#compared to other things its not URGENT | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hunnieknight · 1 year

Text

"The Birds and The Feathers"(+Art)

Just a pretty swan in its nest by the lake living its best life....until these avians decided you are their target of affection.

Broken grammar, Swan!Reader x Avian Constellation characters {Kaeya, Diluc, Xiao, Ayaka, Layla, Al Haitham, Kaveh, Fischl}, GN!Reader, Modern AU(?), the reader is oblivious(?), non-establish relationship, you are "that one neighbour" type of thing feral-like behaviour, everyone acting similar to their representation bird, hints of yandere, possessive and obsessive behaviour, a bit of suggestive if you squint.

------

Note : Human with bird wings! Nest refers to everyone's own house, You are a swimming trainer at your local pool.

Note (13 May) : this was drafted before Mika appearance and during Kaveh first appearance (so no Mehrak)! So thats why he isnt here,and im already drained to add him

Kaeya {Pavo Ocellus//Peacock}

My my, a pretty bird isn't he? Your charismatic neighbour who would greet you with that bright smile of his.

He is that one neighbour who is always curious about your activity but won't pester you much if you refuse to answer, respecting your boundaries.

Checking up on you seems to be his favourite thing, he will briefly visit your humble hut near the lake and offers you some fruits or veggies he brought on his way home. Whenever you decline he somehow always gets an urgent call and can't bring all the groceries he had bought. Well, since he is already at your house, why don't you just accept these fresh fruits he so dearly brought to you?

If he is stopping by your nest, he often lazes around your house whilst chatting about his daily life and you just listened to him while munching on snacks he brought to you. If you are swimming, he will sit by the dock under a shade, leaving you to enjoy what you like the most. Beside, he is also enjoying seeing what he likes the most

One of the things he often gives you is little trinkets...well...the only kind of trinket he gave you is a peacock feather in a resin. It could be a bookmark, a keychain, or a small wall decoration. Since the rarely have time to hang out with you, he needs to make sure part of him will always be with you.

Peacock does value their beauty to attract their female counterpart, but for you? He would gladly be featherless with no second thoughts.

Diluc {Noctua/Great Horned Owl}

A magnificent fancy owl, isn't he? An admirable owl in its prime age running such a huge wine tycoon. Compared to the other houses in the neighbourhood, his is the biggest.

You often see him around but never interact until you bring your swimming class to collaborate with Dawn Winery. There, you saw him personally bring the crates of grape juices for your students. You both start a small conversation, and after that day you often see him on your way to work. He will pull over by your side and insist on driving you there.

His wings span is HUGE. When the sun's heat stings your skin, he will use his wings as your umbrella. What a gentleman indeed.

For some odd reason, he is active during the day and awake at night. How did he get enough proper sleep? You are not sure yourself. Another owl trait of his is his quiet steps or walk, you are always startled whenever he greets you at the swimming centre to bring grape juices for your students, and your wings spread to smack him in the face. After that incident, he always makes sure to approach you from the front.

Other than acts of service, his language is also gift-giving. At first, it was some raw meat to cook or a perfectly cooked steak you can eat, but after learning about the swan's diet, Diluc changed it into grapes and grape juices from his winery. Let's just say sometimes your nest smells like his wine.....like part of him.

Somehow this owl makes sour expressions whenever he sees peacock trinkets around your house after you confirmed Diluc where are those gifts from, he started giving you a quill pen with a feather interestingly similar to his.

Xiao {Alatus Nemeseos/Black-Tail Jade Finch}

Hm? Are you worried about your nest's safety at night? Afraid to go home by yourself when it is late? Suddenly crave eating in the middle of the night? No need to be worried about that anymore! This finch right here, Xiao, is ready to be your bodyguard.

You rarely chat with him, considering he is an introverted bird and prefers to stay in his nest. Other than seeing him dropping off and picking up his little sister, Qiqi at the swimming centre, you guys only meet in public places like parks or convenience stores, where it always started with a curt nod from him and an acknowledgement smile from you. Other than that, you guys don't talk much. However, if you guys do meet in public coincidentally at night, he often 'offers' you to walk back to your nest.

If you count 'waiting for you in front of the convenience store and walking side-by-side with you with no talking' as an offer.

Although his wings and bird's form looks small and cute, he is the most resilient and intimidating among your avian neighbour. Once you saw him decked a man thrice his size because -according to Xiao- 'He looked at you funny'.

He will not hesitate to guard you to your nest, no matter how often you tell him you don't want to bother him, he will just quip back "-and you prefer to get hunted by those bad birds?". As much as your interaction with him is awkward, you always offer tea whenever both of you arrive at the door. But he just refuses politely and 'scurry away'.

Although, he doesn't underestimate you. Once he saw you, the delicate swan became a vicious eagle to protect your swimming students.

Well, now he ought to see you protecting their child together- huh? No that's too far, he is thinking too far. He can just settle with protecting your nest and accompanying you on walks.

Ayaka {Grus Nivis/Snow Crane}

(Note : Ayaka's ability to walk on water refers to her Alt Sprint and how cranes mostly spend their time in shallow water)

Oh my! Look at her beautiful snow-like wings. Such a delicate bird and a classy one too. As a Kamisato, her giant nest (estate) where she lives with her brother is standing proudly on top of a man-made island above the lake with lilypads and lotus blooming here and there. The estate is so beautiful, you are drawn to the magnificent estate to take photos, especially the lotus lake, your swan instinct just brought your feet there.

You purposely approach the lake behind the estate. Avoided the guards so you can have a peaceful time. There, you saw her. The famous snow crane lady Kamisato Ayaka..she seems like dancing? You were mesmerized for a bit by her delicate moves, her flowy hair spinning around her like snow ribbon, and her blue ey- wait what?! She saw you, her wide blue eyes can tell she didn't expect an audience. You awkwardly make a thumbs-up and clap a little. Your wings cover your body whilst you run away from the spot.

You were just swimming around the lake near your nest, the swan blood in you just loves water so much. When you raise up above the water, you find yourself surrounded by beautiful lotus and lilypads floating around your lake, you turned around to see the snow crane above the water, smiling softly at you.

After that lilypad meeting, you both often meet behind your house -something about her feeling more comfortable to become a regular snow crane. She never hated the life of royal birds but living freely without rules to follow seems fascinating to her. So, you showed her your humble nest and how you teach little birds to swim. In return, she integrated you into her life; introducing you to her charming brother -Ayato- and the nice housekeeper Thoma, serving dishes that fit to swan's diet whenever you visit, and often a bundle of Otogi sticks or some fragrant oil from Otogi given to you before you leave-as decoration for your house she suggests and to make your nest smells more like hers.

Layla {Luscinia/Nightingale}

Poor little one, this small bird often crashes by your nest to nap or rest. Her eye bags get darker every time you see her. The least you can do is offer her warm milk to drink before she naps.

Well, you two have been close since you both were still little chicks. At this point, your nest is hers and hers is yours. Her wings feather is everywhere at your nest, from how often she is having a 'sleepover'-which is mostly you pushing her to get enough rest. She even has her own little corner in your nest, where her work drafts and papers are scattered around.

Speaking of sleeping, Layla, you know has an alternate personality that manifests from her when she is in deep sleep. This persona is energetic and determined, if Layla forgot to drink the milk you gave her before sleeping the nighttime Layla will drink it before she does her work. This Layla is very bold and affectionate to you, talkative too! Often she asks your opinion about her paper, and although you don't much about her study, you gave her the encouragement she needed.

Nightime Layla often asks for your blessing every time she is about to sleepwalk go outside. You often give her hugs and cheek kisses as a blessing. Once you gave her a mini dreamcatcher keychain with your feather on it, saying she could always ask for a new feather if the old one snapped, was dirty, or was missing...and she does. She keeps asking for another of your feather because somehow she lost it.

However, what you don't know is, she always keeps the keychain in pristine condition, she just likes to collect parts of you as a good luck charm!

Well....this often leads to Daytime Layla waking up to swan feathers in her closet and her desk drawer. She was confused but not thinking much of it. Instead, she uses the feathers to fill up her pillow fillings or quill.

Ah, somehow she always dreamt of you with this special pillow of hers. Hmm..can't have that..she misses you, welp! Time for another sleepover at your nest!

Al Haitham {Vulture Volans/White Backed Vulture}

So apparently, vultures often spread their wings wide to dry up their wings..and you learnt how wide vultures' wings are. How do you know? Well, this neighbour of yours, whose backyard is coincidentally facing the lake of your nest, often sunbathes his wings there near the lake whilst reading a book.

So, imagine your fear when a buff tall man of a carnivore bird with a stoic face just spreads his wings for an hour, sitting by the lake. You both just nod to each other in acknowledgement while you shake in fear, deciding not to swim that day.

You can tell he has a roommate, judging by the bickering noises and how there are extra shed feathers that aren't his. It is too soft and delicate to be Vultures. You wanted to bring it up to him as a worried neighbour, but you decided it will only make you a nosy one so you keep quiet, and keep greeting with nodding when you both meet by the lake.

Well, either he has sharp eyes or you are too obvious. One day he gave you some fruits and veggies along with small fish. You could tell he searched swan's diet, considering vulture's diet are all meat. "I apologize for any disturbance we may cause, my roommate and I are not on good terms as you can hear." his eyes glanced towards his nest. You waved your hand dismissively clearly not wanting to make things awkward, so you offered him to eat the stuff he gave to you together on your dock.

Well, his logical and rationality views on everything aside, his company is enjoyable. He is open to any perspective, even yours who isn't a scholar. He never belittles you if you awkwardly ask about some terms he had mentioned, you can see his eyes light up a bit as he enlightens you in detail to you, yet he also makes sure it isn't overwhelming.

Apparently, he prefers a quiet environment and so do you as a mute swan. You both often spend quality time together as neighbours with him reading books and sunbathing at your dock whilst you swim or float around on the lake.

Well, isn't this the domestic life he dreamt of?

Kaveh {Paradisaea/Paradise Bird}

Well, this is the bird that the vulture keeps talking about, though you didn't expect it is a bird known for its artistic side.

Paradise birds are known to be delicate and magnificent birds, the male all dance and sing and are pretty. Well, this one...surely a unique one. You first saw him when he stumped out Al-Haitham's nest all pent-up and angry, even his wings are all puffed out. You both had eye contact, his red orbs widen to see you so as to not make anything worse you swam away.

The next day, while you relax by the dock eating some fruits, you saw him carrying some wood and building materials into the nest. Whilst he is putting down the materials his eyes caught on your form, sitting by your dock with your cheeks puffed full of food. He smiled and waved then make a small jog towards you.

He introduced himself and apologize in advance if any of his model-building activity bothered you. You waved him off saying you spend your time teaching swimming to kids anyway. After giving him some of the fruits you eat, he excused himself and walks back towards Al Haitham's house //creak// well..until he stepped on a board on your dock that is loose. His architect side just crouches down and examines your dock, then offers you a free repair of your dock, oh he doesn't take no for his service alright.

Well, now there he is, on your dock doing a repairman job. Every time you want to help, he just told you to sit down all pretty. Just a feast for his eyes.

It is not just the dock he fixed. Even the decoration of your nest-exterior or interior- he gives suggestions and recommendations. Hell, he goes as far as making some bookshelves for you. In return, you listened to his rants about his roommate and offered him food since both of you has similar diet. Sometimes Al Haitham or Layla join in with the two of you.

Isn't he a creative man? he is able to turn the shed feathers into a dreamcatcher, keychain, and even earrings. Your white feathers and his brown-to-goldish one really give an elegant aesthetic. The thing you didn't know is that he has another pair of earrings from your feathers. He doesn't want to wear it since he will not hear the end of it from Al Haitham, plus it may make you uncomfortable although you have shown appreciation to all his crafts, even the small little things he made to your nests.

Well, for now, Kaveh can only help you with decorating your nest, next time, he will make sure to build a nest fit for you both together.

Fischl {Corvus/Raven}

(Note: I wrote this with platonic implications in my head, I am 22 and writing romantic stuff for her feels illegal to me// Oz and Fischl is like apes to human (totally different but has similarity))

Quite the eccentric one, isn't she? Mysterious, all-dark, and how she talks are all out of your dictionary, no worries, her loyal friend, Oz, is your saviour in communicating with her.

You knew her from your fellow swimming teacher, Mona, which Fischl often picks up after work. Whilst waiting for Mona packing up, you hit a conversation with her..which was...unique you can say. She spoke so politely and formally that you didn't know how to respond. Oz was there to translate her words (or simplify) and even then with him, you can //barely// hold onto a conversation with her.

Although she likes speaking in another' language' when you talk to her, her quirky personality and roleplaying with Oz always brighten up your day. Even if Mona can't clock in for the day, Fischl still go there to visit you. You often stay behind to make sure all kids got picked up by their parents and then enjoy the pool all by yourself, usually Fischl would take off her shoes and dangles her feet in the water whilst chatting with Oz and you.

Do you know how ravens remember the faces of people who feed them? Yeah, Fischl often payback your good deed 10 times bigger than what you have done. Like how you offered her some of your fist-sized bread whilst waiting for Mona and the next time you guys meet she gave you a whole-ass pie in return.

Her raven traits also showed up in her collecting shiny trinkets. The urge to hoard shiny things seems to override everything in her brain. She would stop and impulsively walk towards any shiny stuff she see and buy it, sometimes she and Oz would chatter about the trinkets collection with you-from delighted caw to sad croak from not being able to own any valuable stuff she saw.

You once asked her 'what's the best thing you have ever lied your eyes on?". Her light green eyes widened at your question, her hand went up to her chin and she thinks-even Oz made the same gesture, eye closed and humming. Fischl then answered, "Too precious that if I tell you, I'm afraid I will lose them." You giggled, amazed at her mystic answer. You express your curiosity to one day be able to see the thing she is talking about.

Must be so valuable and precious that she won't show it to you, huh? Well, it's not like she won't...But how does she show you to yourself?

#genshin x reader #imaginedraw #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #gender neutral reader #ayaka x reader #xiao x reader #layla x reader #kaveh x reader #alhaitham x reader #fischl genshin impact #fischl x reader #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin impact

3K notes · View notes

tigerpeachs · 3 months

Text

Late Night - Megumi Fushiguro

-`ღ´- tags: 18+, fem reader, smut, a little angst, dubcon (consent not given but mutual intentions), pwp, cum shot, choking, fingering, alcohol consumption, praise

-`ღ´- wc: 1.5K

-`ღ´- a/n: I didn't edit this and this was 100% a "write it even if it's not your best work" fic. I'm trying to produce shorter works and feel better rather than stressing over a bigger project. Anyways. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

-`ღ´- synopsis: After a night of drinking you decided to unblock and visit your ex.

Fuck. Fucking fuck. You shouldn’t have unblocked Megumi. You shouldn’t have smiled as your drunken fingers danced over his contact info. You shouldn’t have spoken so casually to him on the phone. And when you showed up on his doorstep, squinting your eyes to concentrate through the liquor disorienting your body, you thought this would be just a fun accident.

You liked to play dumb. You waltzed right in, placing your bag in its normal spot, bouncing as you tried to settle yourself on his large sectional couch. You know the endless questions would soon approach you but you decide to concentrate on haphazardly kicking your shoes off. Yet instead of questions you were met with silence.

Your senses clicked back in for a second.

You were dead wrong.

You couldn’t concentrate. Not through the rush of teeth clashing against each other, not through him pulling at your clothes, tugging your top down and unbuttoning your jeans in record time. You didn’t even think to kiss him back from how quick he was to take his lips away. You wanted to gasp for air, but the only thing you could do was let out an urgent whine of his name.

And when he finally reached inside your pants and ran his fingers up and down your cunt, you felt embarrassed. You didn’t realize how soaked you were until he finally touched you. Megumi’s tongue ran across your nipple before he sucked at the skin around your areola. His teeth scraped against the skin causing you to tense up, then two large fingers slid inside you.

You couldn’t think properly. A wet clicking noise filled the room as he pushed his lengthy fingers at a proper pace in and out your pussy. He’s stretching you out, ignoring how your gummy walls tempt him. They keep sucking his fingers in and his cock jumps at the thought of being inside you. Your eyebrows scrunch together while you pull at him.

Megumi moans before leaning in for another kiss. It’s bruising. It almost hurts with the amount of pressure he’s putting on you. The sensation of his tongue rubbing against yours causes you to clamp down on his digits.

“Fuck,” he slips out, trying to work against your tightness. He pulls his fingers away and stands above you. You swallow hard. You forgot how strong and rigid he is compared to you. In height and frame. You look up at him through your wet eyelashes, trying to steady yourself as if it’ll make up for how embarrassed you are from your constant moaning and neediness.

He doesn’t give you the grace of reveling in your newfound confidence. He takes off his clothes, and you remind yourself that you came here. You called him. You’re not completely submissive in this role. And so you opt to undress yourself as well, standing up from the couch once you’re completely bare.

The flame of assurance you had is blown out instantly as his daft fingers clasp around your neck. Your hands immediately jump to his wrist to alleviate his grip, but he doesn’t ease up.

He leans in, pressing a slow and deliberate kiss against your lips. As you open up your lips, he swirled his tongue inside your mouth, possessing your whole body and causing your thighs to press together. A moan leaks out from the little space between your tongues.

“Did you miss me?” he finally speaks to you. You only offer him a dead stare as your mind swims with a possibility of answers. You don’t want to say yes. Not like this. Not while he has you pinned right where he wants you. And so you try to lean in again, only brushing your bottom lip against his before he presses you away by your neck.

“Be honest,” his tone is soft even though his grasp is hard, “tell me the truth.” You can feel your resolve crumbling the longer you stare into his deep blue eyes. Those warm feelings you shamed yourself for came rushing back to the surface. The emotions you’ve struggled with before, the ones you wrestled with late at night - they would burst at the seams the longer you tried to constrict them.

You let it flow out of you.

“I…” Your voice sounded hoarse, completely foreign to your ears, “I missed you…” The words came up lower and lower the further you got in your statement. He relaxed his hold on you, pressing his forehead to yours with his eyes closed.

“I missed you, too,” He admits without any hesitation. It causes your skin to warm up again. A series of kisses were placed gently from your forehead to your lips. The pace felt slower. His pecks soon became deeper, and his hands slid to your breast, gently tugging at each nipple. You reveled in the moment, allowing him to play with your body as he pleased. He switched between kissing your lips and caressing whatever skin he has access to, taking his time. The harsh bites turned to soft nips. The bruising kisses turned into fleeting pecks. It made you feel more inebriated than when you walked in.

He pressed you down into the couch, helping you lay on your back before he slot himself between your thighs. You couldn’t help but look down at his cock. It was gorgeous. You know it sounds ridiculous but from his tip to the heedy veins running down his shaft, you couldn’t get enough.

It brushed gently against your clit, causing you to shudder from the contact. You scooted your hips up, wanting him to catch against your sex again, only for him to raise himself a little. Teasing. You couldn’t allow yourself to openly whine for him. No matter how bad you wanted him inside of you. The little internal battle showed across your features.

“Hey,” the internal debate you held ceased momentarily, “Just concentrate on me, okay?” He presses a kiss against your temple before bracing his forearm beside your head. He uses his other hand to lead his cock against your entrance. Little moans spill from you as you feel his cock tease you. He slips it up and down your slit, pressing in a little each time, but not breaching your entrance.

You wish you could rush him. You wish you could tell him to hurry up. That you need him. Right as the thought crashes into your mind, his tip pops inside your hole. A loud moan pours from both of you. You meet his eyes and he nods. He feels it too. The stretch and pressure immediately bubbling inside of you. He feels how good you feel.

Megumi doesn’t hesitate to pump his full length inside of you, not pausing to bottom out. He missed you for too long. He missed you clutching onto him. He missed you being resistant and almost bratty towards his advances. He missed you playing coy with him. He missed how fucking good sex always feels with you. And he knows you’ll never admit it, but from the drunk look on your face, and the way your legs are tight around his waist, resisting him pulling out, conveys your feelings enough.

“Oh my god,” You whine as he speeds up. You feel like he’s churning your insides. You can hardly concentrate as your cunt teeters between clamping down around him and pulling him deeper inside of you. It feels like a rush of adrenaline and warmth at the sametime. Your body can hardly adapt, tears threatening to spill over your lash line. As if it was possible to save some dignity, you shut your eyes and turn your head to the side. Only, he nips at your neck from the action.

“Stay with me,” He grunts against your skin, causing you to open your eyes. Once you look at him again, you seize up. His gaze is strained but his eyes are so warm. You feel like you're drowning in him. A smile graces his features as he continues to pound into you.

“There’s my sweet girl,” You stomach flips, something builds inside you at the admittance. His pace becomes more brutal, hips slapping against yours, but you’re too concentrated on his gaze to care. The sensation boiling inside you grows, and you can feel your body begin to curl in on itself.

“Megumi-Hnn!” You cry out as your orgasm washes over you. He basks in your juices, groaning as he continues to fuck you through each rolling wave of tremors. You feel as though you can’t catch your breath, pulling in gasp of air as lightning shoots through your body. Lost in the pleasure, you don’t even recognize that he’s been jerking off to the sight of you. Not until his cum paints across your stomach and breast.

While waiting for the feeling in your body to return, he wipes at your skin with his shirt, cleaning you from his mess. You try to find the words to leave but once again he cuts your thought process short.

“Come on, up to my room,” He leaves his hand outstretched to you. You look up at his eyes for a minute. Things seem so easy when it’s little moments like this.

“It’s okay. Just come up… please?”

And you feel yourself reaching for him once again.

#jujutsu kaisen smut #fushiguro megumi x reader #fushiguro megumi #fushiguro megumi smut #megumi smut #jjk smut #megumi fushiguro #jjk fushiguro #megumi x reader #jjk megumi #jujutsu megumi #jujutsu kaisen megumi #jjk x reader #megumi x you #fushiguro #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

483 notes · View notes

notaplaceofhonour · 6 months

Text

The Ethnostate Canard

This is a reminder that the framing of Israel as a Jewish “ethnostate” equivalent to what Nazis want a White Ethnostate to be and the claimed moral equivalence of Zionism to White Nationalism came from Neo-Nazis. It is a Neo-Nazi talking point.

Actual ethnostates are defined by restricting citizenship to members of a specific race or ethnicity, and factually, Israel just does not do that; 73.5% of Israelis are Jewish, 21% are Arab (not counting Arabs in Gaza & the West Bank), and an additional 5.5% are other ethnicities. While Israel does define itself as a Jewish nation-state and does extend a special right of return that guarantees Israel will facilitate the immigration of Jews in diaspora, neither of these things are particularly exceptional—most SWANA countries are explicitly Arab nation-states, and many countries, from Ghana to Ireland to Spain to Armenia, have a right of return for members of specific historically displaced ethnic groups, of which Jews are one.

There are absolutely valid criticisms to be made of the Zionist movement (in theory and in practice), the nation-state model in general, and the fact that specifically Israel’s right of return does not cover the primary ethnic group Israel itself displaced: Palestinians. The latter especially is a common criticism of Israel, and it’s one I am extremely sympathetic to—like, maybe I’m off base here, but I feel like the bare minimum Israel can do for the Palestinians they displaced in the Nakbah and Naksa is to guarantee

full citizenship

return of stolen property if possible

reparations, including an allotment of land

fully facilitated immigration to Israel comparable to what is done for Aliyah

and most urgently a ceasefire and a commitment to never bomb a single inch of Palestinian land or kill a single Palestinian noncombatant again

And I don’t think criticism of Israel & advocacy for the Palestinians is at odds with this: Israel’s oppression & myriad injustices against Palestinians just does not a White Ethnostate™️ make, and we need to be able to recognize the facts of Israel’s injustices while being critical of the narratives we slot them into. Specifically in this case, we need to remember as anti-racists & people who care about equity that a common tactic Nazis, racists, and other bigots like to use is to point to things like affirmative action, Historically Black Colleges, Black churches, Pride parades, “safe spaces”, and such that exist to provide special protections for marginalized & oppressed people, and then say “Well, why don’t we get that too? I (a member of the privileged majority) just want what the minorities have!”

It is important in any of these cases to recognize Nazis are doing this in bad faith, and whatever good-faith criticisms a progressive person can have of affirmative action or safe spaces or how they can be abused, not to adopt the Nazi’s framing of these special protections, lest we label affirmative action “Black Supremacy” and queer safe spaces “Gay Supremacy” or such nonsense. Unfortunately, the left dropped the ball with the “Israel is a Jewish Ethnostate” line.

The word “Ethnostate” really didn’t appear outside its strictly literal definition in academic writing before around 2013-2014, when White Nationalists began to use the previously-mentioned tactic, and incorporated it into their propaganda—they even reprinted Herzl’s “The Jewish State” with a foreword about how to co-opt it—where they started to call the Jewish nation-state of Israel an “Ethnostate” & claim they just wanted what the Jews had, for White people. The two main problems with that is that a) a globally oppressed minority (Jews) getting special protections is not the same as a globally dominant one (White People™️) getting further protections, and b) they didn’t want a White equivalent to Israel (they didn’t want a nation-state); they wanted an ethnostate and they projected that onto Israel.

And this is where the left failed Jews. Because the left only started to use the word “ethnostate” after Richard Spencer called Israel one at a Neo-Nazi rally in Florida—at the same time he said he wanted a “safe space” for White people like minorities had. And the left, rather than looking at the man who makes no bones about hating Jews, and asking themselves, “should I maybe be more critical about accepting how the man who loves Hitler and wants to genocide Jews and gay people frames what safe spaces and the Jewish state are?”, turned around and said, “Nah, he’s right. Jews are like Nazis.”

#jumblr #judaism #zionism #i/p #ethnostate canard #antisemitism #antisemitic canard #antiracism

219 notes · View notes

delulu4dean · 9 months

Text

No Doctors (Sam and Dean Winchester x sibling!reader)

Warnings: needles I guess

Parings: sam Winchester X sibling!reader, Dean Winchester x sibling!reader

Prompt: you’re a hunter scared of needles idk I went to urgent care the other day and I hate needles.

Word Count: 1,044

Sam, Dean, and you, their younger, nineteen year old half sibling have seen a lot, obviously. Hunters? You see vampires, werewolves, ghosts. But as a Winchester you see so much more. The three of you have saved the world quite a few times. It is safe to say not much phases the Winchesters.

But you, Y/N Winchester has one big fear, needles. When Sam injected Demon Dean with human blood, you could not watch. It wasn’t because of your big brother’s yells of pain, but because you cannot even look at a needle. So when Sam and Dean told you that you HAD to see a doctor, you put it off until it was too late. Now your legs were covered in red spots. The spots were not inflamed or itching. They looked like bleeding under the skin, which means its less like a rash. Google did not help ease Sam and Dean’s worries about you.

“Y/N damn it, we have to rule out anything serious,” Dean told you.

“I am fine,” you insisted.

“Google says you have one week to live,” your older brother furrowed his eyebrows, showing you his google search on his smart phone.

“Google is not a doctor,” you rolled your eyes.

“That is why we have to take you to a doctor. Right Sam?”

Sam nods in agreement.

“Look, if Cas was here, he could figure it out, but he isn’t. We are going to urgent care,” Dean demanded. “Now get your ass to my car.”

You looked over to Sam and back to Dean, fear in your eyes. You knew what this meant, bloodwork. You could not do bloodwork. Just seeing a needle makes you sick to your stomach. The last time you had bloodwork done, you threw up. When you had to get your Covid vaccines, you took your brothers with you. It worked because they ended up getting theirs as well, but when it came to your turn, your brothers had to distract you so you didnt see the needle. You held Dean’s hands and almost broke his fingers as the needle went into your flesh.

“Dean, doctors are scary. All they do is poke at you with needles,” you frowned at your older brother.

“Sam and I will both be there by your side,” Dean insisted.

And so here you are now. The walking to the lab with your brothers at your side. You look for all possible exists to run out of here, but you know its no use. Dean would drag you back if he has to. The lab nurse sits you down in the chair and looks for a good vein. Shit. It’s going to happen. Your eyes follow her hands as she pulls out all the tubes that will be soon filled with your blood. The things is you’re not grossed out by the idea of seeing your own blood, its kind of cool actually. But knowing how it gets in there is too much.

You see her take out the needle and your instincts kick in. You jump out of your seat before your brothers push you back. Dean holds you down on the chair and you look at him with tears in your eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that kid,” Dean sighs, a guilty expression coming across his face. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am fine! And when we find out that nothing is wrong you’re going to be sorry,” you spit.

Sam holds the hand of the arm that the nurse will draw blood from, not just to keep it steady, but to calm you down.

“You are a fighter, you are strong, you got this,” Sam tells you. “Just don’t look, and then you won’t feel it, okay?” You nod at Sam. “Attagirl. Now don’t look at me, or else you’ll see the needle too. Look at Dean.”

“Yeah, look at me,” Dean cuts in. You look up at your eldest brother. “Good job.”

“I’m not a child,” you remind Dean.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a kid compared to Sam and I,” Dean chuckles.

“Well yeah, Sam is old and you’re ancient,” you tease.

“Ancient?” Dean fakes an offended expression.

“Yeah. So ancient that when the Egyptians built the pyramids, they looked at you and said ‘Wow that man is ancient.’”

Sam laughs but plays it off as a cough when Dean shoots a look at him. You feel a cotton ball on your arm as the nurse wraps the bandage on your arm.

“All done,” she smiles. “You can go to the waiting room and as soon as we get your results, you’ll be notified.”

You’re surprised and relieved to find out its done and over with. And you didn’t feel a thing.

“You did it kid,” Dean smiles at you.

“We are proud of you,” Sam ruffles your hair.

“I’m almost twenty don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” you get up and push past your brothers.

They follow you into the waiting room and sit by your side. Sam wraps an arm around you while you’re all pouty and embarrassed.

“We aren’t babying you or anything,” Sam sighs. “You have a genuine fear, and you faced it. We know you’re an adult. You are capable of doing a lot, you are a badass hunter. A Winchester.”

You nod, not so confidently. You and your brothers watch the TV in the waiting room where some old cowboy movie is playing. Dean is loving it, but you just want to get your results and go back home. After twenty minutes, a doctor comes out with a clipboard.

“You are fine, your blood came back clean. And over the counter rash cream should be able to help. You are free to go home,” she tells you.

Dean scoffs, and Sam looks confused. To be fair, you don’t understand either, you know its not a rash, it doesn’t look like a rash. But it can’t be what Dean looked up either if the bloodwork came back clean so its clearly nothing serious. As the doctor walks away, you glare at your older brothers.

“See, I knew bloodwork was a waste of time.”

Dean shrugs as Sam says, “Better safe than sorry.”

#dean winchester x sister!reader #dean X sister!reader #sam winchester x sister!reader #sam x sister!reader #supernatural #dean Winchester X sibling!reader #sam Winchester X sibling!reader

220 notes · View notes

c-e-d-dreamer · 9 months

Text

Baby, Now We Got Bad Blood

A/N: So, we're told in ACOMAF and ACOWAR that mating instincts ride the males hard and that you should never come between a male and his mate, but one of my biggest gripes with ACOSF is that we never really see that from Cassian. Like come on, SJM! I want to see the Lord of Bloodshed go into Mate Mode(tm)! And so, I decided to write this. I recognize it may not be everyone's cup of tea, so remember that the back button is free, but for everyone else, enjoy! :)

Read on AO3

The tug between Cassian’s ribs is so sudden, so harsh, that he almost drops to his knees right then and there. That golden thread securely tucked there squeezes tight enough that it steals the breath straight from his lungs, twisting and writhing in his chest until he can do nothing except press a palm against his side in hopes of alleviating the pain, until he's sure that he must be bruised. He’s half aware of Devlon watching him curiously, of the other camp lords still sitting around the table, but all Cassian can focus on is the way his blood has run cold, on the ringing that’s taken up home in his ears all from that one tug.

Tentatively, he reaches for the golden thread within himself, sending his confusion and concern down the bond. He skates a finger along it, keeping his touch featherlight, before he plucks, a small, urging question. And then, with bated breath, he waits. Waits for the tug in response. Waits for the soothing feeling that’s not his own to rush through him and calm his worry.

But it never comes.

In fact, there’s almost nothing on the other end of the bond. Just silence. Just an empty, yawning void that has the hairs on the back of Cassian’s neck standing up, that has the pounding in his ears turning into a deafening roar. Genuine fear sparks through his veins, ice cold where it digs its claws into his mind and sends his heart stuttering. He reaches for that golden thread again, tugging more urgently this time, but still nothing.

Something’s wrong.

Cassian knows that Rhys had sent Nesta and Mor to the human lands on some sort of reconnaissance mission. Azriel’s network had gotten some concerning information through the vine, so the High Lord sent Nesta and Mor to blend in with the women of some village and see if they could get more details. It was supposed to be an easy in, easy out mission. He’d even arranged this war meeting in Illyria for when she was gone so he’d be back in time to welcome her home, even had tickets ready for them for the Velaris ballet.

But now, all he has is a silent bond, that single moment of fear twined in that hard tug that festers and burns with his own.

Without a backward glance, Cassian storms out of the room, ignoring Devlon calling after him. As soon as he steps outside into the biting snow of Illyria, Cassian unfurls his wings wide behind his back and takes to the skies. He keeps a hard and fast pace as he tears through the clouds, pushing himself and pushing himself and pushing himself. His back and wings ache with the exertion, but it’s nothing compared to the ache that throbs in his chest like an open wound. Nothing compared to the bloodied and bruised shreds of his heart at the thought of something happening to Nesta.

His mind keeps playing an endless loop of possibilities, each one worse than the last. He tries to imagine a scenario where it’s all a big misunderstanding, where he arrives back in Velaris and Nesta is there with that softness that takes over her stormy blue eyes when she sees him, with that sweet smile meant only for him, and they’ll laugh about this whole thing. But there’s no denying that niggling doubt, those whispers in the back of his mind. They fuel his fear, taunt him, and soon all Cassian can see each time he blinks is the sight of Nesta’s eyes open but unseeing, the color completely leached from her face, seared on the back of his eyelids.

It drives Cassian to push himself even harder, to fly even faster. Each beat of his wings, each thunderous hammer of his heart, it all pounds in time with that twisting thread between his ribs, in time with that call that blazes through his soul.

Nesta Nesta Nesta

He lands hard enough that his knees groan and ache, but he doesn’t care. He presses his hand against the wards, an incessant flash of red sparking in front of him, and steps inside the River House. Rhys steps into the view at the top of the stairs almost as soon as he’s through the front door, as though he was expecting him. The wariness pinching the corner of his brother’s eyes, the way his lips are pressed into a thin line, it confirms all of Cassian’s worst fears. Bile claws up the back of his throat, tangling with the lump already lodged firmly there.

“Where’s Nesta?” Cassian forces out.

“Cass…” Rhys starts slowly, holding his hands up placatingly. Cassian doesn’t miss the way his brother shifts his feet, resetting his stance like he’s expecting a fight.

Cassian is about to ask his question again when Madja comes bustling into the River House behind him, rushing up the stairs and past Rhys. The sight of the healer jolts Cassian into action, and he follows hot on her heels down the hall and into one of the bedrooms, but his steps stutter to a stop when he realizes it’s Mor sprawled across the blankets, holding her hand against a wound in her side.

Cassian whirls back around, ready to check every other bedroom until he finds his mate, but he comes face to face with Rhys again. His brother is still wearing that cautious expression, face still pinched and body still tense like Cassian is some sort of wounded animal he needs to treat with care.

“Where is Nesta?” Cassian demands again.

Rhys holds his ground and raises his chin, his eyes glancing over Cassian’s shoulder only briefly before landing back on Cassian’s face. “There was an ambush. I don’t know how the mortals knew we’d be there, knew who Mor and Nesta were, but there were two dozen of them… with ash arrows.”

“That didn’t answer my question. Where is she?”

“When I got there, Mor was already badly injured. She was going to bleed out if I didn’t get her out of there and to a healer.”

Cassian can feel his patience hanging on by a thread, stepping closer to Rhy and growling out, “where is my mate?”

Cassian feels the press of Rhys’s magic against him, the darkness that begins to creep and rumble from the corners of the room, as Cassian stares his brother down, but Rhys is unmoving, undeterred. He continues to meet Cassian’s blazing gaze, his face and voice an even calm that grates against the last shreds of Cassian’s nerve endings, the last of his sanity.

“I had to make a choice, and I made it.”

It takes a moment for the words to really sink in, to understand exactly what Rhys is telling him, and when it does, it’s a bucket of ice water over his head. He stumbles back a step in his shock. His stomach roils and drops all the way to his shoes, his blood crystalizing into ice, as he chokes out, “what?”

Rhys looks away then, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I used too much of my magic winnowing there already, and Nesta was too far away. I couldn’t get to her without risking Mor, without risking both of us, so I did what I had to do and winnowed us out of there.”

Cassian doesn’t think he’s breathing. He’s sure that his heart isn’t beating because it’s lost somewhere in the human lands, lost with Nesta. “You…” Cassian swallows hard, finding his voice again. “You left her there? In the middle of an ambush?”

“I’m sorry, Cass. I really am.”

“No, you’re not.”

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Cassian has always known that Rhys isn’t exactly Nesta’s biggest fan. From the moment they met the sisters, from that first meeting at the manor in the mortal lands, Rhys has always held a certain animosity for the eldest Archeron. He’s always held onto that cool resentment on Feyre’s behalf for what happened when the sisters were young. And despite what happened with the human queens, despite what Nesta did during the War, despite what she did for Feyre and Nyx, that tension has never quite dissipated, that contempt is still there.

“If you were really sorry, why didn’t you go back for her?” Cassian continues, shaking his head in disbelief. “After you got Mor back to Velaris, why didn’t you go back?”

Rhys sighs as if this whole conversation is exhausting. “I just told you. My magic was depleted by winnowing that far, and they had ash arrows. I couldn’t risk it.”

“But you could risk Nesta, right?”

Cassian can feel his disbelief at this whole situation quickly morphing into anger. He can feel the heat of it just beneath his skin where it blazes through his veins. The beast deep within his soul thrashes against its restraints, hackles raised at the idea of any harm coming to Nesta. That rage burns and roars as it twists in dark, crackling tendrils in his chest. It urges him to fight, to raze the whole world to the ground until the debt is paid, until all of Prythian understands the mistake of risking the Lord of Bloodshed’s mate.

“It’s what she would have wanted,” Rhys continues, still using that too calm voice. “You know that. Nesta understood the mission, the importance.”

“Don’t you dare!” Cassian snaps, stepping forward again until he and Rhys are toe to toe, glowering down at him. “Don’t you dare speak of her when you left her to die.”

“Calm down,” Rhys speaks slowly, violet eyes flickering in warning.

“Are you fucking kidding me? What if it was Feyre? What if I left Feyre in the middle of an ambush surrounded by ash arrows? What if I left your mate for dead?”

“Don’t.”

The low tone of Rhys’s voice lets Cassian know he’s hit his mark. That magic and darkness presses a little bit harder, those violet eyes turning cold, clearly unimpressed with the underlying threat toward his mate. Cassian almost wants to laugh hysterically, seeing his own feelings mirrored back to him. It’s a sickening type of vindication.

“That’s the difference, isn’t it?” Cassian continues to drawl, not backing down, the red of his siphons flickering in time with Rhys’s own magic. “I would risk it for Feyre. I would go back for her because I know how much she means to you, but you don’t care. You’ve never forgiven Nesta, not really, and now, you finally got the chance to wash your hands clean of her.”

“Cassian—”

“Where?” Cassian interrupts, taking a step back finally and adjusting the straps of his leathers and preparing for a long flight. “Give me the coordinates. I’ll go get Nesta myself.”

Cassian side-steps around Rhys and heads for the stairs, but Rhys is hot on his heels. “Absolutely not. I’m not letting you fly all the way to the mortal lands and potentially walk head first into an attack.”

“Try and stop me,” Cassian dares, whirling around with a snarl of warning. “Being mated and a father has made you soft, Rhysand. Do you really think you could take me?”

The temperature in the room starts to drop, Cassian’s siphons flaring brighter in response as magic scrapes along his spine. He’s been itching for a fight since the moment he stepped through the doors, instincts gnawing at his every nerve ending and riding him hard until his hands are clenching into fists, his fingers twitching with the urge to drive into Rhys’s face.

But he doesn’t have time for this.

Nesta is gods know where in the mortal lands, in the Mother knows what state, and he needs to get to her. He waited five hundred years for her. Five hundred years to hold her. Five hundred years to love her. And he’ll be damned if he loses her now. Damned if he fails her again. Damned if he doesn’t save her when he wasn’t there to protect her in the first place.

He turns back around and storms down the stairs, striding toward the door without looking back. His blood has already started to thunder again, that same beat of Nesta Nesta Nesta as he stretches his wings to warm them up.

“Cassian, stop,” Rhys calls after him, but Cassian merely rolls his eyes. “I am ordering you as your High Lord.”

Cassian can feel the magic of the order as it slinks across his skin, taste it on the back of his tongue, but he’s quick to shake it off with a scoff, yanking open the front door. “Fuck off.”

“You step out that door, you won’t be welcome back in this Court.”

Cassian turns over his shoulder, settling Rhys with a deathly cold look. “Good luck finding a new General then.”

Rhys looks genuinely taken aback by that, blinking a few times in surprise. “You’d really throw away everything you’ve worked so hard for? Everything you’ve ever wanted?”

“Nesta is everything I’ve ever wanted. And you knew that. And you still—” Cassian can’t choke the word out, can’t fathom a world where Nesta, his Nesta, his beautiful, smart, amazing mate is gone.

A world where Rhys killed her.

With one last shake of his head, Cassian steps out of the River House and onto the streets of Velaris, the door slamming behind him. It feels strange and wrong to step onto these streets knowing Nesta isn’t here. Knowing that her quiet steps won’t fill the bookshop in the Rainbow. Knowing that her soft laughter won’t fill her favorite bakery by the river. That fear from before grips Cassian tight enough that his steps almost stumble, but he stretches his wings out wide behind him nonetheless, siphons flaring in anticipation.

He’s going to get her back. Even if it’s the last thing he does.

—

Updated Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added): @moodymelanist @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430 @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog @lifeisntafantasy @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @emeriethevalkyriegirl @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld @isterofimias @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust @a-trifling-matter @blueunoias @kookskoocie @wolfnesta @blurredlamplight @hereforthenessian @skaixo @jmoonjones @burningsnowleopard @whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk @ofduskanddreams @rarephloxes @thelovelymadone @girl-of-many-floods @tenaciousdiplomatloverprune @that-little-red-head

#nessian #technically at least #cassianappreciationweek2023 #cassian #rhysand #acotar #acosf #my fic

243 notes · View notes

indiaalphawhiskey · 9 months

Note

Hii India

You already said a few things about Harry taking a break.. now that the last show is over and Harry saying goodbye over Instagram, what do you think?

A lot of people have the opinion he’s going to be gone for quite a while now. Whatever it is I’m glad he’s taking the break. For me it’s a confirmation that he’s still dealing with the mess that fame is in a healthy way and I’m going to be here for when he decides to come back. I’m going to miss him so much though.

And I would love to hear your take on things. Do you think this is a goodbye for a longer time period? Or is it more an goodbye for him, to be okay with the fact that things might never be the same as they were during this tour? That his fame is changing and he accepts that he doesn’t have to control it?

Hi, love 🩵

Hmm. So, I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this, but practically speaking, for the first time, the set up of a new stunt is a hopeful sign. If they’re finding a way to keep Harry in the press, however low the profile (🤞🏼), it’s for a reason. My hunch is that he is tying up with Loewe in some way, and in that sense, I don’t think it will be long ‘til we see him again, physically (however infrequently).

But, I also think touring is tougher than he makes it seem, physically, mentally and emotionally. I think all the things he realized during COVID, about being a better son/brother/friend (and partner) is a driving force in this seemingly more urgent need to find balance. It’s certainly a shift from the way he was working/talking during Fine Line, but I also think that’s the point.

He’s now in a very rare “natural” break in his career as a musician. We haven’t had any confirmation that he’s re-signed with Columbia (although I have no doubt that he has), so for all intents and purposes, he’s currently publicly free from professional obligation for the first time in a long time (at least in terms of his music) and that is going to feel very, very odd for someone who’s been working essentially non-stop (whether in the spotlight or behind the scenes) for over a decade. I think that novelty and sense of impermanence is something he’s trying really hard to embrace; to meet with excitement rather than fear. So, for the most part, I stand by my original thoughts.

But, if I can add:

I think Harry is the kind of person that is very aware of the gravity of fate and sheer magic that has gone into his success. You can see it in the way he talks about there being “no reason he should be getting to do this instead of anyone else” and how “we’re all the same” and “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often”. In this way, I think there’s a constant groundedness about his person and an acceptance of the vulnerability of his career and his success — in other words, he knows that lighting really might not strike thrice, and I think he’s preparing himself for that. There was a moment on the last Late Late show, when he was comparing himself to Will Ferrell and he said something like “Will has longevity and I’m more a flash in the pan” (untrue, but I digress) and what struck me about that line was how acutely aware he is that things can change for him at any moment. It’s similar to his “whatever people say about you, it’s not true. If people say you’re the best thing ever, it’s not true” quote on Howard Stern; like I think it’s one of the themes of his life, having to have a firm hold on reality so that the ‘inevitable’ crash is manageable.

He also seems to be trying to learn from the lives of other musicians/celebrities, and take those lessons to heart by applying them to his life and his work. in the end, I think what he’s trying to do is just accept that there are no guarantees; that he doesn’t know and has no control over whatever happens to the world while he’s away or what he’s returning to. I think the reason it sounds so definitive and scary and existential is because it is all of those things, for him. This is a big change, and he’s giving it its space and weight for the first time, because it is the first time he’s been able to say a proper goodbye (1D hiatus was rushed, HS1 went directly into FL, FL ended abruptly during COVID… there’s a pattern.)

Bottom line though, is that I know for certain Harry fucking loves music and touring. It’s a compulsion, for him. It’s in his DNA. And that’s why I’m not scared that he’ll leave forever, because I’ve always hard the feeling his music nourishes him just as much (if not more) than it nourishes us. He does what he does for himself, and we’re a bonus, and as an artist, that is the best reason to do anything and the only reason to keep coming back to it, regardless of the uncertainty that awaits him.

Not to make this novel any longer than it is, but I’ve also had a recent thought that occurred to me: Harry is 29, which means he’s currently going through his Saturn return.

I’ve asked my therapist (who is also an astrologist) for a bit more literature on Saturn returns, cause I’m super curious about how that might be affecting him. (For background, all my friends got married around the times of their Saturn return, and both my best friend and I picked up and moved halfway across the world during ours so at least for the people in my life, it seems like it is consistent with big change, and from the way Harry is talking, it seems it might be affecting him the same way.) I’ll get back to you. 😉🪐

#iaw ask #iaw anonymous #Harry’s goodbye #Harry’s House #end of HSLOT #iaw thoughts

186 notes · View notes

gretavanfleetposts · 5 months

Text

Fire in the Water: Chapter Ten - Part Two

Author's Note: I cannot believe the end is already here. The end of this chapter is very inspired by the song Better by SYML so give that a listen if you want to dive further into my brain. And thank you, thank you all for coming along on the journey with me. It has meant everything to me! And as always, thank you to @gretasmokerising and @earthlysorrows for everything Content Warnings: swearing, talk of the afterlife, death, talk of dead souls, killing (someone straight up turns to dust), penetrative sex (18+ minors do not interact) Word Count: 9.5k

It wasn't easy. You spent days sitting almost completely still in Jake's bed trying to decipher who in the room around you was there in physical form and who was a dead spirit walking. You spent your days tired as your physical form wasn't used to being, well, alive. You weren't meant for the world you were now in and it took its toll.

But even more difficult was the anger growing in your body like wildfire that would catch the moment you bound to Jake and your gifts returned. It was the reason you hadn't yet done it. You knew however much you struggled now, it would be nothing compared to that. And it scared you.

Jake was by your side every instant but without his own gifts, he was punished to sit at your side helplessly, watching the torment flare in your eyes and only ever being able to tell you who was in the corner, if anyone was there at all. It pained him being unable to put you out of your misery and you could guess that it pained him to be unable to put himself out of his misery too.

It was days that you spent wandering around his house silently, trying to remember who you had been, trying to decipher the things around you and the things inside of you. Days you spent trying to piece together memories with Jake’s help, though he couldn’t fill very many gaps for you given the stubbornness you’d lived with the first time you’d been alive. And the longer the days went on, the clearer it became to both of you, although it went unsaid: Sam was the one better suited to help you navigate the situation you now found yourself in. Sam could have given you more answers and more details of your life. Sam could have shut the voices up and cleared the room of all intruders.

The others kept their distance all the while, other than Josh. He was more than happy to recant your relationship and the months you had spent together before your meeting any of the others. His presence alone had warmed you, too, but when he left, the angry voices returned with a vengeance. You were forever connected to a world that you now didn't reside in, stuck in a world that you didn't belong to, and a bridge between the two for all things, evil and vile and sometimes, when you were lucky, benevolent, to pass through.

Endless. It was endless.

Until you overheard the twins speaking in low voices from just beyond Jake's French doors after a particularly bad day that you had spent sleeping through most of, intermittently waking with a scream as a breath that was cold and dead fanned over your face.

Endless.

“I called Sam,” you heard Josh say softly to his brother.

“What the fuck, Josh?”

Jake seemed to forget he was supposed to be quiet and his brother shushed him before explaining himself.

“He has a right to know. She has a right to see him. He was the last person she was with, Jake.”

“She isn't ready.”

“She needs him right now,” Josh answered, hushed but urgent. “We both know it. He was the one who taught her how to be a vampire. He's the one she needs now.”

“Don't you fucking say that. Please don't fucking-don't say that.”

Jake's voice cracked and you could hear the instant sigh it pulled from his twin, just as harrowed as Jake was when he let his brother see it.

“Jake, you're never going to lose me, no matter what. And no matter what happens, I will help you get through it. But you can't put this off. She is hurting and I can’t watch it go on much longer.”

“I can't do it.”

Those words chiseled away at you as did the voice that had squeaked out and said them.

“You promised me you would give her the choice. Rebecca is itching to leave. We need to do this now.”

“Josh, I-”

“I won't let you fall apart. But you have to trust me.”

You waited for one of them to speak again but a silence fell between them both for what felt like a long moment. It carried over to you as you contemplated your own feelings. You were angry with Jake over what he had done. It was undeniable and it was growing fierce inside you. But had the roles been reversed, you would have done the same thing.

Finally you watched the doors open and shut behind them both as each twin made their way over to where you sat in Jake's bed. But Jake seemed to distance himself in a way that Josh didn’t. Josh met you where you sat, standing at the end of the bed with a singular hand coming to grab the top of your foot where it rested beneath the covers. He’d formed a habit of giving you a physical cue that he was there in the flesh over the past few days you’d spent reaching for things that weren’t actually there.

Jake, on the other hand, propped himself up against the wall opposite his bed like he was afraid to get any closer. He seemed to be preparing himself for the hurt he must have suspected he would find in the conversation. And you understood that physical distance. It was an emotional wall he was already building.

But even so, Jake was the one to speak first despite the fact that his feet planted him farther away than Josh's did.

“We…we need to talk,” he began slowly.

He struggled to even say it. He struggled to even meet your eyes. And when he did speak, you could tell he was reluctant.

"Rebecca can break the tie," he whispered.

Maybe he hoped you wouldn't hear it.

You sat still for a moment before adjusting yourself and pulling your body into a more upright position, your eyes studying Jake's face all the while.

"What would happen to you?" you asked.

"It would be as if I'd never formed it. For the both of us. And our gifts would be restored."

Your eyes flickered over to Josh quickly before falling to your lap.

To break your tie. It would at least put Jake out of his misery, although you could see the damage it would do before you'd even done it. It practically sat in the room with you, like heavy, judgmental eyes casting shadows over everything.

"You would choose this?" you pressed, and Jake immediately shook his head.

"No. But it's not my choice to make; it's yours.”

His eyes sent a scalding glare toward the back of Josh's head who came to sit on the edge of the bed next to you, his hand now lying flat over yours.

"It isn't either of us that you would pick,” he said softly. “I think we all see that now.”

God, you had ached for Sam. You had tried not to dwell on it but it had become so obvious that even Jake felt it as you sat silently day after day. You burned for him. You needed him. And you were angry with yourself for all of it because the pain that wrote itself onto Jake’s features as his brother said it felt worse than the nightmare you now lived.

“How is she able to do it?”

“You died tied but unbound,” Jake answered, still not meeting your eyes. “Rebecca wasn't even sure we'd still be tied when you returned but seeing as I still don't have my gifts…”

“The tie is weaker now,” Josh continued where his brother left off. “It's vampire magic, apparently. And you're not entirely vampire anymore, are you?”

You weren't. You were even more of an abomination now and your fingers twitched with anger when you let your mind linger on it for too long.

“You keep resurrecting something that's supposed to be dead,” you whispered, keeping your eyes to your lap.

Although you hardly needed to have been staring at Jake to feel the weight of your words and what they did to him. Even Josh seemed to feel it given the way he glanced backward sympathetically at his brother before moving his eyes back to you.

He dipped his face down to try and catch your eyes. “If you bind with Jake, you'll live a happy life. Break it, and you can have whatever it is you want.” And then he sighed and pursed his lips. “We were wrong for trying to put you in a box before. No one is trying to do that now. The decision is yours and yours alone.”

He made it seem so easy when he said it that way, like it was a simple decision and all you had to do was reach out and pick a hand. The reality would be much more complicated, however, because by choosing one, you would give up the other. And if you were destined to walk the earth again, subjected to all that that now encompassed, the question was: who could you no longer live without?

"Can I speak with Jake alone please?” you asked Josh quietly.

He nodded quickly. “Yeah, absolutely. If you need me just…come find me. I'll be close.”

With a single squeeze to your hand, he left silently, pulling the doors shut with only a glance toward his brother before he was out of sight. And in his absence, you pulled yourself from Jake's bed, feet wobbling a little as you gained your balance.

Jake met your eyes silently, watching you stand and pull together what little strength you had left. And he looked just as beaten down as you felt.

“He tried to take himself after. Sam did. When you were…gone, he turned it in on himself but Cassius stopped him. I didn't understand why but maybe I do now. Cassius doesn't play short games.”

The replaying of the memory you didn't want burned into your mind ignited an anger within you, the likes of which you hadn't felt before. It came on suddenly but burned hot in your palms and in your ears.

“Why couldn't you just let me die a natural death? Why couldn't you just let me stay dead?” Your voice was quiet and calm but your fists clenched hard to reel yourself in before you unraveled.

Jake shook his head hard and swallowed, like he was mad at himself or maybe remembering someone else who had accused him of such atrocities.

“I'm selfish,” he whispered so lightly, even with your super hearing you barely hear it.

You were silent but it wasn’t your silence that put Jake on edge. It was your stillness. Your calm. It was somehow scarier to him than your anger. Much more resigned. It was like you had already chosen what it was you wanted.

“Tell me what you're feeling,” he pleaded quietly.

“I don't know,” you answered flatly.

“Don't hide from me-”

“I said I don't know!” you suddenly boomed. And when you glowered at him, he saw a darkness there that he had never seen before, a remnant of something he could never even understand.

“I feel different! I feel things for you that I don't trust! I feel like an abomination! Like-like a rag doll being jerked around by the will of others! I feel empty and I feel a hole in the middle of my chest knowing that Sam is gone and I feel so ashamed to stand here and tell you that he is the only one who makes me feel like I'm not just some grotesque product of your inability to let me go. He's the only one who makes me feel like I am something other than the consequences of your grief.”

His face sank and you could tell you had hurt him in a way that he had never really experienced before. If he'd had his gifts, he might have shielded himself from it. But this way, he had no choice but to feel it. He had no choice but to bleed out in front of you. And it gnawed at you to know that you were the cause, truthful as you had been.

“Then you should be with him. You should,” he said finally, clearing his throat to hide the way his voice threatened to break. “Because I will never be able to let you die. I will never be able to let you go willingly. Never.”

“No, you won't,” you answered meanly. “You couldn't even do it when we weren't tied.”

He shook his head, practically scoffing in frustration and incredulity.

“How could you have asked that of me?”

“It was peaceful, Jake!” you screamed back, your own voice hoarse and losing its tenacity. “I was at peace! He gave me that! And you ripped it from me so violently so that you didn't have to feel it! You feel everything and you face nothing!”

His face seemed to harden instantly.

“You're right,” he agreed, “Sam did something I never would have been able to do, not really. Not if I could have felt it.”

You said nothing but you felt the sigh as your lungs pulled it up and out of your body. It was an endless fight. He would never understand what he had done. He would never understand the things that had drawn you to Sam as you had gotten to know him. Jake had always been right out in front of you but Sam? Sam had always been at your back, practically holding you up as you went about life and navigated things that scared you, even when the thing that scared you was yourself.

“You know, I've held you dead in my arms twice now. I didn't think anything could ever hurt me like that again. But this? This somehow feels even worse.”

“That's not fair,” you whispered through clenched teeth. “I did that for you. I died for you. And I would do it a million times over if I had to.”

His eyes fell shut and he breathed deeply before opening them again to face you and the mess he had helped create.

“But you still wouldn't choose me,” was all he said.

You felt your anger turn to guilt so quickly it could have given you whiplash. And it rendered you speechless under his eyes.

“Josh was right. I have no business keeping you here, not like this. You're not mine to have,” he whispered.

You resisted the urge to turn away from him and cry. Actually, you resisted the urge to cry altogether. There was nothing to cry over. There was no reason the two of you had to torment one another any longer.

“You'll let me go?” you asked quietly, the calm returning to your voice even as your shoulders and body wanted to shake from the sudden cold you felt.

“Yes,” he answered just as calmly. “I won't condemn you to a life you don't want any more than I already have.”

It practically broke you in two and yet still, you fought the sobs that begged to wrack at your body.

The truth was, you did still love Jake. That was the trouble of it all.

He took a step forward finally, meeting you finally, and let his hands raise to grasp at your biceps.

“But I want you to know that even when it's over and the tie is broken, I'll still feel it. My body will remember it. And if you ever want to feel it again,” he sighed as you choked on a sob between his hands, “you need only ask.”

You felt the dam break as you pulled each other into a tight hug, one that didn't hide the anger you felt toward one another but one that made you realize the anger paled in comparison to the love that existed between you, despite the irreparable damage that had been done.

And there, in his hands, you fell apart just a little.

—

When you left Jake to his thoughts in the guesthouse, you found Josh outside at the treeline, staring out into the cold dark space between trees that had been growing tall for decades.

“There's someone in the greenhouse for you,” he said as you met him silently at his side.

You glanced back at the glass structure, the place you'd been carefully avoiding while fighting your own demons right under Jake's nose.

“One more loose end to tie up,” he added as he smiled softly over at you.

You didn’t need to ask. You knew who was waiting for you. And you knew you had Josh to thank for making that happen. Josh was the one who had done everything simply for you in the end. You saw that much better now. He loved you in a way you couldn’t quite comprehend and maybe never would. But what you did know was that you loved him back.

“Thank you,” you breathed out into the silence of the night air, earning a surprised look from the twin you had originally set out to start your life with before things had taken the turn that they had.

“For what?” he asked gently.

“For being you.”

He chuckled softly to himself but there was hardly any humor in it.

“I hope you don't regret letting me into your life. Genuinely.”

“Oh Josh,” you sighed with a simple shake of your head, “I could never regret loving you.”

He turned to pull you into an embrace, one you would remember for the rest of eternity, hopefully even after. At least the safety of his arms never changed. Josh was the most steadfast thing you knew. And despite everything that had happened in the time you'd known him, you knew you would do it all over again just to be with him one more time.

When you pulled away to avoid whatever breakdown would have come rather easily in his arms, he gave you that toothy grin that always soothed you.

“I'll take care of him,” he said unprompted. “I'm his twin, I've always carried a piece of his soul with me. We stitch each other back together. That's what we do.”

You gave him a gentle nod before you turned toward the greenhouse.

Jake was better off in his hands than yours anyway.

The lights in the greenhouse twinkled their usual star-like light, having been restrung so delicately around plants that had been repotted and glass that had been cleaned. It was a much more gentle reminder of how long you'd been gone.

And despite the things you had remembered him doing in the previous days, the whispers in your ears seemed to fade away when you saw him step out of the darkness and into those twinkling lights casting a golden glow on his high cheekbones and droopy brown eyes.

"Josh told me you were alive but I needed to see it for myself."

God, you had even missed his voice.

"Where have you been?" you asked him, resisting the immediate urge to run and jump into his arms.

"Traveling," was all he said.

"Traveling,” you scoffed. “I need a real answer.”

“I knew Jake was hunting down Rebecca. I was planning on ending things but Josh convinced me to wait. He had hope. I decided it was better that I kept my distance in the meantime.”

He took a step closer and you could see he looked just as desolate as the twins did. Just as tired as Jake did. Maybe moreso.

“I can hear what he's done to you,” he whispered. “I can hear the things that haunt you. Even if you don’t want me around anymore, I can help you. Only if you want.”

Fuck, he made it so hard. You deserved your answers, of course. You deserved to know why he had done what he had. But goddamnit, you wanted to beg him to touch you, to reach into your mind and hold things together the way you never seemed to be able to.

But instead of letting yourself long for him too desperately, you took your moment to question him instead, while you had him there. And you tried to remember your anger.

“You sold out your own brother. How could you have done that?"

"I had made a deal with Cassius. I was so careful. I was listening to him every step of the way. Every thought until just before you…”

You only stared at him as he trailed off into silence, studying you. It was the first time he'd seen you alive in longer than Jake had and it felt so unfair that they had kept him from you even for that long. You were both thinking it. You didn’t have to be a mind reader to see that.

“I never even heard it,” he started again when he finally snapped out of the trance your eyes had put him in. “I was so certain of it. Over and over, he just kept thinking it. He would see it through to the end. I thought that meant he would…” He shook his head as he recalled it. “I thought it meant he would keep our deal. I thought I-”

“What deal did you make?” you interrupted him.

“I'm the threat. I'm the one he fears the most. Or at least I was. I told him he could kill me once and for all if he let you live. I told him I'd go without a fight if he let Jake's poor judgment slide just one more time.”

“But you went there to betray him."

He shook his head like you didn’t see what was written so plainly in front of you as he took a single step forward.

"That day in the greenhouse when you said Josh would never deserve a monster like you? I realized it was his fault. He did that to you. He was the one who crashed the car, he was the one that turned you, he was the one that stole you from Josh and now he's the one that's turned you into this.”

You felt a sting pierce your heart as he gestured to you, the abomination that you now were that, truthfully, you didn’t want him to see.

“You were always proud of what I was,” you whispered, avoiding the sudden urge to cover yourself with your arms and hide from him.

“But you weren’t,” he argued back as he took another step. “I spent so long trying to convince you that there was nothing wrong with you but you never really believed it. It never did any good that I thought you were perfect because you never saw it yourself.”

He took yet another step toward you until he was only a foot away from you, and the proximity grew hard to ignore. Your bodies had practically become like magnets and the time you’d spent apart only served to strengthen those magnets.

“I have let myself become miserable because of the choices other people made,” he said with a pointed look that was as deadly serious as it was genuine. “Seeing you hate yourself? Hearing the way you’ve hated yourself? I was angry. So much self-torture on my part, so much wallowing in my own misery, but that day in the greenhouse, I stopped feeling so selfish for once. That day I stopped bleeding for myself and I bled for you."

This time you didn't make any attempt to hide your emotions as they wrote themselves plainly across your face in the form of tears, monstrous and ocean-like as they rolled down your cheeks and set a quiver in your chin.

"You always deserved a choice. You deserved to choose the type of person you wanted to be and you deserved to choose who to spend your life with. That is why I turned him in. He stole your decisions from you like it was nothing. I told Cassius he could have me in exchange for you. I told him I would get Jake to agree to stay on the council for a century. He agreed. I thought…I thought he agreed. He said he would see it to the end, our deal-”

“That's not what he meant,” you interjected. It had finally clicked for you. Cassius didn't play short games. And one day you’d probably learn what it was exactly he would want in return but you could hardly find any urge to care inside of you now. “It's the one I now have in my pocket that sees your soul as it truly is. That's what he said to me.”

You watched confusion flash across his face and it was your turn to shake your head furiously at the things he didn’t see that were laid so plainly before him.

“You think I would have just let you die for me?” you implored.

“You never even would have noticed. Your life with Jake would have continued after he did his time-”

“I don't have a life without you, Sam!” you bellowed finally, arms thrown out to your sides in exasperation that he still couldn't see it: that you had chosen him. “Why do you think Cassius wouldn't let you kill yourself too? If he saw this happening, Sam, why do you think he didn't want me to return to find you already dead?”

When you were met with only silence, you let out a frustrated sound.

“I mean, for fuck’s sake, why do you think I haven’t bound myself to Jake yet?”

“You haven't bound to him yet?” Sam asked, his voice suddenly low and urgent as he reached out and let his fingers graze ever so slightly against your forearm.

“No, I haven't!” you yelled out. “I can’t bring myself to do it!”

He looked stunned as he stood there, suddenly searching for air where he previously didn't need it.

“And now that I'm…this,” you gestured to yourself meanly as hot tears bubbled stronger, “the tie is weak. Rebecca can break it.”

“Why would you let her do that?” Sam questioned, his eyes unwavering on you so as not to miss anything you might do.

It almost made you laugh.

“I would do it for you!” you practically screamed at the glassy eyed boy standing in front of you that softened your tone and your emotions almost instantly. “You said you thought we should choose who we take with us to the end. You said that.” And then you stepped closer to him, practically choking on your tears as you struggled to get the stupid words out. “I would break it for you, Sam. I would break it to take you with me. To the end.”

His eyes were watery when he nodded, as if the only thing holding him back was hearing you say it at long last.

“To the end,” he agreed.

His lips were on yours not a second later, commanding your mouth against his and devouring you the way he had wanted to for so long, the way you had wanted him to for so long. And with his hands on your body pulling you into him with abandon, his mind intertwining with yours to shut out the voices that had haunted you every waking second, you found your peace once more.

He alone was where you belonged.

You melded into him that way, amongst the glass and the plants and the twinkling lights. You even felt, with his lips warming yours and his tongue sliding into your mouth to taste you and memorize you this way, that the two of you together transcended time and space together. And in many ways, you did.

You were desperate to have him right then and there. Frantic, even. Who cared who saw? Who cared who heard? You certainly didn't when you had gone so long without him. But the moment he understood what your hands meant to do, he took them both in one grip of his own and pried his mouth away.

“No, not like this. Not while you're still tied.”

You straightened almost instantly. He was right. That wasn't how you wanted him. You wanted to be focused on him when the time finally came. No one but him.

You had waited this long. Surely you could wait a little longer.

“Then let's fix that.”

—

Rebecca stood between you and Jake with some potion-looking liquid she had mixed up in a bowl and boiled over a fire in the backyard. It seemed rather primitive and it made you wonder how exactly she had brought you back but if you had to guess by the way your surroundings and your parents had melted right in front of your eyes, it had been fire that had brought you back so violently. And if you were honest with yourself, you didn’t want the details.

The others sat around quietly, waiting and watching while you kept your eyes squarely on Rebecca. You needed her for this but it did nothing to quell the loathing you felt for her having done what she had. Sam had had to free your mind in order for this magic to work and so it had left you out in the open once more, able to see her handiwork more easily.

“It should be easy. I've already spoken the incantation over it. You both need only drink it and your tie will be severed,” Rebecca explained.

You'd been avoiding Jake's eyes but when you met them now as he was being passed a tiny glass of dark liquid, you hoped he did see the sorrow in yours that things had come to this.

You wouldn't spend your life angry with him. You didn't want to. This was the only way to ensure it. And maybe you owed each other more words. Maybe you even owed each other a kiss or a hug or just some touch to remind one another that things wouldn't always feel this bad between you. But for once, he didn't seek you and you didn't seek him. There seemed to be a silent understanding between you that there was no amount of physical reassurance and no amount of words spoken that could undo what had been done. It would only be time that could remedy the mess you two had made of one another. At least that you had plenty of.

Rebecca handed you a tiny glass of your own and you took it between your fingers, staring down at the elixir that would change the path you were on so dramatically that it didn't even feel real.

You glanced over at Sam who wore an almost expressionless look on his face until he caught sight of your eyes. He gave you the smallest of smiles, one that he contained for his brother's sake, but it was enough to urge you to turn back to Jake and put glass to lips.

You each swallowed it down in one gulp with your eyes unwavering on one another. And as the liquid slid down your throat, its effects were practically instant.

All at once, you felt something within you sever, and suddenly the guilt you had felt for leaving Jake and the pull that tugged at you, digging its heels in and begging you to go to him, it was all gone, dwindling down into nothing more than a mere spark. And left in its wake was an anger that went unmatched.

You could feel your gifts returning to you, sweeping up through your toes and electrifying you on the journey toward your fingers and finally your head. You could tell Jake was experiencing the same thing, his head thrown back as he breathed deeply and tried to adjust to an assault of noise he had gone without and perhaps forgotten how to wrangle.

You, on the other hand, relished in it. For far too long you had felt weak. For far too long you had felt out of control, jostled around at the whims of others. In fact, you were here now because of choices that had been made that were out of your hands. It angered you beyond recognition. How dare he subject you to such a life of torment? How dare he bring you back to face it all like it was nothing?

The wind rustled the trees around you, conjuring up images of the days you had spent with Sam in the forest: the times you had killed and enjoyed it, the times you had hurt him and regretted it, the times you had been blinded by a rage you could neither control nor understand. But you didn’t fear yourself now. You didn’t fear the power that now flowed once more through your veins, made all the more strong thanks to your journey through death.

With your gifts finally intact, your mind no longer clouded by Jake to the extent that it had been, and your rage finally returned to your body, you reached out to take Rebecca's hand. You could feel all of the beings she had tormented before you. You could see them all as they clung angrily to her. And you were now one of them, thanks to Jake.

But in a way, so was he. Maybe he had even been the first.

She never even felt it. But Jake did. You made sure of that. Like both a punishment and a gift, he felt the instantaneous explosion of pain you sent through her that evaporated her where she stood without even an ounce of exertion from your body.

He doubled over in the same instant, gasping out in pain as he desperately gripped onto Josh's pant leg. Danny and Adele looked on in horror as nothing but remnants of Rebecca in the form of dust now floated in their vision.

Josh had crouched low instantly to ensure his twin was alright, his face out of your life of sight, but Jake? Jake had his eyes on you. He wore a similar expression of horror at what you had done, even as he gasped through the pain he had felt from her and fought to control it. But his eyes never faltered on yours.

And as he wilted there in front of you, the image of you in his vision suddenly morphing into someone he hardly even recognized, your eyes never shied from his either. You had nothing left to hide from him.

“An irresponsible use of power,” was all you said before you turned to leave them all where they stood, stunned and silent, like they had never even known you. And the truth was, they hadn’t. Not the you that you now were.

You weren’t even certain Sam would follow. You weren't certain you deserved him after it all. Actually, you felt quite certain that you didn't.

But he never even hesitated.

—

You didn’t know it as Sam drove you away from the house that you wouldn’t see them all again for several decades. Sam would make the trip a few times over the years without you until things eventually smoothed over, but for now, you left them behind willingly in favor of a house standing tall on a cliffside overlooking the ocean.

The constant swell of seawater beating against rocky cliff below you created a peaceful backdrop for you and Sam to begin your new lives together. And there overlooking the angry ocean, hardly a soul existed to torment you, not that Sam couldn’t handle it.

“I bought half the beach so we wouldn't have to worry about people,” you heard him say from behind you as you looked out the wide pane of glass in your fishbowl porch that painted a view so breathtaking before you.

But you turned on your heels to take in the even more breathtaking view that stood behind you.

“And the ocean here is always terrifying. Should drown those voices out, when they come.”

“There are hardly any here,” you said quietly.

It was funny; now that the two of you found yourselves truly alone for the first time, Sam looked incredibly nervous and you felt as such.

The two of you weren't used to such quiet.

It would be an adjustment, quelling the remnants of your anger alongside the confusion your body still felt at being alive. It would take some getting used to, having now returned to a being that needed sleep to get through the day. You were still changing in ways you didn’t understand, too. And it didn’t help that you no longer knew what exactly you were or what exactly it was that your body needed, that it hungered for. You still found yourself stumbling with fatigue every now and then despite your gifts having returned to you. You even found yourself fighting fits of visions, none from this world but from a world beyond, that always seemed to have you doubling over and screaming out for Sam. But each time you stumbled, he caught you. Each time you called out his name, he found you. And each time you hungered, he was there to satiate you.

You hadn’t lived in the house together for long before a particularly hard day found you. You’d slept late while the sun shined high in the sky warding off a storm brewing several miles away. You'd been kept awake the night before by a barrage of terrors that Sam had begged you to let him quiet. And you finally had let him after several hours. He’d lulled you into a peaceful sleep and ensured you would remain that way until you were more rested. And when you woke, you woke to a house with every curtain drawn tightly shut so as not to wake you. But Sam was no longer beside you.

You padded quietly through the house to find him standing in the large fishbowl porch just off the front of the home, drinking some thick, red blood from a purple mug he must have gotten when he’d decided to attend university some several decades earlier. And his eyes scanned the horizon where the storm drew closer.

Sam had been opting for blood bags from a local hospital since the move. You felt bad knowing how much he loved the fresh stuff but he had insisted upon a quicker method of dining. He hated leaving you even for the hour it took to acquire the stuff. When you had a better handle on things, you'd encourage him to feed the way you knew he needed to. But for you, blood no longer seemed necessary. It seemed that now what your body wanted more than anything was sleep. You were constantly running on empty.

Only once had you felt energized, on a night that Sam had had to shut out the world around you as you sat huddled in bed, shaking in fear at the thing staring at you from the corner of the room. He'd taken your face in his hands and made it all disappear. And then for good measure, he'd given you a memory to hold onto, one of his older ones from back when he was human with Danny. A happy one before their lives had changed. And it had seemed to wake you, like a jolt of caffeine injected directly into your veins. Sam had done some research in the days that had followed and came to the conclusion that you fed off the very same thing as the souls around you did: the living. The two of you just hadn't yet figured out exactly how to harness it.

“I'm sorry, I hope you didn't feel like you had to be quiet for my sake,” you said softly as you crept up behind him with the lavender-colored linen duvet from your bed draped over your shoulders.

That was the other thing you couldn't get used to: the cold. You were still cold to the touch but now it ran deeper, like it permeated your bones. Sam hated it. He hated feeling like he was only chilling you further every time he touched you. But you didn't mind it. It just seemed like a good excuse to rarely leave his bed or to stay bundled up in his sweaters.

“No, no, it’s okay. It kills me to watch you struggle but I know you want to learn to manage these things on your own,” he said just as quietly as he brushed your hair over your shoulder and smiled warmly down at you. “Are we still alone?” he asked.

It had become his new “stay with me”, a quick and easy question he could ask to judge where your mind was at without overstepping your own determination. Heaven forbid something happen to him and you couldn't even get through the first night alone, not that you would even want to.

“Yes, we’re still alone,” you answered before you inhaled a deep breath and tucked yourself under his arm to take in the view of the dark storm rolling across a marvelous expanse of sky. “It’s just going to take me some time to get the hang of things. Feel more normal again.”

He turned his body to face yours, setting his mug down on a wicker table so his hands were free to take either side of your face between them gently. Your eyes fell shut at the feeling, a feeling that was indescribable now that your heart wasn’t caught between him and someone else.

“Take all the time you need,” he whispered softly. “We have plenty of it.”

You let the weight of your head rest completely in his hands, lolling it to one side as you felt his face draw nearer to yours at the behest of your fingers working to find friction in his shirt.

“Actually, I don't think I need time,” you corrected yourself in a light murmur, your eyes still rocked closed.

“No?” he questioned.

You shook your head gently and opened your eyes, though they found themselves instantly fixed to his lips and far too intrigued to move.

“No. Your hands make me feel more normal than anything else.”

Your mouth willed him forward, lips parted and face angled up toward his, waiting, ever so patiently.

It felt like an eternity before his lips finally brushed against yours, just barely meeting yours where they yearned for him so desperately. But when you felt him there, grazing gently along your skin in an almost timid manner, as though he were testing the waters, you closed what little distance there still was keeping you apart, connecting your mouths more fully in a delicate kiss.

It was different having his mouth pressed to yours now, different than anything you had felt in the past. Your soul was no longer being pulled in two different directions, fighting to just feel him. Now, it was only him there with you, no fight needed. It was clarity in a world that seemed to lack that very thing.

When your lips parted briefly, his eyes met yours, staring down at you warmly while his thumbs memorized the skin pulled across your cheeks.

“I wish my hands could forget the last thing they did to you.” He spoke quietly but you could see very plainly the hurt in his eyes as he relived the very thing his brother had run from.

You took his hands in yours, pressing them between your palms and squeezing them tightly.

“The last thing they did was make me feel more alive than I have ever felt,” you assured him.

When his lips met yours again, they were no longer timid. They moved against yours fervently, like they had something they wanted to show you. And they did.

You and Sam hadn't done much in the way of physicality since you'd left for the cliffside. He had insisted it could wait until you had a better handle on things. But as the weeks passed, your need for him had only grown to immeasurable heights and now, you no longer cared if you were mentally unstable or not. You'd find yourself in an even more dire situation if you didn’t have him. And soon.

Sam smiled against your lips as he read your mind. “You already have me; didn’t you know that?”

You smiled back as his hands grew needy against your body, feeling the skin and the lines and the curves he was convinced he'd never get enough of. Thank God you had an eternity to spend together. No limit of time would ever be enough to truly get your fill of him.

It felt like your bodies found one another in slow motion, amongst an almost silent backdrop that only held in the air the sound of waves far beneath you and the trickle of rain that had started from above you, neither of which could touch you in the safety of your home and the safety of his arms.

Your body sought his in any way it could while he walked you through the house, each room quieter and more still than the last, until you blindly reached bed. And you didn't mind the cold as you went. In fact, your hands searched for it, fervently, that smooth, cold skin that they'd barely even been allowed to touch save for a much more shameful moment against a tree in a forest and covered in blood. It wasn't like that now, though. There was no shame to be found as you stripped him of his clothes so quickly, you knew he'd find tears in the fabric when this was long over.

Sam's hands acted with that same sense of urgency and desperation, a cartographer eager to map the planes of your body and how they belonged to him. How they existed for him. His movements to undress you were like silent little promises, each and every one, whispers of the way he felt for you, demonstrations of the way he'd care for you.

You could have remained that way forever and never felt anything but happiness, with Sam in front of you, bared to you and you to him, and your body pressed into his until every crack was sealed and no inch of space went untouched by him.

His hands rested flat against your back, drawing down along your shoulder blades until they reached the dimples at your lower back and the swell of your ass. And then he dipped them even lower to grab at your thighs and part them for him, lifting you high up around his waist to fit snugly between your legs. Even with your eyes closed and your mouth still claiming his, you memorized his body against yours. It would be your new calming memory, your new sense of peace, the thing you used to ground yourself when the nights got difficult.

You barely even registered the sea of plush that hit your back as he used the mattress stopping you to bring his body even closer to yours, pressing into you hard and hungry all while he devoured you.

You begged him with your body and your mind alike to let you feel him inside of you, the last form of connection you'd ever need. But as his mind searched yours, wading through the messy waters there to listen the way he usually did, he pulled his lips away finally, along with his body, until he only stood between your legs, gazing down at you lying ready for him on the bed.

“Are we still alone?” he asked, reaching down to trace lines along your thigh where he could still reach.

You didn't even need to check the way you sometimes did, when you'd fearfully set your eyes to turn about the room, looking for shadows, listening for voices. You could tell just by the silence that engulfed you that he was the only one there with you.

You lifted yourself up onto your elbows and then onto your palms until your torso raised parallel to his where he stood just beside the bed. And you brought your lips to his skin, the expanse around his navel first to let your tongue taste the saltiness there. You heard him let out a gasp above you as your cold fingers found him next, wrapping around his length as your mouth traveled up and down and along his torso that seemed to heave beneath your touch.

Those droopy, doughy eyes watched you carefully as you savored him. You felt indescribably lucky to be touching him this way. Even just to have him this way.

“There's no one here but you and me,” you whispered against his skin.

The way it was meant to be.

He worked a hand into your hair to pull your face away, enough to angle your head back to gaze up at him. And with your mouth vacant once more, he leaned down to connect your lips again, this time taking himself in his hand and angling his hips just right so that he could slide easily between your legs and thrust himself inside of you.

You gasped against his mouth as he stilled himself there, giving you both a moment to truly feel one another as you became one in an instant.

His eyes fell shut the way yours did and your lips hovered close to one another's, both parted and breathing deeply to steady the sudden desperate ache that grabbed at you, begging you to move at light speed to continue what you'd started.

“I don't know how I got this lucky,” he shook his head almost in disbelief just before he worked both of his hands up into your hair to steady himself against you once more, enough to draw his hips back slowly and thrust them forward again, sinking himself deeper into you. You both moaned at the feeling, the sounds mingling together and dancing in the air until it was impossible to tell where one noise ended and the other began.

You could hear nothing but the waves and the rain and the sounds he made as he lifted you just off the bed to position himself better, coming down to hover over you as his hips couldn't help but work themselves up into a rhythm.

God, you needed him. You needed this every waking second for the rest of eternity. It was the way his hands gripped your skin to pull you closer, the way his moans started deep in his chest and muffled themselves against your mouth, the way he felt filling you up and nudging the deepest parts of you, all of him really that conjured up happy tears in your eyes and the vacancy in your lungs.

His hand moved to your chest, slender fingers splaying out flat against your body to push you backward against the mattress again, giving himself a better view as he sent another sharp thrust through his hips, driving himself deeper inside of you until you could practically feel him in your stomach. And he moved slowly to savor his every movement but his pelvis drove into you hard, each thrust sending you scooting halfway up the bed as decency fell away and only an urgent hunger for one another remained.

His name, it was the only thing you knew as your back arched off the bed and your fingers reached out to grab at his chest or his arms or his hair, whatever they could find to grip and keep you tethered to him.

“I love you, Sam. Fuck, I love you. I love you,” you gasped from underneath him as the feelings overflowed in your chest, culminating in a prayer to him.

Sam dipped his head back down with a gentle curse and brought his lips to the skin just below your breasts. And you waited to feel fangs sink into your skin there. You waited for that piercing pleasure to send hot, sharp pain through your body. But it never came. Only his lips and tongue graced you, peppering you with lazy, sloppy kisses while his hips never even faltered.

“I have loved you for so long,” he answered between kisses and drags of his tongue against your icy skin. “And I'll love you to the end.”

You took his position as an opportunity to weave your hands into his long hair, letting them tangle themselves and pull as they pleased as your body sought his up and off the bed.

“And after or I'll haunt you, Samuel. Wherever you are in the afterlife, I'll find you-oh fuck!” A sharp gasp cut through your words as he nudged that beautiful spot inside of you.

He brought his face level with yours, showing off the smile that had spread on his lips.

“And after,” he promised with a nod, just before his brows furrowed and his mouth dropped open at the feeling of you squeezing tighter around him.

It was like its own little source of pleasure, knowing you could cause a reaction like that in him. It sparked something a bit more animalistic inside of you, prompting you to pull him down roughly and roll him over onto his back so you could begin to ride him at a much faster pace. But he quickly lifted his body up to meet yours, wrapping a strong arm around the small of your back to help guide your rhythm.

“Fuck,” he grunted, his face taking on a determined look as his hands worked with your hips to spur your movements on. Just a little harder, just a little faster.

You moaned out a loud sound as you wrapped your arm around his shoulders and dropped your forehead down onto him. Each raise and lowering of your hips brought him closer, brought you closer.

His hands worked hard to spread across every inch of your skin as your hips rolled against him, taking him as deeply as you could.

“I-I swear you saved me,” he stuttered out against the feeling, against your skin. “When we met, I was giving up.”

You squeezed your eyes shut at his words, moving faster and truthfully, feeling nothing but him and the blinding bliss his body created.

“Shit-” His words threatened to fail him as expletives began to drip from your own mouth like a chant now. But he seemed so determined to make you understand just exactly how he felt, as if you couldn’t feel it in the way his body clung to yours or in the way his eyes drooped just a little more with the heavy weight of his love for you.

“Everything inside of me burns with desire for you,” he grunted as he gripped your waist tighter and bounced you harder on his length.

“Oh fuck, Sam-” you choked out.

“I swear,” he breathed out, enraptured in your bliss almost more than his own, “you’ve made me better.”

It was his words that did it in the end, sending you crashing over the edge with his name burned into your throat as your walls clenched hard around him. And he followed not long after, spilling deep inside of you and clutching your body as close to his as he could manage.

The aftermath you had left took the shape of bed linens strewn across the floor along with clothing that may or may not have been wearable again in its current state. And in bed, your bodies entangled that same way, haphazard and draped wherever they had left off with one another. But even so, his lips strolled along your skin lazily, whatever he could reach as you fell back onto the mattress like he was reluctant to let the moment end.

You knew what he was doing. He was committing this very moment to memory, trying not to lose even a single detail.

“A new favorite.” It wasn’t so much a question but he nodded in confirmation.

“A new favorite.”

You couldn't help the smile that spread across your lips.

He seemed to be settling into the bed, likely to help you sleep, but you hardly felt tired. Actually, you'd never felt more alive than you did in that moment. So wearing only a mischievous smirk, you slipped off the mattress as he eyed you and your form carefully.

You waltzed across the room to his side of the bed as the confusion grew on his face. And when you stood next to him and took his hand gently in yours, you gave him a grin.

“I'll race you,” you teased just before you flew out the door behind you.

You could hear him yelling from behind you as you went.

“Where are you going? You're indecent!”

“Come find me beneath the water!” you yelled back, pushing through every door in your way until your feet had found solid ground.

Then you flung your body over the cliff's edge.

And when your body hit the water and began to sink into it like a rock, welcoming the vast darkness that existed below the bellowing surface, you again found yourself unable to contain the smile that formed at your lips when you felt the splash of him meeting you there.

Taglist: @gvfcinema @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @hippievanfleet @crossczeched48 @cassiesgreta @sunfl0wer-power @abby-gvf @joshkiszkasfoot @joshskittytickler @lightsofthe-living-gvf @i-choose-the-road @am-bam @alwaysdaydreamingoffiction @themoreyou-love @bumblebeewrites @coolmedown @sacredthesin @jonch-gvf @justdamnpeachy @fallenstar1708 @vanfleeter @laurengvf8 @allybtj @watching-over-hypegirl @hr33gvf @kaitburb @threadofstars @jennasometimesreads @samiiijones @jakekiszkasmommy @lallisonl @therobynsworld-blog @misshunnybee @sparrowofthedawnsworld @demonrat444 @malany-gvf @myownparadise96 @capturethechaos @st4rdust-ch0rds @montenegroisr @sacredjake @notthedroidz @sinarainbows @kissingthegoat @eraofstardustchords @cherryflo @blacksoul-27 @lyndz2names @earthgrlsreasy @gvfmarge @carlyfleet @thetroublegetssoloud71 @withlovegvf @suzi107 @gracev0609 @objectsinspvce @kissakiszka @amorlizette @stardustcatcher @notsostrangerthing @brokebellsgvf @sweet1squash @imleavingyoufornewyork @lipstickitty @mavvanfleet

#gvf #greta van fleet #jake kiszka #josh kiszka #sam kiszka #danny wagner #greta van fleet fic #greta van fic #greta van fleet smut #gvf smut #josh kiszka smut #jake kiszka smut #josh kiszka fic #jake kiszka fic #sam kiszka fic #danny wagner fic #gvf fic #fire in the water

76 notes · View notes

hd-junglebook · 3 months

Text

Edge of Exile

prologue

summary : this is pretty short compared to what I have in mind for the next chapters. Just some background before I get the story rolling.

The scream died in her throat as y/n jerked awake, heart pounding. The remnants of the nightmare still clung to her - the acrid smell of burning flesh, the anguished cries she released as her mother stopped breathing, the way they dragged her out of the room. She pressed a palm against her forehead, taking deep breaths to chase the images away.

It had been six years since she lost her mother, but it may as well have been last night. The nightmares never let her forget. She saw it vividly every time she closed her eyes – the operation table, the look on Abby Griffins face when all attempts to save her mother’s life failed. And her mother - her brave, stubborn mother - running back into the inferno to help others, never to return.

Y/n rose unsteadily to her feet in the cramped cell, the sound of her footsteps filling the room around her. She splashed icy water on her face from the basin, then reached under her mattress for the tattered notebook. Her fingers trembled slightly over the pages as they traced the faces - her mother's kind eyes, her best friends’ smiles.

The cold vastness of space only seemed to amplify her aching loneliness. Y/n was used to being alone, staying alert, not allowing anyone in. It was the only way to survive now.

This prison cell had been her home for the past year after she was incarcerated. Like all the prisoners aboard this dying relic, she was kept in prison station, locked away from the rest of society, labeled as a danger to herself and the citizens of the ark.

She inhaled a shuddering breath and carefully returned the notebook to its hiding place. There was another long haul to get through today. She couldn't afford to dwell on the past. The ghosts would need to wait - at least until she slept again.

A chime sounded, signaling the prisoners that it was time for breakfast. Y/n took a deep breath and steeled herself. She had survived a year in this floating tomb; she could survive another day. Keep your head down, don't cause trouble, watch your back - that was the only way.

She paused, struck by the silence. The usual morning clatter of prisoners being escorted to the eating hall was absent. She peered out into the corridor - the cells were empty. The entire block, once filled with over a hundred prisoners, was now a ghost town.

Unease crept over her. Just a week ago, these halls rang out with activity. Where had everyone gone? Her friends - Harper and Miller - had been in the cells nearby just day’s before. Now all of them had vanished.

Rumors of mass executions had spread through the cell blocks in recent days. Resources on the dying Ark were scarce, and the leadership was becoming more ruthless. But she had never believed it would actually happen to them.

Harper's 18th birthday was just a few days away. She had seen it happen to so many others before, and now it seemed like it was Harper's turn. In the society they lived in, turning 18 meant one thing - being floated.

Had her friends been marched to their deaths in the middle of the night? Where had the guards taken them? And more urgently - would she be next?

…

The loss of her mother sent y/n into a downward spiral. She became angry and reckless, no longer caring about the consequences of her actions. Her mother had been her rock, and now she was adrift.

She was left under the watchful eye of her uncle, Kane. He was one of the Council members who maintained draconian order on the Ark. y/n saw him as part of the same corrupt system that floated her father for treason.

She had overheard Clarke and Wells discussing how her father had discovered the Ark was running out of air and wanted to inform the citizens. The Council's answer had been to silence him - permanently. He was given a treason charge and floated. Y/n’s uncle being one of the few who did not vote against this decision.

After Jake Griffin’s death, she decided it was time to pick up where he left off. Enough waiting silently in the shadows. She rallied a group from Factory Station, using her uncle's connections to gain access to Council events. Spent hours strategizing and devising a plan to confront the chancellor about the dwindling resources and oxygen.

The day of the Council meeting arrived, and y/n and her followers had knocked out enough guards to sneak into the council room. She marched in with the head guard, Commander Shumway, at knife point. The Council members stumbled over their words, trying to defend their actions. In the end, they confirmed that the Ark was running out of oxygen, but they were sneaky.

The Ark Guard burst through the doors. They had gotten word that the group was holding the Council hostage. Talia never expected them to act so quickly. The guards surrounded them, weapons drawn, ready to subdue them.

Her defiance only angered Kane further. He condemned her "rebellious theatrics" and soon had her locked away, floating the rest of the demonstrators. Charged with spreading false information, the murder of two guards and inciting rebellion.

The day the executions were carried out, y/n could only watch in helpless horror as her friends were floated one by one - launched out the airlock to their deaths. She should have been with them - was ready to die alongside them. But the Guards held her back.

Instead of execution, y/n was sentenced back to solitary confinement. At first, she didn't understand why she had been spared. It made no sense. She had led the uprising, held the Council hostage, exposed their lies. By all rights, she should have been the first to die.

Being left alive was its own special torture. wracked with guilt, replaying every moment in her mind. What if she had done something differently? What if she had turned herself in so the others could get away? She would never know now. Their faces, full of fear yet resolute courage as they floated out into oblivion, haunted her.

The only explanation was her uncle. Kane's influence must have swayed the Council to stay her execution. But to what end? So she could rot in this cell, alone with her guilt and grief?

…

Y/n sat silently in her cell, gazing up at the mural she had painted on the walls over the past year. The portrait depicted a man and woman standing resolute as flames engulfed the scene around them, the Ark crumbling into ashes amidst the inferno.

The burning ark symbolizes the destruction that can be caused by our negligence and disregard for the world around us.

She had just returned from the melancholy affair of breakfast - prisoners eating alone, guards eyeing them warily. The food stuck in her throat these days. Her friends should be here breaking stale rations with her, not lost to the void.

The slam of the cell door jarred Talia from her thoughts. She scrambled to her feet as guards entered behind her uncle, Kane. " Printer 124, Stand against the wall," they ordered gruffly, readying their shock batons.

Kane lifted a hand. "It's alright, let her be," he said. y/n slowly sank back down, watching Kane with wary eyes as he took in her mural. What did he want now? Surely not just to critique her art. The guards took up positions around the small cell standing at the doors.

"The Council has authorized me to make you a deal," Kane finally said as he clasped his hands behind his back. "About a week ago we sent some prisoners to the ground. 100 to be exact. We’ve communicated with them. There's talk of sending the exodus ship to the ground. They want you to go with the first group."

y/n’s eyes widened in surprise. Return to Earth, after all this time? Could the Council finally be desperate enough to take such a risk?

She hesitated, taking in his words. 100 prisoners to the ground the day of Harper and Millers disappearance. But if there was any possibility of life on the ground, she had to take it...for their sake.

Jaha's offer was simple - help repair the last three stations and once they reach Earth, her slate would be wiped clean, but they must be desperate if Kane was resorting to bargaining with me.

"And if I say no?" y/n challenged.

"Then you'll be floated with the rest of them," Kane said coldly.

39 notes · View notes

caeliajournal · 2 months

Text

A journey through my moodboards

This is an analysis of all the moodboards I've created since I started journaling, from 2021 up to now

Searching for my golden hour

January, 2021

aestetic: golden hour

This phase of my life is defined by the significance of sunsets as a metaphor for what I was looking for: the magical and ephemeral moment that, despite its daily recurrence, never fails to captivate us.

Each of the images represented a goal:

The girl on the path symbolized the need for self-discovery and forging one's identity.

Roses embodied the past and roots, viewed through a lens of positivity and nostalgia.

We can also appreciate a collection of indoor plants, which would have a different meaning if they were wild plants. In this particular case, it represents caring for those who are home.

The bookshelf served as a gentle nudge to keep enriching my life with stories that leave enduring imprints.

Intertwined hands spoke of romantic connection.

Quotes:

❝Seek magic everyday❞

❝I am learning to find joy right here in the mess of things❞ — Morgan Harper Nichols. ❝Grow through what you go through❞ ❝feel what you need to feel and then let it go. do not let it consume you.❞ - Dhiman [...]

Homemade

September, 2021

aestetic: cottage core

The primary distinction I notice in this moodboard compared to the previous one is that nearly all the scenes take place indoors and are linked to artistic expression. It's akin to the seclusion of an artist, one might say.

Numerous activities are depicted, such as reading, writing, cooking, or drawing. The golden mirror symbolizes a distorted self-perception and the urgent need to gaze into it once more for self-recognition. Additionally, there are recurring elements from the previous board, like intertwined hands and a cat.

Unlike the previous aesthetic, this one features colors reminiscent of nature: muted browns and greens.

Quotes:

❝Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.❞ — Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951.

❝Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher it is.❞ — Robin Sharma

❝You have absolute control over just one thing, your thoughts.❞ — Napoleon Hill

[...]

Eternal dilemma: air or earth

Somewhere in 2023

aestetic: cottage core

The colors in this moodboard are much brighter compared to the previous ones, with green and purple being the main tones. There's a portrayal of a sunrise sky, although it's not golden anymore; rather, it has pastel colors, much softer and calmer.

The symbol of the mirror makes a comeback, along with elements that have disappeared and others that have emerged, like daisies, representing innocence and childhood. Themes such as books and art resurface, though this time there's a greater sense of solitude than in the previous boards.

Quotes:

❝part of her mystery is how she is calm in the storm and anxious in the quiet.❞ — JmStorm

❝He was earthly; she was aerial. He was made of clay and iron; she was made of fire and dreaming❞ — Graham Joyce, Some Kind of Fairy Tale

❝Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby.❞

[...]

The manuscript

March, 2024

aestetic: light academia

This moodboard boasts a distinct aesthetic, characterized by neutral tones, and it's centered around the writing process.

There's a contrast of ideas at play. On one side, there's handwriting alongside digital writing; on the other, tea versus coffee. It's safe to say I'm undecided.

There are fewer scenes depicted compared to the previous boards, making it simpler in design.

Quotes:

❝When it comes to art, it's important not to hide the madness.❞ — Atticus

❝The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.❞

#moodboard #cottagecore #cottage aesthetic #aesthetic #light academia #dark academia #light aesthetic #inspiration #photography #inspirational quotes #quotes #A little break from writing

21 notes · View notes

rust-is-a-car-disease · 6 months

Text

Vtk hc(s) ✨

Cassian and water things to do with how he died (water, awareness, miscellaneous, falling)

All of this is from memory so im not sure if its accurate. Either way its fun to think about! If i remember correctly he fell/got thrown off (idr remember) a cliff into the ocean.

*water may also refer to relevent liquids in general

Cassian is afraid of being submerged in water. He may be uncomfortable depending on the amount of water hes in and how deep it is and stuff like that but being fully submerged is immediate panic. On bad days he tries to avoid water all together. (This becomes a problem to stay hydrated) A lot of the times, not being able to easily touch the bottom with his head still sticking out also causes panic. The exception is very good days and even then he struggles a lot. Baths are a no. He spends minimal time if hes in a place that could hold water, depending on how much it could hold and his mood. Ex. If hes having a shower on a bad day in a bathtub like in a hotel or smtg, he wouldnt spend a lot of time other then absolute nessecary to make sure hes clean. (This might just be me projecting how easy it is for me to overthink things.) If hes say, in a place that could flood like a flood prone basement and its raining, he would get the heck out immediately if theres nothing urgent to do there.

Oh! And other aspects other than just bodies of water. He wont drink salty drinks. The ocean and wave sounds make him antsy. He hates the smell and taste of super salty stuff, esp ones that remind him of the ocean. He stays away from edges near water. He gets extra cautious near cliffs. He tends to keep an eye out for possible vantage points for snipers. Hes overall more paranoid and vigilant.

Another thing is falling. Its an iffy thing where sometimes it doesnt affect him, sometimes he can barely stand losing his balance. Its quite random but for the most part hes fine. Like he could fall down the stairs and feel mentally completely fine but sometimes he'd stumble a bit and feel out of breath from a moment of panic/expecting something to go wrong. The first time it happened he just stood there shocked for a bit.

Alternatively: he would subconsciously pick and choose certain things he'd still do above, but he would unknowingly for a while ignore the rest even if he feels like he should do it. Ex. He might still feel breathless from tripping or avoid salty drinks, one bc its unnavoidable and another bc its a more obvious point of memory (subconscious things are also unavoidable mostly), but ignore any discomfort from edges and stuff and so not being as careful as he would if he acknowledged the discomfort. He doesnt even realise he does it at all for a while, it just sorta happens. (I am probably projecting here)

Ehm before i forget, suffocation is kinda similar to drowning right? (Not really but i think it works) so he positions himself in a way where nothing would be covering his breathing on bad days. (This is more like a 'dont forget this!!!' For me... i think itll be interesting to think about how certain habits and actions would change after and comparing suffocation to drowning, overall i think it might not have as big an impact as other lasting effects)

I want to talk about how like the attacks and seeing jeff die and other stuff may affect him but i havent even fully formed those thoughts yet.

Ugh i also want to talk about temperature and other stuff but i am tired now. So this is more like a to think about list!

#vtk #villain to kill #it wasnt supposr to have this much text #but then i got thinking #so uhm aha #vtk headcanons #cassian lee #i probably have more to say but its pass 4.30am #HOLY SHIT I CAN MOVE PARAGRAPHS NOW??#vtk cassian

35 notes · View notes

elderflowergin · 13 days

Text

blood free v secret forest, a quick and dirty comparison:-

As someone who fell for Kdrama through Stranger, i loved it because it appeared seamless, grounded and weaved several systems and levels of privilege very elegantly. Most of all it seemed morally urgent, even if it was at its core a detective mystery. (Which, to be fair, Blood Free is as well.)

Secret Forest’s first success was that it held nuance for everyone in the middle of the road; LSY afforded so much thoughtful shading to those men. I often think they will never look as beautiful as they do on SF, and that’s only partly because of whoever did the lighting etc, but they’re not Kdrama glossy perfect; they’re real people trying to reckon with themselves and the moral calculus they have agreed to, and their dignity comes from the reckoning. Lee Chang-joon, Kang Won-chul, Lee Yeon-jae, even Seo Dong-jae for that matter, all have that advantage. LSY managed this for Jung Sung-il in the scant few minutes of screen time he had.

The second success was Cho Seung-woo and Bae Doona. If Secret Forest was a universe they were its gravitational field; it was their fierce sense of honour and morality that drives both seasons. And their moral decency is hard-won; it is tested constantly, and it’s burnished at each opportunity, which is why they are respected. It is a dream that people like that can influence or impact those around them, but you don’t question that they do, by the end of each season, and that’s the victory of writing, casting and the charisma of both leads.

That’s why that funeral scene in season 1 is so important (to me); it shows the gravity shifting. The prosecutors rely on their forest of secrets to keep the centre together, but Hwang Si-mok demonstrates how untenable this has become, how the roots must be pulled out so the weeds die; so new healthy things can grow. The chaebols are at the periphery, and they continue to be there because, most audaciously of all, they don’t matter if enough people shift their moral calculus. I think this gravitational pull happens to Lee Chang-joon in season 1 thanks to Hwang Si-mok and it happens to Choi Bit in season 2 thanks to Han Yeo-jin. They are easily some of the most powerful parts of the show.

On the other hand, we have Blood Free. I’m not sure who the moral gravitational field of this show is meant to be. Maybe it’s Yun Ja-yu and/or Woo Chae-woon. Maybe it’s Lee Mu-saeng. Maybe it’s about the ethical dilemma of experimentation and whether that’s a worthwhile price to pay for the scientific advancements in cultured meat and seafood. Perhaps we need more time to really see the middle of the road characters, but four episodes in there’s not much to go on: there’s Lee Mu-saeng, there’s Queen Dowager as a VP, here’s Jeon Seok-ho. There are three chaebols, all of whom seem like one-note characters to me. (Why ask a talented sketch artist to produce cartoons like these? Unless they’re not, but nothing seems to suggest otherwise.)

The most interesting insight from episode 4 was about Yun Jayu - when offered 72 trillion won for her company, she actually considers it because it means she doesn’t have to face investors and can focus on research. She has influence and money but these are means to an end, for her. I wish we could see more of that, and not necessarily through exposition alone.

When she gives deft, cool answers to reporters, did that come naturally to her or did she work at it? Is she the face of the company because she hated it a little less than Lee Mu-saeng did? If so, why? What comparative advantage did they determine she had? When she wears Chanel tweed skirts and smiles her way through presentations, is that a natural extension of her work or is that a mask she wears? Give me process, guys! Give us the backstory, the way the markets work, the environment for cutting-edge bio research in Korea, the reaction of Big Meat, the interplay of new rich and old rich, some indication of her actual influence (which must be considerably more than what we see on the show, although what little we see, while uncomfortable, is frankly not that inconceivable in a world where you’re constantly connected.) I am so interested in her, and yet I feel I am made to watch the story of her reacting to chaebols and to the mystery of corporate sabotage rather than her being the fulcrum of her own universe. And at no point does the mystery seem morally urgent to me, and it’s because 1) why does it matter if all this is is a giant M&A negotiation 2) why should we care if it doesn’t feel real to us? So what if there’s sabotage? Why on earth isn’t this company guarded like fucking Fort Knox? Why is this company ostensibly so influential, so powerful and yet capable of unusually amateurish errors that are the centre of the show so far and not on the periphery of it? Where is the moral quandary that is meant to grab us by the throat?

Is it a question of the writing? Have her interests shifted and did she want to do a show without having to do too much character work? If anyone has earned a vibes-only moment it’s Lee Soo-yeon, and I respect that for her. I hope the direction isn’t stifling the writing, because that means there is an arresting, politically trenchant drama underneath this dry procedural, and that’s upsetting to consider. We still have a ways to go and I think there is potential, but I have to remind myself not to expect something like SF, that maybe you can’t bottle that formula. That it’s the gold standard for a reason. But honestly, Disney, in the words of TikTok star imo_unusual, you’ve made this show like God was dozing off when the angels were working, now RELEASE US (and LSY writernim)

#sorry i didn’t finish life #and I didn’t include grid in the analysis #although that’s a good comparison to make too #but kudos to whoever costumed hhj #and gave her that expensive overcoat #that looks exactly like a doctor’s coat but in rich black #costuming is the only dept that has not been interfered with #blood free #tvn stranger

16 notes · View notes

flightyquinn · 8 days

Text

Years back, I had a player express to me that they found dire animals boring. For some reason, that's stuck with me. On the one hand, I get it. In a world full of fantastical creatures like dragons and chimeras, "a wolf but bigger" doesn't seem very exciting. On the other, they're a fantasy staple too, and they have decent stat blocks.

So, here's a thought...

What if they weren't just an animal, but bigger and meaner?

According to Webster's dictionary, "dire" means "exciting horror", "warning of disaster", or "desperately urgent"...so what if we took "dire animal" and really meant it?

I'm imagining a version of dire animals that only vaguely resemble the creatures that they're compared to. Things truly terrible to look upon, with an alien appearance and twisted features, or in other words, creatures that are truly monstrous.

Suppose, for example, that your "dire wolf" looked like this, and communicated with its packmates through high pitched whining and chittering. Or perhaps something even more bizarre, with too many limbs, a face too long and narrow, that's too much mouth, with clustered eyes and warped proportions. I think you could even go really nuts, and turn dire animals into aberrations, though there is something to having them be animals, just very strange and dangerous ones.

#tabletop roleplaying #d&d #pathfinder #roleplaying games #gm ideas #worldbuilding #fluff #ttrpg

7 notes · View notes

rockislandadultreads · 2 years

Photo

One with Nature: Connecting with the Natural World

Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild by Lucy Jones

Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture and consciousness. For centuries, we have acted on an intuitive sense that we need communion with the wild to feel well. Now, in the moment of our great migration away from the rest of nature, more and more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological wellbeing. So what happens, asks acclaimed journalist Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world--might we also be losing part of ourselves? Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health. Travelling from forest schools in East London, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, via Poland's primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth. Urgent and uplifting, Losing Eden is a rallying cry for a wilder way of life - for finding asylum in the soil and joy in the trees - which might just help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves, from a future of ecological grief.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest--a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery. Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she's been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls of James Cameron's Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. Now, in her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths--that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complex, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning by James E. Lovelock

Celebrities drive hybrids, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, and supermarkets carry no end of so-called “green” products. And yet the environmental crisis is only getting worse. In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, the eminent scientist James Lovelock argues that the earth is lurching ever closer to a permanent “hot state” – and much more quickly than most specialists think. There is nothing humans can do to reverse the process; the planet is simply too overpopulated to halt its own destruction by greenhouse gases.In order to survive, mankind must start preparing now for life on a radically changed planet. The meliorist approach outlined in the Kyoto Treaty must be abandoned in favor of nuclear energy and aggressive agricultural development on the small areas of earth that will remain arable. A reluctant jeremiad from one of the environmental movement’s elder statesmen, The Vanishing Face of Gaia offers an essential wake-up call for the human race.

215 notes · View notes

mischiefmaker615 · 1 year

Text

Hearts and Bubbles

Rating: R

Summary: Happy Valentine’s Day!

You had forgotten how much people posted on social media when it came to Valentine’s Day, and each post you saw only reminded you more and more about the last conversation you had with your boyfriend before you had to spend the night at work. You were grateful for the barracks SHIELD had available but if it wasn’t for the backed-up paperwork, you would have found yourself in Loki’s arms in your own apartment doing a much better job at explaining what the particular holiday meant. Flashback~

“I mean.. its not exactly a holiday compared to thanksgiving or Christmas but a majority of the time, people still do something on it,’’ you explained as you zipped up your uniform with Loki leaning on the doorframe behind you, enjoying the show yet in deep thought. ‘’but darling, shouldn’t partners treat each other like that every day?’’ he questioned. ‘’yes but.. think of it as like thanksgiving, we should be grateful every day but focusing on the symbolic meaning of it in general kind of makes thinks feel official.. more like required where its harder to put off’’ you explain, not even knowing if that made sense to yourself as you grabbed your keys and bag and finally faced your boyfriend who had just been coming up at the same time and enveloped you in his arms. ‘’I could never put you off darling, Midgardian traditions are.. quite strange. Id dare to say then that I have spent every day since we’ve been together celebrating Valentine’s day.’’ He prided in himself and began kissing a trail from your jawline to your neck, making you bit your lip yet tilt your head to grant him more access. ‘’cant argue with that, but I guess society set up certain requirements to make things official, stereotypically getting the girlfriend-‘’ buzz you look down at your phone and saw an urgent text from Nat on how your presence was needed before Fury got even more closer to firing everyone in direct eyesight after the latest mission fail. Minor but still, that man could be a sensitive ticking time bomb. Looking up at Loki, you catch his lips in your own before stepping out of his arms ‘’I’ll have to explain better tomorrow when I get back, I love you and I’ll be home as soon as I can.’’ Present~ You shake your head to rid of the terrible explanation of Valentine’s Day and finally stand once the bus stopped. You clutched the card and container of Asgardian mead Thor managed to get you as you began walking towards your apartment. You hadn’t been able to explain what the stereotypical things to do on Valentine’s Day were, like flowers, a card and perhaps diner- stuff like that, but did manage to get Loki something. It could also pass as an apology to help lighten the sexual punishments Loki liked to bestow whenever you left him alone for to long, and considering how it was an overnight stay, you seriously prayed Thor helped pull through with this beverage. Your steps quickened the closer you got and finally opened your door only to stop at a dead halt. The lights were dimmed and instead were supported by the light of scattered candles all around the room. By the smell of it, at least two were scented and placed on either side f the living room to give the place a rose and lavender(?) smell. Your mouth nearly fell by the sight of it all as you stepped further inside, the door closing behind you as you set your things down on the chair closest to you and your eyes dropped to find a trail of rose petals leading down the hall before you. Your heart began to flutter, being reminded how this was your first Valentine’s Day with Loki and for him to go do all this made you want to find him all the more quickly. How did he- this was beyond what most people would do and as you passed the kitchen, could smell there was something delicious covered and cooling on the stove. Your eyes moved back to the hall as you walked down and opened the door that led to your bedroom and found your bed covered with rose petals and a bouquet of roses in the center. A card and a heart shaped box of what you assumed had to be chocolates sat on top of your pillow and your lip began to quiver by the sight of it all. Two hands came behind you and covered your eyes, making you jump out of surprise but immediately relaxed upon recognizing who it obviously was. ‘’now if I would have known you were going to cry, I wouldn’t have done this.’’ ‘’they’re tears of joy Loki’’ you laughed, knowing fully well he knew that and he let you turn around and you wrapped your arms around his neck. ‘’thank you so much!’’ you beam and he holds you close, feeling him take a relaxing breath now that you were both together again. ‘’I’ve missed you darling..’’ he breathed and you couldn’t help but giggle. ‘’its only been-‘’ ‘’to long darling. Next time I’ll have no choice but to spend the night over there as well just to be with you’’ he teased and leans down to capture your lips. Humming against his, you tangle your fingers in his hair and you feel like lean into your touch, biting your bottom lip as his hands travel slowly down to grasp your ass. Before things would lead to.. that, you lean back a little to look at him with a questioning look ‘’but.. how did you know to do all this?’’ ‘’you didn’t get a chance to finish on what your Midgardian traditions were so I attempted to look them up on the computer.. though I suppose I do need a bit more practice because the bloody thing wont cooperate’’ he sighed though you knew it probably was going to be something simple he wasn’t doing and he continued ‘’so.. I spoke to Thor on his observations upon being on this planet and went from there.’’ Your heart fluttered again as you wrap your arms around his neck and hold yourself closer to him. the fact that he was willing to even speak to his brother- despite how he felt, you knew he wouldn’t have gone to any of the other members for help and go the extra mile to try to figure out all of this on his own just for you, made you want to cry tears of joy all over again. ‘’oh Loki.. no one has ever done this for me.. thank you’’ you cry and kiss him again where he wasted no time to return the affection and pulled you close, turning you both around so your back was against the now closed door so he could lean deeper into the kiss. ‘’and I’m the only one who will love’’ he promised and his lips and teeth found your vulnerable neck ‘’now I know you must be a bit tired but I have one more surprise for you..’’ he murmured against your skin and you tried to gather your concentration to register what he had said before he suddenly releases you. You almost whine from his lack of contact but he places a hand on the lower side of your back and nudges you to follow another trail of rose petals leading into your bathroom. as you follow, he trails behind you, his hands resting on your hips as you open the door and gasp. ‘’oh gods this is just what I need..’’ you sigh with contentment to find a bath drawn with more petals floating on the water, candles and by the smell of it, special oils in the water for healing. You go to take a step forward but Loki’s hands on your hips stop you for a brief moment before you feel his fingers curl at the base of your shirt and before you knew it, it was pulled up and off. You shivered ever so slightly at the change of temperature and smile with your eyes closed as your body began to relax. Loki tended to force you to do so anyway as he took the initiative to pamper you whenever he could so it was already on instinct not to fuss. Your back leaned against his chest as his hands ran over your sides and stomach, a low hum was heard from his throat as he enjoyed the feeling of your skin with his hands. As one pressed at your stomach to keep you pinned against him, his other hand ran behind you and skillfully unhooked your bra in one second. You lightly rotate your shoulders so the straps fell down your arms and to the floor and Loki waisted no time to grab your mounds in haste as if he’d been waiting to long for them. Your hands came to rest on each of his wrists as he massaged your breasts, your head falling back to his shoulder to feel his lips gently running along the crook of your neck. His finger tips paid extra special attention to your nipples as they harden from the slight chill and your arousal and Loki seemed to notice your slight shiver. His hands slowly left your chest and glided down your sides, coming to the front to grip your button and pulled down your zipper, taking his time on purpose to tease. Before you could take a breath to whine, he yanked them down, panties with it to the floor and you let out a squeak with his sudden motion. ‘’what’s wrong darling? I thought you liked my motions fast?’’ he smirked against your skin, nipping at your shoulder before he let you turn around to face him, eyes already dropping to scan you hungrily. ‘’rip my pants and you’ll have to buy me new ones my good sir’’ you giggle and he smirked, taking hold of your hand. ‘’then I best make sure to be gentle with my fair lady, at least to the parts that she wishes..’’ he said dramatically as he lead you towards the bathtub, eyes roaming as you catch him. ‘’my eyes are up here darling,’’ ‘’oh I do believe they are love, and what wonderful eyes they are’’ Loki cooed with his eyes flicking to yours ‘’but tell me, where are your own eyes?’’ he questioned and before you knew it, a flash of green and he was undressed before you. You tried not to prove him wrong but your eyes couldn’t help themselves and drank him in. you immediately felt wetness between your thighs, fighting the urge to close them as he ushed a hand with a triumphant smile. ‘’ladies first my love.’’ Taking his hand for support, you got yourself in and immediately felt your body relax in the warm water. Moving to one side, you kept a hold on his hand as he got himself in, smiling gently to see your face happy and his heart beat faster just to know he made you feel that way. Rather than laying back on his side, he moved himself to swaddle you instead, leaning forward and captured your lips in his own. You moaned in each other’s mouths, being filled with the smell of the bath, candles and tension, you couldn’t help but raise your hips to him and he happily obliged with your motions. As his tongue massaged yours, you felt his hips raise and lower against your own, his cock rubbing against your folds and you lightly bit your bottom lip to warn his teasing. Knowing you wouldn’t fall through with biting him hard, you kept rubbing against you, a hand holding himself up on the edge of the tub while the other hand alternated between breasts by squeezing and kneading. Your arms wrap around his neck as you quiver by your arousal, already ready for him as his motions alone build up the knot in your stomach. Running your fingers through his hair, you feel him lean into your touch and your lips move to the jawline that seemed to have been built by angels. Having quite enough of the wait, he moved his hand from your chest and aligned his cock at your entrance. You happily spread your legs for him as he slowly pushed in the tip and paused, closing his eyes as he seemed to shiver himself from the please as his head fell back with a steady breath. You took a deep breath as you already felt your pussy trying to pull him in and rested your hands at his shoulders to try to brace yourself. Not a moment longer, he slowly slid himself all the way to the hilt, deep and with a growl as you two seemed to fit perfectly like a glove. ‘’gods Y/N.. regardless of how many times.. you always seem so tight around my cock..’’ he breathed, his arm wrapping around you to pull you closer against him as he lowered himself as well against you. With a hand still latched t the edge of the tub, your hands ran along his back line and sculpted shoulder blades before your nails dug in when he thrust hard, having pulled back to the tip and then in again. He began bucking his hips, snapping into you as your own hand grabbed the edge of the tub to brace yourself while the other wrapped around him, nails digging into his shoulder blade as he bucked. His motions were hard and fast, making your moans forced out of you as he seemed to always find a spot you didn’t think you had that sent you a wave of new pleasure. The knot seemed to tighten in your stomach and your back arched, your folds seeming to be throbbing with each thrust as he moved a hand to your clit. His fingers moved quickly in tight circles and you almost began to see stars. His thrusts became more desperate as you climbed your high with him and your pussy began to clench around him. ‘’gods- LOKI!!!-‘’ you scream his name as you tighten around him and he was close behind, cursing old Norse language as he came undone, watch splashing a bit over the sides as he thrust deep inside you and stilled, his grip holding you close as you both panted against each other. Once several seconds have passed, he slowly pulled out of you and you felt a bit of him spilling out. You leaned forward as he started to lean back against the tub on his side and lay up against him. his arm wrapping around your waist as he kissed your forehead and you smile in bliss. Looking up at him, you gently kiss his lips and he rested his other hand on your cheek to deepen the kiss before you lay your head just below his chin. ‘’happy Valentines day Loki’’ you breath and lace your fingers with his as he smiles down at you. ‘’happy Valentine’s Day Y/N… tell me, what other holidays do you Midgardians have?’’ he smirks.

#loki of asgard #loki fanfic #loki odinson #Loki Laufeyson #loki #loki smut #loki x reader smut #loki god of mischief #loki fluff

144 notes · View notes