv was pretty boring. You hadn’t earned the privilege of getting a Netflix or Disney subscription, so it was just mindlessly switching between the channels. Nothing really interesting was on, until the news caught your attention.
Natasha had told you she was the only one that cared about you, and she was the only one that would ever love you, but the news channel proved something different. 
There it was. Your face, with your name and identifiable features written under it. Missing was written in large red letters above your picture, a woman next to it talking about you, where you were last seen and why your disappearance was so out of the blue. She talked about how you might’ve ran away, seeing as though all the important stuff from your bedroom was missing. 
You went silent, staring at the tv while holding your breath. Someone did care. Someone did want you to come home. They didn’t even know you were okay, let alone that you’d left the country…
You could hear a cup shattering behind you, and your head whipped around. Natasha quickly made her way towards the couch, grabbing the remote and turning the tv off. She angrily looked at you, and you shuffled away from her as you covered your face with your arms. “WHY WERE YOU WATCHING THAT?!” she yelled angrily at you, throwing her arms in the air in frustration, and you flinched from the sound. 
Tears were already collecting in your eyes from the fear of what she’d do next. “THIS IS JUST WHAT YOU DO THEN HUH?! I GIVE YOU SOMETHING NICE AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WITH IT!” she continued yelling, and you let out a silent sob and you curled in on yourself, crying as you tried to cover yourself the best you could.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU RIGHT NOW!” she yelled as she threw the remote at your face, missing your head by only a few inches. 
You couldn’t stop yourself from sobbing, the fear of her hurting you growing bigger with every word she said. Natasha didn’t seem to notice your fear, and if she did she didn’t seem to care much for it. You were shaking, yet Natasha was yelling. “Go to your room!” she yelled, yet you were to scared to move. “GO TO YOUR FUCKING ROOM!” she yelled after you didn’t move, and you were quick to get up from the couch and run to your room, closing the door and crawling under the covers. 
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After about an hour, you could hear Natasha’s footsteps as she made her way up the stairs. You covered your entire head with your blanket, hiding beneath the covers, even though you knew it would make for little protection. 
You heard Natasha open and close your door, and you felt the bed dip as she sat next to. “Detka,” you said in a cheerful, singsongy voice as she gently shook you. Her voice was sickly sweet, a complete 180 of how she behaved an hour ago. “Are you gonna come out, Malyshka? I’ve made you a snack,” she said as she tried to pull the covers from your head, but you held onto them tight.
“What’s wrong baby?” you questioned as she scooted herself a little closer. You didn’t know if she was just pretending, or if she actually didn’t know why you were so upset and scared. 
She finally succeeded in pulling the covers from your head, seeing you covering your head with your arms. You knew that if she wanted to hurt you, she could, but it still made you feel safer. 
“What’s wrong honey?” she asked as she gently wiped some hair from your face. “Why are you upset?” she questioned and you sniffled softly. You didn’t want to talk to her. You didn’t want to tell her what was wrong. How on earth could she not know what was wrong? She’s the one that had made you so upset in the first place. How on earth could she not know?
“Look at me y/n,” she said, and you quickly did what she ordered. You looked at her through glossy eyes, and she smiled sweetly at you.
“What’s got you all upset sweetie?” she asked as she gently stroked your hair, smiling patiently. You sniffled and pressed your eyes shut, shaking your head lightly. Natasha gave you a firm pat on your cheek. It wasn’t hard enough to count as a slap, but it was hard enough to remind you what she had ordered. 
You quickly opened your eyes again and looked at Natasha as her smile returned to her face. 
“Come on. Time to get up. I have a surprise downstairs for you,” she spoke as she got up from the bed, you following close behind her. Natasha was already making her way towards the door, but your question made her stop immediately. 
“Why did you lie?” 
She turned around slowly, the smile on her lips faltering slightly. “What?” she questioned, and you started questioning whether speaking up was a good idea.
“Someone does care! You’re not the only person that cares about me! You lied! You don’t even care about me at all!” you stopped when you saw Natasha’s facial expression change, watching as she slowly made her way towards you. You swallowed thickly when she stopped in front of you, anticipating what she’d do next. 
Before you knew it, a slap landed on your cheek, your head whipping to the side. 
When you felt the burn settle in you decided to bite your tongue, deciding to not say anything else. “I am the only person that cares about you. I am the only person that loves you. I am your mother and-” “You’re not my fucking mother!” you interrupted her, a wave of determination washing over you suddenly.  
Before you could even register what you’d said, you felt another slap on your cheek. “You ungrateful little shit!” Natasha yelled as she grabbed a handful of your hair, making you yelp. Your hands immediately went up to hers to try and relieve the pressure, but it was of no use. 
Natasha gave another particularly harsh yank as she moved towards your door, forcefully pushing you into the bathroom. 
She placed you in front of the sink, pulling your hair to make you look up. She grabbed something from on top of the sink and forced it into your mouth. You choked on the soap bar as she kept it in your mouth, the soap tasting horrible. 
You tried to push the soap bar out of your mouth, but Natasha stern hold made it impossible. 
As you kept choking on the soap, you started crying. The uncomfortable stretch of your mouth hurting as Natasha kept a firm grip on your hair. 
“I am you mother, and if you ever deny that again this will look like child’s play,” she spoke as she released your hair, allowing you to bend forward and spit the soap in the sink. You coughed and gagged as you tried to spit as much of the soap taste out, and you heard Natasha take a deep breath before she exited the bathroom, leaving you alone.
You cried silently as you continued coughing, missing the bathroom door opening and closing again. You felt Natasha’s hand on you back, rubbing soothingly as she shushed you. 
“It’s okay, detka,” she said as she gently grabbed your chin, turning your face to her as she guided a glass of water up to your mouth. “Here you go, sweetie. Is that better?” she asked as she helped you drink.
You nodded slightly as you forced yourself to stop crying. 
Natasha smiled sweetly at you as she hugged you, rubbing you back in circles gently. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day, don’t you?” she questioned as she pulled back from the hug, gently cupping your cheeks in her hands. 
You nodded again, and Natasha gently kissed your tears away before placing a loving kiss on your forehead. 
“Come on,” she said as she grabbed your hand, leading you downstairs. Your favourite snack was waiting on the counter, with a cup of your favourite tea next to it. “I don’t like it when we fight,” Natasha said suddenly, leading you over to the barstool and guiding you to sit on it.
“Let’s not fight anymore, okay, sweetheart?” 
You wanted to yell at her. Tell her she is the reason you were mad in the first place. You wanted to hit and beat her until she would let you go, but you couldn’t. 
Instead, you simply nodded, allowing her to give you another kiss on your forehead before she walked to the counter, turning her back to you. You didn’t want to speak to her, but somehow, not saying anything made you feel worse. 
“When can I go outside?” you asked quietly before you took a bite of your snack. 
“That’s something for another day. Maybe when the weather is a bit better,” Natasha replied shortly, clearly trying to avoid the question. 
“I had another surprise in mind. One that I think you’ll enjoy very much.”
That caught your attention. No matter how upset you may have been at her, you could never ignore your curiosity. You needed to know what she had in mind. “What?” you questioned, and Natasha turned to you with a smile. She placed a device in front of you. It was a tablet. One that you’d been saving for for a while. 
A few months ago, you decided you wanted an ipad, but the prices were too high, and you were too broke. You had started saving for it, but you never managed to reach your savings goal before you were... well.... kidnapped. 
You looked at the ipad before looking up at Natasha. She smiled at you, and you couldn’t help but smile back slightly as well.
“Aren’t you gonna try it out?” Natasha asked as she saw your hesitance to reach for it. You looked at her, trying to see if it was a trap, but when you decided it wasn’t, you carefully reached for the ipad box.
When you held it in your hands, you couldn’t help but smile. 
You slowly unpacked it, scared you’d drop it. When you finally held the device in your hand, you excitedly turned it on. 
“I know we’ve had our differences, but this past week was just an adjustment period,” Natasha smiled as she took a step closer to you. “I love you,” she said as she placed a tender kiss on your forehead, lingering a little longer than before.
You didn’t pull your head away, and Natasha used that opportunity to hold you a little longer. 
“Thank you…” you quietly said, and Natasha pulled back as she cupped your cheeks. She smiled warmly at you.
“It is my absolute pleasure, malyshka.” 
chapter 4
tags: @carol-romanoff @simp-erformarvelwomen @clintsbigtoe @olsenmyolsen @leenasayeed @naslt @dvrkhcld @daddyshuri @wandanatsbaby @alphalesbianwolffoxdragontribrid @blackhill2245 @natsbraids @natsxwife
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