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dannyriccsupremacy · 3 months

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now that we don't talk | CL16

| charles leclerc x fem!exgf!reader smau

| summary : charles doesn't do enough to keep his girlfriend and when the internet finds out, they are less than happy.

| faceclaim : christina nadin

| part one here ! part three here !

liked by yourbff, landonorris + 88,634 others

youruser i was so shocked i dropped my @sacreskin out of the bathtub

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yourbff i wonder why you were so shocked 🤔

↳ youruser im not sure whatsoever i dont know why

↳ francisca.cgomes sweetie what are you hiding from us?

user shes had such a glow up since the break up

user post charles glow!

user you're so pretty!

user sacre literally saved my skin!! thank you 💋

↳ youruser omg im so happy for you!

bellahadid i love sacre!

liked by youruser, charles_leclerc + 20,265 others

sacreskin new products dropping soon! as modelled by our lovely founder @youruser

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user charles, bby, why are you in the likes?

user what is charles doing here?

user shoo charles shoo

youruser i'm so excited for this drop! you're all going to love it!

↳ user girly why is charles here

yourbff this is the cream she dropped on the floor outside the bathtub

↳ user yn being exposed by bff once again

user i will go broke spending all my money on them.

yn was getting ready to go to dinner with her bff, when she heard a sudden knok at the door. glancing at the time, she assumed it was her bff, who was just extremely early- probably to get ready together. they pounded on the door again, becoming impatient.

"yeah, coming. calm your farm!" yn called, making her way to the door.

she wasn't looking at the door as she opened it, trying to dig through her makeup bag to find her beauty blender. as they walked through the door, yn actually glanced up at them, "charlie? what are you doing here?"

he continued walking through the hallway, taking in yn's new home, "you just let me in."

she followed behind him, ditching her makeup bag, "i wouldn't have if i knew it was you!"

"oh come on, yn, we both know you would have." charles stopped in her kitchen and turned around to face her.

"i wouldn't of." yn stood her ground.

they stared at each other for a moment, before yn began moving, stopping behind charles and putting both of her hands straight into her back. charles stumbled forward, and turned around, staring at yn with an unbelieving look on his face.

"what was that for?" he exclaimed.

"get out!" yn replied, pointing towards her door.

"i'm not leaving until we talk." charles stood his ground, this time ready for her shove, not moving.

"fine. you have like five minutes. i have plans." yn gave in, pulling out one of her kitchen stools to sit on.

charles followed suit, pulling out the stool next to hers and turning to face her, "i'm sorry."

yn laughed, almost spitting in charles' face.

"i am. i miss the old ways. i miss you. what can we do to fix us?" charles asked, sincerity in his eyes.

"nothing, charlie. there is no 'us' anymore." yn softly replied.

"surely there is something we can do?" charles pleaded, debating whether he should literally get on his hands and knees and beg.

"no charles. we're done-" charles began to speak, cutting her off, by she silenced him with a look, "look, i called my mum and the first thing she said was that 'it was for the best'. i have to remind myself that, the more i gave, you'd want me less. i can't be your friend. it's just better, now that we don't talk."

"you don't mean that." charles muttered, lowering his eyes to his fidgeting hands.

"i do. i don't have to pretend that i want to be on a mega yacht, with important men, who think important thoughts. i'm on my way back to my dignity." yn argued, her voice pulling charles' eyes up to hers.

"yn, i will do anything to fix it. i'm so sorry. it's all my fault. yn, please." charles begged.

"you know i had to tell your friends, the ones we shared dinners and long weekends with?" yn asked, "i had to pretend it was platonic, but we'd just ended."

"yn, i'm willing to do anything to get you back again. just give me one more chance." charles pleaded.

"no. charlie. it's best now that we don't talk." yn raised from her seat and grabbed his hand, which he immediately latched onto. she easily led him away from her kitchen and to her door, leaving him standing in her hallway, but not before planting a kiss on his cheek.

youruser just posted a story!

"he said what?!" your best friend exclaimed, her eyes bascially buldging out of her head.

"what. an. asshole." julia, a girl in the club bathroom added in.

yn and her bff had sat in the club bathroom for the past hour, relaying the story of her afternoon to her bff and the other three women who had sat there to help the pair shit talk charles.

"i think i would've punched him in the face, honestly." chloe scoffed.

"how did he even get your new address?" amelia asked, "is he stalking you?"

yn pondered for a moment, "i think pierre probably gave it to him. but enough about me and my shitty ex. why are you three crying in the club bathroom?"

"the guy i'm talking to right now, he is so not over his ex and he is just like, leading me along." amelia answered, slightly shrugging.

"what is with men and being assholes?" yn shook her head, "you deserve so much better. dump him!"

"he's so hot though!" amelia rebutted.

"hot guys are usually the worst ones." chloe said, earning nods of agreement from the rest of the group.

"you're better than this." your bff assured amelia, placing a comforting hand on her arm. amelia gave a small smile, one that didn't meet her eyes, and nodded.

"come on. let's just get drunk and forget about all the asshole men in this world. in this stupid little tiny country." yn stated, jumping off the counter and clasping her hands.

"unless they buy us drinks." julia added.

"unless they buy us drinks." yn reaffirmed

authors note thank you guys for so much love on my first post, it's actually mad! also thank you for everyone who requested a part 2. idk if this is very good and its not very long, but here we are! also if you want to be tagged please leave a comment!

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p1nkcanoe · 9 months

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Bratty Mountain. He deserves to be on the other side of it for once, as a little treat you know? He's acting up, testing the new ghoul to see if he means buisness (he does)

Ace Up My Sleeve

[ phantom x mountain smut ]

summary: phantom is perpetually horny and refuses to ask anyone for help. mountain is determined to change that. warnings: masturbation, rough oral sex, teasing words: 3982

!! Phantom is described as being a young ghoul. Although the ‘teenager phase’ is mentioned, Phantom is a fully mature ghoul and is nowhere near actually being “young”. The phrase refers to the idea of being newly summoned and getting used to a new body and its urges.

Click here to read on Ao3 or read below:

Phantom has been settling in well. He’s a quick learner, gets along with everyone, is never angry, he’s truly the perfect ghoul to have around. Not to also mention that he’s sweet and energetic, charming in all the right ways, but he’s also young. Really young. Even for a ghoul he’s far younger in his years than anyone else. Where some ghouls in the den are pushing multiple millennia, Phantom can’t possibly have more than 200. Even Sunshine, who at one point had been the youngest, just added a revolution to her 800-something. And there’s nothing wrong with a young ghoul. He’s well past maturity–responsible and independent–but he’s still in what Copia once described as the equivalent of the ‘teenager phase.’

He eats through everything they have in the kitchen, rifles through the pantry and the freezer just to grumble about there being ‘nothing good’, stays up for days at a time playing video games on the console he stole from the common room until someone has to turn it off and tear open his curtains… but he’s also unbelievably horny. And it’s painfully obvious.

The smallest things turn him on. He’d popped a boner at the sight of Cumulus walking past his room towards the laundry in a plain cotton bralette, excused himself from their lake day last week right after Rain rolled his shorts up impossibly higher while sunning on the lawn, and even yesterday the smallest sliver of Swiss’ exposed tummy while he reached upwards for his morning stretch sent the ghoul into a stuttering, inarticulate loss for words between bites of his waffle. Everything gets him worked up and not once has he asked someone to help him. Mountain is going to change that.

It’s late at night when Mountain considers making his first move. He’s walking through the halls with a handful of dirty dishes when he hears the ghoul groaning in frustration through the heavy walnut door that guards his bedroom. The gap between the floor and the bottom edge of the door gives him away, evidence of worn floorboards and leveled stone underneath. It’s a rookie mistake to not invest in some sort of soundproofing. It’s not the first time the earth ghoul has heard him, but usually he doesn't sound so… exerted. It’s clear he’s been at it for a while with no sign of release, and Mountain stops right outside that door, listens as he groans and grunts and curses between gritted teeth and listens to the little fap fap fap as his hand flies over his shaft. Even with the door closed he smells delicious. He almost bends at the waist to set down his dishes and invite himself in but something in his head tells him not to. He shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to scare him. He doesn’t want to embarrass the ghoul or make him uncomfortable. A ghoul’s bedroom is their sacred space, afterall. So he shakes off the thought instead and finishes taking his dishes to the sink. He goes to bed and dreams up more natural approaches to getting the ghoul on his dick.

Turns out it’s a lot harder than it seems.

—

He finds his first attempt in the common room, where the game console has been returned due to popular demand, and Phantom sits engrossed in one of Dew’s first-person shooters. He fails to acknowledge when Mountain saunters in and settles in one of the armchairs, lounging lazily with his arms up and his legs spread. He’s fresh from a nap and dressed solely in an old pair of gray sweats. He hadn’t bothered to throw on a shirt or pull on a pair of boxers, especially after being woken up to obnoxious game noises, and had instead toyed around with himself in the haze of waking up in the middle of the day. He sits, watches with faux interest, and his cock sits pretty against his thigh–just enough to be obvious but not alarming to anyone else who may wander through.

Phantom plays on obliviously. His fingers mash over buttons and drag against the sticks of his controller and the character on screen barrels through a line of enemies. Combo x4, the screen reads, and Phantom makes a pleased noise to himself.

“What’s the game?” Mountain asks, forcing himself to sound interested in the game he’s watched Dew play for hours at a time. Phantom turns his head, catching Mountain’s eyes before letting his eyes flick down his torso and towards his hips. He opens his mouth but his voice paralyzes in his throat when he sees it. “It’s– oh, um,” he stutters, glues his eyes back to his controller and his equally as paralyzed fingers. The screen lights up with red.

You Died, Press x to Retry.

“You okay?”

Phantom goes red in the face, mashes the x button more times than necessary to respawn, and Mountain smirks. “Yeah, yeah, I’m cool.”

Phantom stumbles around for the right buttons to press. He walks into walls, accidentally throws out his selected weapon, and keeps getting penalized for damaging allies. He’s doing terribly, and it makes Mountain want to laugh out loud. In the span of the next three minutes he manages to die in game two more times and make so many mistakes that his teammates end up kicking him from the lobby altogether. But even when the title screen shows back up and the message appears in front of his face he never gets angry. He fumbles around for the controls again and clears his throat when Mountain spreads his legs a little wider.

There he goes, Mountain thinks when Phantom hastily adjusts his body from sitting criss-cross on the carpet to sitting back on his butt against the couch with his legs crossed tight to hide his little boner. It’s too easy. Just to get him worked up a little more, Mountain adjusts himself in his pants, grips at himself to a more comfortable position, and Ant audibly curses under his breath, drops his eyes to his lap. He waits for the ghoul to make a move. He can see it in the way his hands shake that he wants to. He’s fighting himself.

Do it, he wants to say. Get up. Touch me. He waits another handful of agonizing minutes and finally Ant makes a move– “I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick.” He pushes himself up to his feet and shuffles awkwardly into the hall. By the time he comes back Mountain is gone.

—

His second attempt hadn’t been much of an attempt at all. In fact, it had been completely unintentional the effect he’d had on the ghoul.

The entire pack had gathered together for a movie night of some random romantic comedy that the girls had suggested. They’d spent an hour setting up pillows and blankets into comfy nests where ghouls and ghoulettes could cuddle up together for the duration of the film. Phantom had chosen a spot on the floor and fit himself snugly between Aether’s side and the bottom edge of a couch, Mountain had decided to take over the loveseat on the far side of the room. He’d fluffed it up with pillows and the velvet throw from his own bed, and by the time it was time for the movie to start Sunshine had decided his spot was now their spot to share. And he didn’t mind. Her warmth pressed into his side and her head on his chest is always a pleasant feeling.

It takes about forty minutes for Mountain to lose interest in the film. It’s not like it’s a bad movie– it’s actually really good–but Sunshine is beginning to get handsy and when she slips a warm palm under his shirt to pluck at a nipple he can’t help but get a little distracted.

When he pulls her in by a hand under her chin she chirps in surprise when he bites at her lip and immediately soothes it with his tongue. They fall into it after that, pressed together as close as possible on a cramped couch, and they’re quiet about it for the most part so nobody pays them much attention. But Mount can feel it–those mismatched eyes. They’re burning into him from across the room and it makes him smile against soft lips. The ghoulette sucks on his tongue. He drops his hands to her ass and squeezes. She lets out a giggle and the kiss goes dirty.

He takes quick little glances across the room, catches the other ghoul’s eyes over and over, and stares back with hooded eyes when the ghoulette latches onto his neck. Mountain hisses at the scrape of her fangs against his jugular, rolls his eyes back, and Phantom never looks away. Mountain watches from the corner of his eye as the young quintessence ghoul tries to act like the movie is interesting, as he tries to act like he isn’t infatuated by the couple just a few feet away, but he fails. Miserably.

Mountain grabs at Sunshine’s thighs, gropes her soft skin and forces her closer and closer to where he needs her to be until she settles right over his chubby cock and begins to subtly grind. The groan that escapes past his lips is accidental and someone from the floor throws a pillow that hits him in the side of the head, but he’s too far gone to just stop there. He breaks away from Sunny, gives her a goofy smile, and guides her away carefully so that he can stand. Phantom’s eyes burn holes into him the entire way. He apologizes to his pack in a way that doesn’t reflect his true intentions, offers the ghoulette his hand to go finish what they’ve started in a more private setting, and wiggles his eyebrows at the young ghoul when he excuses himself. Phantom shifts against Aether’s side under the eyes of the earth ghoul and Aether grunts, pulls him closer with an arm behind his back and traps him there.

Mountain disappears into the darkness of the hall.

—

The third time he catches Phantom alone and vulnerable, he’s sure he’ll break him. He times it all perfectly. Everyday around 9:00 after dinner has been cleaned up and the pack starts settling down in their rooms, Phantom heads into the bathing room to brush his teeth and freshen up before bed. Mountain’s memorized his routine, the products he uses to keep his skin smooth and hydrated and in which order he applies them, knows that he spends approximately ten minutes standing at the vanity on his phone while his facemask dries, and always finishes by applying some kind of oil to his two-toned hair. It’s a little after nine when Mountain hears the pad of his feet pass his bedroom and push open the massive door that guards the bathing room.

Right on time; like clockwork.

Mountain allows the ghoul a handful of minutes to get into his routine and busy himself at the vanity. In the meantime, Mountain strips down bare and pulls his towel from the hook behind the door, wraps it tightly around his waist and tucks it at the hip. He lets it hang a little low just for emphasis.

Phantom is applying the same green salve to his face when Mountain walks in. He offers the ghoul a hello and gets a muffled one in return as he applies the mask to the skin above his lip. He doesn’t receive any more obvious attention apart from casual glances through the mirror, but Mountain knows he watches as he drops the towel from around his waist and wades into the bathing pool.

It’s innocent, domestic and familiar, and Phantom pays him no obvious attention. And so Mountain goes through his own routine of picking a bottle of sweet smelling soap from the vast selection on the pool’s edge and squirting a generous amount into his hand, spreading it into his hair until it gets all bubbly and slippery, and then wading deeper into the pool to dunk his entire body and wash it all out. The surface of the pool gurgles when he goes under and the air blooms rich with lavender and bergamot. Mountain emerges from underneath and wrings the water from his thick hair with his hands, reaches for the bottle again to lather his body with soap. He puts on a show, touches at his skin deliberately and slowly, and shines up the smooth planes of his chest and patches of dense hair. Phantom watches him in longer glances now and Mountain watches right back with dark, sultry eyes. Inviting. Alluring. He backs himself up against the edge of the pool and leans back. The suds stuck to his skin slide down with thick droplets of water. He should dunk himself, cleanse himself of the excess, but he doesn’t. Instead, he drags a hand through the suds and drops it to his half hard cock, stroking himself with the slick and moaning softly at the pleasant stimulation.

At the sink, Phantom has gone rigid. He actively tries to ignore the sight behind him but when he looks up into the mirror to brush his teeth he can’t help but take a little peek. Mount keeps rubbing at himself and groaning through his teeth when he squeezes at the head. It’s a sight too hot to ignore and Mountain is practically begging him to become his voyeur when he throws his head back and pulls at himself deliberately from root to tip. Water splashes up onto that gorgeous chest. His tail swishes back and forth below the surface. Phantom grips the edge of the vanity so hard his knuckles turn white and his claws squeak against dark marble. His toothbrush stays bitten between sharp teeth… and he watches unabashedly through the reflection.

When Mountain brings a hand up to pull and pluck at a pebbled nipple Phantom finally caves, but not fully. He drops the toothbrush from his mouth and it clatters into the bowl, rolling around the curve before settling somewhere at the bottom, and he grabs at his chubbed cock through his flannels. Mountain grins. He’s been putting on shows for the ghoul all week but just the sight of the ghoul giving in just enough to touch himself makes flames lick at his belly.

He surprises himself when he opens his mouth, lets his head hang low, and moans out into the peaceful lull of the bathing room- “Ahhhh, Ant-” He hears the sharp intake of the smaller ghoul’s breath. “I know you want it. Can see it on your face. On your body…”

This is it, he thinks. He’s got him wrapped around his finger, all he has to do is-

There’s a clatter of objects. A sudden and hurried noise. And Mountain looks up to watch as Phantom gathers up all of his things and hurries for the door. The bulge in his flannels is obvious and sticks out even more with his clear lack of underwear. “Goodnight, Ant,” Mountain says, a tinge of disappointment laced into his words. “Night,” Phantom mumbles back. The door closes heavy behind him and Mountain rolls his eyes.

So close…

He might as well finish getting himself off.

—

Mountain feels wholly defeated when he shuffles back into his bedroom. He hangs his towel up on the hook, pulls on a pair of boxers and a tshirt from the drawer, and gives himself a once-over in the mirror. His hair is still wet. Droplets drip from messy strands and soak little circles into the fabric of his tee. His cheeks are flushed and rosy, evidence of his recent orgasm, and his lips are bitten red. He doesn’t feel tired but he looks it.

He’s about to head to bed and peel back the sheets for an early turn-in when there’s a knock at his door. His brow furrows, his door should be unlocked. Nevertheless the ghoul walks across the room, where he twists the knob and pulls it open to a much unexpected guest. He doesn’t get to mutter a word before Phantom invites himself in and grips the earth beast by the neck, shoving him into the cold stone of his wall.

He looks angry, disheveled. Like he tried too hard to think about something and ended up cracking. Phantom kicks the door closed behind him, gets all up in Mountain’s face… the best he can with their significant height difference. He smells like soap and mint and lust. Mountain snickers despite the press of sharp claws into the sides of his neck.

“You finally come to your senses, bug boy?”

“You think you’re so smart, teasing me all week, getting me all worked up…” He fixes his eyes to Mountain’s mouth where he licks over a sharp fang and pulls him closer until they’re centimeters apart. “I knew exactly what you were doing.”

“Then why didn't you do anything about it?”

“Because I didn't want you to think you were in control.”

“Then prove it.”

The young ghoul grips the taller by a horn and pulls him down roughly to smash their lips together. Mountain moans at the taste of his tongue between his lips. He tastes like toothpaste and something sweet and intoxicating. Mountain tries to deepen the kiss, to slide his tongue against the other’s already in his mouth and he yelps in surprise at the feeling of a fang catching on the soft inside of his lip. He smells it first, rich and metallic, and then tastes it when Phantom licks at him hot and wild and slides it into his mouth.

The grip on his horn is unrelenting. It pulls and twists and forces the ghoul to comply with its movements to keep the teasing beast at bay. But even more is the pressure on his neck. He adjusts his fingers and readjusts again, never completely letting up on the pressure, but then he finds Mountain’s carotid artery and hones in on that sweet spot between his jaw and his ear and Mountain starts to go fuzzy. He goes brainless, drunk off of the floaty feeling in his head, and chases the taste of the other ghoul on his tongue. Any ounce of previous defiance and surprise flies out the window only to be replaced with something confusing that he wouldn't quite call submission, but the unexpected dominant demeanor definitely is intriguing. He goes fuzzy in the brain, and weak in the knees, lets his eyes fall closed, and right when he’s about to tap out that hand around his neck releases him and he floods with sweet, sweet oxygen, gasps, and moans lazily into his mouth against open lips.

When he opens his eyes he looks straight into mismatched ones. Locked on. Predatory. Consuming. This was not at all the way he expected this to go, but who is he to complain with another ghoul’s hand around his neck?

“Get on your knees. Suck my cock and finish what you started.”

Phantom pulls away just enough to help force the massive ghoul to his knees and Mountain groans. The ache at the base of his skull feels like lightning down his spine. He knows he should keep his mouth shut–just fall to his knees like he’s been told to–but he can’t. He looks up despite being forced to look downwards, snickers between fangs still laced with poison. “I’m surprised you're not taking care of it yourself. Tired of jerking yourself to the point of exhaustion?”

Phantom growls. A pretty rumble from deep in his chest.

“You talk too much. Too confident. Doesn't anyone ever tell you to shut your mouth?”

“This is unlike you. Who knew the new guy had it in him?”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

With a final shove Mountain’s knees hit the floor.

“I know enough, like how you’re scared to ask for help getting your dick wet.”

Phantom scoffs, pulls himself out of his pants and gives it a few pulls. He has a gorgeous cock–speckled pink and gray in an irregular pattern and shiny at the tip–Mountain can’t wait to put it in his mouth.

“I’m not scared, but you didn't ask either.”

There’s some truth to that, so Mountain shrugs in a passive sort of surrender and lets his tongue loll out past his lips when Phantom inches him closer by his massive, curling horns. “That’s what I thought,” he mumbles and slides into that hot, wet mouth.

Mountain knows he is in for it when Phantom slides in wholly to the hilt, when he holds Mountain there for a few seconds just to see his eyes well up and sting, and then lets go of himself to grab onto that other horn. He grips Mountain’s head like he’s an object for his pleasure; a toy. The earth ghoul grips the bottom hem of his tshirt in his fists, tries not to touch, but he starts to shake when Phantom forces him impossibly deeper and buries the earth ghoul’s nose in his hair. Mountain struggles to breathe, but he breathes in the heady smell of Phantom and hums around the obstruction in his throat.

After a long and torturous minute Phantom pulls out. He rubs the ruddy head of his cock against swollen and spit-slicked lips with little turns of his skinny hips, moaning at how easily it slides against messy skin. He’s going to fuck his face. Mountain knows it. His own cock jumps in his boxers and he holds back a little noise in his throat. For once, he holds his tongue.

Phantom does exactly what Mountain thinks he’s going to do. He pulls him back onto his cock and holds him still, uses his mouth like a toy to get off, and Mountain lets him because maybe he deserves it. All of his teasing, and his attempts to seduce the young ghoul into his bed, had caught up with him. He relaxes his throat as much as he can, flattens his tongue against the bottom ridge of his teeth, and takes it.

“Fuck,” Phantom curses. “You’re a lot more pleasant when you’re on your knees. Quiet. Pliant. It’s music to my ears.”

Mountain knows he isn’t quiet like Phantom said. He’s making all kinds of wet noises and drooling down his chin. He’s even gagged a couple of times when Phantom’s cock jabbed at the spot in the back of his throat, but he knows what he means. If he was in control of his body he’d probably pull off, spit something snarky back just to test the ghoul and find out how dedicated he is, but he can’t. He looks up through lashes stuck together by tears, catches sight of Phantom’s lip between his fangs and his brow scrunched up in pleasure. It makes his belly burn, he wishes he’d make a noise and stop trying to act like Mountain doesn’t feel good.

Mountain wraps his lips around his shaft, flexes his tongue, and tries his best to suck. The effect it has is devastating. Phantom groans out loud and beautiful, pulls Mountain down hard on his cock and buries it deep just like he knows he likes. He throbs against his tongue, hot and heavy, and Mountain thinks he’s going to bust. He hopes he does, his throat is starting to get sore–it’s not every day another ghoul barges into your room and forces their cock all the way down your throat. He tries to swallow around him but it’s a futile attempt. His throat spasms, he chokes a little, and Phantom pulls out with teeth clenched tight.

“Get on the bed. Strip. I’m gonna make you regret ever underestimating me.”

His tshirt hits the floor before his knees unglue themselves from wooden boards.

#phantom ghoul #mountain ghoul #ghost smut #ghost #ghost bc

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rallamajoop · 9 months

Text

Cultic Iconography in Resident Evil Village

As the kind of nerd who loves all the creepy artwork you can find decorating Miranda-shrines around the village (like, just check out that one of the half-skeletal Miranda hovering in the graveyard and just tell me that isn't metal AF), I was on the lookout for the original image assets while poking through the game files. I'm hardly an expert on Catholic or Orthodox iconography (plenty of which is creepy enough just to begin with), but I adore how you can see all those elements being twisted and appropriated by Miranda's cult. You'll find these six pictures plastered all over the village in various combinations.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to find a whole extra batch of unused artwork in the same set!

Lest you doubt these were all meant to go together, they all hail from the one big compilation file ‒ I've just cropped them out separately for ease of viewing. For all I know, maybe some of these were used somewhere in the game and I just never caught it (and if you have spotted any, please let me know!)

But taken at face value, our unused images consist of one picture of the megamycete, a 10-winged-madonna figure (why limit yourself to just 6?), a side profile of Miranda herself (possibly excluded because it shows off a little too much of her real face?), two images of dead crows, and (strangest of all) a man holding a goat head.

That last pic especially stands out ‒ and not just because I could (and, indeed, now have) legit write you a whole essay on just the significance of the goat's head motif as a protective symbol in the village (seriously, it's everywhere from the Goats of Warding to the symbol on the shield of the Maiden of War statue), so I'm going to be all over any new example. But who the hell is that guy carrying it? No other image centers anyone but Miranda herself as an object of worship. This looks more like someone's taken a generic pic of the likes of St Francis of Assisi hanging out with some animals (it's a theme, you can look it up), then just cut the poor animal off at the neck for added creep factor.

So do we take it that this guy was, at some point, meant to be another key figure in Miranda's cult? Or was generic-saint-with-animal-plus-extra-squick all they were really going for? Was it drawn before the writers made Miranda the cult leader? Or could this even have been intended (as the goats themselves seem to be) as some in-universe, pre-Miranda relic of an earlier era?

Also interesting: he appears to be holding one of those ornate staves you can also see in the fire and skeletal images of Miranda above (and can also find in the field near Luisa's early in the game, before they're all replaced by charred, semi-crucified corpses). Did that symbol predate Miranda too? Fascinating, either way.

Those two crow pictures may be even more intriguing still. I'm sure we all remember that spooky batch of dead and/or hanging crows Ethan discovers at the start of his descent into the village, but thereafter nothing like that is ever seen again. Given that Miranda herself is so closely associated with crows, it's reasonable to wonder if this very-literal murder-of-crows was in fact some act of heresy by an unbeliever, deliberately hidden out in the woods.

But if images of dead crows ‒ including one hung in the very same position ‒ were at some point intended to appear alongside other images of Miranda-veneration, then presumably veneration was always the intent for those dead crows out in the woods. Suffering is, of course, a key part of the stories of so many saints. And perhaps crows are sacred only in the same way that the goats are: ideal candidates for ritual sacrifice.

Much as I love all the concept art you can already unlock with the game, I'd pay good money for a proper artbook going into all this kind of design work. There's clearly so much more that went into the concept art stages of this game that I'd love to hear more about.

And while we're at it, here's a nice big version of the standard winged-fetus symbol too:

#Resident Evil Village #Resident Evil #RE assets #Mother Miranda #Miranda's cult #unused assets #meta

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victoirey · 1 year

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okay i just … REALLY fell head over heels for your lo’ak fic. it was beautifully constructed, seriously. and i cant help but request…….

a lo’ak fic where the reader and him usually playfully argue with each other. intimate moments are rare bc they think it’s “corny” (they’re really just in love with each other smh) but THEN one night the reader gets a nightmare about lo’ak and when she wakes up lo’ak notices her distress so he comforts her. then cute intimate moment leads to a love confession!

tysm ily and i love ur writing

♡. "a pair of saps." —

synopsis / three moments where you and lo'ak almost *were* , and the one moment you came to be.

gn!avatar!reader | this is more ?? chopped up mini fics that turn into a big fic ?? insanity is a social construct. thank u for requesting, I will not live up to your expectations! nonetheless, have this. thank u for being patient, love. @mylovelo-ak @loaqi for u two !!

I kinda DID NOT follow this req at all. and I'm so sorry about that /srs because I forgot you were requesting something specific HFNNDD

inseparable.

that's what you & lo'ak were.

dark & light , mischievous & mature , chaotic & calm . thats what you two were. opposites. you were even opposites when it came to being told you two were opposites, as you agreed— while lo'ak dug for information to prove that you weren't. he always ended up agreeing in the end, only to disagree once more when it was brought up again. contrasting personalities will somehow lead to contrasting opinions— say, human condiments — you preferred mustard, he preferred ketchup. that led to many heated debates, naturally— you'd get into playful catfights too! the occasional spar session does more good than it's credited for.

you argued for the smallest things, ketchup or mustard , ilu or tsurak , whether earth's leader was batshit crazy or just a small little guy trying to control his stupid warhungry humans. whatever it was, you argued. today, you were arguing about love. love was special to you. to you, he was love. he was everything you wished for, and it's weird you found everything you wished for in a stupid guy who throws himself into the most dangerous situations, but still. you realized you loved him , and suddenly everything was ... so much more crazy. you saw him everywhere. it was crazy. you were seconds away from slamming your head into a wall because you were left without supervision for too long and you started rethinking all your life choices , most especially who you loved most out of every being on Pandora. lo'ak.

it was him who brought up the idea of love being technically, silly. it was him who brought up the idea of love being unspecial. thus, the argument began.

"you are being unbelievably dramatic right now , y/n." he stated, pointedly. you jutted your bottom lip out into a pout, "love is special, lo'ak! it's sacred! don't you want to be held for once in your life?" you retorted.

"I've been held many times."

"yeah. as a baby."

"not true! jackass!"

"how could you call me that? wow! I'm so offended right now. your dad taught you better. oh yeah, your dad and your mom? relationship goals. I don't know how you don't want someone to love after seeing how they treat eachother."

"excuse you! mom tried to kill my dad when they first met!"

"it's peak enemies to lovers!"

"oh my god y/n— okay, maybe I shouldn't have let norm give you those human books."

"you know nothing of the blessings they are."

"you call them blessings? they're not blessed... they're more dumped into lukewarm water that someone thought was holy that ended up being an overhydrated person's piss."

that earned him a slap to the shoulder.

"ow! what the hell?!"

"you are an idiot."

"don't you agree with me atleast a bit though?"

"when have I ever agreed with you?"

"if neteyam has, you probably have."

"that's because neteyam is stupid sometimes."

he gasped , feigning offense at your insult— and then he froze. for a bit. you can only imagine what he was thinking then, because it looked like he was frantically searching for a comeback in his empty mind. then, he snapped his fingers and came up with one— a poorly executed, poor in general one. "you love someone, huh? that's why you think love is sooo special?"

"you lost the argument the moment you snapped your fingers."

"y/nnn! come on! indulge me!"

you looked at him and sighed. part of you was ... impatient. you wanted his heart, and you'd get what you want.

the other part was cowardly. not now. not yet, it screamed.

it seemed you agreed with the former.

"I don't love anyone. love is special because it's special, lo'ak."

"damn, and I thought I'd get to hear a human school girl rant about love. what a waste."

"you insufferable—"

lo'ak was sad.

it was undeniable, really. you read him like a book. if he was one, he'd be your favorite. his deep frown and sore eyes really sent a message— he was crying, the poor boy. it hurt you more than usual. maybe it was because of your newfound love for him that caused this extreme softness, whatever it was— you hated it. you hated the sap you were becoming. he was seated on his marui overlooking the sea alone and usually you'd skip over to him and cheer him up by jabbing at his dad or something — but right now, you wanted to hold him. you wanted to comfort him how lovers would comfort eachother. except you weren't lovers, but if you were— which you wish you were— you wouldn't be so hesitant to comfort him.

you thought of the human saying.

"YOLO."

comfort him it is then.

your steps were slow as your feet led you to him. he let you. he let you, and that meant so much to you. lo'ak only looked at the ocean as you sat next to him, placing your feet into the ocean aswell. you stayed in awkward silence for a bit, but at this point— everything has been awkward. you don't know if he has a gut feeling you like him, and you hope he doesn't, because he'd be right, but you can hope. coughing into your fist, you weren't good at comforting usually. you were better at.. well... tough love.

"...you got yelled at."

"oh, you heard? wow, that's nice. what about it?"

ouch, okay, quick with the venom in his voice. ouch.

"you bonded with the tulkun. the outcast or so they say—"

" you're not listening— he's not an outcast!"

" he's not, yeah, I just said that, skxawng." you interrupted him— which earned a glare. wow, this is going so well. he turned his face away from you, opting for the cold shoulder instead of communicating his struggles. you sigh, once again, tired at how sappy you've been and how sappy you're going to be.

"I listen, you know?" you started. your fingers crawled to lo'aks, and in a moment of desperation to cheer him up and maybe have him fall inlove with you, you place your palm over the back of his hand. "I listen to you. I listen to your every word, lo'ak." you continued. "I will always listen. you may think no one ever does but I do. I listen, and I'll keep listening — I'll keep being here for you, for as long as you'll have me." you gulped. "it's because I love you."

you don't say I love you to eachother.

as he recovered from his initial surprise, he laughed.

you don't say I love you to eachother, so as he replies with how he loves you too— you wonder if he's misinterpreted it.

he did.

he leaned into your shoulder and he misinterpreted your love, and as he responded with an "I love you—" followed by a "you're a good friend."

you can't help but keep your mouth shut, to bite the scream you're about to scream as you're pierced in the heart.

you keep quiet.

"I met somebody." lo'ak told you, pretty eyes shining as he looked at you. he met a girl, you thought. he probably met a girl. wow, girls actually want to meet him?? gnarly. you had to hear about this. still, even in your eagerness, you couldn't help but worry. you couldn't help but think, like a jealous middle schooler, 'oh no! lo'ak hates me and will forget about me in favor of this new girl!' and yeah— maybe that was a bit immature of your mind to make you think, but as you blinked & put on a smile for lo'ak— you excuse your conscience. you're so mature, so mature.

"wow, people want to talk to you?"

yet you're always in for a bit of fun. & fun is seeing his brows furrow in annoyance.

"all people want to talk to me, y/n— but I was talking about tsireya!"

"you mean the pretty girl leagues ahead of you?"

"just shut up and hear me out--"

"getting a bit defensive there."

"stoOooop!–"

you laughed at his whining tone, if anything — you thought , 'this is a good way to distract myself from my crippling insecurities about whether or not I am good enough for lo'ak both as a friend and potential suitor.' yes, it was, atleast, your mood dulled as the thought returned. all lo'ak could do was refuse to notice, and continue ranting about tsireya.

"and- and her eyes, y/n! oh, they're like little oases! they're wonderful!" her eyes are blue, and yours are not. "her smile reminds me of what it's like halfway through the eclipses everyday. her laugh ... is heavenly , y/n. she is eywa sent." lo'ak finished. he sighed, dreamily — resting his elbow on his thigh and his cheek on his palm. you nodded, biting your cheek.

you didn't know he could be this poetic.

you didn't care to know, unless he was spouting porms about you.

"you are sooo sappy..." you mutter, coming off a little irritated. he pauses. "I'm sorry, is there a problem with sappy?" you quirk an eyebrow up, metaphorical walls surrounding you in an attempt to hide the fact you were... just not feeling it today. you couldn't argue with lo'ak right now. not seriously. "there's no problem with sappy—" "no, I'm pretty sure there is one." "there isn't." "somethings wrong, y/n." "nothings wrong, lo'ak." "I disagree. what's up?" "nothing." "I'm serious, y/n." "nothings wrong!" "then why the fuck do you look three seconds away from crying whenever I mention tsireya? is there some type of inferiority complex shit going on here?"

he really shut you up with that one.

you gulped, "you got overwhelming..."

"how'd I get overwhelming? I was like ten sentences in..."

"everything just... started weighing down on me."

"what's everything?"

your mouth goes dry, and for a moment, you reconsider confessing again, "I..." you start,

but you can't seem to go past that letter. not with the words you wanted to, atleast.

"I think I'm a bit stressed."

lo'ak understands you, in some way. he feels the same feelings you feel.

just not the type of feelings you want.

"i don't know what to do, mom." you overheard lo'ak mutter, head resting on neytiri's lap. it wasn't often he'd go to his mother for advice. it wasn't often he'd be this eager , but as neytiri ran her fingers through lo'aks hair— she let out a quiet snicker. "you worry too much , and for the wrong things, ma'itan." she says, her voice a quiet whisper. you stand behind the tree. part of you would retreat, and give them privacy — but ... well— a secret between two will turn into a secret between three. "I worry for reasonable things. what if they don't... love me as much as I love them?" lo'ak suggested– the idea having been stuck in his head for centuries and centuries over— throughout all his other lives. neytiri flicks his forehead, giving an answer she thought was obvious, "then they are foolish."

damn right they are.

lo'ak let's out a quiet laugh at his mother's response. you, however, start nodding aggressively. neytiri hears you, and yet she doesn't bat an eye. she instead chooses to coax lo'ak into talking more about his secret sweetheart. "you talk of them, and yet not about them. I know next to nothing about y/n, lo'ak. and I've seen you with them all your life." you can only gasp, unintentionally loudly, hide, & hope they don't hear you. luckily, lo'ak goes on a rant about you— and that really leaves your loud gasp as nothing but a gust of wind. he talks to his mother about you, laughing and smiling while doing so. "and they're — and they're just so... dreamy, mom! they're like, everything I have ever wanted in a woman! one time, I talked about them to them themselves — and I basically replaced their name with tsireya's— and it worked! I got to ramble about them! I got to ramble about them! they're so cute!"

oh my fuck. everything is falling into place now.

while you space out, a twig snaps. lo'ak snaps his head into your tree. cautiously, he takes up his weapon— ready to risk it all for his mother, who stays there — knowing you mean no harm. when he finally approaches your tree, he sees you. and the knife is discarded immediately.

"oh my fucking — y/n, I didn't know you were a stalker—"

"I didn't know you liked me that way too."

oh my fuck. oh shit. oh my fuck. oh crap. oh horse shit. ohno.nononononononononononononononon- NO. NO- why are you panicking? he likes you back! maybe you're panicking because his mom is right there? no! she's retreated back into her hammock! so why the fuck are you so nervous?

"oh my fuck wait , too?? you like me too?" lo'ak exclaims, near off the hinges. you nod, panicky & extremely scared. he pauses for a bit, seemingly registering that information in his slow head— then he jolts up— "oh shit! MOM! I GOT MYSELF A MATE!" he screams, in a tone so enthusiastic you'd think that he had just successfully hunted a sturmbeest. you near faint at how he had referred to you— "MATE?!" "MATE!" he replies to your call, or what he thought was your call, happily. for the next fifteen minutes, as you sit there flabbergasted having just bagged a wonderful boyfriend, lo'ak is hopping all around you. he giggles, he smiles, he twirls you around, and he professes his love to you, in your face, finally— and he does that multiple times. you seem to have settled in with the fact that you were , basically , his now. and he was yours.

blinded by excitement was what you were.

screaming your lungs out was what you did.

only when neteyam personally came out of the marui did you truly get a taste of what real screaming was— you two ended up being scolded for being too loud. which is weird as neteyam was louder than you were.

"I AM... ON MY LAST STRAW WITH YOU TWO—"

that scolding was definitely a scolding. it was mean. it was loud. it was also full of funny faces that neteyam unintentionally made. it was , still however, a scolding.

a scolding that you & lo'ak walked out of, hand in hand & eyes on eachother— a smile on your faces as you talked of what you'd do next.

just a pair of saps.

.......

ugh, you guys are so sappy.

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cleolinda · 1 month

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Weekend links, March 24, 2024

My posts

Good news: We haven’t had a third Trespasser Incident. Bad news: There was a fuckin’ coyote staring my dog down from the driveway across the street last night. I won’t lie to you, there have been aggressive coyotes spotted in people’s yards around here, but not in my neighborhood before this, and also, I live in THE SUBURBS.

Worse news: I had a migraine so bad that I was hungover for two days. In fact, I’m having a hard time thinking straight even now. Apparently a ton of people had migraines around the middle of last week? I have no idea.

Meanwhile, I will be in the dentist’s chair for a few hours tomorrow. For half of that I’ll be staring at the ceiling waiting for the dentist to come back from some mysterious task, except that I won’t because I’ll be glued to the Hot Vintage Lady Polls: Round 2, starting tomorrow (3/25). Currently going: The Shadow Bracket, to see which fortunate souls get to escape. (I have filed this under “My posts,” but these are not my posts at all; they’re simply the reblogs I’m going to inflict on you, every single one.)

The point of my addition here is that there’s a wider culture war in the U.S., it’s all connected, and the KOSA bill is merely the online expression of that.

Reblogs of interest

A much quieter week since I wasn’t reblogging polls around the clock and also, I had a migraine:

New Hozier songs! And the one that’s charting is--light and fun and catchy, to the amazement of all. I mean, in context it’s still about going to hell, but you wouldn’t know that if someone didn’t tell you, and damnation just adds a little spice.

This post is nominally a link to “I’ve found the key to making everyone mad in Sea of Thieves,” but please read the second article, “Everyone hates my big stupid horse in Red Dead Online,” as well. You will regret nothing.

This is a good post about the difference between couture and haute couture, but honestly, I reblogged it for the last line.

I would say “tag yourself,” but everyone would choose Lady Page Turner

The imaginary Barbie Dream Sandworm smells like cinnamon. I can’t.

“Is Fox Mulder the most comically-brutalized protagonist in television history?”

I can tell you that this is a pressed flower collage of a comet moth and you will not believe me

Also unbelievable: art made in Microsoft Office applications

Honestly I hope we just keep talking about fairies and walruses forever

Video

One fear: Chocolate Guy

More sounds from the pallas cat

I played this bird singing a cookie song like 15 times in a row while I was stressed, and it helped.

The sacred texts

None this week.

Personal tag of the week

I’m not sure how I had two entire posts celebrating “cringe”/freedom of expression, but here we are.

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annamatix · 2 months

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episode 1 of the jenny-anna taylor jurdan collab series YIPPEE (that's a mouthful we'll need to find a better name)

@viivdle did cardan's pov in two parts (linked at the bottom of this post) and i did jude's here

today’s topic: dancing with our hands tied (jurdan’s version)

“i, i loved you in secret” = jude didn’t tell a single soul that she had feelings for cardan

“first sight, yeah we love without reason” = after their first kiss she was super confused and didn’t understand why she was growing feeling for him, hence the ‘without reason’

“oh, 25 years old” = they weren’t 25, but they were very young so this could mean how literally the fate of the land fae was thrust into the hands of ‘kids’ (18?? 19??)

“oh, how were you to know, my love had been frozen. deep blue but you painted me golden” = in tcp jude clearly states that she is not interested in marrying or has feelings for anyone, but cardan kickstarted those feelings, clearly

“oh, and you held me close” = she was around cardan a lot, he kept her close to stead as seneschal and whatnot

“i could’ve spent forever with your hands in my pockets” = this could refer to the way cardan was slowly becoming more spy-like, learning from the roach (‘hands in my pockets’ = him stealing stuff, like her heart)

“picture of your face in an invisible locket” = 1) this is elfhame, so invisible lockets are totally normal, and 2) this could also mean how cardan was always on jude’s mind, like when he turned into a serpent she still imagined him sitting there, giving her pointers in his own sarcastic way

“you said there was nothing in the world that could stop it, i had a bad feeling” = the way when jude was seneschal, cardan would always say things like ‘what a shame not one of them knows who their real ruler is’ and jude always feeling like this power could slip out of her grasp soon

“and darling, you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis” = smirk (sorry) basically this could be about when jude and cardan did something together and agreed on it, it was a rare moment, making it 'sacred'

“people starting talking putting us through our paces” = there’s lots of whispering in courts like elfhame’s and jurdan was definitely affected by them

“i knew there was no one in the world who could take it, i had a bad feeling” = jude crowned cardan against his will, and she had to bear so many responsibilities, so again she felt like the power could fall from her anytime soon

“but we were dancing, dancing with our hands tied, hands tied” = even though she was seneschal, jude felt powerless in many ways, frustrated that she couldn’t control cardan, hence the ‘hands tied’

“yeah we were dancing, like it was the first time, first time” = jude and cardan kept repressing their feelings for each other, and then whenever they felt something/did something, they were always surprised (‘like it was the first time’ = signaling even though they did it before, they were still shocked, like the first time they did it)

(skipping the rest of the chorus, it’s basically a repeat)

“i, i loved you in spite of, deep fears that the world would divide us” = painfully obvious, a mortal and a faerie?? jude duarte and the beloved high king of elfhame?? not even in your wildest dreams, right?

“so baby can we dance, through an avalanche” = jurdan has been through a LOT together, this somewhat symbolizes that

“and say, say that we got it, i’m a mess but i'm the mess that you wanted” = do i even have to say it? jude i-poison-myself-every-day-and-made-a-deal-with-prince-dain-who-made-me-stab-clean-through-my-hand-plus-i-did-a-shit-ton-of-other-insane-things duarte, and cardan is head over heels for this woman

“oh, cause it’s gravity, keeping you with me” = its so hard to keep cardan under her thumb, and also unbelievable he would do it on his own accord. this could also work romantically, its crazy to her that cardan actually loves her

(skipping the chorus cuz i already did it above)

“i’d kiss you as the lights went out, swaying as the room burned down. i’d hold you as the water rushes in, if i could dance with you again” = symbolizes the time when cardan was a serpent, jude didn’t care which type of cardan he would be, what would happen, or anything else, she just wanted him next to her again. girlie was highkey desperate

(the rest of the song is basically the chorus)

wow thank you for reading until here *bows*

sorry if its shallow jenny is the better analyzer between us two 🙏

cardan's pov part 1

cardan's pov part 2

#phew thats a wrap #cardan greenbriar #jude duarte #jude x cardan #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #tfota #the folk of the air #jurdan #holly black #taylor swift #taylor swift songs #song analysis #analysis #how the king of elfhame learned to hate stories #idk what else to put that should be it yayy

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tobiasdrake · 6 days

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On the topic of funny Viz translations, have I got a glass of water for you.

Also Korin is a god and Kami's Lookout doesn't exist in the same physical space as the rest of the Earth.

Goku first begins his relationship with the divine when he nearly gets killed by the assassin Taopaipai. In order to become tough enough to take on Taopaipai, Goku climbs Karin Tower, the unbelievably tall spire that ascends from the Sacred Land of Karin.

He climbs the tower because he's been told of a legendary elixir that will make him powerful.

Inside that bottle is Choseisui. The word is a composite of "Cho", meaning Super, "Sei" meaning Sacred or Holy, and "Sui" meaning Water. This is the Super Holy Water, an elixir of the gods which will bestow incredible power upon whoever drinks it.

Allegedly.

The trick here is that it's just some normal water. The true training is the attempt to drink it - An attempt that requires you take the bottle from its guardian, Karin.

Note that it's not the water that makes this the Sacred Land of Karin. It's sacred because of Karin. Karin is the first deity Goku ever meets.

Karin's official title is the "Bujutsu no Kami", which Viz faithfully translates here as the God of Martial Arts.

Do note that Karin is the second character to be introduced as the Bujutsu no Kami. The Muten-Roshi likes to throw that title around for grandeur, which his relationship to Karin implies he straight up stole it.

But Karin has a much clearer claim to divinity as an ancient hermit who grows heavenly manna known as Senzu and lives halfway between Earth and Heaven.

Which is. Well. This place.

Have you ever noticed that nobody ever flies horizontally to the Lookout? To enter the Lookout, you must travel to Karin Tower and then go up. To leave, you have to go down until you reach the Tower, then fly outward.

Well, there's a reason for that. What the dub calls Kami's Lookout is the Kami-sama no Shinden, or the Temple of God. The Temple exists in Tenkai, the Heavenly Realm - which can only be accessed by ascending into Heaven from Karin Tower.

From his Temple, God is capable of looking down upon the entire mortal plane below. Anything he needs to see is within his purview, because this space is outside of the mortal plane.

This is precisely what made it such a great place to hide out from Buu - and made it such a big deal when Buu managed to find them in Heaven.

Foreshadowing Pure Buu's later trespass into the godly realm of the Kaioshins.

Majin Buu cares nothing for propriety in the face of the divine. He will violate however many sacred boundaries he wants!

In any case, halfway up to the realm of Heaven lives the God of Martial Arts, Karin and the sacred beans he grows. And his sacred water trial, which serves as both a form of training anyone who proves their merit by making the climb, and also teaching a bit about anticipation while he's at it.

But - partly because Toriyama liked the Karin Tower plot so much he copied it like four times over the course of the series - there is more to Karin than only offering this trial and guarding the gateway to Heaven.

In what is honestly one of the laziest writing choices Toriyama ever made.. there is the other, for realsies, super water that's actually super water for realsies.

This is Choshinsui, the Super God Water. It really, truly, actually does have the ability to bring out incredible power in its drinker.

Uh. Allegedly.

Yajirobe asking the real questions here. If nobody's ever survived it before then there is no reason to believe it works. Karin kicks the can down the road to some heresay he's heard. A second cousin of his great grand-predecessor in the Martial Arts God role swears he has an uncle who worked at the distillery who says it powered someone up once. Honest!

There is a non-zero chance that this jug is full of rat poison, and Goku just got a Zenkai boost off of it.

But in any case, the obvious lazy recycling of the Karin Water plot is incredibly obvious and lazy, and can make distinguishing between the two confusing.

In Japanese, the two waters are Choseisui and Choshinsui.

The dub translated them as the Sacred Water and the Ultra Divine Water.

And Viz? Well, they have their own tongue-in-cheek name for Choshinsui.

XD HAHAHAHA You can feel the sarcasm burning. Might want to put some Superest Water on that.

#dragon ball #korin #karin

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solradguy · 9 months

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Jack-O' lost to Zato in the Twitter sexy GG character poll. Unbelievable. Nothing is sacred anymore. I am going to personally destroy Zato-1 with my bare hands. I'm going to whip the Outrage at him and turn his guts into pudding like that banana.

#textpost #I'm not really that mad about it tbh I'm hamming it up lol #Jack-O' is sexiest GG character to ME and that's all that matters 👍

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galacticnova3 · 3 months

Note

this is your free invitation to post a headcanon of your choice

I think this might count as multiple headcanons but they’re all connected by the same base topic and I’m not just deleting all of this so! Funny rat’s magic stick time

The Triple Star is the same kind of weapon/being as Galaxia, but rather than more or less pure offense, she’s intended to play a role of mixed attack and support in a group. Unlike Galaxia her standards for worthiness aren’t ridiculously strict, and she’s much less direct about someone not being fit to wield her. Which is to say instead of basically attacking such a person they simply wouldn’t ever talk to them or make their power known. As a result she spent a lot of time being moved from place to place— far longer than she was ever left in her pedestal for any length of time. For a while nobody really knew exactly what or who she was, most folks just thought “Wow! Gold cane/staff/scepter/stick with a block on it!”, and that was really the main reason she didn’t completely fall into obscurity. People like to own valuable things, after all. That’s also how the Squeak Squad eventually caught wind of them— not as a sacred artifact but as a very valuable gold cane some rich person obtained for a large sum.

Daroach actually didn’t know any different until he stole her in the eventual heist and suddenly there was a new voice in his head going on and on about Oh my STARS, FINALLY SOMEONE CAPABLE WHO ISN’T PURELY MOTIVATED BY GREED AND SELF-INTEREST, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO FIND ME WHO MIGHT ACTUALLY STRIVE TOWARD THE GREATER GOOD OF OTHERS, I MEAN SERIOUSLY IT’S LIKE EVERYONE JUST FORGOT I USED TO BE CONSIDERED THE IMMORTAL VESSEL OF A PARAGON OF UNITY AND SELFLESSNESS AND NOT JUST A FANCY GOLD STICK THAT CAN BE SOLD FOR A LOT OR STOLEN AND THEN SOLD FOR A LOT, IF I END UP IN SOME DISPLAY CASE OR VAULT OR WHATEVER AGAIN I MIGHT ACTUALLY LOSE IT, anyways greetings I am the Triple Star, you have been deemed worthy to be my wielder and it is your sacred duty to utilize me for the protection of those around you, no pressure or anything though I’m not impossibly strict or anything, if you have any questions I can answer them as you think of them if you want, no this isn’t a dream, no this isn’t a hallucination, no you’re not losing your mind, ok is a magic staff forming a telepathic connection with you REALLY that unbelievable to- no I do not usually talk this much these are just very special circumstances at the moment, and I am just very- WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT SOUNDS LIKE I’VE JUST BEEN BEAMING A RUN-ON SENTENCE DIRECTLY INTO YOUR HEAD, DO YOU EXPECT ME TO STOP AND CATCH MY BREATH WHEN I DON’T EVEN BREATHE TO BEGIN WITH, HONESTLY THIS IS A HUGE HONOR CAN YOU WAIT UNTIL YOU AREN’T MAKING YOUR GETAWAY TO QUESTION IT, actually that would probably also be a good time for you to figure out the magic I granted you- WHAT DO YOU MEAN “WHAT MAGIC” IS IT REALLY THAT SUBTLE

Basically imagine Meta Knight and Galaxia but like 5% more dysfunctional, 10% more likely to argue with each other, and 40% more likely to be complicit in a crime if said crime is for The Greater Good™️ in some fashion. She likes the other Squeaks, but doesn’t talk to them directly because she’s not supposed to. However there’s nothing stopping her from having Daroach do the actual talking for her and this is something she’s happy to take advantage of. She did/does speak more directly with Kirby in situations where they’re wielding her, and the two get along, but she’s far closer with Daroach by virtue of knowing him better and whatnot. In general they are a lot more talkative than Galaxia, wanting to be a more active presence rather than just a guide or advisor in the background. If they were to get to know one another, they’d be civil and not necessarily dislike one another, but Galaxia would think they’re too lenient and borderline irresponsible when it comes to fulfilling their purpose, while Triple Star would think she’s too serious and more passive than a sacred sword ought to be.

Also, Triple Star says eat the rich, and that has nothing to do with decades spent being stolen and bought and sold and hidden and stolen and sold again by a bunch of people with hearts that make crude oil look as pure as spring water.

#asks #rambling #my headcanons

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thedarkheretic156 · 2 years

Text

IV_ Eternal Flame_IV

PARTS ❧ Mortals ❧ Death ❧ Sing ❧ Hunt ❧ Loss

TW: slight gore.

The old folklore of the east whispers of a terrible power. Wielded by a lone demigod, fated to walk through the eras the dark fires of hell dancing on her fingers. With no regard for human life, she was fated to be feared and worshipped. But fate is a bitch. Now cursed to be stripped of her powers and doomed to mortality she finds herself in the care of a sworn rival. The great Daiyoki of the west.

❧Hunt❧

I groaned into the grass. It was hot, unbelievably humid and I was bored out of my mind. The cicadas buzzed loudly around us as Rin and I sat making flower crowns from wildflowers. The act felt strange to me, I hadn't ever really stopped and bothered to look at flowers. Much less play with them. But the child seemed to have found curiosity in everything.

Rin sat among a patch of violet-blue flowers, thin fingers wrapping flower tendrils into delicate braids. She looked so content just doing that. I wondered what it would be to feel that at peace. I sighed, throwing a clump of grass in the air. "Rin?" I asked, "Do you want to go hunt?"

Rin's humming stopped, "Hunt?"

I shrugged, "or anything else really, I could teach you how to spar." "I don't like to fight," Rin replied meekly, setting the flower crown down. "I don't think I could hurt anyone." She said, shuddering as if repressing a bad memory.

I frowned. "Just because you can wield a sword doesn't mean you have to hurt people," I replied. "The choice remains with the master, not the weapon."

I arched my back, the laziness of the humid evening weighing down on me. "You're human. You're a woman. The world will be harder on you." even as I spoke, I wondered why I cared all of a sudden.

A small voice rang in my head, what does it matter? A human child, bound to death, what good could a blade bring to her life?

Rin shook her head, "I have lord Sesshomaru to keep me safe." She said smiling, I rolled my eyes.

"And master Jaken, and Ah-un." The child continued in a sing-song manner, "And now~" she added, "I have you too." My half-lidded eyes flew open, shocked more by the brazen coincidence of the words. Wei, the real Wei, had said the same thing. Grinning her beautiful smile, so bright it rivaled sacred fire burning behind her.

And what had happened to her?

I felt myself grimace at the old memory. And then, even after all that, I had just let her die.

10 more days. I counted down. 10 more suns before the feast of Manna, could I even stay near her after that? Can I see through the belief the human child had put in me? Something dark settled in me. Rin placed the finished flower crown on my head. "All done!" she announced, "You look so pretty!" she said clapping her hands.

Not this one. I thought, promising it to whatever wretched deity that was listening. I won't fail this one too. The dusk settled in, painting the sky a beautiful auburn, against the vast sky, Rin's frame gleamed with life. The soft scent of wildflowers clung to her palms. For the first time Y/n, felt peaceful. But she hadn't just realized it yet. Not quite yet.

You are going soft, daughter of the hills.

I jerked up, sitting around wallowing in thoughts was doing nothing.

"Rin," I said. I needed to do something about my boredom, "what do you think about having Pork for dinner?"

"This feels like a bad idea." Rin said sheepishly, "We could always just eat the fish lord Jaken got for us." She said shuffling hesitantly. I grunted, "take this as a small token of advice Rin, never settle for alms from someone, when you can get better things by yourself." I strapped Mrutunjai to Ah-un's saddle, patting the fire-demons snout. He huffed in response lowering one of his heads for a pat.

"But your wounds-" Rin continued, "I don't think you should hunt until they are completely healed, and its already dark, what I lord Sesshomaru finds out-"

I looked at the young girl and grinned. Rin felt a rush of warmth as the cockiest smile laced the older female's face. There was truly something different about her she couldn't fathom. At times like these when she smiled, Rin would feel as though the woman should have been born with razor-sharp fangs.

I pushed my long braid over my shoulder, "Let Onee-san handle this." Th further we walked into the forest the more nervous Rin grew. I knew all she could think about was how Sesshomaru wouldn't approve of their little exercise. But right now I couldn't care less, the Daiyokai and Jaken couldn't be seen since morning. These two would just wander away without any explanation, expecting us to stay put like good little humans and I was far over it.

Having to wait around for them to return to do anything was getting on my nerves. The frustration seeped into my steps as I angrily strode forward. Ah-un at my heels. The overhead canopy grew thicker and Ah-un grunted. He seemed to have spotted something. I narrowed my eyes, scanning the pitch darkness of the forest before us, there was a faint twitch and I grinned, "Good boy" I whispered to the fire demon.

I pulled on his reins and the fire demon stopped, Rin peeked out from his saddle, "What's wrong?" I motioned her to stay quiet and slipped Mrutyunjai off the saddle. I gave her a departing wink and patted one of Ah-uns heads. In an unspoken command, one fire demon to another, Ah-un understood perfectly, leaping gracefully into the midnight sky. Taking Rin away at a comfortable distance from the hunt site. I leaned against my sword, warming my human body for what was to come. An undeniable thrill went down my spine as I wrapped my fingers around the familiar hilt. Usually her blade would have roared to life, quivering with bloodlust. But right now it felt dead in my hands. I adjusted my stance. No time to mope over that now. I locked my eyes on the beast, hiding perfectly with the stripped brown trees around the undergrowth. Mud flies buzzed around, and the beast's ear flick was the only sign I needed to charge. The boar noticed, obviously. At the first crunch of the dry leaves under my foot, the monstrous beast burst out of its hiding place. Plowing chunks of earth with its upturned tusks on its snout. The bellow sent birds flying from all directions.

My speed was drastically low, the human body alien to any kind of fighting, I had lost so much strength, I needed both my hands to hold up my own sword. But my mind hadn't forgotten the eons of harsh training. The demon instinct honned over the years and just the pure thrill of drawing blood took over completely. The boar charged at me, I steadied the blade in my hand and waited, just a little closer now. I dropped to my kneed, wringing the wicked blade with me, slicing through the beast's front legs. The animal's scream rang through the forest, the crimson blood splattering everywhere. The wound tipped it off its balance, slamming head first into the trunk of a wide mahogany.

Good. I thought It was a clean cut through its legs not powerful to dismantle the limb but enough to send its balance for a toss. The splatter of blood had already covered one side of my face. Out of habit, I stuck my tongue out and tasted it. The metallic taste of blood sent shivers down my spine. More.

I needed more.

It charged again, and dashed towards me, its wounded legs buckling, the upturned tusks narrowly missed my torso as I slashed the sword across its eyes. If I still had my ayakashi body I would have just let the beast crash into me, it would have been a blow I could take easily. But now I had to dodge even the lightest attack, one mistake and it would smash me up against the bark of a tree. Well, it just made it that much more thrilling.

The beast now half blind squirmed before me in a panic frenzy. I pulled mrutyunjai up, my arms shaking with excitement and exhaustion. And charged again. It continued to scream in agony as I sliced through it, evading the tusks and curved hoofs. My blows were clean yet ruthless, chopping off the beast's hind legs, ears, and chunks of its snout before allowing it to die. I growled giving the final blow, sinking the blade hilt-deep into its heart. The beast spluttered out more blood before finally falling silent.

I drew the sword from the corpse and Ah-un and Rin descended down. I kneeled down beside the beast pressing my palm against its snout. "king of beasts, slain in sport, slain in hunger, I bow down for your sacrifice." I whispered out in the old tongue, a prayer my clan spoke after every kill.

Rin's pale face popped out of the saddle again, "is-is it d-dead?" she whispered, there was a queasy look to her face like she was going to be sick. I tried to stand up, but my knees gave away. The little hunt seemed to have taken a massive toll on my human body. I doubled over, the world before me spinning. Rin squealed, running towards me at once, I felt her thin arms around me as she spoke, "are you okay? You're hurt aren't you?!" She wailed out, "I knew this would happen I knew -"

I opened my mouth to reassure her but a familiar croak beat me to it. "THERE THEY ARE!" Jaken's strained voice called out, "M-master Jaken-" Rin started, but the toad demon was fuming. Fuming.

I had no strength left to retaliate. Fuck I was worn. There was no breath left in me and my whole body shook from exhaustion. I dropped to the ground, pushing back blood-slick hair from my face.

"UNGRATEFUL HUMANS BOTH OF YOU" he screamed at us, "Going off alone at night, into the forest, without any courtesy of even ASKING your Master Lord Sesshomaru! you have no right!" he continued, "No right to wander off on your own, NO RIGHT- not when Lord Sesshomaru has so generously taken your useless self under his wing-" his gaze pinned on Rin, still smoldering with anger. And I wasn't going to take that.

"We went on a hunt." I explained simply, reigning in the tide of anger rolling in.

He pointed a green finger at me, "I knew it was a bad idea to take you in." He snarled. "There wasn't any use for another dead weight troublemaker here-

"Load the beast on the saddle," I told him softly. There was a long period of silence that followed before Jaken went red with rage, "Only Lord Sesshomaru can command me. He boomed shaking with anger, "you filthy, low-life, undignified-

"Rin." My voice was pure venom. I had just about enough of these insults, "How about we have frog legs for dinner as well?" I asked murderously, The intent to kill seeped into my tone. For a moment I completely forgot who I was and who the goblin in front of me was. I just wanted to kill again. Draw blood. I felt the trance take over me. I flicked out my tongue tasting the thick, boar blood caking my face. More. Cut its throat. A death-like whisper spoke in my head.

Skin it alive. Another whispered.

More. They sang in unison. More.

I felt myself raising Mrutyunjay again-

"Jaken."

The cold voice snapped me back to reality. I blinked realizing what just had happened, the trance wore off as soon as it had appeared. The bloodthirsty voices faded out as if someone had flipped a switch. The thought that I would have struck Jaken down, right in front of Rin made me shudder.

Anger, daughter of the hills, if you don't leash your temper it'll run you over.

I looked up to see Sesshomaru toss the beast onto Ah-uns back. His amber eyes flashed towards me. Molten gold. My human blood quivered, making my teeth clatter. My mortality itself recoiled from pure daunt, as my survival instincts kicked in. I was standing in front of something so much more powerful than my human self. He called it back, tearing the cold unreadable eyes off my figure. I knew more than well what he was doing, a silent warning, using one's ayakashi aura to suppress the weaker species.

A reminder of who really the daiyokai here was. He turned away wordlessly, taking Jaken with him. His long silver hair faded into the canopy as Rin helped her on her feet.

"Lord Sesshomaru is just upset." She promised her weakly, "He won't let you go though, so you don't worry, I'll talk to him-" the child continued, giving me well-meaning yet rather empty words of reassurance.

It was clear he wanted me and Rin to return on our own with Ah-un. I pulled myself onto Ah-un's saddle weakly, before pulling Rin up as well.

Her heart and mind were still racing as they leaped into the night sky. The standoff with the daiyokai had sent her human body reeling with fear. But her ayakashi mind had felt it differently. The burn of his gaze, the way his aura had encased her threateningly, her ayakashi mind had felt it at its core. It had been just as powerful, yet not daunting. It was something else that has stunned her into silence, something else entirely. For her ayakashi mind, it was arousing.

---------

I can't wait to make it a smut already, but we need more plot. T8T

#sesshomaru #reader x sesshomaru #inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha #anti sessrin #lord sesshoumaru #sesshomaru x reader

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 9 months

Text

By: Sam Harris

Published: Mar 15, 2011

youtube

In the aftermath of the House hearing on American Muslims, Representative Keith Ellison appeared on HBO’s Real Time to further testify to the benign nature of Islam. Attempting to bring some glint of reality to the conversation, Bill Maher posed the following question:

Have you read Sam Harris’s book, The End of Faith?… [Harris] says, “On almost every page, the Qur’an instructs observant Muslims to despise non-believers.”

The Congressmen rejected this description of the Qur’an as “absurd, ridiculous and untrue”—the result of taking certain passages “out of context.” When Maher asked how jihadists can justify their actions by reading these same passages in context, Ellison claimed that jihadists do nothing of the sort. Rather, they think in terms of “political grievances,” not religious doctrine, and those who oppose them have the true doctrine of Islam on their side.

It is not my purpose to defend the House hearing on American Muslims (which I did not get a chance to watch). But it is growing increasingly disconcerting to see moderate Muslims reflexively lie about the tenets of their faith. Of course, it’s hard to know whether Ellison was actually lying or is merely unaware of the contents of the Qur’an. But I have witnessed too many of these exchanges with Muslim apologists, both in public and private, to ignore the general trend. Who will reform Islam if moderate Muslims refuse to speak honestly about the very doctrines in need of reform?

Here is the section of The End of Faith that Maher was referring to, in which I provide five pages of quotations from the Qur’an. Please know that these are not the only passages of this kind in the text. I simply broke off the litany of sacred hatred once I felt I had proved my point. Even worse passages appear later in the book (in chapters 8 and 9, for instance).

(from The End of Faith, pp. 117-123)

Open the Koran, which is perfect in its every syllable, and simply read it with the eyes of faith. You will see how little compassion need be wasted on those whom God himself is in the process of “mocking,” “cursing,” “shaming,” “punishing,” “scourging,” “judging,” “burning,” “annihilating,” “not forgiving,” and “not reprieving.” God, who is infinitely wise, has cursed the infidels with their doubts. He prolongs their life and prosperity so that they may continue heaping sin upon sin and all the more richly deserve the torments that await them beyond the grave. In this light, the people who died on September 11 were nothing more than fuel for the eternal fires of God’s justice. To convey the relentlessness with which unbelievers are vilified in the text of the Koran, I provide a long compilation of quotations below, in order of their appearance in the text. This is what the Creator of the universe apparently has on his mind (when he is not fussing with gravitational constants and atomic weights):

“It is the same whether or not you forewarn them [the unbelievers], they will have no faith” (2:6). “God will mock them and keep them long in sin, blundering blindly along” (2:15). A fire “whose fuel is men and stones” awaits them (2:24). They will be “rewarded with disgrace in this world and with grievous punishment on the Day of Resurrection” (2:85). “God’s curse be upon the infidels!” (2:89). “They have incurred God’s most inexorable wrath. An ignominious punishment awaits [them]” (2:90). “God is the enemy of the unbelievers” (2:98). “The unbelievers among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews], and the pagans, resent that any blessing should have been sent down to you from your Lord” (2:105). “They shall be held up to shame in this world and sternly punished in the hereafter” (2:114). “Those to whom We [God] have given the Book, and who read it as it ought to be read, truly believe in it; those that deny it shall assuredly be lost” (2:122). “[We] shall let them live awhile, and then shall drag them to the scourge of the Fire. Evil shall be their fate” (2:126). “The East and the West are God’s. He guides whom He will to a straight path” (2:142). “Do not say that those slain in the cause of God are dead. They are alive, but you are not aware of them” (2:154). “But the infidels who die unbelievers shall incur the curse of God, the angels, and all men. Under it they shall remain for ever; their punishment shall not be lightened, nor shall they be reprieved” (2:162). “They shall sigh with remorse, but shall never come out of the Fire” (2:168). “The unbelievers are like beasts which, call out to them as one may, can hear nothing but a shout and a cry. Deaf, dumb, and blind, they understand nothing” (2:172). “Theirs shall be a woeful punishment” (2:175). “How steadfastly they seek the Fire! That is because God has revealed the Book with truth; those that disagree about it are in extreme schism” (2:176). “Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. . . . If they attack you put them to the sword. Thus shall the unbelievers be rewarded: but if they desist, God is forgiving and merciful. Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme. But if they desist, fight none except the evil-doers”(2:190–93). “Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. God knows, but you know not” (2:216). “They will not cease to fight against you until they force you to renounce your faith—if they are able. But whoever of you recants and dies an unbeliever, his works shall come to nothing in this world and in the world to come. Such men shall be the tenants of Hell, wherein they shall abide forever. Those that have embraced the Faith, and those that have fled their land and fought for the cause of God, may hope for God’s mercy” (2:217–18). “God does not guide the evil-doers” (2:258). “God does not guide the unbelievers” (2:264). “The evil-doers shall have none to help them” (2:270). “God gives guidance to whom He will” (2:272).

“Those that deny God’s revelations shall be sternly punished; God is mighty and capable of revenge” (3:5). “As for the unbelievers, neither their riches nor their children will in the least save them from God’s judgment. They shall become fuel for the Fire” (3:10). “Say to the unbelievers: ‘You shall be overthrown and driven into Hell—an evil resting place!’” (3:12). “The only true faith in God’s sight is Islam. . . . He that denies God’s revelations should know that swift is God’s reckoning” (3:19). “Let the believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful—he that does this has nothing to hope for from God—except in self-defense” (3:28). “Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people. They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is evident from what they utter with their mouths, but greater is the hatred which their breasts conceal” (3:118). “If you have suffered a defeat, so did the enemy. We alternate these vicissitudes among mankind so that God may know the true believers and choose martyrs from among you (God does not love the evil-doers); and that God may test the faithful and annihilate the infidels” (3:140). “Believers, if you yield to the infidels they will drag you back to unbelief and you will return headlong to perdition. . . . We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. . . . The Fire shall be their home” (3:149–51). “Believers, do not follow the example of the infidels, who say of their brothers when they meet death abroad or in battle: ‘Had they stayed with us they would not have died, nor would they have been killed.’ God will cause them to regret their words. . . . If you should die or be slain in the cause of God, God’s forgiveness and His mercy would surely be better than all the riches they amass” (3:156). “Never think that those who were slain in the cause of God are dead. They are alive, and well provided for by their Lord; pleased with His gifts and rejoicing that those they left behind, who have not yet joined them, have nothing to fear or to regret; rejoicing in God’s grace and bounty. God will not deny the faithful their reward” (3:169). “Let not the unbelievers think that We prolong their days for their own good. We give them respite only so that they may commit more grievous sins. Shameful punishment awaits them” (3:178). “Those that suffered persecution for My sake and fought and were slain: I shall forgive them their sins and admit them to gardens watered by running streams, as a reward from God; God holds the richest recompense. Do not be deceived by the fortunes of the unbelievers in the land. Their prosperity is brief. Hell shall be their home, a dismal resting place” (3:195–96).

“God has cursed them in their unbelief” (4:46). “God will not forgive those who serve other gods besides Him; but He will forgive whom He will for other sins. He that serves other gods besides God is guilty of a heinous sin. . . . Consider those to whom a portion of the Scriptures was given. They believe in idols and false gods and say of the infidels: ‘These are better guided than the believers’” (4:50–51). “Those that deny Our revelation We will burn in fire. No sooner will their skins be consumed than We shall give them other skins, so that they may truly taste the scourge. God is mighty and wise” (4:55–56).

“Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels and those who were given the Book before you, who have made of your religion a jest and a pastime” (5:57). “That which is revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase the wickedness and unbelief of many among them. We have stirred among them enmity and hatred, which will endure till the Day of Resurrection” (5:65). “God does not guide the unbelievers” (5:67). “That which is revealed to you from your Lord will surely increase the wickedness and unbelief of many among them. But do not grieve for the unbelievers” (5:69). “You see many among them making friends with unbelievers. Evil is that to which their souls prompt them. They have incurred the wrath of God and shall endure eternal torment. . . . You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in affection to them are those who say: ‘We are Christians’” (5:80–82). “[T]hose that disbelieve and deny Our revelations shall become the inmates of Hell” (5:86).

“[T]hey deny the truth when it is declared to them: but they shall learn the consequences of their scorn” (6:5). “We had made them more powerful in the land than yourselves [the Meccans], sent down for them abundant water from the sky and gave them rivers that rolled at their feet. Yet because they sinned We destroyed them all and raised up other generations after them. If We sent down to you a Book inscribed on real parchment and they touched it with their own hands, the unbelievers would still assert: ‘This is but plain sorcery.’ They ask: ‘Why has no angel been sent down to him [Muhammad]?’ If We had sent down an angel, their fate would have been sealed and they would have never been reprieved” (6:5–8). “Who is more wicked than the man who invents falsehoods about God or denies His revelations?” (6:21). “Some of them listen to you. But We have cast veils over their hearts and made them hard of hearing lest they understand your words. They will believe in none of Our signs, even if they see them one and all. When they come to argue with you the unbelievers say: ‘This is nothing but old fictitious tales.’ They forbid it and depart from it. They ruin none but themselves, though they do not perceive it. If you could see them when they are set before the Fire! They will say: ‘Would that we could return! Then we would not deny the revelations of our Lord and would be true believers’ (6:23–27). “But if they were sent back, they would return to that which they have been forbidden. They are liars all” (6:29). “Had God pleased He would have given them guidance, one and all” (6:35). “Deaf and dumb are those that deny Our revelations: they blunder about in darkness. God confounds whom He will, and guides to a straight path whom He pleases.” (6:39) “[T]heir hearts were hardened, and Satan made their deeds seem fair to them. And when they had clean forgotten Our admonition We granted them all that they desired; but just as they were rejoicing in what they were given, We suddenly smote them and they were plunged into utter despair. Thus were the evil-doers annihilated. Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe!” (6:43–45). “[T]hose that deny Our revelations shall be punished for their misdeeds” (6:49). “Such are those that are damned by their own sins. They shall drink scalding water and be sternly punished for their unbelief” (6:70). “Could you but see the wrongdoers when death overwhelms them! With hands out-stretched, the angels will say: ‘Yield up your souls. You shall be rewarded with the scourge of shame this day, for you have said of God what is untrue and scorned His revelations” (6:93). “Avoid the pagans. Had God pleased, they would not have worshipped idols. . . . We will turn away their hearts and eyes from the Truth since they refused to believe in it at first. We will let them blunder about in their wrongdoing. If We sent the angels down to them, and caused the dead to speak to them, . . . and ranged all things in front of them, they would still not believe, unless God willed otherwise. . . . Thus have We assigned for every prophet an enemy: the devils among men and jinn, who inspire each other with vain and varnished false- hoods. But had your Lord pleased, they would not have done so. Therefore leave them to their own inventions, so that the hearts of those who have no faith in the life to come may be inclined to what they say and, being pleased, persist in their sinful ways” (6:107–12). “The devils will teach their votaries to argue with you. If you obey them you shall yourselves become idolaters. . . . God will humiliate the transgressors and mete out to them a grievous punishment for their scheming” (6:121–25). “If God wills to guide a man, He opens his bosom to Islam. But if he pleases to confound him, He makes his bosom small and narrow as though he were climbing up to heaven. Thus shall God lay the scourge on the unbelievers” (6:125).

Yes, the Bible contains its own sadistic lunacy—but the above quotations can be fairly said to convey the central message of the Qur’an—and of Islam at nearly every moment in its history. The Qur’an does not contain anything like a Sermon on the Mount. Nor is it a vast and self-contradictory book like the Old Testament, in which whole sections (like Leviticus and Deuteronomy) can be easily ignored and forgotten. The result is a unified message of triumphalism, otherworldliness, and religious hatred that has become a problem for the entire world. And the world still waits for moderate Muslims to speak honestly about it.

This is the religion that demands you respect their holy book, because of how dear and beloved it is to its followers. A book that wants to murder or enslave you, and if you say anything bad against it, then somehow you're the one perpetuating "hate."

Those are literally just the first 6 surahs. The quran consists of 114 in total, and we haven't even gotten to the Verse of the Sword in surah 9, Surah at-Tawbah.

Islam is a religion of war, domination and supremacy. You need never feel guilty for criticizing, mocking or disparaging it, especially when Muslims themselves refuse to admit how openly hateful their doctrine is.

#Sam Harris #islam #islamic violence #islamic supremacy #quran #religion of war #religion of violence #religion of hate #religion is a mental illness

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daitranscripts · 1 year

Text

The Wrath of Heaven Deleted Dialogue

The Valley

Wrath of Heaven Masterpost

Various snippets of dialogue that didn’t make it into the final cut of the game - listed in scene order.

—

Cassandra: Maker’s breath.

Solas: So much waste.

Varric: (Sighs.) Unbelievable, isn’t it?

Cassandra: What happened here is difficult to bear.

Solas: Such destruction.

Varric: Hard to accept this could really happen.

—

Varric: What is that?

Cassandra: A greater demon!

—

Solas: None of this explains how that mark was acquired, however.

Cassandra: [They] claim not to remember.

Solas: And you do not believe that?

Cassandra: It is to convenient.

Solas: Sometimes the mind buries what it cannot endure.

Cassandra: And sometimes the guilty lie. Let us press onwards.

—

PC: Why do you call her “Seeker”?

Varric: Because that’s what Cassandra is: a Seeker of truth. A… sort of templar. Didn’t she tell you? I’ll bet they didn’t even introduce themselves properly, or mention who all these soldiers are.

Cassandra: The prisoner is accused of a terrible crime.

Varric (male PC): But you still need his help. Unless you’re taking him into the valley for a brisk walk and some air? Varric (female PC): And yet, you still want her help. Unless you just decided to take her out and show her the sights?

Dialogue options:

So who are they?

[Don’t respond.]

So who are they? PC: So who are they then? Varric: Cassandra and Leliana were the Right Hand and Left Hand of the Divine, respectively. They were the Divine’s… unofficial agents. Doing things like gathering these soldiers. PC: For what purpose? Solas: The Templar Order was once the Chantry’s army, but it abandoned them to hunt mages. A replacement was needed. Cassandra: It is more than that. Varric: So she claims. Clearly the Divine had something in mind.

Scene continues.

Cassandra: Let’s move on.

—

Varric: So you’re a mage.

Qunari PC: Qunari can be mages. Varric: True, though Qunari saarebas I ever saw was kept on a leash.

Dalish PC: The Dalish have mages. Varric: Oh, I knew one once. Pretty girl, had a thing for mirrors.

Human PC: You didn't know? Varric: I assumed if Cassandra’s prisoner was a mage, she’d have announced it far and wide by now.

Cassandra: Questions yet remain.

Varric: Just not about his guilt. Varric: Just not, “is she guilty?”

Cassandra: We don’t know why [they were] at the Conclave or who [they] worked for.

Varric: So, why not ask?

—

Varric: So you’re not a mage, and presumably not a templar.

Cassandra: Certainly not.

Varric (Qunari PC): So what was a Qunari even doing at the Conclave? Varric (dwarf PC): So what was a sensible dwarf like yourself even doing at the Conclave? Varric (Dalish PC): So what was a Dalish elf like yourself doing at the Conclave?

Human PC: I’m not a templar. Varric: So what were you even doing at the Conclave?

Cassandra: Why bother asking? You can trust nothing [they] say.

Varric: You’d prefer to guess?

Cassandra: First we deal with the Breach. Then, we learn the truth.

—

Solas: I am curious why you were not at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, Cassandra.

Cassandra: We were delayed in Kirkwall.

Varric: By “delayed,” she means “we were interrogating a dwarf.”

Solas: A fortunate delay, considering it saved your lives.

Cassandra: There was nothing fortunate about it! If we’d been there, we could have…. this might all have…

Dialogue options:

Stop tormenting her

You’d be dead too.

And yet you survived.

[Don’t respond.]

Stop tormenting her PC: Why would you ask her that? Solas: It was a simple question. PC: You don’t think she’s torturing herself about it? Cassandra: You do not know me. Varric: I think [they’ve] got you figured out pretty well, Seeker.

You’d be dead too. PC: You’d probably have died along with everyone else. Cassandra: Or stopped you. Varric: You really want to torture yourself with “what if,” Seeker? Cassandra: No, I want justice.

And yet you survived. PC: So the Divine’s closest agents survived because of a convenient delay? Cassandra: What are you implying? PC: Well, survival seems to be evidence—for some people. Varric: [They’ve] got you there. Cassandra: I don’t have the mark… but point taken.

[Don’t respond.] Solas: I apologize. I did not mean to cause you pain. Cassandra: It is a question Leliana and I will ask ourselves for the rest of our lives, I assure you.

—

PC: So you and Cassandra know each other.

Varric: you could say that. She stabbed my books.

Cassandra: I did no such thing.

Varric: She questioned me, and then dragged me here to give evidence at the Conclave.

Cassandra: Which means you are now free to go.

Varric: You ever get the feeling you’re not wanted?

—

Varric: Will all these demons, why haven’t you called for help?

Cassandra: We have.

Solas: Would you wish to come to the site of so much death?

Varric: Good point. Still, if they knew there was a chance to close the Breach…

Cassandra: They don’t know that. And neither do we… yet.

—

Varric: So… Solas, is it?

Solas: You’ve yet to come up with a nickname for me, I see.

Varric: I was thinking “Apostate,” but that might make our Seeker twitch.

Solas: It is also meaningless. With the Circle of Magi gone, all mages are now apostates.

Varric: yet none of them showed up to help.

Solas: Perhaps they do not see the bigger picture, despite it looming in the sky.

—

Varric: So let’s say you fix this hole in the sky, Seeker. What, then?

Cassandra: A new Divine. Hopefully a new attempt at peace.

Varric: You think the mages and templars will come together after all this? Mighty optimistic. And that’s assuming the new Divine would even try. I wouldn’t.

Cassandra: Of course you wouldn’t

Varric: See, this is why I stuck around. All the love and respect.

—

Dialogue options:

Stop arguing. PC: Do you hear yourselves? You’re getting nowhere! Roderick: Oh, do tell us what your suggestion is.

Let’s decide before I’m dead. PC: This thing is killing me, so how about you decide before I die? Roderick: When you die is of no consequence.

We only have one chance. PC: I’m your *only* chance at closing the Breach. I have to try. Roderick: You’re no chance at all. PC: Do you really think we can get to Val Royeaux before the breach swallows everything?

—

Leliana: There is another way: the mountain path.

Varric: There are soldiers up there? Shouldn’t you look for them?

—

Combat barks:

Cassandra: I’ll hold them!

Cassandra: Careful—more enemies over there!

PC: What *is* that?

Cassandra: Just keep fighting!

Solas: I will protect us.

Cassandra: Use a healing potion!

Cassandra: We should find more potions.

Solas: The rift respond to your mark—try to disrupt its power!

Solas: The mark on your hand—use it on the rift!

Solas: Try to disrupt the rift with your mark!

—

Ambient dialogue:

Lake Villager 4: Who is that anyway?

Lake Villager 4: Are the corpses still out there?

Noble: Is that [them]?

Assassin: This is not how we succeed.

Reaver: Impossible.

Shopper(???) 1: Maker, this is awful!

Shopper 2: This is terrible!

Shopper 3: Something must be done. It’s madness.

Shopper 4: I can’t believe this. I won’t.

Shopper 5: Who would allow this? This can’t be allowed!

Shopper 6: What a horrible state of affairs.

Shopper 1: I don’t understand this at all. What has happened?

Shopper 2: What can this mean? What do we do?

Shopper 3: Troubling. I’m at a loss.

Shopper 4: Everyone is confused.

Shopper 5: What does it all mean?

Shopper 6: I have no idea what’s next.

[Worth noting that these are the same names used for the templars in the great hall during CotJ]

Dieran: Heard he killed the Divine.

Dieran: She killed the Divine. I know it.

Esmia: Why didn’t he save her?

Esmia: What good is she if she couldn’t save the Divine?

Tavus: He survived the Fade. Only someone touched by Andraste could survive.

Tavus: She survived the Fade. Only Andraste could have saved her.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dai #dai transcripts #dai dialogue #deleted dialogue #twoh #long post

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cameliawrites · 2 years

Text

what a mother wants

It’s here, it’s here! (And it’s here on ao3.) My latest Six of Crows fic has been published: nine thousand words on family and trauma, domesticity and angst, motherhood and marriage, sacrifice and self-identity. Just the heavy stuff, you know? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one (even if your post-CK kanej headcanons are wildly different than my own; I’m here for the discourse).

fic summary:

“Your mother says you haven’t stepped into the practice tent once. Since when are you afraid to walk the wire?” Kaz demanded.

Since I realized what my daughter will lose if I fall, Inej thought.

She replied, “I’m not afraid. I simply want different things than I used to,” and willed herself to believe it was the truth.

…

Post-CK. Kaz and Inej are taking their three-year-old daughter to visit the Suli caravans for the first time, and Inej wants what all mothers want: for her child to be happy and safe. It is no surprise that her own mother wants the very same.

...

Before she and Kaz had the baby, Inej thought she knew the extent of fear.

She’d fought off rivals who outnumbered her five to one; climbed to dizzying, dangerous heights; pulled off impossible heists. She’d died in the belly of a slaver ship at the age of fourteen. Nothing, she thought, could be worse than the fear she had suffered then.

In the spring of her twenty-sixth year, Inej came to be with child—more often, though, she thought of the child as with her, safe and warm even in the final cold snaps of the season. There was something sacred about sharing the space of one body between them, knowing that she’d never been closer to another human except her own mother.

Soon enough, Inej knew her child would be forced to be without, divested of the inherent protections of pregnancy, born into the winter of an impossibly cold and cruel city. Most of the time, Inej’s fears regarding the inevitable separation were menial, manageable: What if the baby couldn’t latch? What if the baby wouldn’t sleep in her crib? What if the baby’s clothes weren’t warm enough to brave the Kerch freeze?

But there were far worse things than heavy rains and biting winds. Inej remembered the weight of bodies on top of her own, lips and teeth and tongues, heat and misery and unbearable guilt. What of those things?

And then a little girl was born to them one snow-covered day in Ketterdam—Lieze Rietveld, barely as long as Kaz’s palms when they pressed beneath her, cradling her in his hold. She was unbelievably tiny, arms and legs and fists and face all scrunched up like a butterfly’s wing just emerging from its chrysalis.

The fear became a tangible, intractable thing. It’s a girl, they’d told her as they first pressed the bloody, wriggling body to her chest. It was naive of her to sob in relief then, pressing tear-soaked lips to the filmy skin of her daughter’s forehead.

‘It’s a girl!’ resounded in Inej’s mind for months afterward. The longer it echoed, the more it felt like a warning.

…

read the entire one-shot here on ao3.

#9k words of postpartum angst tempered by kanej fluff #hopping on the 'kaz is a girldad' headcanon train #the ghafas are lovely parents and I stand by that statement #inej navigates mom guilt #kanej #six of crows #crooked kingdom #camelia writes #fic: what a mother wants #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kanej baby #soc fanfic #six of crows fanfiction #soc headcanons #cottagecore kanej

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pathfinderofandromeda · 1 year

Note

jerin in the glass trap instead of jamie and kate…

this prompt is undeniably evil, but i might have enjoyed writing it?

they're going through the absolute most, except i can promise that within ten minutes, jamie throws du’met off the roof, and he doesn’t get up this time :)

i hope you'll forgive me...and my embellishment of the amount of time they have before du'met comes back.

you can check out my other work on AO3...username: skyllianspectre

(trigger warning for the DIM glass trap and all that entails, as well as heavy angst and asthma/panic attacks)

Despite Jamie’s best efforts to avoid it, they end up getting separated.

It’s difficult to keep an eye out for moving walls while running, as it turns out, and now they’re here, in this fucking trap, and Jamie swears she’s gonna kill that son of a bitch.

“Try to stay calm.” She tells Erin, but then the wall starts moving.

She tries to break the glass on her own with no success, then tries the screwdriver.

It’s a useless pursuit, and that’s when she sees the button.

The reverse symbol above makes the function obvious, and Du’Met must really be crazy if he thinks she’d even consider hurting Erin, let alone go through with it.

She’s already carrying the weight of Charlie’s apparent death on her shoulders, whether she could’ve done anything more or not, and she won’t - no, can’t - carry another.

Especially not her.

Fuck that button.

She won’t even stand near it.

“J - Jamie?” Erin asks, incredibly fearful. “What is that for?”

“Some shit I’m not doing.” Jamie answers resolutely, shaking her head.

She knows she can stand here and scheme for as much time as they have, but it’s pretty clear that they’re not going to think their way out of this.

Somebody is dying here, and Erin seems to have realized that it’s not going to be her.

“Jamie. No. You can’t.”

“This is exactly what he wants.” Jamie says, ignoring her implication and trying to keep it together. “You know I won’t hurt you. You’re not changing my mind.”

Erin can’t even look at her.

Her crying is uncontrollable, and she feels like she’s going to pass out.

Even if Jamie lets her live, who’s to say she’ll make it?

She’s done nothing but hinder the crew, and she can’t fathom the idea of going on without her, especially if she feels responsible.

“The others...they need you.” She insists, and Jamie looks almost offended.

Erin isn’t a burden, and the fact that she thinks she is is nauseating.

“Listen. Please.” Jamie pleads, voice trailing off into nothing, and Erin is completely devastated by the sound. “This isn't your fault. Understand?”

Erin sputters to say something, anything, but it won’t come out.

The sight makes Jamie pause for a second, then completely break.

“I love you.” She admits, glass closing in, and Erin looks at her like she’s committed a crime. “Just...don’t watch, okay?”

She turns away as told, knowing from the way Jamie’s said it that it’s sacred, and now it’s going to haunt her.

Jamie loves her too, and the sound of her scream is deafening.

---

It’s the longest collection of seconds in Erin’s life before she hears glass shattering, a thud, and then, unbelievably, Jamie’s voice.

“Erin.”

It’s hoarse and shaky, but when Erin forces herself to turn back around, expecting some sort of auditory hallucination, she finds it undeniably real.

Jamie is on the floor a few feet away, talking, and breathing and alive.

She drops to her side almost immediately and helps her sit up, backing against the wall, but when she opens her mouth to speak, there’s no air left in her lungs.

“Hey...Hey, your inhaler.” Jamie murmurs, tapping Erin’s hand lightly, and she appreciates the reminder even though she’s sure Jamie’s gone mad.

There’s no way in hell she should be doing the care-taking right now, but it’s her, so of course she is.

Erin fishes into her pocket with shaky hands and sits next to her, taking a puff and exhaling painfully with the sound of “I love you” bouncing around her head like a pinball.

She gasps her way through several breathing cycles, Jamie’s hand sitting atop hers, and finally, mercifully, there’s some sense of control.

“Okay?” Jamie asks, only realizing how stupid it sounds once she’s said it, and Erin could almost laugh.

Jamie has no idea how good she is.

“You’re insane.” Erin responds, and then she’s kissing Jamie hard.

It’s messy and more than a little desperate, but Jamie only lets herself kiss back for a moment before breaking it.

They’re both incredibly vulnerable, tears still streaming down Erin’s face, and Jamie isn’t about to take advantage.

Instead, she pulls Erin into her arms, letting her bury her face in her neck while she rubs at the small of her back.

There’s some comfort in the way their heartbeats synchronize, but it doesn’t last for long.

Du’Met’s gonna be pissed, and Jamie’s brain is already trying to figure out what’s next to protect them.

No time to process.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

Erin eventually whispers between sobs, starting to quiet down just a little, and Jamie has no idea what to say so she jokes.

“I mean it worked out - ”

Erin squeezes her tightly to cut her off. “Jamie...I thought...”

“I know.” She replies, a jagged breath ripping through her entire body with the weight of it all. “Me too.”

---

After what feels like an eternity, the door in front of Kate creaks open.

Her heart drops in her chest when neither of them appear, and upon stepping closer, she hears crying.

It’s Erin, and Kate's thoughts start to race.

Jamie.

Shit.

Her hand flies to the amethyst crystal in her pocket, taking a deep breath as her stomach twists violently.

They need to keep going, but she can barely steel herself for what she’s about to see.

Upon entering the room however, there is no massacre.

Kate finds them both sitting against the wall, seemingly un-injured, and her relief is palpable.

Jamie acknowledges Kate with her eyes, holding Erin close and repeating something inaudible to her under her breath, and Kate can’t help but feel like she’s intruding on them.

She stares for a long second, unable to speak, and then she hears Jamie tell Erin that she’s here.

Her voice is completely wrecked, and it makes a cold, horrible feeling seep through Kate’s bones.

Something terrible happened here.

“Are you guys okay?” She finally manages to get out, and Jamie nods slowly, looking unsure.

“Yeah...yes...we are.”

The way it hangs is uncomfortable and Kate tries her best to focus. “He’s not far. We should - ”

“Yeah.” Jamie agrees, urging Erin gently that they need to go, and only then does Erin move, separating herself.

Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and it makes Kate’s heart ache.

“Let me help.” Kate offers, holding her hand out to Jamie, and she takes it to get to her feet.

She’s clearly trying to reset, to put this away to worry about later, and Kate has no idea how she does it.

She turns back and grabs her screwdriver from the floor, then reaches for Erin.

“C’mere.” She breathes, and Erin does, taking her hand and standing up beside her, a bit wobbly.

Kate glances between them, but then there’s shuffling in the hallway.

God damn it.

“Come on.” She says anxiously, leading the way out of the room, and then Du’Met is there, staring them down.

“Stay close to me.” Jamie tells Erin, making sure she’s in front of her before they turn to run, and Erin clings to the words.

She’s not letting Jamie out of her sight.

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gaoau · 5 months

Text

Friendship Spell

Wicked Witch warnings — none. word count — 1.6k

prev. — next.

With the weekend giving him enough time to mentally prepare himself for whatever could go wrong on Monday when he knocked on the clubroom door, Osamu returned to his sacred shrine. Still, he was nowhere near slightly prepared as he climbed the stairs, making an impromptu stop at a vending machine to buy himself a drink—and well, while he was at it, it made sense to get something for [Surname] as well, considering he was going up to see her. His face scrunched up in contemplation, weighing out pros and cons of every drink to find the perfect one.

[Surname] was a musician, [Surname] was a singer, [Surname] would appreciate water… right? That wasn't cheap of him.

Osamu heard her sigh unnecessarily loud through the door, the piece she was playing on the flute halted immediately upon hearing his knock. She slid the door open and instantly locked gazes with him. Her eyes pierced into him, bored and maybe even just a tad bit annoyed—admittedly, he'd knocked a total of three different days and it must have been getting unbelievably tiring for her to keep interrupting her practice for this one random guy. He offered the water bottle, wearing the friendliest smile he could muster as if he were handling an animal that could maul him to death at the slightest indication of a threat.

[Surname] rose a skeptical brow at him with narrowed eyes. "Is this gonna become a thing now?" She glanced between the bottle in his hand and his smiling face. Osamu hummed in confusion. "You coming here, bringing food and water, smiling like I'm an abandoned dog." Was it wrong of him to smile? "I never saw ya smile once during your game." Could she somehow read minds? "It's written on yer face"

"It bothers ya?"

"It doesn't." A weight lifted off his chest immediately; she accepted his company, she welcomed him into the privacy of a room she had transformed into her own haven. "But—" he thought too fast, "—what does, though, is not knowing what you're tryna accomplish."

His brain painted itself completely blank the moment her words reached him. He knew exactly what his motives were, but he couldn't come out and say it straight to her face. She'd simply steer clear from him if she found he was openly pursuing her. Would she, though? Ah, he couldn't be sure about anything anymore. "Friendship?" he blurted out when his silence grew uncomfortable even for himself. It was the closest thing, his first step to what his actual goal was. He wasn't lying. He simply danced around the truth.

[Surname] heaved out an exhausted sigh right in front of his face. "What's your name?"

He wondered if that sharp pain on his chest was heart failure for seeing her so up close or if her question had managed to physically manifest and stab him in the ribs. "Miya Osamu."

She stretched out her open palm, cueing him to shakily hand over the water bottle he'd been warming with his sweaty nervousness. [Surname] puffed out a chuckle, "No, I'm—" She passed the bottle onto her other hand and presented her palm again. "I'm [Surname] [Name]."

And although Osamu knew that—he'd known her name the entire three times he'd come to bother her solely because he wanted more of her company—he somehow managed to forget about everything and anything he'd ever learned in his life when her hand slipped into his. Long, pianist fingers, calloused skin proof of endless practice, a firm grip that exuded nothing but confidence. He'd never cared for a pair of hands before, but now he wished for nothing more than to hold hers.

The Interhigh preliminaries rolled around. Osamu's hopes remained up high in the Summer clouds, and yet they came crashing down to shatter on the middle of the court when he sneaked a peek towards the cheering squad. He recognized the person directing the band, but it wasn't [Name]. The same boy he'd seen during his first year before that one match where she showed up to lash out at Atsumu. The official band director, essentially.

Before the Interhigh Tournament pulled him away from school for more days than he'd like to go without interacting with [Name], he knocked on the clubroom. "Come in!" her voice called out to him over the sound of her drums. Osamu's hand hesitated as it reached towards the handle. She usually opened the door for him, stopping her music instantly upon hearing the knock. Was she expecting someone else?

He walked in and closed the door behind him, turning towards the end of the room where [Name]'s arms flew freely to slam her drumsticks down and create the catchiest beat he'd ever heard. She nodded at him as he settled down on his seat and a few seconds later finished her piece. The plates chimed and reverberated around him before she muted them with her fingers.

"You can stop knockin', y'know? Just come in at this point."

Yes, she'd been expecting him. His heart rate rose excitedly to speeds unknown to humans. A smile tugged at his lips, and not only his cheeks but his whole body warmed up with lovesick adoration. He still couldn't understand how [Name] managed to affect him this way, squeezing all his feelings out of his heart with nothing but words. He cleared his throat to assure himself he wouldn't stumble over his own thoughts. "So, yer… Ya comin' to the Interhighs?"

"No."

Well, that was harsh. "It's 'cause of 'Tsumu, ain't it?"

"Who's that?"

"Atsumu? My brother?"

"Miya Atsumu and Osamu. 'Tsumu and…"

"'Samu."

She hummed. "Yeah, it's 'cause of your brother."

When he stood on the court to play the rounds through the Interhighs, his eyes darted involuntarily up to the stands. [Name] wasn't there, she'd told him she wouldn't be there, and yet he wished she were. The music, the cheer, the noises; they all sounded different with the disturbing knowledge that she wasn't taking part in them. He sat out the finals with a pounding headache.

Osamu takes a swig from his drink, letting his throat and vocal chords take a break from all this retelling he's been doing. He ignores [Name] cooing at him as she mocks his high-school feelings going haywire at every single moment. Comments travel here and there, floating around the table—mostly Suna providing audiovisual material to go along with the tale of Osamu's crush. But Atsumu wants to take the microphone for himself for a few seconds.

He clinks a spoon against his empty cup to bring the attention towards him. "Listen here! I've somethin' to say."

Silence falls and everyone stares at the smirk on his face with narrowed eyes. [Name] starts, "Is it—"

"Yeah, [Name], it's relevant to the story."

"Fine."

First, the rumors about Osamu's crush had gone around. Now, the rumors of spotting the famous Miya twin heading all the way to the third floor daily. Word travelled extremely quickly around the Inarizaki campus and it didn't take long for it all to reach Atsumu's ears. Of course, he was alongside Suna and Ginjima when two students passed them by in the hallways, speaking about the twin they'd been looking for.

"Ya sure 'twas Osamu-kun?"

"I know it don't make sense, but he was goin' up to the third floor."

"Ya think he's crushin' on an upperclassman?"

The pair had strolled out of hearing range before any of their possible theories could reach the volleyball players' ears. Osamu going up to the third floor frequently would explain why he seemed to disappear as soon as recess was announced. A light-bulb lit up inside Ginjima's brain when he managed to connect the dots.

"The music clubroom," he announced with a snap of his fingers.

Atsumu bolted towards the stairs in a split second, leaving Suna and Ginjima to share a saturated glance. They sighed in unison before following after him and up the stairs. As the three were hiding behind the corner, they caught sight of Osamu waltzing into the clubroom as if it were routine for him—which it was. They all knew Osamu's hands were good for one thing and it was cooking, not music. Atsumu signaled the other two to move closer to the door and listen on whatever he happened to be doing behind it.

Notes and chords on a piano was all that reached them. Over the music, Osamu's voice called out, "Hey, [Name]-san."

"Osamu." And the music stopped.

"Brought ya chips."

"Are you tryna dehydrate me?" Hard plastic crinkled and a thud landed on the floor. [Name] clicked her tongue. "Gee, thanks."

Atsumu turned to his two suffering friends, wearing the most disgusted grimace he could muster. Although her voice sounded softer and calmer, he could recognize the edge that had screamed at him after his match. Even if that wasn't enough of a giveaway, he'd heard about the Wicked Witch hiding away in the music clubroom during recess. But there was simply no way Osamu willingly visited that crazy chick when he had any amount of free time. He stomped away on his own, not bothering to wait for the pair of souls he'd dragged with him into his tantrum.

Rumors quickly renewed themselves. Word spread around about the Wicked Witch and one of the Miya twins.

"I don't remember that," [Name] hummed, hiding her smile behind her wine glass.

Osamu hugs her closer to his body and buries his face in her hair. "Neither do I."

"I fucking hate you both."

Laughter resonates through the table, though [Name]'s rises clearly above the rest. "I'm kidding. Of course I remember him hitting me with a water bottle. Way to woo a girl."

He pushes her away from him at record speed. "Am I too late to take back my vows?"

#Wicked Witch #Haikyuu #Miya Osamu #Miya Osamu x Reader #Osamu x Reader #Haikyuu x Reader

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