#i think about anne carson so much

[ashtrayfloors]

At least half of your mind is always thinking, I’ll be leaving; this won’t last. It’s a good Buddhist attitude. It prepares you for life as a Buddhist. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I’m just sad.

Anne Carson (from The Art of Poetry no. 88 - The Paris Review #171, Fall 2004)

#quotations #anne carson #buddhism #leaving #it just seems i was always leaving #well maybe you know that feeling #rereading that entry of mine about how i had a sense of the fleetingness of everything from a young age #possibly because of moving around so much as a kid #made me think of this quote #if i were a buddhist this would be a great help #as it is i'm just sad

[peggychecksitout]

I’m in a bit of a reading slump atm, so while I am thinking about all the ways in which I am *not* reading, I thought I would share with you some of my unread books and why I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet:

The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman: because I keep telling myself I want to re-read the His Dark Materials series first.

Winter by Ali Smith: because I decided I wanted to read her Seasonal Quartet both by publication date and by season. I read Autumn in autumn last year, but missed reading this book in winter of last year 🙈 so I am waiting for this years winter to roll around.

Plainwater by Anne Carson: This book (and Anne Carson if I’m being honest) is just so intimidating—I definitely don’t feel big brained enough to read it and “get it.”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: my brain has designated this as an October Read, so if I miss reading it in an October, I have to wait until the next one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton: coming in at 832 pages, this absolute chonk of a book intimidates me on size alone—I just always end up picking a smaller book over it.

QOTD: what’s a reason you have for not having read a book yet on tbr shelf?

(id in alt text)

#booklr #books #reading community #book photography #I think the anne carson book is one of the oldest books on my tbr #it was actually a book recommendation I saw back when i first joined tumblr #(so somewhere between 2010-2012 maybe? back when shinji moon was still huge on tumblr) #(gosh remember shinji moons blog? i still think about them every now and then and hope that they are good) #anyway #i have tried reading the anne carson before now but each time it's been a bust #but this year i'm just going to try taking it slow and reading and watching as much supplemental material as i need to understand it

[astraystayyh]

skz quotes series masterlist

these are the fics i am currently working on, where the quote is part of the dialogue or it inspired the fic as a whole!! brainstorming these was very fun, i hope you'll enjoy reading it <3 2/8 done.

chan x reader. soulmates!au. strangers to lovers.

in a world where you can only see colors once you meet your designated soulmate, you already know that you and chan weren't destined for another. but maybe, just maybe, the stars were wrong about you both.

"on purpose. i love him on purpose." - Casey Mcquinston.

Echoes of love- minho x reader. lovers to (one sided) strangers. memory loss trope. [posted]

if given the choice to, would you love minho again? yes, you would've once said in a heartbeat. but now, you aren't sure of your response anymore.

"to love someone is to firstly confess, I'm prepared to be devastated by you." - Billy-Ray Belcourt.

changbin x reader. fwbs with so much emotional and physical tension.

things were clear and simple between you and changbin- a strictly physical relationship with no strings attached. until those same threads bursted at the seams, making you question everything you thought you knew about him.

"if i kissed you right now, i don't think I'd be able to stop." - unknown. & "please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it" - Mikko Harvey

hyunjin x reader. art students. forced proximity. slow burn. hanahaki disease!au.

working on an assigned art project for three months with hyunjin is an easy task, right? not so much when you're both exactly what the other is afraid of, and simultaneously, terribly longing for.

"f i loved you less i might be able to talk about it more." - Jane Austen.

Volcano- han x reader. enemies to friends to lovers. uni au. [posted]

you've never gotten along with han, your mutual prejudices ruining any prospect of friendship between you both. but you slowly realize that you are more similar than what you originally thought- your darkness recognizing his, and his light yearning for yours.

"I'll take care of you. it's rotten work. not to me, not if it's you." - Anne Carson.

felix x reader. exes to lovers. second chances. [au is yet to be determined]

in which you meet your ex felix years down the road, and you realize that maybe, just maybe, the love never truly deserted your heart.

"for a while it was love, wasn't it? for me, it was love." - Unknown.

seungmin x reader. best friends to lovers with a taste of unrequited love.

seungmin believed he was content with only being your friend. of being the one picking up pieces of you that others carelessly broke. but in the depths of his bruised heart, he desperately needed you to stitch him back together, for once.

"oh god, please. please. love me. love me. desperation sits heavy on my tongue." - a.m.

jeongin x reader. strangers to lovers.

jeongin hated the commute he took daily from his hometown to his work in Seoul. Until the day you stepped in the train and sat on the seat facing him, changing his view of this train ride, and his life.

"on the train we swapped seats, you wanted the window and i wanted to look at you." - Mahmoud Darwish

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

the taglist for this series is open, there is no set schedule nor a particular order. comment or send me an ask if you want to be added. (general taglist is also open :))

p.s: if u happen to know whose the owner of these quotes, please tell me. most of them come from tiktok slideshows ajdjdh

#skz quotes series #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz fluff #skz angst #stray kids fluff #stray kids angst #skz imagines #stray kids imagines #skz reactions #skz fanfic #skz scenarios #stray kids scenarios

[netherfeildren]

The Cassandra Complex : Chapter II : Prometheus

Series Masterlist

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Canon typical violence; Blood and gore; Mentions of drug and alcohol abuse; Description of injury; Angst; Possessive behavior

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word count: 6.7K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER II : PROMETHEUS

What is mortality after all but divine doubt flashing over us?

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

As the days turned to weeks turned to months since that moment in the dark with the Mandalorian, there had been a steadily rising thrum of tumultuous, frenzied energy coiling within you. A ball of hissing, ravenous snakes ready to strike at any moment. Desire turned to want turned to a demand that you were ill equipped to deal with – emotionally and mentally.

You’d had many things in your life that you’d wanted but had not been able to have, and yet that did not mean that you’d ever been good at not getting them. Impulse control, a staying hand, were not things the Maker had blessed you with. 

You’d met an old Ugnaught female with a penchant for loving spotchka and Sabacc a little too much. More than she’d ever enjoyed keeping steady work or following the rules or anything else really. You and she had some things in common when it came to that pesky little issue of impulse control. After a brief acquaintanceship, she’d put you on to a group that met sometimes on Nevarro to… support each other… or better yet, to sit around and discuss your issues and vices together in some pseudo imitation of self improvement – the art of staying one’s hand, or whatever you wanted to call it – and if it was not with much success, it was with intention, which you thought was, in the end, just as significant. She said she found the meetings understanding or companionable or something you pretended to tell yourself you didn’t care about. 

And sometimes you went. 

If for nothing else, to feel as if there were at least a few people in the entire galaxy who knew your name, who knew you were alive, who knew you were alone. You sat there amongst the old and weathered humans and the other ragtag team of varying organics and even the occasional droid, and listened to their stories and their losses and their fear during the reign of the Empire – their struggle, their fight, their apathy now, to survive, to stay afloat in the bleak imperial aftermath. 

One such survivor with a nasty love for Spice, needled you the worst. His face was haggard, tired, and there was something so forlorn about him, something that sent a sudden flash of fear through you. Is that what I will be one day? Is that what I already am? I am a person, you think wearily, aren’t I? His voice was tough and ragged, as if he’d gone out into the lava fields and swallowed a chunk of ashen rock to fill his belly, savaging his throat in the process, grating your ears and your nerves.

“Nothing really feels better than when I’m drinking a bottle of spotchka, Spice humming through my veins, watching the sunset. My worries, my fears… they don’t weigh as heavily on my shoulders. And what else is there to do? This is easy. I am good at this. It is a simple thing, even if I must forsake all the rest. And I am tired. I want peace.”

You could understand this. 

What else had there been to do under the subjugation of a darker and more powerful force than you could have ever been? You had been young and alone and terrified. In possession of a power beyond your understanding. You had been enslaved, trapped, abused, and then, for a moment, on a precipice. One which you’d taken a leap off of at the first chance. Now though, you were tired, and you too, wanted peace. Even if you weren’t entirely sure if you still believed in the concept. Once, it had seemed easy to lay down and take it, do as you were told. Until it wasn’t, or… until there had been the opportunity for something different. When the Sith lords were crumbling into obscurity and failure one by one, until only you and your master remained. A singular darkness in the galaxy. A lone chance, a step too far, to run had been all you’d needed. A flash of beskar in your mind – screaming, the snuffing of a silver flame –  you blink the nightmare, memory, away, be honest with yourself, eyes pressed together tightly, spiky lashes crinkling between your lids.

And you, girl? What about you? What do you have to tell?

Me? Nothing. Nothing to tell – nothing you’d not burn me for.

Or the truth: it was discovered that I could wield the Force when I was a young child. I was hunted, my parents were slaughtered, and I was stolen. Turned and enfolded into their cult. I never had a chance. I never had a choice. I am trying to find my choices again. 

The Jedi, the Sith, the Empire, they all fell a long time ago. I need to let the past die, but I will not die with it. So, you do not share that which would get you killed. You could very well be taken for an Imperial remnant and hunted, executed. No matter that you’d been just as powerless, despite everything, just as tortured, just as subjugated as anyone else, in all the ways that really counted. Despite everything – sometimes this great power counted for very little.

They had wanted to make you a God, but a God muzzled, a God restrained. 

God struck, God swept, God nonsensical. 

Your dreams are always strange and violent now – nightmares of a terrible past coalescing with hopes of a better future. How to reconcile that hideous thing you had been once before with the better thing you were trying to be now? Too difficult to conceptualize. No matter how many times you listened to your strange group of fellow survivors and vice-havers – a funny thing for what would they say, do, to you, if they knew that unlike their spotchka or Spice addictions, your predilection was of a darker nature – to kill, to maim, to destroy?

You leave Nevarro for a time, after that realization. That no matter how much you might ingratiate yourself, no matter the connections you may pretend to make, there is still that, there is still the truth of you. 

The second time you meet him, you are where you should not be. 

You’d come to Corellia. Filled with a sick and twisted sort of glee that you could roll around in the worst underbelly of the galaxy and survive, hold your own. It was an exercise in restraint and brawn and arrogance, too, perhaps. The crime syndicates running untethered, spice trade, and the harsh reality of industrial life made for a cesspool of the worst sort of cretins. 

In some ways, it was exciting for you, and you knew you were looking for something. Something to whet your appetite, quench your thirst, fill the void. 

After all, it had been two months, what felt like millenia, since that dark storage alcove where he’d imprinted himself in you. Weeks of having the ghost of him haunt you, the memory of his rough voice whispering phantom-like in your ear, seeing him in your dreams, your nightmares. Desperate interludes in whatever cold and lonely bed you’d claimed for the night, your fingers rubbing frantically at your slippery, swollen clit, trying to chase that feeling he’d pulled out of you and failing. Mandalorian, Mandalorian, Mandalorian. And then, one late night, when you’re on the trail of one such lead towards self destruction, masqueraded as a good time, there, around the corner, in the distance – like a wound of beskar looming in the night – it’s your Mandalorian. 

You pause your skulking, stepping back to wrap yourself in the shadows, away from prying eyes. You take him in. Fucking tall and broad, outlined in pale flickering silver. He’s arguing with a young Corellian, sticking his finger in the male's face threateningly, other hand hovering menacingly over his blaster, and you can’t help but snicker. Surly beast, that he is. There is a large part of you that does not want him to see you, who had hoped you’d never again come across him, and then a quieter, but infinitely harder part of you to ignore…

The helmet snaps towards you suddenly, as if sensing your attention, cocks to the side –  very much like some predatory animal casting sights on its next meal – his next bounty. You don’t need further warning, you spin on your heel and start in the opposite direction. Heart knocking on the walls of your chest to be let out, let me out, let me out, I want to go with him, cunt going tight and wet, ridiculous, desperate.

A chant that sings: again, again, again, chase me again. Catch me again. I don't know you, but I missed you anyway. I remember you, and I want you. 

That dark, red thread snaps taut again, humming with the song of your fates. You already know how this is going to end. How you want it to end.

You always know how everything is going to end. 

You pick up your pace, trying to confuse him with your turnarounds, sliding through the alleys and archways and scurrying around corners quickly, and then on one particularly slippery turn, there he is. An impenetrable wall of beskar that you’re slamming into, jarring your brain within your skull, shaking your heart in the cage of your ribs, jostling an impish little giggle out of you. 

A pause to catch your breath, he’d cut around and surprised you somehow, “Mandalorian.”

“Brat.” You laugh, his voice is still the same. The depth of it, not a figment of your imagination. 

“Fancy meeting you here. On holiday?” You croon, dragging a single, provoking finger across his chest plate, stepping closer to him, pressing up on your tiptoes to grin up at him. You listen to his huff of vexation through the modulator. Oh, don’t pretend, shiny. I know you love this too. 

“What are you doing here? Corellia isn’t safe.” Stern, stern tone. If you’d let him huff and puff at you, you’re sure he would. 

You roll your eyes at him, as if anything on this planet could do any real harm to the likes of you. “Oh, don’t I know it. I’ve caused the greatest trouble while I’ve been here. It’s been terrible fun.”

He shakes his head down at you disapprovingly, one hand propped on his hip like he’s gearing up to chastise you, readying that menacing finger to shake at you too. You shimmy up against him some more, pressing your breasts up against his chest plate, and you listen to a whisper soft groan vibrate through that impenetrable mask. Not so impenetrable as to keep you out, though, so it seems. You tuck the tips of both hands into the top edge of his breast plate to pull your own face up towards his, and even then, he still has to crook his neck down to look at you. He doesn’t buckle, not even a little bit, under the weight of you trying to hang off of him. You feel one of his hands come up to cup the sharp edge of your elbow, and even through the thick fabric of your dark tunic and the leather of his gloves, his touch feels like fire, like the Force. Stronger than anything else in the whole universe. For some reason, you can feel that deep well of power within you stir at the sight of him, at his touch, like a swirling pool of magma, waiting to rise up and spill out unencumbered. You feel on edge, stretched thin and held together only by frayed seams. 

“Did you miss me, Mandalorian?” He tugs you slightly further into the shadow of the building’s side looking up and around the two of you for one moment, oh, yes, yes, yes, again, again, making sure your surroundings are clear. 

“You like to be chased,” he says back.

“I like to be caught.” 

“By me.”

“By you.” Truth.

“Only me.” It seems he’s finally learned to flirt.

You step up onto his big boot with the tip of one small foot, really trying to climb him in earnest now, bringing yourself up even closer to him, and he wraps his other hand around your waist beneath your cloak, the tips of his long fingers splayed over the top swell of your ass to press your pelvis into his. You bury your nose into the folds of his cape around his throat, breathing in the warm, masculine scent of him, hooking an arm around the back of his neck. You want to kiss him.

“Last time, you said, maybe next time. Is that now?” You breathe into that dark space beneath his helmet’s edge.

You listen to his soft groan, the two of you pulling each other in even closer, trying to meld yourselves to each other, liquid metal’s mixing, beskar melted and writhing amidst fire and flame, and as you’re about to beg him to find another dark alcove for the two of you, you sense them at the same time that his helmet snaps up and to the side, right as they’re descending upon the shadows where you’re hidden, too late to block their blaster fire as they open upon the two of you without any sort of protection to shield yourselves with. Your reaction time is delayed blocking their attack, distracted by him, by his touch, and too long since you’ve openly and freely wielded your power, and he spins, suddenly, huge frame hunching over your smaller one to protect you from the onslaught, to shield you. You hear the bolts of plasma make contact with the beskar over his back, and then his harsh, pained groan as they meet the unprotected places between the gaps in his armor. You spot the Corellian he was arguing with before, over his shoulder. 

A savage growl rips from his throat as his knees buckle, and you wrap one arm around his strong waist, trying to hold him up as he struggles to remain upright. He’s been hit badly in the side, you feel the hot seep of his blood spill. You raise your other hand over his shoulder then, a furious seeping coil starting to move through your body. 

“You’re hit,” you whisper up at him. One of his hands claws at your shoulder, he’s so heavy, while the other braces against the wall behind you, trying to remain upright. 

“My blaster,” he snarls, “Take my blaster. Run.”

“It’s alright,” you say calmly, even though you feel anything but. You can feel his life force literally seeping out of him, and you’re hit, square in the face, with the realization of how truly strong he is. He is so potent, so alive, that his presence in the Force is almost a physical thing despite his lack of powers. The Force lives through us all, and he is powerful, all in his own right, purely for the vitality of him. 

He is strong and good, and that seeping coil turns into a ravenous howl.

There is a group of five organics of varying species surrounding the two of you, frozen by that lifted hand of yours. It closes into a fist, and three of them fall instantly dead, minds pulverized under the force of your power. The edges of your vision go slightly dark. 

“It’s going to be alright,” you say gently to him again. His hand on your shoulder is twisting painfully into your clothes, your joint straining beneath his strength, and he shakes you sharply, trying to push you away. “Fucking go. Why aren’t you moving?” One of his knees buckles, his voice wavers. He’s bleeding out so fast. You grip him beneath his elbows and start to slowly help him lower to the ground. One of his knees suddenly gives out, cracking harshly against the hard ground beneath. “What are you doing?” There’s a flavor of desperation infusing his tone. As if he’s worried for you. As if he is worried for you. “There are too many of them, and I’m–” His voice cuts off with a choked snarl of agony. He’s hurt, he’s hurt. You need to move quickly, or he’s going to die. 

“It’ll be alright, Mandalorian. Wait here. I’ll be right back for you.” He says something more, something growled that sounds suspiciously like, fucking hate it when you say Mandalorian like that, can’t kriffing do as you’re told, but your attention is no longer on him. You step in front of him, blocking the sight of his fallen form from the two remaining, soon to be dead, males. You cast a wide net of the Force around the four of you. Besides the three dead bodies, there is nothing else awake and lurking in the shadows for about a two kilometer radius. Lovely. 

The Corellian is obviously the leader. You look towards the other first, a big, ugly Trandoshan, and as you set your sights on him, you release him from his paralysis, giving him a moment to get his bearings and reach for his blaster. He scrambles to pull it from its holster and fires directly at you. And at your once again raised hand, the beam of plasma freezes mid air in a thrumming, angry screech of red magma. You listen to the Trandoshan’s horrified gasp, watch his eyes go wide and terrified through your splayed fingers, “You’re–”

“Yes. I am.” You send the blaster beam back in his direction with a slight flick of your wrist, piercing him directly through the throat, and leaving a wide, smoking hole of charred flesh clean through its ugly neck. The body falls to the damp street with a harsh thud.

“And you?” You turn toward the Corellian. “Were you his bounty?” His eyes are frenzied, manic, terrified, “Ah, Sith got your tongue?” The acrid scent of urine permeates the air, and you let out a barking little chirp of a laugh. You can feel the Mandalorian fading behind you, struggling to stay alert. No time to play with your food. There is a part of you, small or large, you can’t tell now, in the haze of the Force overwhelming you after not having used it like this in so long, that is worried that this is a step in the wrong direction. You haven’t killed in a long time – not since that last one. No – don’t think of it. Not now. Not with him here. And perhaps, this is a step in the wrong direction, a step backwards, but there’s really no choice. They’ve hurt him. 

You have no choice other than this. 

You reach for your lightsaber strapped into a holster low on your thigh, an inconspicuous place where you can hide it in the dark folds of your clothes. You’ve not wielded one since your escape, since that last time. Your heart beats painfully in your chest, and you can’t tell if it’s more of a blood hungry sort of excitement or out of fear for him, lying wounded behind you. 

-

“No… I’m just kidding.” A girlish little giggle, “I’m not a Sith anymore. Don’t worry. If I were still that, I’d draw this out. Make you suffer for a very, very long time for hurting him.” You pull something from your person then, and the night is filled with the crackling hissing sound of an igniting lightsaber. He’s never seen one in person before – only heard of them in stories. The dark street illuminated with the bright light of a violet colored plasma cross guard that sputters and wavers furiously, unstable, like the sound of metal being clawed to shreds. Despite the protection of his helmet, Din squeezes his eyes shut for an instant, afraid that the bright light would blind him, sear his retinas from their sockets. 

You are a burning effigy washed in the violet light of righteous fury as you stalk slowly towards his, soon to be dead, bounty. Din has no power, but if he did, he is certain that he would be able to feel your presence in the Force as surely as he feels the blaster hole in his flank. Even powerless, he’s sure he can feel the humming waves of your strength brushing up against his armor clad form. 

“She’s never been wet before.” Your voice is inexplicably lovely, soft and lilting. It had been the first thing he’d noticed about you, after those hypnotizing eyes that had terrified him for the intensity of feeling they conveyed, the two warring colors, one lighter than the other, one cast in perpetual darkness and the other so vibrantly bright it almost glows. The way they’d enthralled him, forced him to go after you that night on Nevarro, if only so that he could look into them one more time. “You’ll be my first blood with this – I made her just recently…” You say casually, lifting the lightsaber up to appreciate it between the two of them. The Corellian is frozen still, and Din assumes that you’re holding him so. You’d killed all the rest without so much as a blink. You’d stopped the fucking blaster bolt mid air. Din has never witnessed such a thing in his entire life. He thinks, for a brief moment, that perhaps, he should be frightened, or worried. He’s bleeding out, he’s dying, prone on the ground and vulnerable, and this girl is of a capacity he’s never encountered thus far in all his travels through the galaxy. 

But he is not.

For some reason, the Mandalorian is not afraid. 

“Pretty, no?” You croon at the Corellian, and if Din was of a sound mind, and not currently delirious from blood loss, he’s sure he’d not have felt that twinge of ridiculous jealousy twist through his gut at hearing you give that soft voice to another male. You twirl the blade so fast he scarcely catches it, then lets your wrist fall, the angry buzzing tip of plasma touches the ground so it screeches and hisses. You seem to deflate for a second, arms hanging limply at your sides, and shake your head at him. “You hurt him,” you say so softly he has to strain to hear through the haze of blood loss. He’s fading. He does not want to leave you alone. “You shouldn’t have done that.” 

You should not have to face this alone.

Another lightning fast twist of your wrist, the violet beam an arc of pure light through the night’s dark air, and then: “He’s mine.”

You slice the Corellian diagonally from hip to shoulder. Din does not think the creature even has a moment to realize what’s been done to him before the two halves of its body are sliding clean and wet against each other and crumpling to the ground with a sickening thud. 

When you turn back to look down upon him, your eyes are filled with so much fear and hurt and desolation, and Din must close his own eyes to shutter himself away from the terrible sight of your pain. He never wants to see that look in you again. 

You seem to be a complicated amalgamation of a woman. At once strange and mercurial and violent. Wholly unreachable, unknowable. And then at the next moment: frightened, tender, soft. With a vulnerability that brings every protective, fighting instinct out in Din. Everything that makes him a Mandalorian. Everything that he holds so dearly within his Creed, you call to, after only one meeting in the dark. To protect you, to care for you, to venerate you. And the shroud of loneliness, the air of other that surrounds you, as if you’d never known the soft touch of a caring hand, the loving embrace of a mother – calls to the very same things within Din’s own soul. The same things he’d never had but always wanted. They were the same, and yet, so vastly different. Existing on two separate ends of the galaxy's spectrum. Creatures meant to be enemies, perhaps, to kill each other. And yet here he found himself, prostrate and bleeding on the ground as you defended his life. Entirely at you mercy.

And now you’ve saved him.

His eyes flutter shut once again, consciousness winking away. 

-

He’s as heavy as a star blasted bantha, and you feel that your bones will surely crack and crumble to dust beneath the weight of him leaning over your shoulder while you try to get him coherent enough to move his legs and walk. While at the same time, as inconspicuously as possible, trying to use the Force to support him on his other side, a tendril of power applying pressure to the ragged, bleeding hole in his side without drawing too much attention to yourselves. And then, also, of course, with the added strain of tugging the two separate halves of his bounty behind you, wrapped in some discarded tarp you’d found because even bleeding out and two paces away from dropping dead he’d still had the wherewithal for a muttered, don’t leave my bounty. If you roll your eyes at him any harder they’d surely fall right out of your skull. 

You are a small human, and he is a big, big man. Who is currently providing absolutely no help. 

“Kriffing come on, Mandalorian. You’ve got to help me out here. You’re heavier than a fucking rancor covered in all this metal.”

You see him shake his head out of the corner of your eye, trying to stir himself into coherence, “How did you do that?” He slurs.

“You’re fucking heavy,” you whine, drawing out the vowel at the end and ignoring his question. 

You hear a small huff of air pass through the modulator, “You’re just too– too small.” His words are too slow, his voice too weak. You try and propel the two of you forwards faster. 

“Psshh, don’t provoke me, or I’ll drop you.”

“How’d you– you do that? T– Too small…” A pained, savage snarl as he stumbles. You exert more of the Force to prop him up. Fuck it, if someone notices the two of you, you’ll just kill them. What’s one more after you’d just gone and done away with five in one fell swoop after months and months of nothing – of peace?

You’re sure your mind, and that disgustingly soft heart that’s been trying to force its way to life inside of your chest recently, will make you pay for this later. 

“I’m a wizard,” you deadpan. You’re sweating beneath your heavy layers, slightly dizzy from exerting so much power so quickly. You’re beginning to think that going completely cold bantha steak and cutting yourself off from the Force had been a mistake. You feel wrung out and stretched thin and weak. 

“No– not, little one,” he stutters.

“That’s it. I’m dropping you.” But you clutch your arm tighter around his waist, pressing your cheek up against the space between his shoulder pauldron and the edge of his chest plate. You can feel the sweltering heat from his skin steaming through the heavy material of his underweave. 

“Are not.” You can hear the wet gasps of his panting breath under the helmet, and the sleeve of the arm you have wrapped around his waist feels soaked through with his blood. You don’t know how he’s still conscious and making the best attempt he can to walk after all this. 

“Maker, what do you eat, beskar for breakfast also? Just tell me where your damn ship is before more of those mudscuffers find us.”

“Landing bay seven,” And you thread your fingers through the hand of the arm he’s got slung over your shoulders, tightly. You have to move faster. You have to make him be okay. But despite your anxiety and desire to rush, the two of you make your way slowly through the Corellian alleyways. Him, struggling to remain upright, you, trying desperately to not make your invisible strength entirely obvious. 

And you fail to notice the slithery little Twi’lek, watching the two of you from the shadows, completely unaware that she will await your return to Corellia for a long, long time to come. 

-

Dragging his heavy ass in through the open hatch of his, believe it or not,  piece of shit pre Imperial gun ship, with a grumbled, nice hunk of junk, that all he’d been able to counter with was a defensive hiss, as your arms were about to snap off under his weight, feels like a singular sort of victory after what the two of you had just gone through. His feet stumbling over one another, he’s just on this side of consciousness when you finally make it within the safety of his ship. He melts into a crashing heap of beskar on the durasteel floor, and you finally let go of the disgusting weight of the dead Corellian, as you move quickly to shut yourselves inside, engaging the security system and motion sensors, lest someone else decide to catch the two of you unawares. Spinning quickly back towards him to start ripping the beskar plates off his chest to get to his injury. You quickly realize that the armor is held together by complex magnetics hidden beneath each piece and swiftly disengage those over his chest and abdomen. He’s got on a thickly woven underweave beneath the underplates, and you make quick work of unfastening the closures on that, as well, but when you’ve reached the last layer of his clothing, a thin, dark undershirt, you pause. The material is warm and soft and worn, something you’re sure he must don all the time and meticulously maintain and care for, like all the other pieces of the intricate uniform of his Creed. A Creed which you’re not certain you’d be breaking by looking upon the uncovered skin of his chest and abdomen. But he’s dying, you think, and you have to save him, and you can feel the physical and intangible manifestations of that slow crawl towards death in the spill of his hot blood on your hands, slowly drooling onto the metal floor, as well as the slow seep of his life force out into the ether. He’s dying, and you have to save him. 

You push the last layer, keeping him covered from your eyes, up his chest. The blaster wound is a ragged mess of blood and charred flesh, to his right flank. The trajectory positioned high in the upper quadrant of his abdomen so that you’re fairly certain it must have nicked his liver. You probe gently at the wound inside with a tendril of the Force, and your panic ricochets up to a shrill crescendo within you – yes, he’s hit badly, a laceration to the uppermost corner of the organ. You move to stand quickly, sweating and stumbling in your panic towards the compartments along the walls of the hull, ripping open drawers and cabinets until you come across his med kit. There are bacta injections, hard to come by, but of course he’s well supplied – you can only imagine the collection of injuries he must have gathered throughout his travels, and patches inside, and you return to kneel at his side, knees cracking painfully against the cold, hard floor as you fall next to him. Hands shaking, vision slightly blurry, you pop the cap off of the syringe, and try and take deep steadying breaths as you pull down the neck of his shirt to get at the uppermost part of his shoulder. When you press the aggressive looking needle into his skin he jerks, and the sound of the helmet rolling against the floor has your eyes shooting up to his face, “It’s okay,” you try and soothe. “You’re going to be okay. I’m going to fix this.” You press down on the plunger slowly, watching the bacta slowly make its way from the glass barrel into his arm. He gives a low groan of pain as the thick substance enters his muscle. Please, please, work. Please, you have to be okay. You pause for a second once the injection is done, watching the shallow, quick hiccups of his breath, the rapid dip of his abdomen, as if he’s struggling to continue the act, in pain. Fuck. You rip open one of the bacta patches and carefully place it over the gaping wound, reaching for two more after that to make sure the entire large circumference of the hole in his side is covered, and then go still. His breathing is still rapid and shallow, almost gasping, and you take in, for the first time, the entire vision of his naked chest and abdomen. Thick, strong waist, tapering down into slim hips, smeared in the dark vermillion of his blood, you watch the shifting of his abdominal muscles beneath his smooth, golden brown skin. You’d pushed his shirt high up on his chest, but you grip the edge to pull it down a little lower, making sure he’s only as uncovered as necessary. You’re not entirely sure how quickly the bacta should work – why isn’t he waking up, why isn’t he saying anything, why isn’t his breathing normalizing?

“Mandalorian,” you whisper, and the helmet shifts the tiniest bit towards the sound of your voice, the fingers of his left hand twitch and curl inwards. You place your other hand low on his belly, the edge of his shirt still gripped in your hand and scoot closer to him, your bent knees pressed into his hip. “Please–” you whisper and you realize your cheeks are wet, tears making a slow stream down your face. Your voice breaks, “Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” You don’t know why you’re apologizing, but you know that this is your fault. You distracted him, led him on that ridiculous chase. He’d have captured his bounty and been safely on his way if it weren’t for you. “I’m sorry. Please, I’m so sorry.” Not again, please, I can’t have done this again. You let your head hang forward, your torso bending slightly so that your forehead is pressed into his hip as you let your desperate and pathetically terrified tears fall. This is your fault. One more terrible thing come at your hands.

If you could only – don’t even think it, you do not possess the capacity for that sort of goodness – but the hopeless thought worms its way into your mind anyway, if you could only heal him with the Force. But you’d never possessed that sort of ability, only the strongest of Force users could wield their power for healing, and despite the fact that you can still feel the deep well of your power churning in your veins right now, after your brutal display on the streets of Corellia, you know that such a thing is beyond your capability. Such an act only possible to those with great aptitude for light wielding or those dark siders who were willing to pay a great and terrible price, that of stealing vitality from another being to enact such a power.

And you hate yourself more in this moment than all the others. You wish desperately, painfully that you could be a different sort of person, a different sort of monster. That you could be good. That you possessed the ability to do good with this Force that roils through your veins, and that should have helped you, but had only ever truly hurt you. 

What is the point of this great power within you, you think, if you cannot wield it in this most necessary of moments? In this instance when, more than any other, you wish you had the strength of the Force to heal him. With your head still pressed to his hip and your hands still on his chest and belly you open your eyes to watch your tears roll over his tan skin. I’m sorry, you think again, I wish you had never come across me. You watch the slow journey of your tears as they slide across his hip and drip silently down onto the floor of the hull, mixing with the dark crimson of his spilled blood. 

You’ve never been one for much faith in any sort of higher power, too many times in your life when you’d wished for something greater than you to come and save you gone unanswered, but you pray to the Maker in this moment that the Mandalorian survive this, please, please, he is good, please, let him survive this. Your eyes flutter closed, you feel the sweep of your lashes against his warm skin, and you pray to the Force and the Maker and any other entity out there in the vast, unending galaxy that a creature such as this, one who is strong and valiant and good, not be felled by an association with the likes of you. And as you think, please, just this one thing, just this one time, I’ll never ask for anything else ever again if you only save him now, you feel that space deep within you, where the very nectar of the Force lives in your soul, shift and churn, and it is as if one of the very building blocks of the core material that makes you what you are, slides out of that place and slots itself into him. Plugging away at the gaping, life threatening wound and mending his torn flesh and healing that which had been savaged. You feel the very fibers of him stitch themselves back together at that outpouring of yourself into his own body, and he has a piece of you now, even if he is unaware, even if, perhaps, he would not want it, you’ve given yourself to him in a way you’ve not ever done with anyone else before. Slotted yourself within him and plugged his wound away to heal him. 

You feel your body sag into his, all strength suddenly leaving you, but you force your muscles into movement and push yourself up off of him so that you can look up at his helmet covered face. His breathing suddenly stutters, and you freeze, your heart screaming in panic, but then he takes one long, deep breath, the wings of his rib cage flaring wide, and the rhythm returns to a slow, measured cadence. You take in the expanse of his strong abdomen, muscled, but also slightly soft around his belly button, the tantalizing trail of hair that disappears into his trousers. There are old scars and rough patches of poorly mended skin scattered across him, but his skin is also still soft and smooth and warm. His body is a weapon all on its own, battle hardened and made strong and resilient out of a necessity for survival, and beautiful. Above all else, he is beautiful. His long limbs are splayed wide on the durasteel floor. His cape is tangled around his throat and shoulders, and you move to pull the trapped folds from around his neck, giving him more freedom to breathe deeply. You tug the fabric down to spread out at his side so that you can lay on top of it. Your head is spinning now, your heart beating so fast you feel the rebounding rush of your blood in your eardrums. You’ve overexerted yourself, drawn too much power too quickly. Head spinning, vision going slightly dark at the edges, you feel a sharp, piercing pain behind your left eye, and your arms give out as you let yourself curl into a ball at his side, tucked into the crook of his underarm beneath his splayed limb. Right before you lose consciousness, you remember to pull his shirt down the rest of the way. He should be covered when he awakens, you don’t want him to worry that you’d violated him in any way, looked at his face or seen more of him than was absolutely necessary. He should feel reassured. You do not want him to be worried or afraid. 

When consciousness finally winks away, like a singular dying star in the vastness of space, your fingers are still twisted in his shirt over his belly.

Chapter III

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog : Follow and turn on notifications for new fics!

#TCC fic #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x you #din djarin/reader #din djarin/you #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian #star wars fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #din djarin smut #din djarin angst #din djarin imagine #the mandalorian smut

[sinligh]

There’s a fine line between being protective of your inner peace and being a slave to paranoia

I don’t know where I stand when it comes to it.

I trust no one to love me, me who is fiercely delicate

Picturesquely so, one might say.

I trust no one, and I might as well love no one, no one but myself.

I have gaps in my memory from times when I only thought about not being here,

refusing to exist…

pseudodementia, a case of hysteria, what else can i call it ?

An episode of over analyzing the flaws of a society that thrive on any imbalanced power dynamic.

The clock is ticking…

Tick. Tick. Tick.

That’s my biological clock, or so i was told.

I prefer to think of it as a ticking time bomb…

It’ll explode one day and there will be another piece of my soul out in the world

Just like this one is out under the name of sarcasm.

I will love it unrealistically, maybe the way my mother loves me.

love it so much; enough to sacrifice my life.

And it’ll mean nothing, at least nothing more than what was expected

As a young girl i used to get reprimanded every time i was sincere about how I feel

I started to accumulate half chewed thoughts left them in my mouth overnight then swallowed.

Disgustingly rotten…

I felt less real as time went by, and so I learned spit those thoughts and sculpture them into more admirable statues

Then painted a raw authentic layer of what i think of myself as now all over them, just so they don’t look fake.

Ending up with a form of art that is an acquired taste…

But the thing is: i had all my life to adapt to it to myself, and all the feminine rage in me.

•Quotes: Stephen Dunn/ Fyodor Dostoevsky/ Kate Jacobs/Marina Tsvetaeva/ richard siken/richard siken/ Margaret Atwood/ Sylvia Plath/ an excerpt from "Elektra,' Sophocles (translated by Anne Carson)

•Original context: sinligh

•Art reference:

1. Art by Crawfurd damson 2. desperate lamentation by Roberta Coni. 3. Curled Up - Crawfurd Adamson. 4. Paintings by Brett Williams. 5. a fragment of ourselves returning v, 2018 by beatrice wanjiku. 6. Art by allison sprock. 7. Art by Michael Mao. 8. Dark Corridor by unknown artist, 1990s, from The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

#sinligh poem #original poetry #quotes #stephen dunn #fyodor dostoevsky #kate jacobs #marina tsvetaeva #richard siken #margaret atwood #sylvia plath #elektra #sophocles #anne carson #web weaving #word weaving #blotched words #compilation #art parallels #art compilation #girlhood #female hysteria #feminsm #feminist #feminine rage #fuck the patriarchy #paintings #dark academia #suffering #classic literature #poetry

[theemporium]

I just keep thinking about max with little Leclerc. Just the Anne Carson translation of Euripides quote:

Pylades: I’ll take care of you.

Orestes: It’s rotten work.

Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.

That’s them!!! Like I’m just thinking about little Leclerc mentioning something small, something innocuous that she wants. Maybe a remark about how she always loves sleeping with a lot of blankets and when she sleeps at his place for the first time, she finds a bunch of soft and fuzzy blankets that he bought for her.

- 🐁

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP🥹🥹

but little leclerc has always been labelled as a burden or so much more difficult than her brothers. so then for max to swoop in and just prove how easy it is to love and care for her😭😭😭she always got told she was too high maintenance, meanwhile max goes above and beyond and makes her absolutely swoon

#cece answers #max+little leclerc.thots #🐁.anon

[familysickness]

can u make like. ur top 10 books. freak books. anything. kisses your brain

sure!! these r not gonna be ranked bc god knows i could never choose between them & also im gonna be annoying and ramble a bit about every one

death in venice by thomas mann (classic. but its so rich w metaphors and symbolism. if you do read it, i'd recommend reading "the uses of myth in death in venice" by isadore traschen afterwards, bc it does a great job explaining all the freudian allegories and mythological symbolism and u'll literally be tearing ur hair out afterwards over how brilliant thomas mann was)

the carnivorous lamb by agustín gómez-arcos (idc that i've already talked about this a gajillion times on here. its literally the best book i've ever read. i'll forever be obsessed and i wish there was literally anything that could ever hit as hard as this did. if u read it, anon (if u havent already) dont go through the carnivorous lamb tag on here bc u need to experience this without any big prior knowledge. trust me)

erotism: death and sensuality by george bataille (ik im just listing the classics atp. but how could i ever leave that one out. this ones a lot and depending on how into bataille & philosophy in general u are it could be too much. but if u havent already read this one anon, just read the introduction. trust me ure gonna loose it from that alone)

gemini by michel tournier (this one... took me ages to get through it on my first read bc of the way its written, but it was so worth it. not even gonna say much about this one - its basically like if twins by bari wood was good lmao)

incest: from a "journal of love": the unexpurgated diary of anais nin, 1932-1934 (or every anais nin diary ever in general, but this one especially. there was just no one that got it quite like she did)

indecent theology: theological perversions in sex, gender and politics by marcella althaus-reid (sorry for literally recommending theory. im pretty sure u were asking for fiction lol, but this (& althaus-reid in general) is everything to me. if u've any interest whatsoever in theology u should check this one out)

the sluts by dennis cooper (slightly controversial opinion i think? not that the book itself is controversial, just that dennis cooper is very hit and miss at times. this book tho, definite hit. its so intense and convoluted and i loved every second of it. read this before death and sensuality and u're guaranteed to think of nothing else for at least a month)

querelle of brest by jean genet ("those knock-out body fluids: blood, sperm, tears!". kind of a classic since theres also the fassbinder movie but i prefer the book tbh. its been a while since i've read it but it'll forever be in my favourites)

crash by j.g. ballard (yeah ik we've all seen crash but i need more ppl to read the book. hold on actually i need to insert one of my favourite bits from it here:

Reaching through the fractured windshields and passenger windows around me, I marked my semen on the oily instrument panels and binnacles, touching these wound areas at their most deformed points.)

ada, or ardor: a family chronicle by vladimir nabokov (one of the most beautiful books i've ever read. probably not the most helpful recommendation bc im pretty sure its a classic but i cant not mention it.)

also some bonus recommendations of books that didnt make the list bc they're either not freak books or bc i havent read them yet:

christopher and his kind by christopher isherwood (not a freak book. not even remotely. but will forever have a special place in my heart.)

the sparrow by maria doria russell (read this one anon!!! this would be on the list, but im not fully finished w it yet so i cant officially put it in my top 10 yet)

exquisite corpse by poppy z. brite (havent read that one yet but its on my list!!)

autobiography of red by anne carson (not a freak book. beautifully written, a work of art really)

as meat loves salt by maria mccann (havent read that one yet. hoping its as good as everyone says)

skagboys by irvine welsh (one thing about me is that i'll always find a way to mention the trainspotting books)

#u guys r feeding my ego big time w these media asks. #i love doing lists ngl. just waiting patiently until the 'top 10 favourite academic papers?' ask drops lmao #also mwah <3 @ u anon. kissing u for that ask #oh also anon: if u havent already read carnivorous lamb and decide to check it out - u neeeed to listen to velvet voices by townes van zand #while reading it. theres no bigger reason behind that. its just that i listened to it on loop while reading #and that was literally a spiritual experience #ask

[miametropolis]

My condolences for the containment breach I get how having thousands of ppl say the same joke over and over in the notes of your genuine analysis post can get annoying 😭 😭😭😭 I’m extremely down to hear more about the differences between the ninth and tenth doctors if you have any other insights you want to share though!!! I’ve been turning your post over and over in my brain like a rotisserie chicken ever since I read it it’s so good

omg thank you for your condolences...it really is the containment breach of all time...let me think!! I have a MAJOR tenth doctor video essay I may or may not make so here are the cliff notes:

-To begin. Anne Carson wrote that to live beyond the end of your myth is a perilous thing.

-in many ways, the 10th Doctor is cursed from his inception b/c he is born at the end of the Doctor and Rose's romantic arc (from a certain point of view) AND YET he is born sheerly out of love for her / to love her

-(we all know the fanon--or is it canon?--idea that Ten's face was subconciously selected to be one that Rose would like, and he's gone for her from the beginning...hello, The Christmas Invasion.)

-all that said, by the time The Parting of the Ways occurs, Rose and Nine have completed a full narrative arc:

-Nine whisked Rose away from the life of boredom and sheltered drudgery she experienced on the estate; she brought life back into the eyes of a hardened war veteran/The Last of the Time Lords

-more importantly, they complete a kind of mutualistic ultimate sacrifice (in a Shakesperian sense?) wherein Rose 'becomes' the Doctor by absorbing the literal heart of the TARDIS (we don't have time to get into that) and erasing the Daleks into dust, finishing the last of the Time War AND saving the Doctor's life

-he immediately returns the favor, absorbing the energy that's destroying her with a kiss (let it be known--the ONLY kiss between the Doctor and Rose Tyler proper--neither Tentoo or Cassandra really count imo), returning her to humanity, life, and safety

-all that said, Nine dies both saving AND being saved by Rose in a kind of unrivaled (?) parity between Doctor and companion. it's perfect synthesis.

-THEN 10 is born. uh-oh.

It is here that I would like to quote Michael Kinnucan's fabulous essay 'The Gods Show Up' on Greek tragedies:

The tragic hero is complete. You can call him unhappy (miserable, utterly broken) even before he is dead. For an instant he is something like divine. And then he dies, because there’s nothing left to do. The center of every tragedy is the image of a human being who has already died but keeps talking, someone whose face is a mask.

I think one of the most fascinating 10 v. 9 moments is that one scene that got cut where Rose says "I miss him." and the Doctor replies "Me too."

As many people in the notes of that original post point out (god help me) 10 is ALSO born IMMEDIATELY into heartbreak--whatever vestigal version of Nine lives inside him died with the despair of losing Rose

-TEN is the man that went sauntering away. perhaps that's part of why Ten is so terrified of/resentful towards regeneration. I think he's lived precisely the worst cost of it.

-The notion of 'talking after death' and 'wearing a face that's a mask' is a existentialist take on regeneration itself--ten EPITOMIZES this tragic hero archetype, esp. after Doomsday (literally! Doomsday!!)

-during his life, I wonder if Nine already considers himself lost in a sense? He's lived past the Time War, past the destruction of everything, and he's also the first NuWho Doctor. HIS ability to indulge in love (even in mortality, given his short lifespan) is different.

-TEN on the other hand has that INCREDIBLY frightening (for him) confrontation with Sarah Jane in School Reunion--knitting him back into canon continuum of Doctor Who, stitching him to the myth of The Doctor that has to live on and on and on in perpetuity--and seems VERY haunted by (im)mortality

-How much time does Ten spend running from Jack? A human being who CAN follow him to the end of time? Ten can't decide if he wants to be mortal or immortal, human or Time Lord. Think of the way he acts with Martha, with Wilf, with Donna. He is totally frozen inside of the space of his seasons. He has time paralysis (fatal, for a Time Lord)

-he is the first doctor that we see reallllly try to stave off regeneration

-That's why there's a certain frantic escapism to his adventures with Rose in S2--he knows, more than she does, that they are hurtling toward's disaster.

-he can't love Rose in a consumate way, even if he wanted to (he wants to) b/c he's trapped inside of his myth. he's like sisyphus. or that guy getting his liver ripped out by the eagle. Nine and Rose are lines that can cross. Ten and Rose are parallel lines. if they touch, the universe dissolves. hence why the narrative/God/Russel T. Davies had to lock her away in another universe

anways!

Ten once canonically carved a statue of Rose by hand with every inch of her body absolutely perfect, from memory, and I think that's crazy

#timepetals meta #timepetals #doctor who #doctor who meta #nuwho #rose tyler #tenrose #10th doctor #tenth doctor #the doctor #ninth doctor #9th doctor #ninerose #hope this is fun for you op!!! i also turn them around in my head like rotisserie chicken #or the very real dolls i had of them as a child that i brought to sleepaway camp and talked to #if you couldn't tell that i was that sort of person

[eschergirls]

Hi everybody!  

It's May (my birth month!) so it's time for another site update and to thank all our wonderful Patreon supporters!

First, we're still updating the site layout to be more user friendly.  Mobile users should have noticed that the site is a lot easier to navigate and no longer has the floating widget that blocks most of the image.  The desktop web browser layout is next to get an overhaul which I hope will make the front page more engaging.  We'll also be adding a tag cloud and a glossary and index of tags so it'll be easier for people to look through the archives. The glossary should explain what some of the terms like "boobsocks" (clothing that encases each breast separately like socks), "boob flounder" (both breasts on one side of the body), etc... mean.

If anybody has any other suggestions to improve the site's usability and readability, please let me know.  I'm very interested in feedback. 

A reminder, for those who want to follow us without using Tumblr, we have an RSS feed. (For newbies, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is basically a feed you can read using an RSS reader. Simply copy and paste https://eschergirls.com/rss.xml into an RSS reader and it will keep you up to date on Escher Girls!)

Second, as usual, I've been working through restoring all the broken/poorly formatted/un-alt-texted posts from the past.  That's like 10 years of posts, so it takes a while.  This month my major restorations are these 3 "Legacy of the Phoenix" Marvel Max covers which has that infamous "peeling thong" image, this Magic Knight Armageddon card of a sexy elven Spartan, and the entire "Chronicles of the Dragon Knights"/"La Geste de Chevaliers Dragons" tag which includes 2 posts that have lengthy discussions from commenters about the work and what they think of it which may or may not be interesting to people. There's also a submission and redraw of a Tetris girl by Junodog.

I'm still working my way through the Tumblr inbox backlog, so if you submitted a post a long time ago, you might see it pop up in the near future.  I'm really sorry how long it takes for me to get to older submissions, Tumblr's inbox works in reverse chronological order so things get buried really easily.  I'm also still appealing the many incorrectly flagged posts on Tumblr, but the responses are automated and arbitrary (the algorithm seems to have a hard time knowing what actual nudity is because they constantly flag single coloured full bodysuits as nudity xD ).

Anyway, now I want to thank all of the wonderful Patreon supporters.  I really appreciate the support on Patreon and Ko-Fi because it helps me keep the site independently run from having to rely just on Tumblr or any other platform, and allows us to make site upgrades and make the site more accessible to people with disabilities.  Your support helps me pay for the domain, hosting, and other upgrades. <3

So I want to give a huge sincere thank you to everybody who supported Escher Girls on Patreon in April!

Thank you so very much to:

Anne Adler Cat Mara CheerfulOptimistic  Chris McKenzie Em Bardon First Time Trek Greg Sepelak Ian Cameron Ken Trosaurus Kevin Carson Kim Wincen Leak  Manuel Dalton Mary Kuhner Max Schwarz Michael Mazur Miriam Pody Morgan McEvoy randomisedmongoose Rebecca Breu Ringoko  Ryan Gerber Sam Mikes Sean Sea SpecialRandomCast  Thomas 

And of course, thank you so much to everybody in general for reading the site, engaging with it and leaving comments, and submitting stuff to do the site.  Reading your comments often makes me laugh quite a bit, and makes running the site very worth it. :)

Thanks so much to everybody again!

Ami

If you have any issues with the site or suggestions to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know!

If you wish to support Escher Girls, you can subscribe to our Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ami_angelwings or donate through Ko-Fi at: https://ko-fi.com/amiangelwings.

#patreon #note #update

[movementsofmylife]

look im sure someone else is going to write super beautifully about love for love's sake. going to interpret the symbols and colours and themes. i just can't get over how much it hurt.

i'm reading a book called eros the bittersweet by anne carson right now. and it's about exactly what the title says, a look at how romantic love is both bitter and sweet. and god this show is just all of that. the show itself felt like a love story to being alive. that life is bitter and sweet and it's hard to choose and keep choosing but it's the only way.

it's so complicated to see tae myungha be happy and depressed and be dead and be trying to live. it feels too close.

to see him see himself in cha yeowoon and for the watcher to see themselves in tae myungha. it's so easy to root for another person's life. so much harder (when you're depressed) to do the same for your own.

i don't think i'm ever getting over sangwon (and for it to be sangwon!!! the one who's been actively self destructing but since he's arrogant and hostile about it people have written him off) saying "you don't know how to be loved" to myungha.

#i've never been seen as perfectly as when sangwon was yelling at myungha for not caring when he almost died #literally a scene lifted from my life #and then to see myungha go on to actually want to live #im completely destroyed #love for love's sake #shows that start cute and end with deep depression and hope #just #fmu i guess #this and eighth sense

[atinylittlepain]

Part One | The Hero

gator tillman x f!oc

series masterlist || series playlist

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth. - Anne Carson, An Oresteia

wordcount | 5.2K

content warnings | 18+ this is a work of fiction exploring dark themes related to domestic abuse, corrupt government, physical/religious/psychological trauma, murder, canon-typical violence | dark smut, violent smut, verbal degradation, brief mention of sex work | gator is gross and toxic and what goes on in this fic is a depiction of a toxic, unhealthy dynamic | THESE ARE BAD PEOPLE DOING WRETCHED THINGS

a/n | been having fun working on this one. I can't emphasize enough that this is outside of canon, this is my construction of gator and what I think you'd find in a deeper exploration of him. This is, in part, a work of domestic and psychological horror which will become clearer as the story continues. special thanks to @pr0ximamidnight who is basically the only reason this idea didn't get scrapped.

..........................................................................

Towns like these aren’t hard to come by. Throw a dart in any direction in the midwest and you’ll hit a town like this one. She didn’t bother with the name, something home-baked and wholesome, without a doubt. No, when she was given this assignment, the only name she bothered with was Tillman. 

“So you’re his favorite dancer, huh?” 

“That depends on who’s asking, hon.”

“Someone who can offer you a little more than he can.”

“That’s a tall order, offering me more than he can.”

“Oh yeah? Can I ask how much he’s paying you?” 

“Hmm, lemme paint a picture for you. I’m naked, and Roy Tillman is rubbing bundles of hundreds on my tits. Does that answer your question?”

“You ever wonder where he gets all that money?” 

“So long as he keeps throwing it my way, I don’t really care. I know you’re new in town, sweetie, but a word of advice? It’s best not to question Roy Tillman. Now, do you want a dance? You’re so pretty I might just give you a deal on it.” Cherry red nails flickering like neon gods, but not touching, just grazing the side of her jaw as she tries for a polite curl to her lips when all she’d like to do is scream a few choice curses into the dim, dank smoke of the club. This isn’t the first time she’s been given that advice since she came to Stark County.

“That’s alright, thank you for your time.” The quick recoil of cherry red nails, and her friendly little companion is already flouncing away with a slumped sigh, sequins and skin shimmering beneath the fish-scale flicker of a depressing disco ball. She takes a sharp gulp of her drink, resigning herself to crossing another potential in off her list. 

The problem with men like Roy Tillman is they have a way of rallying a town into troops around them. He brings money, and brawn, and revived religion into the withered veins of a community, and the community in turn suckles on the gleaming mouth of his gun, fed and full and content to allow him to do whatever he wants. And so he does. And so someone like her has to come in and put a stop to it, though that is particularly difficult when no one seems too concerned with letting their bloated king continue his salacious sate. 

“Hi, ladies, you got some for me tonight, huh?” And for every king there is, of course, a prince. A painfully, stupid, inept and inane prince, drunk on power that isn’t even his, and probably will never be his. As far as she knows, Gator Tillman is something of a dress-up doll for his father to move and manipulate around the county, about as harmless as a fly without wings, fondling that gun he keeps in his thigh holster like a second dick and working a fine cloud of smoke around his head wherever he goes, something juvenile about that bright green vape of his. Prince, court jester, whatever way you slice it, the only attention she has paid to him since she got to town has been without a choice when he blusters into a place, so loud you can’t help but turn head and stare. 

“Hey there, Miss Lanie. Surprised to see a fine woman of the law such as yourself at an establishment like this. You lost?” Gator, she has found, has taken a particular shine to making his personal space her personal space. Ever since that first week she was out here and took a trip out to the Tillman compound, father and son in fine figure on the porch, son tucked into the long shadow of his father, telling her in no uncertain terms that her presence was unwelcomed, unneeded, and Gator had made a point of walking toe to her heel back to her car, ducking his head down to wish her a mighty fine day, ma’am, before she drove off. She thinks that he’s trying to fluster her, make her sway in some meaningful way with his schoolboy teasing. At best, it’s amusing. At worst, it’s another something, somebody, getting in her way. 

“I could say the same to you, deputy Tillman. And you know that’s not my name now, be a little smarter than that, else I might get bored.” He has the common sense to blow that sickly sweet vape cloud out of the side of his mouth where he has sidled up next to her at the bar, his face cast in mottled shadows from the thick throb of lights in the club, grin turned red. 

“Mel, that’s what your partner calls you, isn’t it? I’d say we’re on a first name basis by now. Or would you prefer agent Harris? Dad says the only fitting title for a woman is missus, but I have to say, I think I’m a little more open-minded about such things.” At the very least, a laugh over the rim of her glass, concealed by another bitter sip because she knows a boy like Gator collects his wins where he can, and isn’t soon to let go of them. 

“Uh-huh, how progressive of you.” It would be about now in this familiar routine that she would usually leave, an elbow placed pointedly in some soft part of him as she breezed by. She finds people like Gator to not even be worth repugnant, let alone evil. People like Gator are small, used air, sound and motion somewhere in the periphery of what really matters. But tonight, she’s tired, and frankly, she’s failing, and he’s a harmless pantomime of a tyrant. So she lets him play his part, head propped in hand propped on elbow propped on bar. 

“You have a man back in DC, huh? I bet he’s wondering where you’ve been for so long.” Blink, blink, she gives him no answer, just squints a little and keeps her lips pressed in a thin line, waiting to see how else he can flail when given the chance. And he doesn’t disappoint, a little bit of frenetic flair to it, takes another drag on his vape and turns cheek over his shoulder, bolstering morale with a glance at his pack who have all set their sights on the present display of skin and sequins on stage. When he faces her again, she thinks he might try to reach for her, something grasping in his face the dip and bob of his throat. But he knows better. He had put a hand on her back one day at the station, hadn’t even gotten out a Miss Lainie before she was turning heel and jamming her forearm into his windpipe. Yes, he knows better than to touch, but he does lean in, trying for meanness that just makes him look younger with the way it rounds his eyes. 

“Tell me this then, where is your partner? Been a while since I’ve seen him sticking his nose where it don’t belong. He didn’t abandon ship, did he?” Still fresh, still sore, he wins that one, and she knows that he knows he wins because she can’t hide her grimace at the mention of her partner. Well, the mention of the man who was her partner. The man who was called back to DC last week, a sure sign that the powers that be are coming to the end of their rope with this project. They had been out here, grasping at scraps of a paper trail going nowhere, trying to pin down the ghost of the ghost of Roy Tillman for two months, and nothing. She wouldn’t be surprised if she gets a phone call next week calling her back, tail between her legs and an I told you so waiting for her on her desk. 

She offers him no response, taking a deeper drink from her glass so she can have an excuse to pinch her face bitter. He laughs, clicks his tongue, a slick strand of hair bobbing loose with the shake of his head. 

“Well, that’s just not right, leaving you out here all by yourself. Some folks would take advantage of that, you know.”

“Hmm, and here I am wondering where all that midwestern nice everyone talks about is. I guess the time’s are changing.” She makes her grin match his, all fang, all sharps and brights. And she’s had enough, a headache starting to creep in around the edges and make everything a little fuzzy. The cool reality that she will most likely leave this place as she found it, with a man playing God, and the people letting him. She presses a palm into Gator’s  chest, enough of a shove to make him stumble a bit as she gets up from her stool, a clipped command to get away, don’t you have tits to look at? But he still follows her out through the sparse crowd and into the quick snap of cold air that fall in North Dakota seems made up of. Soon, snow, but for now, everything dying and freezing up in anticipation. 

She makes it to her car without paying much mind to his hemming and hawing, though he catches her door before she can close it. For a brief moment, she considers how hard she’d have to slam it to snap his dip-stained fingers clean off. 

“Now, Miss Lainey, just wait a minute. Sadly, I’m not just looking to flirt, I’ve been sent with some business to discuss with you.” The prince sent by the king, glowing and boldening under his father’s trust, she can see the little puff of pride in the way he wedges himself between her car door and where she’s sitting in the driver’s seat, taking up all the space, all the air, that pungent sweet sting of whatever vape flavor he’s sucking on this evening. He plays it up, enjoys that little smack of false power, close-lipped grin and leaning down with his forearm resting on the hood of her car. She remains still, unblinking, unphased, looking up at an overgrown boy. 

“You see, me and mine haven’t been too pleased with how you’ve been bothering folks around here. Asking all kinds of questions and such. It ain’t very polite, and we don’t care much for, uh, not politeness.” Curling her lips back into a snarl of a smile, tilt of her head, she settles the sole of her shoe on top of the toe of his boot, small warning, small something that makes him swallow thick when she presses down a little. 

“You and yours?” Little more pressure, little pinch, the muscle in her leg tensing and tightening with the force of it.

“That’s right.” Wavering prince, weakening prince, a little whimpering prince and she swears she can feel his toes squirming beneath the ball of her foot, pressing down hard now. What she’d like to do is change the angle so the thin point of her heel is what’s digging in sharp. But this will have to do, her smile spreading to show the whites of her teeth.

“Oh honey, the last time I checked, they weren’t yours at all. You were theirs.” She digs down a little more, small twist of the ball of her foot to get that grimace, that grunt of pain she was hoping for. In the cool wash of neon from the bar, his face has gone blotchy, burning up to the mottling tips of his ears. Not difficult now, he’s already stumbling back when she lets up the pressure of her foot, a simple point of her finger in the middle of his chest enough to get him out of her orbit. Slam of her car door and roll of her shoulders because, not that she’d admit it, but that felt a little good, little lick of pleasure in causing a bit of childish pain. 

She hates that it startles her, a little jump in her ribcage. But really, she should have expected nothing less from him. A fine streak of spit on her window, darkened and clouded by dip and punctuated by a slap of his palm on the hood of her car. She catches his grin, distorted by the dribbling splatter, bright white sliver tinged red in neon. A herculean effort, not to run over his foot when she drives away. 

They, the proverbial they, have her set up in a new development of condos twenty minutes away from the heart of Tillman’s domain. It’s white, and square, and sterile, and three stories up. She leans her forehead against the wall of windows and lets it feel like falling while she listens to a voicemail from her boss. Her boss, back in DC, and wondering what the fuck he did sending her out here, no doubt. He tells her as much. Tells her that she has until the end of November to get some real evidence in her hands, or else he’s pulling the plug. That or else looks like going back to DC with her tail between her legs. It looks like a cubicle, looks like clerical work, drowning in the archives until her boss decides that she’s learned her lesson, to keep her mouth shut, and her head down, to not get creative, to not get bold. 

Until the end of November, two weeks to get something, anything, on Roy Tillman, or else. Or else looks like a man playing god, being allowed to continue his game, allowed to keep a whole town on its knees. And his son, his ridiculous, willful, repugnant dog of a son settled at his father’s feet, fed scraps of power and happy for it. 

Bad people, turned sideways people. She knows what they are. And her badge and her gun and even her cubicle back in DC make her good, one of the good ones, the ones that are supposed to get the bad people, turned sideways people. And she intends to. She needs to, really. Needs something she can hang onto like a trophy. Young blood, fresh in the department, fresh out of school, and trying to make something for herself, something she can point to when the rest of the suits raise their brows at her presence. She needs a win, and she’s going to get it, and it’s going to be Roy Tillman’s head framed in a mugshot. 

…

“Are these the records from 2019?”

“That should be all of them, yes ma’am.” Desperate times and all, she’s resorted to drastic measures, nodding a thank you to the officer who dredged up these boxes of arrest records for her. Roy has been known to arrest his own to teach them lessons when they’re starting to shake ranks, and she’s hoping to find old wounds, potential traitors turned informants. 

She hasn’t slept much in the last week. A week since her boss gave her that ultimatum. A week of scrambling for whatever loose ends she could find, threads fraying to film wherever she turned. She hasn’t found a thing. No trail to follow, no willing witness to speak, no evidence of anything. And the most frustrating part of all, the need for evidence seems foolish given how obvious it is. It is campaign season, after all, and Roy Tillman has been out with his crew in fine flare lately. 

Here is what makes up a king and his kingdom. In the past week, five bodies found between here and Fargo. Accidents, they ruled them. So many accidents making up a king and his kingdom. In the past week, six traffic jams caused by Tillman and his thronging brigade of DIY armored cars, the mouths of guns winking out of the windows, American flag bleeding blue and red in a blaze behind them. So much artifice, so much brute force making up a king and his kingdom. One wife, Roy’s wife, sent to the hospital with a popped eye socket. She had tried to go speak to her, and his wife, gruesome blue and black sneer, had kept her busted lips pressed in a thin line. So much brute force indeed. A king and his kingdom. And she is scrambling to find any crack, any slippage to stick her fingers into and make bleed. And now, she only has two weeks left.

The local station hasn’t exactly been welcoming to her, most of the officers knit tight and quiet in Tillman’s ranks, weary glances and outright snarls when she first came in. Most have become tiredly used to her presence in that empty office space, broom closet more like it. Only a few, however, have been cooperative, let alone friendly. Officer Peters happens to be one of those few. 

“You really don’t have to help, you know. I’m probably going to be here all day looking through these.” He hikes the two boxes of records he’s hefting up a little higher in his arms, shrug and smile, and it’s a relief everytime he does that for her. 

“No, no, I’m happy to help. Not much to do around here with, well, you know.” Well, you know. The police in Stark county are something of an empty promise. All the power lies with Roy’s quasi-militia anyways. 

“Well thank you, Dave, I appreciate it, really.” A little bit of kindness, of decency, she is finding, goes a long way for her in a town where she is clearly not welcomed, though that feeling is short-lived, their progress toward that office space halted when another set of hands grab a hold of the box of records she’s carrying.

“Where you going with all this, Miss Lainey? A lady like yourself shouldn't be doing such heavy lifting. Pussy Peters, you really couldn’t manage hauling one more box there? C’mon now.” She smells him before she gets a good look at him, synthetic strawberry haze that churns her stomach. 

On a good day, she would shove the box forward hard enough to make him stumble out of her way, not sparing him another look. This is not a good day. This is a tired day, a failing day, an at the end of a frayed rope day. She stops long enough for him to take it as an invitation to continue running his mouth, all garish grins as his eyes shift between her and Officer Peters, still holding onto the box of records, enough for it to be a tug on her own arms.

“Say, Dave, saw your wife at church last Sunday. She sure looks pretty on her knees. Oh wait, that was after church.” It’s plainly embarrassing for everyone, an awful, stupid and shameless thing to say. Dave scoffs, a quiet alright, Gator before he shoulders past them while at the same time, something is beginning to snap inside of her, a silent snarl. Gator’s smile falters when all she does is stare at him, lips pressed in a thin line. Tough boy turned a fool under her gaze, he shrinks and smalls, clearing his throat and loosening his grip on the box of records enough that she can wrench them away from him. The only sound is the hard click of her heels as she shoulders past him to join Officer Peters in their makeshift office. 

That something snapped starts to shimmer into anger. Sick with it, with all of it. With this town, and these people that speak like this, act like this, carry on like this. As if watching herself from over her shoulder, she’s excusing herself from the office just as soon as she sets the box down, a strange look on Dave’s face, though she’s already turned heel and made her way out into the hall. 

He’s leaning up against the wall, smoking that vile thing, and he shouldn’t be, and it just makes her angrier, shoulders squared as she comes to stand in front of him. Silent for a moment, a puzzled pull to his brows, the quick dip and rise of his eyes, and though he opens his mouth to speak, the only sound that comes out is a high-pitched yelp when she uses the sharp point of her heel this time to drive her foot down over his until she hears something crunch, a little dig back and forth and it makes him keen.

Perfect posture of pain, he keels over with a groan, easy enough to grab him by the nape of his neck and haul him in his hunch down the hallway to the office. Dave looks up, stricken and shocked from where he had already started to sort through the records and she brings Gator right to his feet. She gets a better grip in the back of Gators’ slicked hair to pull him upright. His eyes are scrunched shut, still grimacing in the shock of pain, little whimpers puffing out on each of his exhales. And she likes it, feels good about it. The first thing she’s felt good about in a while, if she’s being honest, a smile threatening as she leans in to speak into his ear. 

“You’re going to apologize to Officer Peters, do you understand?” Little tug, little sharp pull of his neck when he doesn’t answer, and then Gator’s breathing out a yes, yes, ma’am and she likes that too, drinks that down and lets it simmer somewhere sickening inside her.

“Now.”

“I’m sorry.” Not good enough, said with a whine. She tugs a little harder at his hair, pulling his spine into a strung, snapping line while he winces.

“Mean it.”

“Fucking– I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please!” She likes please, didn’t even know she was looking for please, but it almost feels better than the apology she was originally looking for. She would like more please from him. But for now it’s catch and release, he’s limping out of the office the instant she lets go of his hair, and she’s left simpering under Dave’s bewildered stare, fear of god widened eyes and jaw dropped in wonder, or horror, or both. 

Quick shake of her shoulders, shaking something sick and simmering out, and quick heat between her palms with a clap, away from whatever that was and back into these interminable boxes of records. Ready to get to work? Yes. Yes.

By the time they’re finished it’s already mottling blue outside and her eyes are starting to blur and sting. Nothing, no one that hadn’t turned up dead in the last two years, at least. Stiff joints that stay curled into themselves, she hobbles with Dave down into the basement to put the boxes back, blinking hard in the fluorescent light. Not a clue where to go or what to do next and she’s too tired to care much about it, thanking Dave and shrugging into her coat and pressing her fingers into her eyes to rub out the blur before she steps out into the fading light. 

“Hey.”

“No.”

“Hey.”

“No. Go home, Gator. Get some new marching orders from daddy, why don’t you?” She’s satisfied to see that he’s still limping a little, though that squelches and squirms into frustration when he continues to limp toward her. It’s a little slapdash routine she has no interest in being a part of, she opens her car door an inch only for him to slap his palm against it to slam it shut again, back and forth once, twice, three times before she starts to really consider pulling her gun on him, settling instead for another planned assault on his foot. Maybe she’ll break something this time, if she’s lucky. But before she can make contact he’s jerking back, palms up in a shrinking surrender. 

“You’re not gonna find anything, you know, not in there. He keeps things clean.” It’s perhaps the most earnest she’s ever seen him, words said quick on a single exhale like he’s getting away with something by saying them. It makes her pause, makes something slacken, watching the nervous pinch between his brows deepen.

“Uh-huh, and you’re telling me this why exactly?” Whatever that was, it’s already gone, he’s already settling back into the muzzle  his father stitched for him, shift of his eyes and shrug, working his jaw like he has to chew on his words. 

“Just trying to save you some time, Miss Lainey. Not as pretty when you’re tired.” That slick grin, slimed grin of his, and something is pulling sharp and snarling inside her again, a quick flood of anger that she tries to tamp down with a thin smile of her own. He’s not worth all the paperwork it would cause. 

“Right, you have a good night, Gator.” 

“Now just wait a minute–” And that simmering thing, snarling thing, finally bursts. Two months of shoveling through cow shit and coming up with nothing. Two months of people like this, men like this, who won’t even look her in the eye, who have been waiting for the day she leaves just as soon as she showed up. Some foolish part of her thought she’d arrive and play the hero. She knows better now.

 She’s just tired enough, failing enough, that she lets that anger curdle and break inside her. When he reaches for her car door this time, she doesn’t stop herself from grabbing his wrist, using an unsuspecting amount of strength to twist him around until he’s pressed up against the side of her car and she’s pulling on his arm behind his back enough to make his breath pitch and fail. 

“I’ve had enough of you, and your father, and this fucking town that’s too stupid to see that they’re getting fucked every which way you bastards can think of.” He squirms in her grip and she just bears down more, pressing the line of her body up against the back of his to keep him still, twisting his arm a little further, waiting for the pop and squelch of his loosening shoulder socket should he try anything else. His breath comes out as opaque puffs in the cold air, broken whines, eyes pinched shut from what she can see. And she likes it. This, something she can control, cause and effect, pain made real in her palms. Somewhere in the back of her mind, this is wrong, wretched, but the anger and the sheer force of it feels too good. 

“Do you know what you are, Sheriff Tillman?” A little more pull, a little more pinch, pressing him further up the side of her car and he shakes his head, frantic, no, no, no. Crystalline tears threatening along his dark lashes, shaking loose to smear down his cheeks, pale blue in the oncoming night. 

“You’re a dog. You’re worse than a dog. You’re a dog’s dog. You’re a fucking mutt begging for scraps. You think you’re something, don’t you? A fucking nuisance wherever I go since the day I showed up. You’re nothing, is what you are. Nothing. You’re–” At first, she isn’t sure what he’s doing. Strange enough to give her pause, his hips stuttering and jerking against the car and those broken grunts of pain preening out into something else entirely. And just as suddenly she realizes the terrible reality of what she has done, and what he is now doing, ruinous and wretched and so very wrong. 

Her hands tremble where they slacken, letting go of him and taking a stuttering step away. She feels like she’s going to be sick, like some hot shame is pumping and contracting in her muscles, making her weak and sideways, swaying where she stands. He turns around the instant she lets go, leaning back against her car, a doll slumped, no longer being played with, his eyes wide and shimmering wet, lips parted in a voiceless wonder. 

“Why’d you stop?” His voice pitches and breaks. It’s a boy’s voice, young voice, and it makes her stomach churn awful, acrid. Awful, because he means it, because he wanted that pain, that fear, whatever that was that she just did. She doesn’t say anything because she can’t, because something has turned to ice inside her, numb and unfeeling, barely managing to take a jerked step back when he steps toward her. And the parking lot is empty except for them, and the night has come on like a heavy fog, and the world turns into a blue smear when her heel catches on chipped asphalt and she’s falling, and she’s falling, and there’s stinging grit in her palms and an ache in her body and she’s on the ground looking up into the face of a frightened boy, a fallen, foolish prince, pathetic. 

She lets out a garbled shriek when he reaches for her again, willing muscle and sound into a singular command of don’t, do not that stops him in his tracks, his palms wide and stark white, surrender. Unblinking, she keeps her eyes on him, held frozen in a gaze as she rights herself, a little hunched, a little curled snarl through her body when she stands. 

He looks bewildered, no regret or remorse, just that pall of confusion, of uncertainty. And it clicks for her because of course. Of course, that felt right to him. That pain felt right to him. She knows what he is, what he comes from. She’s seen the ex-wive's files, murals of pain inflicted on their bodies, broken birds in a broken cage. Mercy that they escaped. But the prince was not so lucky. Something maybe even worse for the prince. He likes the cage. So of course, the pain and the words and the tears. He was raised on poison milk. Of course, the pain feels good.

“Go home, Gator.” 

“I–”

“I said go home. I’m done.” For perhaps the first time, he listens to her, shrinks back, face washed in shadows with the tuck of his chin, a boy again. She doesn’t look at him, she can’t. Heat floods behind her eyes, washing everything in a weary haze, streaks of light and dark when she finally drives away. 

The seams hold long enough for her to drive back to her all cold, all white apartment, all sharp and all lines and all sterile, stark. And when she does get home, but not really home, not even house, but when she does, she splits into pieces. She cries, and she shakes, and she curls over herself, head in hands. She is failing. 

Awful, all this filth, this king and his wretched domain, cobbled together with lies and guns and a bible. Built upon broken bodies. And awful, the people like it. Awful, she isn’t the savior. She’s a thorn in the belly of this terrible beast of a town, and nothing more. 

But what is perhaps most awful is that for a moment, for a breath, in that parking lot with that foolish, flimsy prince, she was a part of it too. She liked it too. Filth, too.

#gator tillman #gator tillman fic #gator tillman smut #gator tillman fanfiction #gator tillman imagine #gator tillman angst #gator tillman fargo

[cor-ardens-archive]

Hi! I have recently taken an interest in media depicting incestuos relationships between brothers and since it’s very hard to find any media with that theme (being a major one) compared to sister/brother incest for example, I wonder if you may know of any suggestions?

I used to keep and have since lost an ever-growing list of everything I read and watched that had incest as an important and/or overt theme. Which I would need because my memory is bad, but I'll try do my best here.

I can't think of many books -- the ones you probably already know: Querelle by Jean Genet, The Carnivorous Lamb by Augustín Gómez-Arcos, Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson (not a huge part of the plot but very important to the main character), Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin (also not a huge part of the plot, but it's overt), Twins by Bari Wood, L'armee du Salut by Abdellah Taïa (kind of really touched me how open he talks about it). And it's been a while, but I distinctly remember some implications in A Song of Ice and Fire that Euron had sexually abused Aeron.

As you see, there really aren't many books that I know of. I think I had a few others in my original list that I hadn't gotten around to reading yet or that I might have forgotten. But there really isn't that much out there, as it's a much more taboo topic than brother/sister incest. I do think there's a number of published erotica, but nothing that's ever appealed to me (I do accept recs, however, if you think something is good).

Films (some only have strong subtext): Querelle, Dead Ringers, A Zed and Two Noughts (kinda?), A Intrusa dir. Carlos Hugo Christensen, From Beginning to End (bad), Saint-Narcisse, Salvation Army 2013, Brotherly 2008 (bad but sad). Have not seen: Brothers of the Head, Jay 2019, Godless 2015.

Also, anyone remember that one terrible short movie about the two brothers who fell in love and society just couldn't accept it and they cried so much about it? It was very bad, and starred an actor that's actually in a lot of TV I think. Also that one film about 2 brothers who are like pop stars? And they fall in love too. I don't know, it was also bad. I think one of them was named Max.

Music: THIS IS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHEN MY BROTHER CALLS MEEEEE

Edit: forgot to include The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein

#and supernatural

[sleepy-gee]

💫stardust - coriolanus/sejanus

the boy was rotten, a recipe for trouble. he knew that. he stained everything he touched, darkened it, corrupted it beyond repair. he stained everything he touched with sin. and yet, sejanus never let go.

💫 trigger warnings/tags: no tw's, just some intimacy :] this is my snowjanus president husband's au where the jabberjay that would've condemned sej died on its way back to the capitol so the two were able to return home and be happy together lolol,,

💫a/n: i don't know what this is. found it in my ao3 drafts, polished it, and here we are!!

Pylades: I’ll take care of you. Orestes: It’s rotten work. Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you. -Anne Carson, Euripides

coriolanus snow may have looked like an angel, golden curls framing his face similar to that of a halo, pale plush lips mimicking the heavens clouds, and eyes so deep it's impossible not to get lost in them, but he certainly wasn't one by any means. at least, that's what he thought himself. lucifer was the fairest of them all before he fell.

the boy was rotten, a recipe for trouble. he knew that. he stained everything he touched, darkened it, corrupted it beyond repair. he stained everything he touched with sin.

and yet, sejanus never let go.

it baffled him. why would sejanus want to touch him? after all he had done? after all he planned to do? coriolanus had stolen, lied, killed, and so much more. all for the sake of himself and himself only. he knew he was a bad person, never pitying himself for it though.

yet, sejanus still married him. still kissed him and made love to him. even after having been on the forefront of it all. he would be dead if it weren't for the damn bird dying on it's way back to the capitol. he probably wouldn't have if he knew about that.

sometimes he'd let himself forget. he'd let go each worry in his mind with each kiss that landed against his sternum, blond locks splayed across the pillow beneath him.

"you're so pretty.. i can't believe you're all mine.." coriolanus' breath hitched when sejanus moved back up over him, kissing him again deeply. the way he licked his way into his mouth so effortlessly was enough to make his heart stop right then and there. 

"i don't deserve it." coriolanus said when they parted for breath, running his hands down his lovers tanned back. "i–"

"don't be silly.. of course you do. you deserve every damn thing you get, coryo." sejanus wouldn't let him finish, already pressing another kiss to his lips. it's not like he could complain.

maybe he didn't deserve it, but he sure needed it. in bed with this man, he got his purity back.. how ironic is that?

sejanus was everything good in the world, everything he wanted to be. it took him some time to wake up, but eventually, he was able to open his eyes and see how much control he did have. how much good he could do. and being married to the president of panem definitely helped with that. the games were abolished, economy stabilized, and famine wasn't as big of an issue as it used to be. panem was finally as great as it used to boast about being.

and sejanus was to thank for all of that.

".. what would i do without you?" the president asked, moving his hands down to sejanus' hips.

".. you don't need me as much as you say you do."

"yes.. i do. i do, sejanus. you're the only thing keeping me from going insane–" he kissed him again, sitting up. "you're the only thing good about this broken world."

"this world isn't broken anymore, coryo.. i wish you'd see that." sejanus kissed the tip of his nose. "we fixed it. you fixed it. we made it a better place.."

"you're the only reason it's not a mess, though.. without you, i don't know what would've happened.."

".. i think we can say that about a lot of things." sejanus took his hand and kissed his fingertips one by one.

"i'm serious, sej. you–" he swallowed thickly. "you saved me."

sejanus tilted his head to the side. ".. what do you mean by that?"

"i mean.. oh, what's the point? i can't put it into words.." the guilt was creeping up his throat like nausea. a happy accident had saved his country from so much heartache.

"well.. i won't force you to say anything you don't want to. or can't, for that matter." sejanus kissed his cheek, then the corner of his mouth. "but for now.. why don't you lay back down for me? i'm not done with you quite yet."

i don't deserve it, coriolanus wanted to say. he let himself fall back anyways. ".. i love you."

".. i love you too. always and forever."

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #tbosbas #thg #the hunger games #coriolanus snow #sejanus plinth #snowjanus #coriolanus x sejanus

[girlfromenglishclass]

What's your opinion on Electra? I've just finished Jennifer Saint's book and I was reminded why I've always disliked her. She didn't seem to be upset her elder sister is dead, her father is a saint in her eyes and Clytemnestra is suddenly the bad person here?

I'm VERY glad you asked this question, because it gives me a chance to talk about the saddest girl with nobody to love her.

For the record, I do NOT believe Jennifer Saint did justice to Elektra in her book. I strongly prefer Claire North's depictions of her in The Songs of Penelope. Saint did her dirty. She simplified her into a girl who doesn't like her mom when Elektra is much more. She's really the only bystander in the complex web of the House of Atreus, the moral problem presented by the acts.

Let's look at what Anne Carson says about her.

Elektra has reason to be loyal to her father. From her perspective, he is the king of kings, and she is his daughter. He's been gone long enough that she only knows his mythos. His evil is removed from her, but Clytemnestra can be blamed because she's present.

The most important thing across Elektra's characterization is that she's alone.

In the years of war, Clytemnestra's grief has clearly grown around her in a way that makes her inaccessible to her children. Now, I love Clytemnestra, I will never not love her, but the reason why I love her is that the House of Atreus is deeply cursed and everyone is beset with darkness.

Even the chorus thinks so

Elektra's grief over Iphigenia isn't really addressed, but it's implied that she's too young to remember her. What she does remember though is what was left of the house when her father left. So it makes sense that she pinned all her hopes on happiness on her father's return.

Something I've mentioned in other posts is that the logic that Orestes uses to justify killing Clytemnestra is the same logic that Clytemnestra uses to kill Agamemnon. They killed my kin, so I kill them; it's justice. What we as Clytemnestra lovers have to admit is that if she is right, so it he. It's the nature of the bloodcurse.

The hypothetical love of her father is preferred to the distance of her real mother. Even if we love her, Elektra does not. Elektra would rather be with the dead than the living.

#tagamemnon #elektra #Clytemnestra

[hier--soir]

I would love to know about books that changed your life…favorite books?

oh boy okay buckle up! let's talk books! [thank you so much for asking, i love talking about this stuff ilysm]

so i am currently reading decreation by anne carson which i am really loving, and i reckon that's instantly on the list so we'll start there.

lemme break it up by genre with everything i can think of off the top of my head [and see on my shelf right now] also YOU ASKED SORRY BUT IM BOUT TO RUN WILD ALSO IM DEFINITELY FORGETTING LIKE A HUNDRED GOOD BOOKS HERE

short-story/poetry collections [aka the main thing i read most these days]

brute by emily skaja

flèche by mary jean chan

deaf republic by ilya kaminsky

autobiography of red by anne carson

foreign soil by maxine beneba-clarke [changed me forever]

bluets by maggie nelson

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado [idk if this entire collection is on the favs list, but some of them? woof]

classics

an oresteia translated by anne carson

narcissus and echo [from metamorphoses] by ovid

the bacchae by euripides

old [and old-er] lit

macbeth by willy shakes [see: my blog description]

hamlet by willy shakes

a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams

the end of the affair by graham greene

contemporary lit

nightbitch by rachel yoder [who else out here turning into a dog when their husband is away for work?? just me?]

the secret history by donna tartt [duh]

milk fed by melissa broder

year of wonders by geraldine brooks [this book has everything: the plague, self-flaggelation, gore, fucking the local priest!]

call me by your name by andré aciman [lots of discourse around this one but you can't deny that the writing is beautiful]

a book that is not a favourite but certainly changed me as a person lmao

crash by j. g. ballard

fav series of all time!!!!

the skulduggery pleasant series by derek landy. idgaf! that irish man changed my life, go read it that shit is timeless. sorcery? friendship? vampires? violence? incredible stuff. the birth of my whimsy.

#sorry if men are out there writing books cause i've only read like ten of them lol #books #hit my ask box if u wanna hear more about any of these im dead fucking serious #jessie's library #<- for real! #personal #jessie reads #jess replies

[montypng]

new follower here, love your art so much it's filled with so much character! I saw your tag on the lovely ghoul art; so, thought I'd send an ask: I'd love to hear your thoughts on danger days! Any things at all, feel free to ramble if you want! I always love hearing others hcs/opinions/etc on the series!

HELLO this ask has been sitting in my inbox since january sorry..its mostly bc i have sooo many things 2 talk about and i wasnt sure what i wanted 2 say in this answer but whatever im just gonna ramble SO!!! U get a bunch of random hcs and maybe thematic analysis yippee!! and thank u soo much for the kind words :]

imo all the kjs have some form of body focused repetitive behavior because this is my world and i do what i want.. poison and ghoul have dermatillomania (compulsive skin picking), and kobra and jet have trich (hair pulling) maybe. I think constantly being on the run + adrenaline highs and lows would lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms for all of them and desert living leads 2 pretty shit skin (poison+kobra have at least had bad acne for sure) which is conducive to skin picking..i think the venom siblings and ghoul are bat city runaways too so the withdrawal from bli pills (+shakes and sweats) contributed to them developing bfrbs.

ghoul also gets really bad shakes and jitters from withdrawal, so when it gets so bad that they can’t work on their explosives he blasts mad gear as loud as it can from its speakers and lets himself scream all the frustration out.

also ghoul definitely has hearing loss from bomb detonation in too close proximity. tell me it would know abt proper hearing protection safety protocols with a straight face its impossible.

kobra was born w microform cleft lip, which means he has a little deformity/groove in his upper lip kind of similar to a snake’s . also he broke his nose at some point and it healed wrong so crooked nosebridge↴

both jet and kobra are prone to migraines bc of eye strain and sensitivity (jet is nearly fully blind in his right eye and both kobras eyes are extremely sensitive to light, hence the sunglasses).

sometimes when the migraines are too much they both lie down in the trans am seats together at night and close their eyes and breathe in the dark

prior to jets eye injury they were the teams best marksman, and im not sure yet how greatly that changes after they lose depth perception, but one thing i like to believe is that jet is also a great sniper (stereoscopic vision due to retinal disparity is also only effective up til about 30 meters too so he wouldnt need to rely on binocular vision for that), so maybe they focuse on that skill post-injury. how i picture their scar ↴

this is so long already but 1 last thing more in a thematic analysis vein: i need ppls opinions on the girl and her story PLEASE. she has so little agency in the canon narrative but . Where r the girlposters around here i need to hear others thoughts on her guilt complex from the fab 4s sacrifice and her running away from her own role as the protagonist of a story she never wanted 2 be part of and her blowing up the city that killed her family and whether or not that alleviated her neuroses and brought catharsis or not and her characterisation as a literal bomb and destructive force even though shes just a kid and ughhh. Linking this girl post i made a while ago w an anne carson quote that makes me crazy ANYWAYS. Talk 2 me about her. Im begging.

#asks #rainerhammond #danger days #ttlotfk #killjoys #party poison #fun ghoul #jet star #kobra kid #the girl #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #my art #Im gna maintag this bc i need ppls opinions on the girl im living in a drought #ALSO dude ur tags on my posts r always so nice i appreciate them so much #STAY COOL!!!