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thepinklink · 1 month

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@skyward-floored made this post the other day and it gave me ideas. As it is 3,000 words long, I thought it’d be too long for a reblog, so here we are. Thank you for the inspiration, and I hope you like it, Peggy!! ❤️

Read the fic under the cut

“So, what was he like?” Warriors asks conversationally as he sits down before the fire, settling down to eat his dinner of rice.

Marin looks up from her own bowl and hums a questioning acknowledgment. “Mm?”

“You mentioned you knew another Link before.” Warriors shoves a spoonful of rice in his mouth. “What was he like?”

Marin nods, and ponders for a second, a dreamy glaze over her eyes. Warriors recognizes it in the other soldiers he talks to when they mention the loved ones they left behind. Marin opens her mouth as if to speak, the words still evading her for a moment. When they come, they’re wrapped tenderly in admiration and wistfulness.

“He was…like a dream. He was…he was everything I was missing. I told him that I wished I could fly, and he made me feel that I could. I told him I wanted to see the world, and he became it for me, and I saw him every day. His hands were rough and calloused, but he chose not to be calloused in character. He looked at me like I was everything, and he was smart and he was kind and you could see it all in his eyes. And those eyes, they were blue, bluer than the sea where it kisses the sky on the horizon.” She smiled, face turned towards the sky, mind far away from the campfire.

Warriors doesn’t know what to say. He’s heard a lot of people gush about their loved ones, but there is something about the way Marin speaks, careful and sure, that surprises him. He feels he shouldn’t be hearing this—like it was meant for her Link’s ears only, and he was eavesdropping. He’s saved the trouble of an initial response when Marin speaks again.

“I can still hear him so clearly. I can still feel his hair beneath my fingers. I remember him so well…but it all feels like a dream, I feel…that it all *was* a dream, im a way. And, verily, all dreams must come to an end. I wonder if he remembers me, and I wonder if he misses me as badly as I miss him. I’m sure he’s got better things to worry about. But…maybe that’s better. If I hurt this badly, I don’t want him to feel it at all. He told me stories of his past, and he’s lost so much and gained so little…it would be better if he didn’t remember me and was saved the pain of missing me. But then…I wish he did remember me. We loved each other…I hope he remembers me as fondly as I do him.” Marin looks at Warriors, browns eyes brimming with heartache. “Is that selfish?”

Her expression is pleading—silently begging for an answer Warriors is certain he has no business giving. But he can’t leave her hanging. He swallows.

“No. I don’t think it’s selfish. I think…I think he thinks the same thing. I think he lies awake at night, and thinks about you. I think he carries you with him everywhere, in a way, and I think that in a world full of gold and glory and titles, you are his greatest treasure. And I think it will always be that way, for him.”

The lapse in conversation is taken over by the crackle of the fire, and for a few minutes Warriors just watches the sparks curl up towards the night sky. Eventually, with a sniffle, Marin speaks again.

“You Links…you’re all the same, aren’t you?” She says with a watery laugh. “So caring and sensitive. You and him would have gotten along well.”

Warriors chuckles. “I’ll take your word for it.”

* * *

It’s Legend.

Warriors knows as soon as he meets him. They shake hands, and then Warriors finds himself staring into a pair of bright blue eyes.

Blue eyes, as blue as where the sea kisses the sky on the horizon.

They’re sharp, too, Warriors can see Legend taking in a thousand little details even in the brief second they make eye contact, and then introductions continue and Warriors is left reeling under the feeling of having met a ghost.

Later, he talks himself off that ledge. He’s paranoid—as soon as he heard they were all named Link, he’d been on the lookout. He was just paranoid, looking for the first guy who matched Marin’s description, when it was an unrealistic endeavor anyways. Marin hadn’t mentioned any defining physical traits—all the Links had blue eyes, the same blue eyes, in fact, and calloused hands. Everything else had been regarding his character, the way he treated her and made her feel. And Warriors definitely wasn’t getting any first-hand examples of those.

As the weeks go by and Warriors gets to know them all, he ignores the insistent instinct that Marin’s lover is Legend and instead analyses everyone else. And they all fall epically and tragically short. Wind was talkative and never mentioned a Marin, despite telling plenty of stories all staged at sea, and if Warriors was understanding things correctly, Wind was close to a pirate girl named Tetra. Nothing romantic, per se, but everything about Wind simply had the wrong…vibe. That was all Warriors could really argue. Since Marin never mentioned physical traits, it could have been any of them, really, leaving Warriors main method of deduction as whatever his gut was feeling.

Wild ruled himself out with his own Zelda, and most of his story came out fairly early in their journey and no Marin was ever mentioned. Twilight spoke of a girl who had broken his heart, and his melancholy demeanor didn’t match the wistful longing Warriors thought he should have had. Sky was happily courting, Hyrule much too shy, and Four too active and analytical.

Warriors briefly thought it could be Time—he spoke of his wife with utmost adoration. But then they met her, and although Warriors was surprised at her strange likeness to Marin, knew it definitely wasn’t Time.

Which left, as Warriors had originally and always known, Legend. And it only grew more obvious as the time passed.

He guessed exactly who Time married, because he loved someone near the same. He could be snarky and bold when he talked to them, ruthless and calculated in a fight, but Warriors saw the way he interacted with kids and people in the villages they stayed at or passed through. It was as if he’d flipped a switch, and suddenly he was the gentlest and softest person Warriors had ever met. Meeting him in person strengthens the way Marin had described him—hands rough and calloused by his past and traumas, but he chose purposely not to let it sour his character. And he did it all at the ripe age of 18.

All of this, of course, fell into place weeks after their initial meeting, and when it finally did Warriors was left with an entirely new problem: getting Legend to confirm it.

He knew in his heart, sure, that Legend was in fact the Link Marin had loved so deeply. But he could only be 99% sure. That last one percent would come as soon as Legend mentioned her, but Warriors is impatient to wait for it to happen organically. But he also doesn’t want to just walk up to him and mention it—he respects Legend, sure, but that isn’t enough to bridge the gap of familiarity. It isn’t enough to explain the awful feeling Warriors has. It isn’t enough to cover the possibility—probability—that if Warriors is too impatient, it could lead to insensitivity and the last thing Warriors wants to do is dredge up bad memories when Legend is caught in a place where he can’t run.

Ultimately, Warriors can only wait. No matter how anxious he is, he places his money on the goddesses having everything planned out already, and his chance will come when it comes. Which it does, and sooner than the Captain expected.

Months have passed since they first met, and the group has grown much closer. Close enough to rifle through each other’s things, poke and prod at other, compete for largest scar and in general, act very much like brothers. And Warriors has grown to consider them so; in a way he never has with anyone else, Warriors loves them as if they are all of the same flesh and blood. And after that, his mission is no longer delivering one last message. It is giving his brother a vital piece of information. He no longer owes it to him because of Marin or out of perceived obligation. He owes it to him because to keep it to himself would be to lie to his brother.

Well. Maybe not directly, but still. It would feel like lying.

Thus, one warm and humid evening somewhere in Time’s Hyrule, deep in some woods somewhere, when Legend stands up and stretches and declares he’s going on patrol, Warriors jumps straight the chance to accompany him. The silence is peaceable at first, and the two heroes walk through the woods, eyes peeled and ears open for any sign of monsters. The camp noises fade far behind them, replaced by the sounds of a forest preparing for bed. It’s broken when Legend stops abruptly.

“What?” Warriors asks, stopping too and looking around. “Did you see something?”

“What do you want?”

Warriors stops and looks at Legend. “What?”

“What do you want?” Legend repeats, eyes boring into Warriors’ soul. They betray no sign of hostility or wariness, and neither does Legend’s tone. It’s short and to the point. “I can tell you’ve got something on your mind. You have since we first met. I thought you must have recognized me, but I know I’ve never seen you before in my life. So what is it?”

Warriors blinks. Damn, the kid is perceptive. He struggles to find the words, everything sounding too soon, too indifferent, too harsh. Shouldn’t there have been a more gentle lead up to this? Then again, Warriors has no idea how he would have achieved that, either.

“Spit it out,” Legend says impatiently. “I’m not a little kid, I can take it. Are you mad I smeared mud on your face the other day? Because if that’s the case I’m not apologizing, I was perfectly justified—“

“Marin.” Warriors says, and Legend’s jaw snaps shut. His whole body stiffens, something flickers in his eyes—good natured annoyance turns to fear, ever so briefly, before he relaxes again. He’s deadly calm now, attention completely on Warriors. He doesn’t say anything, so Warriors keeps going.

“I met a girl during the war. Her name was Marin. She had red hair and a blue and purple dress and she could sing like no one else. When we met, and I told her my name, she smiled and said that she knew a Link, once. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Legend nods stiffly. Warriors hesitates. Again, words evade him. Legend doesn’t care.

“That’s not everything.” His voice is almost monotone. “Tell me.”

Warriors opens his mouth. No words come out.

“Captain.” It’s harsh this time, almost anxious. “Say it.”

“…She’s gone.”

* * *

“Spit it out. I’m not a little kid, I can take it. Are you mad I smeared mud on your face the other day? Because if that’s the case I’m not apologizing, I was perfectly justified—“

“Marin.”

Legend hates the cold shock that shudders through his whole body when Warriors says it. He forces himself to stay calm, taking a deep breath and exhaling through his nose. His silence prompts Warriors to continue.

Legend nods. He can tell that isn’t what Warriors wanted to tell him. Not all of it, anyway.

“That’s not everything. Tell me.”

Silence.

“Captain.” He feels the faint tendrils of desperation prickling at his heart. “Say it.”

“…She’s gone.”

Legend doesn’t understand at first. Maybe, unconsciously, he doesn’t want to understand.

“What? Of course she is. She…she has been, for awhile now, and she clearly isn’t here—“

“Legend. She’s dead.”

There’s no way he can misunderstand that. He can’t feel the rest of his body. He just keeps standing there, staring hardly at Warriors’ face.

“What.”

“She…she died, Legend. I’m sorry. She fought long and hard, but ultimately the enemy overtook her. She didn’t…she didn’t even have a chance.”

Legend keeps staring at him for a second, and then he shifts his gaze to the ground. He feels sick. He’s shaky and weak, and after a minute, he just sits down.

Warriors knew Marin during his war. Which meant she survived. Somehow, she had survived Koholint, even though it was a dream.

And then she died in that war.

The irony. It’s so ironic, in a sick and twisted way, he can taste it. Uncalled for, a chuckle escapes him, and then a soft laugh, and then he’s just cackling outright, loud, humorless laughter because of course she survived. Of course the Windfish would spare her, of course Legend find that out in an information of her death somewhere else.

Of course Legend would only find out that he didn’t kill her after she had died at someone else’s hand.

He laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs until Warriors is shaking his shoulders and telling him to snap out of it. He does his best, but ultimately all he can do is grasp Warriors’ forearms and look into his eyes, still chuckling breathlessly.

“…Of course.” He says. Warriors looks genuinely afraid of what Legend will say next. “Of course, the goddesses would let me blame myself. Of course they would let me spend all this time hating myself, until they knew there was no way she could distract me.”

Warriors is visibly confused. “What?”

“That’s got to be it…right? There’s nothing…I don’t know why else they would do this. How…could I be so damn unlucky? I’ve lost her twice. How do I keep doing this?” He laughs again, but when it fades out he’s too short of breath and his eyes burn. Scalding tears sear his cheeks, and he doesn’t know if he’ll survive how badly his heart hurts. Not again.

Warriors shifts to tuck him completely against his chest, holding him tightly, as if he could absorb the pain somehow.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into Legend hair. “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

Legend cries for a long time, and violently enough that Warriors wonders if he’s getting enough air. They’re incredibly vulnerable here, and when Warriors hears something approaching through the woods, he jumps up and very nearly stabs Wolfie as he jumps through the bushes. Wild is close behind him, and once Warriors knows it’s just them he returns to Legend.

“Whoa!” Wild yelps softly as he sees Warriors gathers the limp and unyielding Veteran into a bridal carry. “Is he—“

“He’s not injured.” Warriors assures him, shifting his hold on Legend so it’s more comfortable for them both. “He just heard some pretty shocking news and it hit hard.”

Wild nods, understanding immediately and offering no further inquiries.

“You guys have been gone so long we started to worry. Supper’s way past over and we were about to get ready for bed when we realized you hadn’t returned, so we split up and went searching,” Wild explains his sudden appearance.

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to cause any trouble.” Warriors apologizes sincerely.

“It’s alright. Just as long as no one’s hurt.”

The walk back is silent, and Warriors has never been so glad to see bed rolls surrounding a campfire. Legend isn’t asleep, but he’s sluggish and almost unresponsive. Wild digs his bed roll from his bag while Warriors coaxes him to at least take off his boots, and then as soon as he’s tucked into his bed roll, he’s asleep. Warriors, searching to offer a little bit more comfort, undoes his scarf and lays it over the Veteran like a blanket. He doesn’t know that it will actually do much in the way of support, but it makes him feel better so he leaves it.

Warriors himself stays awake until every searching member of the chain has returned, just to explain what took them so long. Any anger at the inconvenient scare dissipates upon hearing how it came to be, and seeing the Veteran curled up in his bed roll. Arguably, they can’t really tell by his face that he’s been distressed—but the fact that he was already asleep when they all got back, and that he remained asleep throughout the remainder of bedtime prep, spoke for itself. Even though Warriors didn’t say exactly what Legend was told, the weight of the situation falls on them all, and except to establish watches, no more words are spoken for the rest of the night.

* * *

Not a word passes Legend’s lips for a week. His mood seems to shift through the days; at first he is almost angry, going everywhere and about everything with a hard purpose, refusing to let his emotions get the better of him. And then one day, he loses that battle as soon as he wakes up, and is the last one for the rest of the week. The last one to get out of bed, the last one to pack up, the last one to start and the last one to stop.

The others do their best to accommodate him, no matter how much time they lose. They can tell he’s trying, even when he’s too tired to. They’ve all been there, in some way, at some point in time. They all give him space, they do their best to silently convey that they’re there for him when he wants to reach out.

Everyone, that is, save Wind. And it is Wind, surprisingly, who breaks him out of it all.

He’s annoying, at first, sticking to Legend’s side like glue and chattering away at every hour of the say. Legend comes very close to strangling him more than once, but that all fades with the anger. The week continues, and Wind’s constant talking fills the silence, the lighthouse on the hill during a storm. He doesn’t realize it until later, but Wind was always helping hold him together. His every story, his every mundane topic was all meant to keep Legend from getting trapped in his own head. From forgetting the feeling of grass beneath his boots and the sound of his brothers as they all walked on.

An evening almost seven days exactly from that first, Legend is sitting in front of the fire, leaned against a log. Wind sits on the log next to him. For the first time in a week, the Sailor is quiet, and not because his mouth is full of food. Then,

“What was she like?”

The question is a violent shift from anything else Wind had said before. His cheery, story-telling tone is gone, replaced instead with tentativeness. It’s soft and curious, worried he’s overstepped. Legend glances around the fire, and the rest of the Chain has all stopped. There’s some tension as they wait for Legend’s response, unsure if he’ll answer or if it will have a negative effect. Legend’s eyes settled back on the fire and he sighs.

“She was my everything.” He looks at Wind, who is watching him with rapt attention. “You would have liked her.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. Words can’t really describe her, anyways.

“Could she sing?” Wind asks. Legend nods.

“Yes, she could sing.”

“What did she look like?”

“…She had red hair, and big brown eyes, and she could get anything out of me with those eyes.”

Wind laughs. “She sounds like Malon.”

Legend smiles. “She was a lot like Malon. Of Malon were a goddess, they’d be almost the same.” He looks at Time. “No offense, Old Man.”

“None taken,” Time says softly, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

A comfortable silence settles over the camp for a few moments.

“She once asked me if it was selfish of her to hope you remembered her.” Warriors says suddenly. “I said it wasn’t.”

Legend nods again. “You were right.” He looks up at the unfamiliar stars, and wonders if she now knows he never forgot.

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu legend #lu warriors #plink writes #lu fanfiction #peggy my dear #lu wind #lu wild #lu time #lu marin

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mistydeyes · 8 months

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hi again! I was wondering if you could possibly do a Task force 141 with a reader that has been through a final girl/boy situation before they joined the military? I was thinking something like a Sidney from scream situation almost.

(I do apologize if your requests are closed, have a good night/day!)

thank you for submitting! i love horror movies (even when they have the final girl trope) so I took inspo from the campy stories! hope you enjoy :)

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summary: When Laswell recommended you to Price to join the 141, you readily took the invitation and left the US Army. However, when you return back to the states someone recognizes you as the surviving victim of a series of murders and you have to answer for your past.

pairing: Task Force 141 x gn!Reader (codename: Onyx)

warnings: swearing, violence/blood/gore, non-major character death

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Before the summer of '08, you used to love horror movies. With your friends, you would have marathons of Halloween, Scream, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and other campy classics. You would drink and laugh at the screen as the characters slowly got picked off one by one, leaving one character standing. "God it's always the final girl," you remarked as you watched the generally brunette, book-smart teen walk away before the credits rolled. It used to be just another movie trope. But there are some things the gym and therapy can't fix. After that year, you always walked on the lit side of the street and triple-locked your doors every night.

"Onyx, we're here," Ghost boomed and you woke from your slumber. Your eyes adjusted to the morning sun of Colorado. "Air Force sent us a welcome party to escort us to base," Price commented, getting off the plane. Never would you have thought a mission would bring you back to the States. Despite being teased relentlessly for your lack of accent and inability to relate to growing up in the UK, you relished the thought of being thousands of miles away. "Onyx, you alright?" Soap asked as you piled into a large vehicle. "Yeah, just jet-lagged," you lied through your teeth. "Welcome back to the US," one of the Air Force privates commented and you couldn't help but frown. "Let's just finish this up for Laswell and head back to rainy London."

After a tour and briefing, you decided to head into town to get some dinner. Soap had made a big deal of wanting to try American food and you landed on a popular diner. The meal was alright as you scarfed down a burger and milkshake. You tried to join in the conversation as Gaz wondered if he should try the fried Oreos or get a classic American apple pie. Price and Ghost rolled their eyes, finishing their meal, while Soap tried to help his decision. You pinched your thigh as your scarred hands fell onto your lap. Just another mission, you told yourself, just another mission in another country. When your meal was paid, you walked back to the car casually. You were arguing over who was going to drive when a man did a double take upon locking eyes with you.

"I-I know you," the man yelled as everyone turned in his direction. At first, you hoped he was a mistaken pot head but your stomach dropped when he met your darting gaze. He paced up to you as you looked in fear. "You're that teen, the only one left alive," he continued, now getting closer to your face. "I don't know who you're talking about," you said roughly and attempted to walk away but he grabbed your wrist. "It is you, you were all over the news," his voice was now increasing in volume and people began to look over. "Get off of me!" you commanded but he continued to bombard you with questions. Eventually, as he held his grip, he was roughly pushed back by Gaz. "The fuck man!" he yelled, attempting to throw a punch but was quickly pushed back by Ghost. "Let's go," Ghost demanded and you rushed away from the man as he continued to shout at you.

"What the fuck was that Onyx?" was the first question uttered by Price as you arrived back on the Air Force Base. "Guess the secret's out," you mumbled in response as you sat down at a table. "What didn't Laswell tell us?" he edged and you avoided his piercing gaze. "Alright, boys sit down," you commanded, "better to tell you sooner than later." They had a mix of emotions ranging from confused to frustrated but they took a seat around the table. You took a deep breath as you unearthed your past. "It was in '08 when I was 16," you began, "high on life, good grades, thinking about going to college for international politics." "Get to the point," Price ordered but you let out a sickly laugh. "Captain, I'm about to tell you how I survived my entire friend group being murdered, I'll get to the point when I do," you said sardonically. That shut everyone up.

"Anyways, as you know I was from a small town on the East Coast," they nodded in response, "There were 9 of us, all friends from elementary school. We would do everything together until-." You paused for a moment, trying to suppress the urge to run away. "It all started with Logan." You tried to put the details into the best of terms but decided to pull the bandage off early. "They found his body with 9 stab wounds and 'Limbo' printed on a paper in his neck wound," Price's eyes widened as you looked at the shocked faces surrounding you. "Next was Ashley and the same thing, 9 stabs and a paper with 'Lust'," you continued, the realization began to set in as Ghost awkwardly shifted in his seat. You looked down at your shaking hands before you kept going. "After Ashley, the town was put on a curfew and they labeled the killer as "Dante" since the crimes were following his poem," As you kept reciting the story, you began to unravel further. "I remember texting the rest of my friends being scared shitless, my parents lived in constant fear and kept our doors barred."

Before you could continue, Gaz interrupted. "You don't have to keep going if it's too much," he began to say. "Ye we get the picture," Soap added but you shook your head. "After that, there were four more murders over the next two months," you spoke, "Nick, Amanda, Elizabeth, and Tyler all with the same wounds, paper, and the promise of more to come." "Did the police or FBI do anything?" Ghost asked, now folding his arms on the table. You laughed cynically as you remembered the shit show. "God they tried, they canceled school and kept patrolling but everyone was found either in their homes or after the constant fucking funerals." Tears were beginning to prick your eyes as you got to the last two victims. "They eventually connected us together after Liz and I spent weeks trying to think of anyone who would do this," you were now crying and your voice shook as you choked out the words. "Anyways, it died down for three weeks and we thought it was over with," you trailed off, "but then they found Miranda in her bedroom."

Price put his hat on the table and pulled out a tissue for you. You rejected the offer and wiped furiously at your face. "She was my best friend, had some trouble with depression and attempted suicide in freshman year but she was a good person," you said, almost in a whisper. You remembered the earth-shattering news delivered by the authorities at your door and how you screamed into the midnight air. They refused to give a public burial as it was just another hotbed of victims. You never even got to see her before she was cremated. "I think this is enough," Gaz said, now looking at Price with an angry tone of voice. As both the men exchanged bitter looks, you slammed your hands down on the hard surface. "No, I said I would tell you the whole story and I am going to fucking do it."

"The 8th was supposed to be me," you mumbled as the room looked horrified. Your legs shook and you tried to steady your uneven breathing. "Tyler was a twin and Elle was his sister he left behind" Your voice grew more hoarse as you fought through the pain. "When Tyler died, Elle's parents were devastated and she stayed with my family for the rest of the Spring. She shared a room with me and I slept on a shitty air mattress." You remembered crawling into bed with her some nights, after long hours with the police, trying to reassure her they would find the killer and the nightmare would be over. "I think it was a Tuesday but I woke with Elle sitting on my stomach, She had this crazy look in her eyes," you looked down at your white knuckles that gripped the oak table, feeling the unwavering gaze of your team. "She-she told me how I was a fraud all these years for kissing her after some stupid party and never telling anyone about how we were soulmates. I thought this was some stupid lovers quarrel but she shut me up with a stab to the shoulder." You pulled back your shirt to reveal a silvery wound the size of a hunting knife on your left shoulder. You could hear the silence in the room as they looked at it.

"After that, I tried to scream but she told me she took care of my parents with some concoction of sleep meds and cough syrup," you closed your eyes tightly as you remembered trying to wrestle her off of you and her hands plunging the knife into your arms and upper chest. "How did you survive?" Soap asked, his voice sensitive and low. "I remember feeling immense pain when she stabbed me in the collarbone but she got the knife stuck," your body was on fire, almost as if the wounds were fresh, "so I took the opportunity to throw her off and pull out the knife." Even Ghost looked horrified as he knew what was going to happen next. "I stabbed her in the carotid and she bled out on the floor," you whispered. Your mouth felt metallic and you struggled to make eye contact with anyone as the room became blurry with a flood of tears. "After that, I try not to remember much but apparently she planned to kill all of us and then herself. Her notes lined up with things we did in the past and she was able to pick us off because we all trusted her," you unclenched your fists and lay your palms on the table as they shook violently.

"Fuckin hell," Ghost mumbled and you swallowed harshly. "I moved here away from the town after the media circus, joined the Army after all of it, and when the wounds healed," you concluded, pushing back on the table and getting up. "I'm sorry, Onyx," Price was the first to say and you nodded. "I'm alright now but it's hard when the past follows you," you whispered as you looked down at him. "We're here if you need," Gaz comforted and you felt your face fall into a frown. "Just don't tell anyone else, I don't need a fucking recruit telling me I'm like Sidney Prescott." Before you could leave the room, Price stood up and placed a comforting hand on your shoulder. His fingers felt warm on your cold skin as you looked up at him. "No one fights alone," he said, almost as if it was some corny movie line. You let out your first relieved laugh of the night as his hand dropped. "Appreciate it, Captain," you whispered, "I hope to see her in hell."

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violentdelightsandviolentends · 1 year

Text

Self Control.

Javi keeps refusing himself what he wants. One night puts everything into perspective.

Pairing - Javier Peña x female reader

Age Rating - 18+

Warnings - Cursing, mentions of blood and death

Word Count - 3429

Author's Note - hello lovely people, hope you're all well. i've been a huge fan of pedro pascal since his narcos days, so all of this love for him happening currently is making me very happy. javier peña is perhaps my favourite tv character of all time, so i'm very excited to share this story with you. i'd always love to write more javi stuff, so if you ever have any thoughts, please send them my way. i'm happy to write for all pedro characters actually!! as always, much love x

Masterlist. Requests.

It wasn't supposed to go like this.

It was supposed to be simple. A routine raid. Get the information and go.

How did it all go so wrong?

Gunshots. Blood. A sea of green uniforms scattering the ground. Escobar had somehow known about it. He was taking no prisoners.

The Search Bloc had lost men. The Colombian Police had lost men. You were just praying that you hadn't.

Javier Peña and Steve Murphy were still out there. You had no idea if they were okay. They could be shot, bleeding out. Kidnapped. Or worse.

No.

You're driving yourself insane thinking of all the possible worse case scenarios. Your mind can't help but go there. It's instinct.

You're sat waiting. Hoping. Praying. You've made your home at Javi and Steve's desks - they're more central to the action than your own. You're watching the front doors, sat in Javi's chair. It smells like cigarette smoke, and musk, and him. You let the familiar scent envelope you, allowing it to bring you comfort. You breathe him in. He'll be here soon. You know he will.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

Javier Peña was a complicated man. An enigma. He was tough, but gentle. Rugged, but tender. Commanding, but reserved. He was one big juxtaposition. Impossible to read.

Or so he thought.

You came along, and challenged every single one of his existing beliefs. You turned him soft - more understanding, more empathetic. He'll tell you he hates it. He lies.

You weren't supposed to be here. Not really. You'd followed your brother, a DEA agent, all the way from Texas to Colombia. He'd told you he was being sent to South America to assist with the Pablo Escobar situation, and you'd packed your bags without a second thought. You had no one else. Wherever he goes, you go. Except one place.

He'd died two months into the job. Shot dead by Escobar's men, in a situation that he shouldn't have even been in. And all of a sudden, you were alone. Alone in an unfamiliar place. Alone in the world.

Javier made sure that wasn't true. He took you under his wing like an injured baby bird, slowly but surely nursing you back to health. He'd been there, when Carrillo had told you the fate of your brother. He'd caught you in his arms when your knees had given out, held you like he was scared you were going to shatter into a thousand pieces. He was holding you together. He has been, ever since.

You were just a secretary. The odd one out. The only woman. Looked down on. People pitied you, really. You heard the things they said. Even if you didn't understand, you heard. You could take a guess.

The world was a terrifying place for a woman. It was a terrifying place in general. But it seemed to be less scary knowing that Javier and Steve were at their desks just across the precinct every day. Your safety blankets. Your protectors. Which is exactly why the thought of losing either of them was currently ripping you apart from the inside out.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

Your eyes shot up every time the door opened. Slowly but surely, members of the Search Bloc filtered in - many of them bloody, and injured, but alive. You weren't taking your eyes off the entrance to the precinct. Not for a second. Not when any minute, Peña and Murphy could walk in, and everything would be okay again. Any minute now, you reassure yourself. Any minute now.

You hear steel toe boots on the linoleum floor, and your breath hitches… but it’s Colonel Carrillo. He spots you from across the room and strides over, ignoring any pleas for his attention from the Search Bloc guys. He envelopes you in a hug - professionalism be damned.

“Are you okay?”, you ask when he pulls back. “What happened? I’ve been going insane listening over the radio.”

“I’m okay, mi amor. We’re still trying to figure out what went wrong. He knew, someone had to have told him.”

You’re just about to ask him about Murphy and Peña when he says,

“We got separated in the chaos. I don’t know where they are, but I’m sure they’re fine. Try not to panic, okay?”

He’s looking at you carefully, and you’re nodding, but you know you aren’t going to take his advice. If anything, now you’re panicking more. Men are filtering through the door every minute, but none of them are the two you’re looking for. Anxiety creeps into your stomach, wraps its claws around your insides. You can’t shake it. You feel like you’re being swallowed by dread - it’s all too familiar. You know exactly what it’s like to have someone you love go into the field and not return.

Carrillo strokes your cheekbone with his thumb gently, and leaves to attend to his men. You sit back down in Javi’s chair, trying to burrow into his scent, the warmth of the leather. You can imagine his big strong arms wrapping themselves around you, the way he nuzzles his nose into the crown of your head when he hugs you, how he traces patterns on your back when he holds you when you’re particularly upset.

You think about Steve, and the way he winks at you when you catch eye contact across the room, or how he throws an arm around your shoulders whenever he sidles over to your desk to bother you. He’s always stealing candy from your top drawer, and then acting innocent when you call him out on it. You feign annoyance, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. You know you’re lucky to have the two of them looking out for you. You know you’re lucky to have Carrillo on your side too - life would be undoubtedly more difficult without his protection. They make you feel less vulnerable, more equal. You no longer feel like a lamb at the slaughter every time you walk into work.

Drops of water hit your lap, and you realize you’re crying. Warm, wet tears slide down your cheeks, taking streaks of your mascara with them. Your lipstick has smudged where you’ve been peeling at the skin of your lips, and your nail polish has been incessantly picked at for hours. You know you look just as much of a mess on the outside as you feel on the inside. You close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Calm down, you tell yourself. You’d know if something bad had happened to them. You’d feel it.

It’s as if time has become molten - sticky, warm molasses. Minutes feel like hours. The world is moving in slow motion, and it’s making you dizzy. Your breath is coming in short, sharp pants, and the urge to curl up into a ball grows stronger by the second. If the boys don’t show up soon, you’re convinced you’re going to crumble into a thousand pieces. You feel like you’re shattering, splitting apart at the seams. Fear sits on your chest like an ugly, relentless creature, choking you with each passing minute. The world is getting colder, darker, and you’re defenseless.

And just like that, your sun appears. Battered, bruised, bloody, but alive. Standing in the doorway, panting and breathless, is Javier Peña. Before you can register what’s happening, you’re leaping out of his chair, and practically running to close the distance between you. You collide with the solid mass of a man, and he wraps his arms around you like it’s second nature. He smells like cigarettes and musk and gunpowder and the outdoors and smoke and home. Relief fills your body, and the weight of it almost knocks you off your feet. You settle further into his chest like you belong there, pressing your nose into him and inhaling.

You pull away, and notice that his chest is damp. The tears from before are back with a vengeance, sprinting their way down your cheeks, forming puddles wherever they can reach. You’re not sure if you’re crying due to happiness, or fear, or relief - perhaps a mixture of all three. You’re both still panting, looking at each other in disbelief. You fist your hands into the front of his shirt, as if to ground yourself to him. Checking he’s real. In the flesh.

“Don’t cry, cariño. I’m here. I’m okay. We’re okay.”

He’s murmuring quietly to you, as if you’re the only two people in the room. He reaches out, and gently uses his thumbs to swipe away the tears that are still escaping. Cradling your face in his big, calloused hands, he looks at you earnestly.

“I’ll always come back, bonita. You know I will. Just like I promised.”

He presses his forehead to yours, and for the first time in hours, you relax. You stay pressed together like that for what feels like an eternity, until you hear familiar footsteps approaching.

You break away from Javier to get a good look at Steve. He too is battered and bruised - hair mussed, shirt torn, blood staining his jeans and his hands. But he’s alive. That’s all that matters.

“Murphy,” you breathe, before wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You’d go out there and take down Escobar yourself if you could. If it meant you didn’t have to see your friends in pain anymore. This job is killing you all from the inside out, slowly but surely. You’re all shells of yourselves. You wonder how much longer you’re all going to be able to cope before you snap. You have a feeling that these two men in front of you are closer to their breaking points than you think.

“God, I need to shower. I’ve never sweat this much in my life,” Steve remarks, and now that you’re looking at him, you can’t help but agree. You nod, smirk etched on your face, and the corners of his lips turn up. A slight smile from Steve. That’s a win.

A voice rumbles from behind you in response to Murphy’s statement. Jesus, Javi was closer to you than you thought.

“Yeah, me too. You go. I’ll drive her home.” He places a hand on the small of your back, and you can feel the warmth of him seeping through his palm. He always runs so hot, you think to yourself. Your sun.

Murphy squeezes your arm and heads out the door, leaving you and Javier standing in the middle of the precinct. Everyone seems to be heading home, the room becoming increasingly quiet. You figure the two of you should follow suit. You gesture at Javi to give you a minute, and make your way over to the Colonel’s office, popping your head in the doorway.

“You should go home, Carrillo,” you say softly. “You need to sleep just as much as the rest of us.”

He smiles at you tentatively, his face dampened with worry. You can see clear as day that he’s blaming himself for the events of the evening. You also know that there’s nothing you can say to make it better.

“I will, querida. I will.”

And with that, you grab your things from your desk, and make your way over to where Javi is waiting for you. He returns his hand to the small of your back, and guides you to his car.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

Your hands are shaking when you try to unlock the front door to your apartment. You can’t quite get the key in the lock, and it’s becoming frustrating. Why are you acting like you were the one being shot at tonight? All you had to do was sit at your desk and wait. Get a grip, you tell yourself. You’ve had it the easiest.

Javi can see you’re struggling, so he reaches out and opens the door for you. You step inside, immediately kicking off your heels and throwing down your purse. You turn on the lamp in the corner of the living room, and draw the blinds. All the while, Javi stands in the doorway, watching you complete your nightly rituals. It’s disarming to see you like this, he thinks. So domestic. So at peace.

He clears his throat awkwardly, and places his hand on the doorknob.

“Let me leave you alone, cariño. You need to rest. The adrenaline of tonight is going to wear off any minute, and we’re all gonna crash.”

He takes a step, but you lunge forward in his direction to stop him.

“Wait! Wait. I - I don’t… I can’t - please.” You can’t find the right words. In fact, you’re not even sure what you’re asking for.

He steps back inside your apartment, and shuts the door behind him gently, making sure to lock the deadbolt. He’s never been a man to take stupid chances when it comes to your safety. When it comes to you.

“What is it, mi amor?”, he asks carefully. “What do you need?”

“You,” you answer without a second thought. “Please don’t leave. I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight if you leave.”

He looks at you for a moment - carefully surveying. He takes in your appearance, the pain in your eyes, the way you look so small and fearful standing in front of him. It’s not even a question.

He kicks off his boots, and takes his wallet and his cigarettes out from the back pocket of his jeans, placing them on the counter. Then, he strides over, across the room, and smothers you in a hug that he’s convinced he probably needs more than you.

You stand like that, embraced in each other, for what feels like forever. Two people breathing each other in, trying to absorb the other person. If you could crawl into Javier’s chest, bury yourself into his ribcage, you would. No hug is ever close enough. Never enough. It’s never enough.

“I’ll stay,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’ll always stay.”

You pull back to gaze into those big brown eyes, warm and sweet like chocolate. He looks serene, peaceful, almost. You don’t get to see him like this very often.

“You should shower,” you tell him quietly. You’re worried that you’re going to spook one another, so you both keep the volume to a minimum. “I’ll make us some tea.”

He nods gently, and makes his way to your bathroom. Moments later, you hear the water running, so you begin to boil the kettle, reaching for two mugs from your cabinet.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

You place a mug of tea on each nightstand either side of your bed, and slip out of your skirt and blouse. You opt for a tank top and shorts - the Colombian heat still unrelenting, even in the early hours of the morning. The sun will be up soon, you think. A new day.

Javi stands in the doorway of your bathroom with a towel slung low on his hips. Droplets of water are journeying down his chest, and your eyes follow, as if on instinct. He smirks when he catches you, watching your face heat up slightly.

“Cute bedsheets,” he remarks. “I like the love hearts.”

He’s still smirking, so you get up to smack him on the arm.

“Shut up, Javier,” you threaten, with no real malice. “Your tea is on the nightstand.”

You turn your back when he changes back into his black boxers, which only amuses him further. He can’t help but admire you from his place across the room. The way your hair blows slightly with the breeze from the opened window, the band of skin between where your tank top ends and your shorts begin, the sweat at the nape of your neck. He knows you’d taste like salt and sugar simultaneously. It takes everything in him not to run his tongue up your spine. You shiver from your spot on the edge of the bed, as if you can read his mind.

“I’m dressed, querida,” he almost whispers. You turn around, and shamelessly let your eyes rake over his golden skin, wishing so badly to reach out and touch him. He’s wearing significantly less clothes than you expected. Not that you’re complaining.

He lays down carefully on one side of your bed, stretching himself out on his back. You turn off the lamp on the nightstand, and lay down on the other side, careful to keep some distance between the two of you. You thought that having him here would relax you, but it seems to be doing the opposite. You feel like your nerve endings are on fire - the room is too warm, you can’t seem to get your lungs to fill with air, you’re hyper aware of every little movement in the room. You’re on edge.

Javi’s breathing is deep, calculated. He’s trying to keep calm. Everything in him is screaming to reach out and touch you, to throw an arm around your waist, to tangle his legs in between yours. He’s not sure he’s ever shown this level of self control.

“Javi,” you breathe. “Relax, please. I can feel how tense you are from here.”

He takes a deep breath before he answers you.

“Sorry, mi vida. I’m just - I’m… I’m trying.”

“Trying?”

“Trying to use every inch of restraint that I have.”

Your breath hitches, and he hears it, clear as day.

“What for?” you whisper.

“To resist the urge to touch you.”

You’re breathing quicker now, and so is he. The air in the room is thick with tension - it’s a miracle you’re both still conscious.

“You’ve never really been one to deny yourself of the things you want, Javi," you whisper. "You’re not usually the patron saint of self control.”

And with that, he snaps. He grabs your hips, and uses effortless strength to pull you so you’re straddling him, settled in his lap. He sits up to bring your faces level, and presses his forehead into yours, just like he did mere hours ago in the precinct.

You know that tonight has changed everything for the two of you. You also know there’s no going back from this - you can’t uncross this line. The friendship that exists between you and Javi, a relationship that’s been so carefully built on trust and support and boundaries - permanently altered if you continue. You just can’t seem to find it in you to care. Not really. You want Javier Peña for all he is, all he has. Consequences be damned.

“I love you, cariño,” he breathes into your mouth. “Fuck, I love you.”

You’re convinced that any minute, you’re going to wake up from this beautiful dream. But for now, you make the most of it.

“I love you, Javier Peña. I love you so much it hurts.”

And with that, he’s kissing you. It’s desperate, and it’s needy, and it’s so full of love you’re worried that you’re going to pass out. His lips are on your lips, and he’s got one hand firmly at the nape of your neck, holding you in place. As if I’m going anywhere, you think. I’d happily stay here forever.

You’re so lost in each other that you don’t notice the sunrise. Dawn hits the window, casting an orange hue across the room. Javi looks like he’s glowing, the sunlight glinting off his hair. Golden boy.

He pulls off your shirt, and presses his chest to yours. He’s convinced you’re tethered to each other - he can feel the connection through your skin. It almost makes him want to cry, this feeling. It’s never felt like this before. It never will again.

You wrap your arms around his neck, and your legs around his waist, ensuring that there isn’t a centimeter of space between you. You don’t know what today holds. You know it won’t be easy. But you’re comforted by the fact that you know Javi will be right there beside you. No matter what happens from this moment on, Javi is always going to be right there beside you.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” you breathe into his mouth.

“I love you, mi alma,” he breathes back. “Mi corazón, mi alma.”

My heart, my soul. It’s as if he took the words right out of your mouth.

Mi corazón, mi alma.

My heart, my soul.

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sprout-fics · 6 months

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Hitman 141 would be TERRIFYING, an entity that ppl only whisper about-ESPECIALLY at the mention of Price, or someone being told to stfu if they do dare to utter his name, ppl keeping their heads down everytime 141 enters a room like they're THAT GOOD

Hitman 141 Headcanons

(Call of Duty Masterlist)

Rating: M Wordcount: 800 Tags: Hitman AU / Mercenary AU, Dark 141 Warnings: Brief descriptions of violence and torture A/N: Thank you for the brainworm anon

They don’t go by any name. There’s no title for their unit.

The living know better than to speak of them

They’re known in the underground only as ‘The Four’

Black paint smears across their gazes, like the hand of the grim reaper has dipped its skeletal fingers in charcoal and tried to blind them

Their eyes gaze forward even so, looking for their next target, their next kill

It’s rare to see any of them, and even rarer to see them all together. When they enter into the secretive enclaves and dens of the world’s finest assassins, a hush falls over the crowd, and you see them grin- knowing that their mere presence invokes fear

They know how to kill men a thousand different ways, they say

There’s no target that’s too large for them

They can disable a government overnight, can sweep in under the cover of darkness and eliminate an entire cabinet in one fell swoop

And yet the depths of their deeds remain entirely unknown, with a finger pressed to lips of their victims before they grow cold

Nobody knows their real names. Those that have tried have failed- and the dead hold their secrets

They do go by names that only the damned dare to whisper

Gaz, their intelligence specialist who leaves no loose ends, who draws secrets from the graves of those who gasp words with their dying breaths

He knows, they whisper, knowing that he has ears everywhere. That even the shadows come to murmur in his ear. His sniper scope finds his targets, and he reads their lips before he fires a killing shot

When he talks to others, his smile is easy, that of a friend. Yet there’s a flicker in his eyes that speaks of a second sight, an ability to bleed words from your mouth before you can stop yourself

“Thanks, mate.” He tells you with a clap to your shoulder, and you watch in dread as he depart, and wonder what have I done?

Soap, their supplier, their demolitions expert, the man who leaves behind only a trail of ash that can’t be traced

He’s the friendliest of them, with his easy going smile and blue eyes. Yet there lurks a darkness in his gaze, a challenge, and you know if you get too close you’ll be incinerated by the flames

He’s rumored to have killed the president of a foreign country- the man dying in a tragic house fire with no discernible cause. They say it was a catastrophe that couldn’t have been stopped

Of course not, not when he created it. He smiled as he watched it burn

Ghost, the assassin, the reaper they say

He fought death, and won, but in his victory his soul is forever held by the grave.

There’s a hundred different stories about his survival. He was lost in the wilderness and killed a bear to steal its pelt. His feet were poured into concrete and he broke his hands cracking himself free. He dug himself from the grave and took the scythe from the reaper to kill his enemies himself

His figure will be the last thing you ever see. There’s not even time to scream

Red drenches his bone white mask, and behind them stare the eyes of a dead man

Then there’s their leader- Price.

Price, they say, for a price must be given for the lives of those who’ve been killed. It’s a steep cost to deal with him and his men, and even steeper to refuse them

Smoke follows him in a mist, chokes the airways of his victims. There’s a brutality to him that’s untold, hardly restrained, witnessed by few who survive only to see him in their nightmares

The others yield to him, defer to his guidance. There’s rumors he’s immortal, has lived many lives but is cursed to roam the earth like Cain, having slain his own blood and now lives in eternal damnation

He tips his hat to the man he leaves hanging upside down from the rafters, leaving him to a slow and painful death even as he begs for mercy

What they don’t know is that his chosen targets are those that lurk in the dark, festering underbelly of the world- whose crimes damn them before they’re even revealed. The violent, the corrupt, the selfish, the takers of the innocent. None live beyond the sight of one of the four- a vision just before the end

They say they were soldiers once, defenders, warriors

Yet the world betrayed them, set their lives ablaze. In the ashes they were reborn, bent on the destruction of those who wronged them

By bathing in the blood of their enemies, they signed their souls for the devil to keep, bestowing upon them an inhumane darkness they wield at their fingertips

And some day, the devil will come to keep them

#tf141 #cod mw2 #soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #kyle gaz garrick #captain john price #my writing #headcanons

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sleepimali · 1 year

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Candlelight spirits 🕯🔥

If you wanna get these as a print and sticker set, you can do so until the end of May over on my Patreon by pledging to the Professional Napper tier or above <3

Or if you just wanna read about these little friends, that's more than okay too 🥰

Candlelight Spirits Lore:

First off, don't worry, that mouse can pop in and out of the lantern at will, it's not trapped :)

If there’s one thing candlelight spirits know, it’s that the best stories are the ones told in the light of flickering candles and around campfires. And so fire became the very essence of their being! They burn bright, curious and passionate, with an appetite for good tales.

Back when humans and magic folks were at war, they used to hide to listen to the stories of both sides, which was not always the easiest. As a fire elemental they could hide within the flames themselves, but in the face of interesting stories, it was terribly hard for them to not burst out of their hiding spot and ask a thousand questions.

But alas, that was what they had to do. Humans were wary of magic folks and creatures of any kind, and the magic folks did not like that the candlelight spirits would not disclose information about the humans.

But how could they pick sides when they have hearts that melt as easily as wax, and when they knew that if either side won, millions and millions of stories would be lost forever?

So for them, it was heaven when the Long War finally came to an end. There was an abundance of tales like never before, and they did not need to hide any longer.

However, as society started to advance, the introduction of electricity and magic lights ended up thinning out the opportunities they had in the end. And even more sadly for them, storytelling was no longer the primary method of entertainment, at least not in the same way.

From a time where fire was the source of all light in the night, to one where it’s rarely used at all… The poor spirits are nowhere near as common now, given that their presence is tied to the flames, which act as portals for them to come into the same plane as us.

But they persist! Because as long as there are people, there will be good stories to tell.

And if you want to find them, your best bet is arranging a cosy candlelit dinner or campfire night with loved ones, or you can go to a temple or church, or sometimes even a restaurant – any place where there’s always some kind of fire burning.

However, tragically enough, candlelight spirits are banned from the places they adore the most; libraries. This is for understandable reasons, as they cannot control their flames, unlike other flame elementals such as stove bunnies. After all, they came into existence at a point in history when books had not even been invented yet, and fire was what brought people together. And yes, sadly this ban applies even to candlelight spirits in the protective casing of a lantern.

An endearing fact about the candlelight spirits is that they’re shapeshifters from birth, their forms flickering between different shapes much like the flames themselves, but at some point their bodies become stable and stop shifting. In the end they take on the form of whichever character first truly resonated with them. So for that reason it is very common to see candlelight spirits resemble storybook characters, or a storyteller’s loved one.

Sometimes this can be a little bit strange for those who tell their stories to suddenly come face to face with a tiny version of a member of their family or beloved, but it’s usually strangely soothing.

Some who have had these little spirits take on the appearance of their loved ones who’s passed say that instead of being upset, it makes them cherish the memory of that person even more. After all, they took on that form out of sheer love for the person they were in the storyteller’s heart, rather than being disrespectful to their memory.

The candlelight spirits are also excellent storytellers themselves! Who wouldn’t be after listening to so many tales for decades and even centuries?

And they share those stories with joy, which is why a lot of the time historians in particular love them, even though stories are just stories and may not be entirely truthful. But regardless, they’re a goldmine of information from the past.

However, as much as historians love listening to the tales of the candlelight spirits, the love isn’t always mutual. They’re more than happy to tell their stories, but they’re not as excited to hear what the historians have for them. Why? Because they’ve already heard those stories long ago, over and over again, and more accurately too. So they would rather be somewhere else.

Or at least that’s how it used to be. Because in a plot twist this caused a lot of historians (and academics in general) to turn into absolute party animals and adventurers and extroverts in general to appease the spirits’ appetite for good stories so they’d hang around more. It’s to the point that the history department in any given university now has a reputation to be the wildest one there is.

(Please note, this is not to imply historians are boring, I know few people who are more interesting than folks with a passion for history😂)

#artists on tumblr #long post #watercolor #sleepimali #devil in the details lore #watercolor art #watercolor illustration #fantasy creature #ditd lore #animal art #fire elemental #traditional art

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scarletwritesshit · 4 months

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♠️ Aventurine x Reader ♠️ Under the Gun

For a man who was betting a ton of credits, he looked unusually confident.

He could just be bluffing. You hoped that he was bluffing. But, from the nightmares described by various IPC members, as well as a bit of personal experience, you had to agree that perhaps, Aventurine was indeed a menace to deal with.

Among the complaints of varying degrees, Topaz’s gripes stuck out the most. She constantly mumbled about him being a slimy, unsavory bastard, and despite the two of you being on less than positive terms, she wouldn’t wish his presence upon you in a thousand Amber Eras.

Did you ever heed her warnings? Clearly not, as you were face-to-face with Aventurine in a two-person game of Belobog Hold’em. From the dastardly look on his face, he seemed to have a plan. And that plan was to completely drain you of whatever credits you had left in your pockets with his next move.

He rested his head on his hand and smiled at you, his eyes piercing your soul through his rose-tinted glasses. Aventurine’s smirk was that of a confident man who knew what he was doing, and perhaps nothing you could do could stop him from winning this game. Keeping your composure at such a sight was proving to be a challenge, especially considering how your hand wasn’t exactly the best. Aventurine could practically see through your hand, it felt like, and he was secretly amused by the almost guaranteed loss you were staring at. To have this much confidence, he must either have ended up with a practically unbeatable hand from the sheer force of dumb luck, or he knew how to, quite literally, play his cards right.

Or, perhaps he could see that you were not quite paying full attention to the game, and your focus lied primarily within Aventurine himself. It was a sense of morbid curiosity to see if he was as truly awful as the rumors and tales had described that inclined you to play a one-on-one private game of poker with him. To Aventurine, it was all another one of his “business deals,” and he had business of lining his pockets with the spoils of your failure.

You had put so much money in, just to see how far you could take this game, but with every credit wagered on the table, his smile grew ever more confident. Perhaps you should’ve quit early to minimize your losses, but there was something about seeing that dastardly smirk that caused you to stray from your real goal of satisfying a basic curiosity.

Or did this “curiosity” extend beyond the simple urge to meet him alone?

The realization of your impending losses began to set in, and you were looking back and forth between your awful and Aventurine’s confident gaze. You couldn’t let things end here, but you knew that he had you backed in a corner and that a second round with him just wouldn’t be possible.

“Well?” he said with a little laugh, “What’s the holdup?”

You said nothing, as you attempted to maintain a cool and collected expression to hide the despair in your hand.

“Cat got your tongue, my dear?” he said, waving his cards mockingly like a fan.

“No,” you said, forcing your eyes off of him.

“Ah, then…what’s the holdup? Thinking a little too hard, perhaps?”

You didn’t want to allude to the awful position you were in. Not to him, especially, but at this point, what more could you do? No matter how hard you looked at your final hand, all combinations of cards were beyond awful. Aventurine could play the most underwhelming hand and he would still have you defeated like a sore loser, and his smile told the entire story.

That was a face of a man who knew he had won, one that had a chokehold on you.

Shaking your head, completely defeated, you placed your cards down on the table. Aventurine was all too happy to place his down with the same smug look that had been taunting you since the very beginning of this game.

You didn’t want to see just much Aventurine won by, so you merely concentrated on your own depressing cards as you flipped them over. A pair. There was no way you were winning anything with that.

“Well… it seems like I win this one,” Aventurine said.

After taking a deep breath, you finally convinced yourself to look at his cards. You knew he had you beat quite badly, but you didn’t want to see just how badly.

Four of a kind. It would’ve taken some immense luck on your end to beat that, something that you simply did not have. And now you found yourself down more credits than you actually had.

You should’ve heeded the warning of Topaz and the others. Aventurine was not one to be taken so lightly in the very game he specializes in.

“Another round might satisfy you, perhaps?” Aventurine asked, picking up a chip and fidgeting with it in his fingers.

“As much as I would love to continue playing with you, first I need to figure out how to pay you back,” you admitted.

“Pay me back? You mean to tell me that you kept betting with credits that you didn’t have?”

You nodded your head. You knew it wasn’t the brightest idea, but hearing Aventurine flat-out expose you in such a manner provoked some sort of irritation within you. The problem was, you couldn’t tell if you were more frustrated with yourself or him.

“And in a game with an IPC member, too. What-ever could you have possibly been thinking? Did you maybe, want to go into debt or something? Did you want me to go after you?”

You were supposed to be the one going after him, but Aventurine took advantage of your blunder and turned things against you. Except, he wasn’t curious about some rumors, he wanted to collect his rewards. And a debt you did indeed owe to him, one he was all too happy for you to owe. It was as if he was awaiting this moment the entire time, as if he had a surefire way of making sure he would end up on top.

A method such as rigging the game, perhaps.

“Go after me? In what sense?” you asked.

“Hmm, how do you think? Relentlessly pursuing you until I get what I am after? Haha, though I have got to admit, I was fully expecting you to hit me up for one more round, maybe to try and win everything back. Takes a lot for someone to finally admit defeat.”

Was he complimenting you? Surely, he couldn’t be complimenting you, if anything, it was a snide commentary on how well you’ve managed to dig yourself a hole.

“Thanks?” you said, at a genuine loss for words.

“Ah, well, I know you’re thinking that you’re going to have to pay up eventually, but I can’t help but be curious that there was something else you were after,” he said, ceasing the fidgeting of the chip in his fingers and began smiling with devious intent.

“After what, exactly?” you asked, trying to clear up exactly what he was implying.

“Something that, to you, must be more valuable than any singular credit in all of Penacony. Something that was clearly enough to deviate your focus from the game and instead direct it to what was in front of the very cards that determined your fate.”

“You mean like the chance to wipe that insufferable look off of your face?”

“Oh, if only I could believe that you would do such a thing.”

You could challenge him to yet another round of Belobog Hold’em anyways, but he was well aware that your pockets were heading deep into the negatives, and the risk of falling even further into debt was greater than the reward. Your options were ultimately limited, but you weren’t willing to back down so easily. Especially not to someone as insufferable as Aventurine.

“Want me to prove it?” you said, glaring into his eyes.

Aventurine put the poker chip that he was fidgeting with prior down on the table.

“Now you’re getting awfully bold for someone who finds themselves deep in debt. I’ll have you know, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about my IPC duties or playing cards, because I always hit the jackpot.”

“Jackpot?” you said, snatching the poker chip out from under him. “Can you really say that with such confidence, especially when foul play is involved?”

You held the poker chip up to one of your eyes, and closely observed Aventurine through the other. His confidence was not diminished by your revolt, and his grin seemed to grow ever slyer by the moment. He either knew that, despite you catching on, he had gotten away with his trickery, or Aeons be damned this man truthfully knew how to play his cards right.

“Luck and foul play do not equate, my dear,” Aventurine said.

“Do you want to run that by me one more time?” you said, moving the poker chip down from your eye and squinting at him.

With a teasing laugh, Aventurine stated, “I said, luck and foul play are not the same, my dear.”

He was driving you to your wit’s end. Aventurine had to be hiding some kind of dirty secret to never lose in such a manner. You were determined to fight the answer out of him, whether it truly was some form of hidden skill or everything now and before was rigged. Sometimes, the best way to counter foul play was to break the rules yourself and knock the self-declared king down the hierarchy.

Aventurine would spend the entirety of the evening waving his winning hand in front of your face if that is what it took for you to back down.

At this point, you didn’t have the patience for any more of his antics.

No roundabout way of making him confess his dirty little secrets would cause him to crack any time soon. Not to mention, you were nearing the point of wanting to choke him out.

You slammed the stolen poker chip on the table, which Aventurine looked down at the cards and chips rebounding from the force.

“Getting a little feisty now, aren’t w- “

You reached out while Aventurine was focused on the disturbed table and slipped your fingers under his choker. Before he had a chance to react, you pulled him forward across the table, knocking over what remained of the stacks of chips and cards. You held him firmly in front of you, giving Aventurine almost no other option but to look directly into your eyes.

“Two can play at that game,” you said, tightening your grip on his choker.

Despite the situation Aventurine now found himself in, he was strangely calm about the entirety of it. The smile on his face, though dastardly, was tainted with some sort of twisted joy.

“Ha, I can’t say I’ve ever played a game that ended with me in such a tangle,” he said.

“That’s an awful surprise considering how insufferable you are.”

“Insufferable? Coming from you, of all people? I’d argue that you’re doing this strictly on purpose, to study my ‘tactics’ up close and personally.”

“Because I am, so I can catch you in case you try to pull a fast one on me.”

“By looking at me ever so closely? Why, I’d argue that you’re more interested in me than that little bet you claim I’ve won by illicit means.”

You tugged on his choker a bit, to try and shake a little sense into that man. However, Aventurine’s smile never dissipated; his eyes only grew more focused with a kind of hunger only a man seeking his reward could have. He should sensibly be threatening you to hand over his payment, yet he had not uttered one word of demand for his credits this entire time.

Could he actually be finding some form of enjoyment from this? Enough to forgo the temptation of the hefty balance of credits that was being dangled in front of him like an earthworm worm to a fish?

“And for a man with the promise of becoming rich, you seem awfully distracted from your bounty.”

“Becoming rich?” he said with a laughter muffled by your grip, “Oh, sweetie, I have more money than your mind could possibly comprehend. It’s not often that I get as much enjoyment out of a simple game of poker as I am right now.”

It would appear that your theory was right. Aventurine was deriving some sort of sick enjoyment from your threats. Perhaps, he wouldn’t mind it if you stepped things up a notch, then?

“This isn’t a matter of it being a so-called simple game of poker,” you said, pushing aside the cards and chips that were in your way.

“It’s more of a game between us now.”

You pulled Aventurine even closer to you, close enough to where you can feel his breath on your face. Any further, and he would be pulled out of his chair onto the table, or even worse, a bit too close to you.

“Now? Are you sure that it wasn’t always between us?”

“Very clever of you to think such absurdity, though it would explain how horribly you were playing. Or, perhaps you’re just naturally awful. But I couldn’t blame you regardless, as I am quite the charmer, after all.”

“You want to repeat that, pretty boy?”

“Pretty boy. I do like the sound of that.”

You wanted to tug Aventurine even closer, but you physically couldn’t, unless you wanted him directly against your face. The most you could do is grip his choker even tighter, wearing at the leather with the sheer force of your fist.

“Quiet now, you scoundrel,” you snapped.

“Pretty boy? Scoundrel? Make up your mind,” Aventurine taunted.

He was indeed a pretty boy, but at the same time, he was a scoundrel. He had a way with words, a way with looks, and unfortunately, a way with cards.

“You’re keeping me awfully close for someone who thinks I’m a scoundrel,” he continued, “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to cheat you out of a little more than your money?”

“What could you possibly do with this quite literal chokehold I have on you?” you said.

“Repay the favor, of course,” he said, lifting up one of his hands that he used to steady himself.

You braced yourself for a hostile retribution. Repay the favor how, exactly? Did he have a genuine suspicion that you were trying to kill him? Out of sheer instinct, you grabbed your pistol with your free hand and held it directly against his head, flicking off the safety and finger almost desperate for the trigger. Even in the face of death, Aventurine did not flinch, and his smile was as dastardly as ever.

To your great surprise, he simply brushed some of the hair that had fallen in front of your eyes away. Despite the gun armed and ready to blow his brains out should he attempt something clever, he paid no mind to the imminent threat to his life.

“That’s it?” you said, completely deprived of words. “Not even with a gun aimed directly at your vitals?”

Aventurine nudged the gun away from his head, aiming it at the ceiling directly above him. You didn’t bother to reposition yourself, though you still kept the safety off, just in case.

“Oh, I know you couldn’t bring yourself to do such a thing,” he taunted.

Unfortunately, Aventurine was right. As much as he was getting on your nerves, it didn’t warrant taking his life. You slowly lowered your pistol onto the table, still keeping it close, just in case.

“Ha, you’re quite the pretty one yourself, even when you’re acting all scary. It’s almost enough to distract a man as sharp as me.”

“Almost? With the way you were eyeing me up, I could almost believe that you were too focused on me to even think twice about cheating.”

“Oh, back on that again, are we? Isn’t there something you’d rather focus on, instead of whether or not you can trust a little ol’ member of the IPC?”

Almost impulsively, you pulled him ever so slightly closer, to the point where he was agonizingly close to you. Hardly even a single inch of space separated you and him.

He was right. With him so close and in your grasp, you could care less about all of the credits you owed to Aventurine. Though, every time the topic of the debt was mentioned, Aventurine brushed it off almost as quickly as it came up. In a way, it was almost as if he could care less about what would be pocket change to him.

“Focus on what, exactly?” you asked.

“Who else, other than the bastard you have in your grasp right now? The one who you absolutely refuse to break eye contact with, the one you claim to despise so much?”

“Despise enough to not back down from, but…not enough to reject his company.”

“My point exactly,” he whispered while running his finger across your cheek, gently brushing the edge of your lips.

“Now what are you playing at?” you snapped, in an indirect way to ask for clarification on Aventurine’s intent.

“It’s something that I want, something that we both want, more than the truth behind the legitimacy of a back-alley game of poker,” Aventurine said, with a smile that suddenly went soft.

“Long story short, you mean each other. You think that our intent for allowing this game to spiral out of control was to win over each other, and not for the spoils of currency?”

“Judging by your poor performance, I’d say it’s far from an improbability.”

“And your constant diversion from the topic of the money,” you said.

“Perhaps.”

Your grip on him suddenly softened, allowing Aventurine a bit more freedom to move. Certainly, you weren’t expecting this to happen just because you wanted to fight back a little, but if that were really the case, then perhaps you were a bit too rough with him? No, Aventurine was clearly indulging himself in the pleasure of someone bold enough to step up to him. Someone who knew very well of his dangers, yet still faced him head on.

Everything about that gaze, that smile, those bastardly mannerisms of his had you so entranced.

And you so very badly wanted to put him in his place.

“Giving up already?” he said, disappointed at your sudden withdrawal.

“What? Did you want me to choke you out?”

“Ha, you like me too much. But feel free to tug me as close to that pretty face of yours as you wish.”

Obedience was not exactly what you were so eager to show Aventurine, but the chance to tug on him even more was not something you were going to pass up. You forcefully pulled him even closer, once again reducing the distance between your faces to hardly a single inch. The two of you were locked in a stare, closely watching for each other’s next move.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten too shy all of a sudden.”

“I’m not, it’s just, is this really what you want out of me, Aventurine?”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to pry out of you this entire time, sweetheart?”

It would be comedically cruel to toy with him further, but also a wait that you could no longer bear. With no resistance from Aventurine himself, you yanked his collar further until your lips met at long last. Yet, you did not free Aventurine from your grasp the entire time, but he seemed to care not, as he had finally hit the jackpot he was alluding to throughout the entire game.

Once you two had drifted apart, you rested your foreheads against each other, though your fingers were still gently hooked on his choker.

“You freein’ me now that you’ve had your fun?” Aventurine said.

Sighing, you unhooked your fingers, allowing him to relax back into his chair. He stood up, and in one swift, graceful swoop, Aventurine collected the scattered deck of cards, even snatching your depressing play right from under your nose. The chips were neatly stacked and set to the side, no longer accounting for what either party had on the line.

“What about the debt?” you said, looking at the pile of now neatly organized poker chips.

“Debt? What debt?”

He didn’t forget about those credits at all, but Aventurine could care less as he simply won something far better than any form of monetary value.

“Don’t be afraid to hit me up if you ever feel like throwin’ down some cards again,” Aventurine said.

“I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t end with me throwing you down on the table.”

“Are you threatening me with a good time?” Aventurine said, turning to look at you with a smirk. “Because if that’s the case, why don’t we skip the card games and head straight to the fun?”

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail fanfic #hsr aventurine #aventurine x reader #fanfic #fanfiction

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ao3cassandraic · 9 months

Text

What does Aziraphale know and when does he know it? Part 2, The Chinwag

Prologue and Part 1, for those who need them.

The chinwag is written and shot in two timeframes: as it's happening, and as Aziraphale retells it to Crowley. That's a fair wodge of extra production expense, compared to just having Aziraphale retell the story. There's got to be a reason for it (beyond additional Derek Jacobi, which is never bad).

I think the reason is so that we-the-viewers can check the congruence between actual events and Aziraphale's retelling, also between Aziraphale's emotional reactions to the Metatron and the emotions he pours out to Crowley. (Remember, Aziraphale is a lying liar who lies!) Also, as some meta-ists have already pointed out, to leave the possibility open that we are not getting the whole story in either frame -- there's likely some interaction that we aren't shown and that Aziraphale doesn't tell Crowley about.

But why wouldn't Aziraphale tell Crowley everything? Hold that thought (though if you've read through my metas, you already know my answer).

The chronology of the chinwag is very tangled in-show (we first see the very end of it!) so I'm going to disentangle it here, as best I can.

Aziraphale tells Crowley, "[The Metatron] said that Gabriel obviously hadn't worked out... and he asked who I thought should take over in Heaven..." Then we cut to the actual chinwag. Aziraphale looks a bit how-is-this-my-problem-exactly, and gives the obvious bureaucratic corporate yes-person (well, yes-angel) answer: Michael.

And the Metatron calls him silly for it. The Metatron has just insulted Gabriel, Michael, and Aziraphale in practically the same breath; if Aziraphale had had any doubts about contempt being fundamental to the Metatron's personality, they've been blown away now.

The Metatron: "... there's only one candidate who makes even the slightest bit of sense." Aziraphale's reaction shot: polite interest in his face, but his hands appear clasped together under the table -- he's stressed and he's hiding things. "And that's you."

And we don't get Aziraphale's actual reaction to this -- we cut back to Aziraphale telling Crowley. I know what I think Aziraphale's actual reaction, and how he expressed it, were -- and I don't think for an instant they were the same -- but by all means consider for yourself. The show wants you to. Also consider whether either of those is the same as the excitement he projects toward Crowley. My cards on the table, and a sneak peek of the next post in this series: I don't think so. I think Aziraphale retelling this story is Aziraphalean kayfabe. The Metatron wants and expects him to be excited, so he's acting excited.

We then cut back to the Metatron's actual words: "Well, yes, you're a leader, you're honest, you don't just tell people what they want to hear; it's why Gabriel came to you in the first place, I imagine."

There is not one word of this that is not bullshit. Starting from the end, Aziraphale knows why Jimbriel came to him, because he asked and the utterly guileless Jimbriel told him. It had nothing to do with leadership or honesty; it was because Jimbriel had a strong, if vague, impression that Aziraphale was the one being who could and would improve Jimbriel's situation. (Other metas from other meta-ists discuss why Jimbriel might feel this way.) The rest of the Metatron's line is manipulative generic corporate-style flattery having zero intersection with the phalanx-refusing, frequently-deceitful, go-along-to-get-along angel we all know and love.

So is Aziraphale buying the Metatron's love-bombing? I mean, it's wholly plausible that an angel would buy it, just out of sheer emotional desperation; Heaven's angels -- those who even remain after the Great War and the mass Fall -- are pitifully love- and approval-starved. Aziraphale himself has barely gotten a kind word from Heaven in his entire existence, and he's had plenty of reprimands. Gabriel didn't get a single gift in six thousand years. Lonely, obliging, bottom-of-the-hierarchy Muriel practically plotzes at the least slightest hint of approval from anyone ever.

There's only one angel on Earth or in Heaven who knows genuine, sustained love and support, though, now that Gabriel is gone -- and it's Aziraphale. I look at Aziraphale's face after the Metatron drops that love bomb, and I see no hint of joy or warmth or Muriel-like gratitude. He's not buying it. Aziraphale knows what love is, and this ain't it. (Crowley rescues Aziraphale once again, and he's not even there! I love this.)

What Aziraphale knows at this point:

The Metatron wants him back in Heaven.

Given the Metatron's habitual contempt for everyone around him, and given the blatant lies with which he expresses respect for Aziraphale, the Metatron must be lying about that respect. So whatever his reasons for wanting Aziraphale in Heaven, they're not his stated reasons about Aziraphale being suited to the job.

The Metatron is really buttering him up! "Second-in-command after me" is a pretty solid bribe! A lot bigger than a coffee! And the Metatron doesn't butter anybody else up! So the Metatron has clearly (and likely correctly) determined that ordering Aziraphale around doesn't work -- Aziraphale has a history of defying blatant orders, both openly and by working-to-rule. (The Metatron may or may not know the full details of the Arrangement, but of course it is another example.)

The Metatron is neither omniscient nor infallible. He doesn't know why Jimbriel went to Aziraphale. He doesn't know what line of patter will serve as a suitable love bomb. He can likely be fooled.

What Aziraphale likely wants to know at this point:

What. The fuck. Does the fucking Metatron. Actually want from him.

What. The fuck. Is the fucking Metatron. Actually up to. Because the Metatron has gone a long way out of his way -- en-corporating, coming to Earth, grabbing a coffee, saving Aziraphale from Michael, holding Muriel in reserve, separating Aziraphale from Crowley, pouring poison into Aziraphale's ear (Hamlet allusion, anyone?) -- to further whatever his aims are.

The Metatron, next: "There are huge plans afoot, enormous projects, and I will need you to run them. You are just the angel for the job."

Aziraphale's face, in the next shot, is still full of worry. That's a partial answer to the questions in his mind, but far from a complete one. So he plays to keep the Metatron talking, hoping that will make things clearer. "I… I don't want to go back to Heaven. Where would I get my coffee?" (He doesn't want coffee on a regular basis. He's a tea drinker! This is a prevarication. There is no trust at this table.)

The Metatron, rather than answering, raises his bribe. "You know, as supreme archangel, you would be able to decide whom to work with. I've been looking back over a number of your previous exploits, and I see that in quite a few of them you formed a de facto partnership with the demon Crowley. Now, if you wanted to work with him again, that might be considered irregular, but it would certainly be within your jurisdiction to restore your friend, Crowley, to full angelic status."

I quoted the whole thing because whew, it's crucial and it's layered.

What Aziraphale now knows:

The Metatron sure doesn't look to be taking no for an answer.

The Metatron knows something -- how much isn't clear, but likely something fairly significant -- about the Ineffable Husbands' shenanigans through the ages. He's been studying them. (Which I find chilling, honestly, but I'm a privacy wonk so I would.)

The Metatron knows Aziraphale and Crowley are friends, important to one another; he up and said so.

The Metatron might not mind if Aziraphale got some of his own back from the other archangels. "Deciding whom to work with" in a corporate bureaucracy often means deciding whom to fire, after all. This, too, might be part of the bribe.

The Metatron is somewhat willing to let Crowley return to Heaven. Only as an angel, though, no more bee!demon. He doesn't seem enthusiastic at the prospect, however, or he'd have offered this tidbit already.

What Aziraphale likely wants to know:

The two questions he still has. They have not been answered.

What. The actual fuck. Are these plans and projects? Are they real or are they get-Aziraphale-out-of-the-way make-work?

Is the offer for Crowley on the level? (Nothing else has been so far!) Or is the Metatron's raise not bribery, but blackmail?

As for how Aziraphale responds to this: No joy, warmth, or pleasure, none. His eyes shift quickly when the Metatron first says Crowley's name, and if anything he looks even more worried for a moment. And again, we aren't allowed to see Aziraphale's actual reaction to the raised bribe offer.

If I'm Aziraphale, being railroaded into this return to Heaven by this extremely powerful and worrisomely sketchy being, I sure would want my right-hand demon at my, er, right hand. I'm just saying.

The temporally-last chunk of the chinwag is the Metatron bringing this weird unsavory job offer to a corporately-scripted close: "Well, you don't have to answer immediately. Take all the time you need." Aziraphale plays for additional information, again, by echoing Gabriel's stunned reaction, "I don't know what to say." Note that this is not an eager yes, or any kind of yes at all! Not even the possibility of Crowley being an angel again has managed to wring assent out of Aziraphale! He's the actual opposite of all in on this!

But the Metatron refuses to give any additional information, leaving Aziraphale with a lot of unanswered questions. And he gives Aziraphale an explicit direct order, which is decidedly peremptory of him, considering. "Well then, go and tell your friend the good news."

We see Aziraphale respond to this with his very best go-along-to-get-along faces. He then crosses the street toward the bookshop; his back is turned to the Metatron at last, so he can let out a bit more of whatever he's feeling. What does he do? He takes a deep breath, flashes the Metatron one more brief placating smile, physically pulls himself together, and walks stiffly across the street with another pulling-himself-together gasp for breath in the middle.

This is not a joyous angel returning to his right-hand demon with joyous news. This is an angel with a lot of unanswered questions who's worried sick and unable to let down his guard fully.

Notice, by the way, that the Metatron then goes and has his little insultingly condescending interaction with Muriel, and then he turns back toward the bookshop and stands there. Like Furfur's zombies peering into the magic shop in 1941, he's watching Aziraphale and Crowley from a distance through the bookshop windows. Can he read lips? Who knows. But he's watching.

Next up: The Fiasco.

#gos2spoilers #gos2 spoilers #good omens season 2 spoilers #the fucking metatron #aziraphale #the final fifteen minutes #good omens meta #good omens

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robsheridan · 6 months

Text

The November 1975 issue of SPECTAGORIA profiled the magazine’s own Samhain Gala, a lavish and mysterious party which editor Sera Clairmont held in various “sacred” locations at the beginning of each November. The event was said to be a decadent celebration of the end of the harvest season which Clairmont described as “a transference, from one state of being to another.” Guests included a melting pot of models, close friends, occult colleagues, and according to Clairmont “certain other visitors, who have to come from adjacent spaces to partake in the evening’s rituals.” Indeed, the food and drinks and phantasmagorical entertainment were followed late in the night by a series of ancient rituals to “open passageways,” to “return to their own realms the demons and spirits who danced with us in the mortal plane this Hallowe’en.” She implied that some guests would leave the night “transformed,” and some “might never return.”

Of course, as with many things in Spectagoria’s curious history, no one is entirely sure how much of Clairmont’s parties were real, and how much they were more of her elaborate photo shoots. And that was probably the point. In an interview with Playboy earlier that year, Clairmont was asked how “real” the imagery in Spectagoria was. “Maybe it’s all real,” she replied, “maybe it’s all staged. Who cares? If reality is what you’re caught up on when you read Spectagoria, you’re missing the point. Reality as a tangible objective truth is one of the most insidious lies we’re told. Spectagoria is a spinning mirrorball that catches the singular light of what you think is real and reflects it back as the true nature of the universe: Disinterested in form or logic, splintered into a thousand chaotic versions of itself, moving faster than you can comprehend, overlapping and intertwining across the topography of matter and time; confusing, illogical, terrifying, and beautiful. You can to try and make sense of each individual piece until you go mad, or you can step back, open your mind, and see the glistening tapestry it becomes when the tracers blend together… and you can dance in it.”

Clairmont took no further questions in the interview.

Previously:

Spectagoria: Vaporgoth, 1985 part 1 / part 2

Spectagoria: The Swimsuit Issue, 1978

Spectagoria: Apocalypse in Pink, 1983 part 1 / part 2

Spectagoria: Sisters of the Solstice, 1975 part 1 / part 2

Spectagoria: Phantasm Road, 1974 (Introduction)

---------

NOTE: Spectagoria is an ongoing work of fiction created by me. This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and interconnected alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

If you enjoy my work, consider subscribing to my free newsletter to stay up to date on my projects, or supporting me on Patreon for frequent exclusive hi-res wallpaper packs, behind-the-scenes features, downloads, events, contests, and an awesome fan community. Direct fan support is what keeps me going as an independent creator, and it means the world to me.

#synthography #ai fashion #ai horror #goth aesthetic #spectagoria #nightmAIres #rob sheridan #ai art #synthography horror #sera clairmont #halloween #samhain #70s fashion #70s style #occult style #occult #occult fashion

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dcxdpdabbles · 5 days

Note

hi first of all I looooove your stories so damn much especially The Royal Consor also how old is cave boy!dany and if you had the time can you explain the timeline for each one?(I got it mixed up all the time😅)

Thank you for liking my writing! I got you on the timeline stuff. These will be based on Danny's age. There isn't really a set time frame as in the era they are in. It's a mix of early two thousand to twenty-seventeen.

I hope these re-caps help!

Royal Consort

No one besides Team Phantom knows Danny is Phantom. He lies to protect his ID

Danny becomes King Phantom (Age fourteen)

When he is crowned, he finds the Consort necklace and puts it on (Age fourteen)

Justice League finds out the USA passed the anti-ecto Act (Age fifteen)

Danny refuses to remove the necklace, so it appears in the class photo (Age fourteen)

Danny continues to wear the necklace in all class photos afterward (Age fourteen - age seventeen)

Justice League managed to abolish the Anti-ecto Acts after much struggle (Age Seventeen)

Wes takes a picture of Phantom and posts it (Age Seventeen)

John Constantine stumbles across Phantom's photo as a long-time Wes' Superbat fanfiction fan. (Age Seventeen)

Justice League realizes that Phantom has appeared on Earth a lot in the last three years in the small town of Amity Park. The same place as a boy wearing the Ghost Consort Necklace (Age Seventeen)

The world finds out the same news the same morning (Age Seventeen)

The story of Royal Consort takes place over two weeks, basically. In Part 1, Danny wakes up to the heavy hitters (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and John Constantine) in his living room three days after Wes posted the photo. The necklace he is wearing is the ghost speak for "Royal Consort," so everyone thinks he eloped at age fourteen.

In part 2, it's the same day, but they go up to the watch tower and find out about Dani, who was watching the breaking news on TV.

In part 3, the Fentons are hiding from the paparazzi for three days in a place Bruce rented until Danny gets cabin fever and goes exploring. He is caught by the paparazzi and rescued by the Waynes.

In part 4, it's been four days since the Waynes rescued Danny- precisely one week after Danny was confused as King Phantom's husband instead of King Phantom- and they throw a gala to welcome him. It's a rush job of trying to control his introduction to the world, but that same night, alien evasion is heading to Earth, where they kill Batman and Superman. Danny is sent back from the future by Clockwork after the world gets taken over to stop the aliens and Future! Danny is pretending to escort Danny to the gala as cover to stop the attack.

Cave Boy

Danny is the same age for most of the stroy (Age fifteen- No one besides team Phantom knows he's Phantom)

By latest part (Part 9) Danny turns sixteen since he been there a full year.

In part 1, Danny crashlands in a different dimension while taking the Specter Speeder on a joyride in the Ghost Zone. It's so bad in shape that he has to fix it from scratch. He spends three months exploring the cave system and the Gothanm at night to avoid being seen and collects tech to try to fix the speeder. He accidentally wanders too close to the Batcave, where the Batfam captures him. They run tests on him and thus realize he's a version of Bruce. Danny rolls with it.

Part 2 is the following night since he was let out of the Batcave. The Batfamily is having dinner. There, they see how Bruce used to act as a teen and find out Alfred told him he was only allowed to date people who could beat him up. Danny pretends to be called Brucie.

In part 3, Danny is in Wayne Mannor for a month. At that time, the Bats gave him a fake ID as - Danny Kane- a made-up descended from Bruce's maternal grandfather. By acting as lazy as possible, he works hard to throw off the Waynes, thinking he is not a version of Bruce. Tim starts to suspect him of being evil since no version of Bruce would ever be lazy and unwilling to involve himself in her life as a hero or a villain. He earns the name Rabid Dog at a gala where he bites Jason until he bleeds and creeps out the elites with Jazz's psyche training.

In part 4, Danny lived in Wayne Manor for two months (Five months since the crash-landed). By that point, he had been secretly sneaking away any tech he could grab to try and fix his ship. This is also when part 6.1, where Danny loves random animals and starts sneaking them into the manor, happens. Towards the end of the two months he grows tired of Alfred's ban on junk food and sneaks out to go buy some. He ends up traumatizing some Scarecrow goons who take over his bus with Jazz psyche training again.

In part 5, Danny has lived in Wayne Manor for almost three months. A week after the Scarecrow Goons Buss incident, he mentions Sam and Tucker, changing their names to Selina and Ethan, unknowingly linking them to DC people. The Bats learn he has a crush on them and that Danny has adoptive siblings back home. He changes Dan's name to Tommy and Dani's name to Harley. Jazz becomes Kate, another adoptive sibling. Another week later, Part 6.2 happens when Danny wakes up and decides to cook for everyone. No other Bruce across the Multi-verse can cook, so they are nervous about it. He comments about the food coming to life, and only Tim and Cass know he wasn't lying or joking about it

In part 6, Danny has lived in Wayne Manor for five months (It's been eight months since he crashlanded, and he's starting to get homesick). Alfred worries that Danny does not bother to go out or do anything (He does everything at night out of sight) and suggests a trip to the mall alone. Before this, if he did venture out, one of the Waynes would always be with him, limiting his tech-stealing chances. At the mall, Joker takes him and Bernard hostage as revenge for Tim helping the families of his old victims. Phantom's uncontrolled rage triggers after seeing Joker torture Bernard, and he realizes that Joker hurts others for the fun of it, which is the opposite of his protective core. Phantom rips Joker apart, leaving a smear of blood and flesh. An hour later, he is rescued by the Bats.

In part 7, Danny has been in Wayne Manor for six months. In the month following Joker's death, the Waynes have become wary of Danny. They do not like that he killed and are more upset by his lack of remorse. The rest of Gotham, however, hail him as a hero and send him gifts/thank you cards. Danny doesn't like how distant they are, and he is hurt by the sudden change in the Waynes, though he tries to hide it. The latest gifts from the people who wanted Joker dead arrive, and Tim once again accuses him of pretending to be a civilian. Danny lets it slip that his parents are alive, and the reactions of Tim and Alfred make him realize he should not pretend to be Bruce. He flees the Manor into the caves.

In part 8, Danny hides from the Waynes for two months. (A whole year since his crash landed. He turns sixteen during his hiding) He freaks out that he can't get his ship to work and stops caring for himself. He does not eat; he sleeps only when he collapses. He refuses to shift back to Fenton for fear of the Bats finding his heartbeat. By only going out at night time and actively avoiding everyone, Danny also puts a nasty strain on his mental health. He eventually nearly dies when his body gives out, and shifts into Fenton as he is passing out. Jon- who was helping Damian look for him- hears his heartbeat and works together to get him out of the cave-in he was hiding in.

In part 9, Danny wakes up in Wayne Manor. Unknown to him, he had been unconscious for three days. His human side is really banged up, and it's a close call of him almost dying. Tim blames himself and is left sitting at his bedside in guilt. Danny wakes a few times, too medicated to make sense, but blurts out information about himself to Tim. He tells Tim his real name and the coordinates of his dimension. Tim starts to build a ship for him as an apology, while John Constantine is called in by Bruce to see what the unknown energy around Danny is. John confirms its otherworld energy and places wards up, thinking he is protecting Danny from an unknown otherworld that is bothering him. Danny wakes to find himself trapped within the wards and threatened by one of his own Rune carvings of the Fenton family name.

#Mun speaks #dcxdpdabbles #Re-cap of Royal Consort and Cave boy #Time frame for both are very different #A lot happened in cave boy

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metvmorqhoses · 1 year

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A big issue that they (unfortunately) carried over into the show was how dense Alina is. Yes, Aleksander came off as a weak obsessive rather than someone who was entangled in a mutually complex yet deeply felt connection with Alina, yet he was posing very REAL and valid questions towards her which were brushed off with reactionary and flipppant answers. They had a chance to address these real issues Alina faces alone with him out of the picture. Because he’s posed as the villain, his centuries long experience is completely thrown out the window instead of at least contemplated. Unless the show writers are planning to tackle this in a substantial way next season they otherwise come across as incredibly stupid at least. He’s known loss, he’s known love and pain and violence and all of that is completely disregarded and shunned by Alina who in the books (which I still have issues with) at the bare minimum acknowledges a real connection towards him. I mean, she boldly asserts she will walk her own path and not five minutes after his death is already dabbling in morally grey territory because *shocker* things aren’t actually black and white (good or bad) as she thought.

You know, the more I think about this season putting it against the implication the ending gave us, the more I'm convinced it was done on purpose. I refuse to believe they reached this level of utter absurdity for real and no one thought to stop them.

The only way this even thicker Alina makes any sense in the grand scheme of things is to consider the entire season her corruption origin story. This interpretation is actually backed up by many subtle things and literally most of her exchanges with the Darkling.

He tries to make her understand things, he constantly tries to warn her about power and their unique circumstances, about balance and sacrifice - she doesn't listen and only villainizes him further and further (constantly making him her villain), while the plot actually slowly and unrelentingly proves him right. She calls him power-hungry and immediately proceeds to desperately search for the next amplifier. In their every interaction he acts as the proud mentor, even calling her "one of his out-of-control creations" and saying things like "I saw what you truly are and I never turned away". She takes off her kefta saying she will never wear his color again - her own dress underneath is black. As the season progresses, her makeup turns darker and darker. She's obsessed with tearing down the Fold almost as if it was her way to prove something to herself more than for the sake of Ravka ("Ravkans will see the skies from here one day, by my power!"), that probably would have actually benefited from the existence of it at that precise moment in time. She shames him for his use of Merzost and then proceeds to use it for the most selfish reason imaginable. The Darkling's ending is also very odd, I'm more and more convinced he actually went there with the intention of being killed by her (he basically closed his eyes and waited for her sword), afraid of his uncontrollable powers. He even begs her to make sure "nothing of him remains", and if at first I was influenced by the books' reason (he didn't want his body desecrated), I now actually think he was trying to make sure nothing of that infectious power remained to haunt her and Ravka while he was gone - and what I think actually happened right away to both Nikolai and Alina, immediately possessed and, in her case, corrupted. This is even teased by Nikolai's attire in the last moments of the show. When I was watching it I immediately noticed they put him into a black uniform with a golden "eagle" that looked strangely way too similar to Alina's kefta from the Winter Fete and even to Aleksander's new one. I found it odd and then, surprise surprise, Nikolai is possessed! Is everything a big coincidence? I think not.

In short, the entirety of the narrative is actually hinting at the same thing, proving her wrong and the Darkling right. Even with the wisps of light in his kefta and her shadow cut, I think they are definitely hinting at their shared powers and probably they more in-depth books dynamic in season three. This would also explain why they didn't include any canon darklina scene this season. They are saving them for later.

#it's either this or absolute madness that hints at this but it's a trap instead #thinking again about the season under these lenses makes more sense #it's still wild tho #shadow and bone #shadow and bone s2 #darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #anon #asks/replies #one and one thousand stories lis told

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last-herondale · 20 days

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Almost Pt. 3

Bucky Barnes x FemReader! (Steve Rogers x Femreader!)

Angst, heartbreak, sadness

AN: Hellllooooo here is part 3! I will probably post part 4 later today. Initially it was all one piece together but I decided to break it up. This series took a turn that even I wasn’t expecting, but not to worry. It will still be a Bucky Barnes centric story 😁

Part 4

Ps. Sorry for breaking some hearts 😩

Enjoy! 🤘🏼

The last three months had been a blur. You hadn’t expected things to turn out as they had, by any means necessary. The plan was simple enough when it started. Leave town, keep busy, and try your best to not think about James Buchanan Barnes.

The first two had been easy enough to accomplish. The next mission that popped up, you were there as the first volunteer. You didn’t care about the destination. The farther away from New York the better, but anywhere was better than staying at the tower. The idea of being in such proximity to him at all times made your heart ache. The idea of being away from him hurt too, but out of the two options you decided that having some distance from it all would be the best thing for you.

So you were shipped off, along with Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson to some remote part of South America to track some reported movement of Hydra shipments. It was supposed to be a quick trip. Gather info, infiltrate the base, and destroy the cargo. Easy. Simple.

But of course, you couldn’t be that lucky.

You had to admit, during the mission your mindset had been a bit reckless… You were constantly itching for battle, something to do, bad people to hurt. Anything to keep your mind off of him… the memory of that night on the balcony when he had denied your heart. You felt shattered. Like a hollow shell of the person you were. You weren’t thinking clearly and you paid for it.

During the recon part of the mission, Sam was running flank around the perimeter from the sky while you and Steve scouted the area. They had gone over the plan with you at least a dozen times, and each time you assured them you knew what you needed to do. You lied and told them you were good. You were solid. And you tried to make that a reality. You tried to stay focused on the mission, but the image of Bucky’s face from that night kept interrupting your train of thought. The memories of that night and nights before. The longing, the ache from missing him… you didn’t see the trap until it was too late.

Sharp barbed metallic wires entangled you in the thick underbrush of the jungle. The spikes wrapped themselves around you like a coiling snake, inching the thick barbs deeper into your skin. You were on the floor, a small sound of pain escaped your lips as the wire continued to tighten. Any sort of movement caused the wire to tighten even more, so you just laid there, hoping that Steve wasn’t too far behind.

Your mind thought of Bucky. You hated yourself for thinking of him now, but you did. You wished he was there. Even seeing him, hearing his voice, if this was the stupid idiotic way that you would die, at least you would have him there as you did. You felt drowsy all at once. The sky began to blur and everything began to feel fuzzy.

Poison. The barbs must have been laced with something. You felt your heart slamming against your chest as you lost the ability to scream, to talk, to cry…

Suddenly you felt the tension that was holding you release suddenly. Your body went limp on the ground as you tried to make out the shapes in the fuzzy world. You saw a figure above you, and the faint outlines of his golden hair. Steve. You felt yourself being lifted up in his strong arms. He was saying something frantically at you, but the world had just become one large echo. You tried to tell him. You used all of your strength, all of your will power to utter one word.

Poison.

The world turned black and all sense and all meaning fell away.

You woke up in dim lighting. Your eyelids felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds, but still you were able to finally lift them. You had been brought back to some sort of small shack. The walls were wooden and the room was dank and small. You had been sitting on a rough couch. You looked down at yourself and saw that you were covered in bandages. Anywhere that the barbs had cut into, which seemed like the majority of your skin, had been covered with heavy set bandages that had an odd smell. You wrinkled your nose and groaned when you tried to lift your arm to remove one of the bandages.

“Don’t mess with them,” Steve’s voice came from behind you, “They have a salve on them that is counteracting the poison.”

You tried to focus your eyes on him as he came to sit on the opposite side of the couch. Your vision was still a bit blurry but you could make out the angry look on his face as he looked at you. You realized that this must be one of the safe houses that Tony had set up for this mission. The realization of failure sunk deep into your soul.

“Mm ssssorry,” you mumbled. You hadn’t gained control of your speech yet and you sounded very drunk.

“What the hell happened? You should have seen that trap a mile away!” Steve said angrily. He had his arms crossed, the shape of his muscles were highlighted in his black stealth wear.

You wanted to explain. You wanted to apologize for what happened. But your mind and your body were working at two different speeds. You felt hot tears of embarrassment fall down your face. Your chest began to heave a bit. It was all too much. You were failing Steve, you had failed Bucky, and somehow in every way you felt as if you had failed yourself. Nothing was going right anymore. You didn’t know what else you could lose before completely falling apart.

Steve’s face softened as he saw you cry. Tears continued to fall down your face and broken sobs escaped your lips. He knelt down in front of you and grabbed a leftover bandage from the table and began to gently wipe your face.

“Are you in pain? What hurts?” he asked, raking his eyes over your bandaged body.

“Everything… every…thing,” you sobbed.

Steve’s eyes widened a bit. He gazed at you for a moment and gave a small sigh. You weren’t sure if he understood. That this pain went deeper than the physical nerves. You had never talked to him about your feelings for Bucky, even though he was around a lot whenever you hung out with him. You averted your gaze from him, unable to bare the weight of his soft eyes. Steve pushed a strand of hair out of your face, wiped away the rest of your tears, and gently covered your body with a blanket.

“It’ll be okay. You will get through this,” he had said as he gave you medicine for the physical pain. You instantly felt sleepy after taking it, and allowed yourself to watch as Steve walked away from the couch and began working at the small kitchen table, typing away on one of Tony’s communicators. You watched him, feeling comforted and safe, as you fell asleep.

#fem reader #reader x marvel #marvel fanfic club #marvel #bucky x you #james bucky buchanan barnes #bucky fic #bucky x reader #fan fic author #steve rogers #captain america #steve rogers x reader #angst #captain america x reader

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andreal831 · 3 months

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Esther "Mikaelson" and Misogyny

The misogyny in TVDU, in both the writing and the fandom, is exhausting. It comes out so much, especially when it comes to complex women versus complex men. Esther (yes, I know her last name is not Mikaelson), is not one of my favorite characters, she's not even a character I particularly like. But to act like she is an absolute villain with no redeeming qualities is a best misogynist, and at worst blaming a victim of abuse.

Most of the hate for Esther tends to come from certain character stans because they don't like how Esther treated their favorite character or want to shift the responsibility of their favs to Esther so that they don't have to deal with a complex, morally grey character.

Esther is a survivor many times over and we cannot talk about her without first acknowledging that. When she was just a teenager/young adult, her entire family was slaughtered and she and her sister were kidnapped. I know there is a lot of debate in the psychology community regarding Stockholm syndrome, but her falling for Mikael screams a manipulated, traumatized, naïve, young woman.

Esther and Mikael

Whether it was Mikael's intent initially or not, he took advantage of the mental place she was at when they met. People recently have wanted to argue whether or not Esther was abused, but this is not a debate. First, there are many different types of abuse, mental, physical, emotional, financial, etc.

During this time period, while Norse communities tended to give woman more power, Esther was from "outside" their community. Her rank in the community would come directly from her marriage. I personally don't know if she went into her relationship with Mikael in order to gain security or if she was just truly that naïve and wanted love and a family. There is nothing wrong with either. It reminds me of why Hayley decided to try and actually have a relationship with Jackson. Woman have historically had to make hard decisions in order to gain protection. And even if she just wanted to get married and have kids, that is fine. Esther reminds me of Meg March. Her dreams may have been different than Dahlia but that doesn't make them less important.

We see very little of their human lives and it is told from everyone else's perspective except for Esther. We also know that everyone's stories are not accurate. Klaus lied about Esther's death for a thousand years. He also has a tendency from not seeing things through other perspectives. Klaus, and even Elijah, when they talk about their human lives, focus on Mikael's abuse on Klaus because the show centers around Klaus and doing everything they can do to redeem him. There is no benefit to making Esther look complex or going into how living with Mikael impacted her. But it is naïve to say she didn't suffer abuse. She lived in a household with a violent, angry man. Even if he didn't physically hit her, which we honestly don't know but I would find that extremely hard to believe, it is clear he verbally, emotionally, and financially abused her.

People love to say she is a powerful witch and could have stopped him or left, but this is shifting the blame from the abuser to the victim. First, abuse isn't about who is stronger. This logic is completely dismissing so much abuse that happens, especially women abusing men. Yes, Esther is a powerful witch, but if she had no other options outside of Mikael, being powerful doesn't matter. We know she would put Mikael to sleep for long periods to protect her and her children. We don't know if she did anything else, but we have at least one example of her using her magic to intervene. We also know she stopped practicing for a long time because of her fear of dark magic and how the community treated Dahlia.

We also have to acknowledge that Esther had very few choices. Sure, she could kill Mikael but she would have gotten sentenced to death for that. Again, her position in the community came from her connection to Mikael, otherwise she was just another enslaved person from a village they raided. We know how Dahlia was treated. Maybe she could have run off with Ansel and they would have protected her from Mikael, or if he was dead, the villagers, but this is putting her, her children, and the pack in a dangerous situation. Potentially starting a war between the pack and the village for aiding and abetting a kin-slayer. She would also be acknowledging her affair and adultery by woman was met by serious punishments, usually death. After committing matricide, she also wouldn't have claims to Mikael's money or land as an outsider. Maybe in the "new world," but she would have to hide her involvement in his death. Esther would have no money or land of her own as her familial land and money would have been claimed when it was raided.

While women in Norse communities did experience more freedom than other areas of the world at that time, they were still far from free. This is especially true considering how Esther came to this community. While she wasn't enslaved in a way Dahlia was, it is wrong to say she wasn't still enslaved. Her entire village was killed and her and her sister were forced to come to their village and live amongst them as hostages. Esther was kept as a way to keep Dahlia in line. She was not welcomed into the community. This was a common practice during these raids.

The reason I get so angry when people attack Esther as if she wasn't a victim is because real-life victims hear this everyday. Esther's situation perfectly exemplifies the "non-perfect" victim and the fandom perfectly exemplifies how many of these victims are treated.

Esther and Dahlia

Dahlia gets way more slack than Esther because she is a "more perfect victim." But again, we are getting the story from everyone's perspective but Esther. Yes, what Dahlia went through was horrible, but what she put her sister through was also horrible. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Dahlia had no right to expect Esther to give up her dreams for her, even though she did sacrifice a lot for Esther. She made that decision and took it on. Yes, it was noble, but again, she cannot expect anything for a choice she made. It is just like Klaus expecting his siblings to never leave him and punishing them when they do. Siblings do not owe each other their lives. I would also not blame Dahlia for leaving Esther behind to protect herself.

On top of that, when Esther went to Dahlia and asked for help, she took advantage of the situation and stole her child. I don't care what Esther promised or how much she understood of the situation, clearly at the moment Dahlia came for Freya, Esther did not want to give her up. If we look at it in a modern perspective, a mother who puts her child up for adoption has the right to change their mind because, morally, we understand it is impossible to understand how you will feel until that moment. If a person than steals the child after the mom changes their mind, that's kidnapping. If we look at it from a historical perspective, Norse communities were patriarchal and the children belonged to Mikael. Meaning Esther did not have the ability to "sell" her children.

Dahlia is given a lot of sympathy in the fandom because they relate her story to Klaus, who they spend a lot of time victimizing. So it makes an easy leap to paint Dahlia as the victim and Esther as the "evil" one. But again, we never see how Esther reacted to her sister casting her aside because she wanted love and a family. or how Mikael treated her throughout their relationship. Even if Dahlia ended up being right about Mikael, whether he was always evil or turned evil losing Freya, Dahlia doesn't get to make that decision for Esther. It is hard to watch someone you love get into an abusive relationship, but you can't tell someone what to do with their life. All you can do is try and be there for them when they need help.

Esther and Klaus

Another reason people hate on Esther is because of her relationship with Klaus. I personally think Esther loved Klaus the most because of who his father was. She babies him in a way she never did with the other's. We even see Finn resenting her treatment of Klaus because of it.

Yes, she does give him the necklace which ends up making Mikael target him to "make him strong." But, one, let's blame the abuser and not shift blame to a fellow victim. And two, what would you have her do? Sure the answer is probably, don't have an affair, but then your fav character wouldn't be there. Also, again, she was young and naïve. She also gets more blame for having an affair than Mikael does for beating a child. She made a mistake and did everything she could to protect Klaus from that mistake. Was it misguided, maybe, but her intention was good. She wanted to protect Klaus from Mikael finding out.

The fact that Esther can forgive Klaus for brutally murdering her shows how much she loved him. Her wanting to kill her kids later is honestly understandable. She never knew the side affects of the spell she performed. She watched her children become the worst versions of themselves for a thousand years and felt the guilt for every life they took. She also knew peace existed since she had been on the other side. When she first tried to take their lives, they would have all just gone to the other side. She didn't want them to suffer but wanted the pain they inflicted on the world to end.

The Misogyny of it all

The reason I say it is misogyny, is because every favorite character in this show has done absolutely terrible things. Klaus, and all of the Mikaelsons, are serial killers. It doesn't matter what reasons they had for doing it. Esther had her own reasons for her actions. The fact that people can't acknowledge Esther as a complex character but can do so for Klaus, Damon, Elijah, Stefan, etc. shows that it is based on misogyny. Even the fact that Dahlia, someone who kidnapped and abused a child, gets more love than Esther because Esther isn't a "perfect victim" shows it is rooted in misogyny. Men are allowed to be messy and complex but when it's a woman they are either a victim or pure evil.

I'm not saying there aren't things you can't hate her for. I hated her treatment of Elijah in Season 2 of TO and her plan to harm Hope. But to ignore the complexity of the character and pretend she wasn't a victim is just harmful rhetoric. Women are allowed to be complex and morally grey.

#esther mikaelson #this fandom cant handle complex women #I may not agree with everything she did but ill always defend victims #no one is all good or all bad #stop blaming women for everything #tvdu #the originals #the vampire diaries #tvd #the mikaelsons #klaus mikaelson #tvdu metas #metas #dahlia

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delosdestinations · 2 months

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"We wanted to make a show about consciousness; the kind of boastful ambition that works when you're pitching--and then falls apart when you find yourself trying to figure it out. There were few guides. Philosophers who'd lost their tenure. Computer scientists who'd lost their stock options. Guesses. Expletives. Crackpot theories. Hands wrung or simply thrown in the air. Even now, humans know more about what lies at the bottom of a supermassive black hole than the dark center of our minds.

But there are clues: language, semiotics; the distance between the notions rattling around in our minds and the ways in which we share them, and the ways in which humans share ideas between each other.

There's a language older than language, though. One that predates the written word or even the spoken one. Music. Its effects on people are fascinating--raw, direct, like an older interface that bypasses the newer, clunkier inputs. What music may lack in nuance versus spoken language, it more than gains in emotive power, as if transmitting emotion directly into the brain. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the right chord progression might reach nine figures.

So for our series about consciousness, we knew the music would be vital--and that we had the man for the job. Fittingly, Ramin's journey as a composer had been launched, in part, by Elmer Bernstein's achingly brilliant theme for The Magnificent Seven. Here he got to take a detour into the future in order to find his way back to the West.

He wanted to use guitars. We wanted piano (because the player piano had been the original western robot) and he gamely went along. I remember the themes as they came alive, anointing each character, imbuing them with even more depth and power. The craft and performances that came together for the series were all hard won--Ramin's music hooked everything to an undertoe of menace, melancholy and beauty.

As for Ramin's arrangements of contemporary music, they served two purposes; first, as a gentle reminder that our story was being told in the future tense, not the past. And second, as manipulation. If music is evocative, then music you've heard before takes on another dimension, dipping into circuits of lived experience and harnessing their power. A song you've listened to after a triumph or a breakup--even one rendered in a different timbre or arrangement--still has a grip on you. One that Ramin could pluck at, like the strings on his guitar. We spent four seasons exploring these questions and the closest we came to understanding consciousness--at least the variety that afflicts humans--is that any attempt to explain it without incorporating emotion is pointless.

The show is long since over. But I find myself whistling Ramin's timeless theme. Often. And I smile. That's the power of this music: that the indelible experiences of making Westworld, all of the incredible people who were part of it, all the days spent chasing the sun and capturing it on film, can all be conjured, instantly, in 8 perfectly chosen notes.

Westworld never died. It simply became music."

Jonathan Nolan, Executive Producer Liner Notes from Westworld: Season 4 (Music from the HBO Series) Vinyl

#westworld #jonathan nolan #news #?#figured I'd share this for anyone interested #it was included with the recent s4 vinyl release #and I'm sad again 🥲

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balladofhollisbrown · 24 days

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"The Need For Topical Music", written by Phil Ochs

Before the days of television and mass media, the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music.

It is somewhat ironic that in this age of forced conformity and fear of controversy the folksinger may be assuming the same role. The newspapers have unfortunately told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the cold war truth so help them, advertisers. If a reporter breaks the "code of the West” that used to be confined to Hoot Gibson movies, he’ll find himself out on the street with a story to tell and all the rivers of mass communication damned up.

The folksingers of today must face up to a great challenge in their music. Folk music is an idiom that deals with realities and not just realities of the past as some would assert. More than ever there is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available.

I have run into some singers who say, “Sure, I agree with most topical songs, but they're just too strong to do in public. Besides, I don't want to label myself or alienate some of my audience into thinking I'm unpatriotic.”

Yet this same person will get on the stage and dedicate a song to Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger as if in tribute to an ideal they are afraid to reach for. Those who would compromise or avoid the truth inherent in folk music are misleading themselves and their audiences. In a world so full of lies and corruption, can we allow our own national music to go the way of Madison Avenue?

There are definite grounds for criticism of topical music, however. Much of the music has been too bitter and too negative for many audiences to appreciate, but lately there has been a strong improvement in both quantity and quality, and the commercial success of songs like “If I Had a Hammer” have made many of the profit seekers forget their prejudices.

One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies. A case in point is Pete Seeger's classic “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” which brought a message of peace to millions, including many of the younger generation who do not consider themselves involved in politics.

Folk music often arises out of vital movements and struggles. When the union movement was a growing, stirring and honest force in America, it produced a wealth of material to add to the nation's musical heritage. Today, there regrettably seem to be only two causes that will arouse an appreciable amount of people from their apathetic acceptance of the world; the Negro struggle for civil rights and the peace movement. To hear a thousand people singing "We Shall Overcome" without the benefit of Hollywood's bouncing ball is to hear a power and beauty in music that has no limits in its effect.

It never ceases to amaze me how the American people allow the hit parade to hit them over the head with a parade of song after meaningless song about love. If the powers that be absolutely insist that love should control the market, at least they should be more realistic and give divorce songs an equal chance.

Topical music is often a method of keeping alive a name or event that is worth remembering. For example many people have been vividly reminded of the depression days through Woody Guthrie’s dust bowl ballads. Sometimes the songs will differ in interpretation from the textbooks as with “Pretty Boy Floyd”.

Every newspaper headline is a potential song, and it is the role of an effective songwriter to pick out the material that has the interest, significance and sometimes humor adaptable to music.

A good writer must be able to picture the structure of a song and as hundreds of minute ideas race through his head, he must reject the superfluous and trite phrases for the cogent powerful terms. Then after the first draft is completed, the writer must be his severest critic, constantly searching for a better way to express every line in his song.

I think there is a coming revolution (pardon my French) in folk music as it becomes more and more popular in the U. S., and as the search for new songs becomes more intense. The news today is the natural resource that folk music must exploit in order to have the most vigorous folk process possible.

(Broadside #22, March 1963)

#phil ochs #topical music #protest music #folk music #transcribed by meee

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