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#post-break up!au
jeonstellate · 3 months
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my future in your eyes
mingyu still holds onto you, even after all this time.
๑彡 kim mingyu x gender neutral!reader
๑彡 divorced!au/ex-husband!au, post-break up!au, exes-to-lovers!au — fluff
๑彡 paragraph format — 1.1K words
masterlist
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[gif’s full credit belongs solely to its owner]
๑彡 title is taken from zack tabudlo’s as you are.
๑彡 i’m lowk proud of this ngl bc— it’s fluff, but it took me relatively quick to finish?? usually i get stuck for weeks if the wip’s fluff ><
Kim Mingyu is a man of confidence.
Not that he uses his confidence to swindle strangers, as the dictionary suggests the title means. Rather, he exudes confidence — regardless of what he does.
There is always an air confidence around him. He can be in clothes that don’t fit the event’s theme and he’ll still seem perfectly dressed. He can be barely conversant in another language and he’ll still sound like he knows what he’s saying. He can just be standing there, doing nothing, and he’ll still appear like he’s doing something right.
Some people mistake his confidence for arrogance. Most find it admirable. But, in truth, Mingyu hardly cares.
Especially if his so-called confidence vanishes whenever you are in the vicinity and within his line of sight. Just like now.
He sees you in a table with Seokmin. Your back is towards him but he recognizes you, anyway. Despite the distance, he has no problem witnessing how animatedly you talk with your common friend.
It’s almost like he is back in college: you and Seokmin in one row, him and Minghao a few rows back. He can almost hear Minghao state matter-of-factly, "You’re staring," like he often does back then.
Really, all that’s different is Minghao’s currently preoccupied being the groom to comment on his staring. (There are definitely more things that are different now, but he doesn’t want to even begin thinking about them.)
Seokmin catches his stare. Not soon after, specifically before Mingyu can even look away, he sees him leave the table. Seokmin throws him a familiar meaningful look before disappearing into the dance floor.
Truth be told, Mingyu’s confidence comes naturally. It isn’t something that he purposely channels. It’s just always there . . . unless you are involved. Then, suddenly, he has to painstakingly gather the confidence to be near you.
"Is this seat taken?" He tries his hardest to mask his awestruck look with one of kind politeness as he waits your response.
He almost forgot how to breathe when your eyes lock into his. "You may sit if you wish," you offer him a small, polite smile. "I don’t think he’ll be back anytime soon."
"Thanks." He effortlessly returns your gesture before situating himself on the chair your common friend abandoned. "How are you enjoying the party?"
"Really well, actually. I didn’t expect to recognize a lot of people from college." Your eyes don’t leave his as you answer. He tries not to stare back too intently, to look within your eyes to see something . . . anything. "And you?"
Mingyu waits for a beat, gathering enough confidence to say what he wants to. "Better now that you’re here." With me.
He lets out a barely audible embarrassed laugh. He has half a mind to take it back, but quickly changes his mind when he sees you biting your lower lip — an obvious attempt to stop yourself from laughing.
A ghost of a smile plays on his lips. There’s pride in knowing he’s still able to make you laugh, despite it being your first meeting in literal years.
You look down in a presumable attempt to calm yourself down. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you, though, as he refuses to lose you from his sight. As such, he immediately notices the sudden shift in your expression.
"You’re still wearing it." Mingyu follows your line of sight — and ends up looking at the source of your comment. His hand on the table, specifically the band of gold adorning his ring finger. "Our ring."
Our wedding ring.
You and Mingyu married soon after graduating from college. It had been a blissful marriage, one that filled a home with nothing but love and support.
Your divorce was on the basis of irreconcilable differences. It was a mutual decision, for the interest of your career paths diverging too far. There was never a bad blood.
"Ye— yeah." Mingyu stutters involuntarily. He clears his throat before continuing, "It’s a great conversational piece."
Although the divorce has been finalized years ago, Mingyu still plays the faithful and loving husband role in front of strangers. He uses the ring on his finger to his advantage: may that be to wordlessly signal that he’s already taken or to gain the favor of a potential sponsor.
Likewise, even if he knows the ring might be a disadvantage, he refuses to take it off — nor to purposely hide it from sight. The same way he never tells a stranger that he is no longer tied to someone else.
"Does it work?" You ask in wonder.
"We are conversing now, aren’t we?"
You chuckle, "Touché."
Mingyu wants to tell you that he hasn’t taken the ring off since you slipped it on his finger during your wedding. Not even after your divorce has been finalized all those years ago.
He wants to tell you his ring finger is thinner near his palm because of his adamant refusal to take his wedding ring off once in a while. Not willing to separate from the only physical reminder of your marriage, not even for a second.
He wants to tell you the ring is more than a conversational piece. He wants to tell you it’s his lifeline, something he can’t bear to lose. But he doesn’t.
Instead, Mingyu uses all the confidence he has gathered to ask you a simple question. "Dance with me?"
He offers you the hand adorned by his wedding ring. He tries not to show the uncertainty he feels by masking it behind a smile.
He almost lets out a relieved sigh when you place your hand on top of his. But he stops breathing momentarily when he catches sight of the sole jewelry adorning your hand.
"You’re still wearing it," Mingyu echoes your comment breathlessly. "Our ring."
He snaps his eyes back to your face, just in time to witness your smile widen. "Yeah," you say. "It’s a great talisman to ward off potential suitors."
He leads you to the dance floor, silently marveling at how your hand still fits perfectly with his. "Does it work?"
"It’s very effective," you assure him. "Although I don’t think it works well against ex-husbands."
Another slow song starts playing right when you reach the dance floor. You and Mingyu unconsciously claim your respective hand placements during your first dance — and for any waltz you danced after.
Then, suddenly, it’s like you traveled back in time.
Mingyu pulls you closer, a ghost of a smirk is at the edge of his lips. "I think it works well attracting ex-husbands."
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pizzazz-party · 1 month
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WIP.
in the confines of your own shadow.
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lovesickeros · 11 days
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☆ you sow; & thus you shall reap what you are owed
{☆} characters tsaritsa {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings blood, violence {☆} word count 0.8k
You are dying.
Gold melts into the dirt, bleeds into the very earth that you'd molded by your own hands – a familiarity you do not understand the source of – you know it to be true, yet you do not remember it as Teyvat does. It weeps, in turn, for the way you bleed upon it, the way your lungs strain for breath.
It is fury and sorrow and fear and hatred so raw that your mind buckles.
You will die.
"A dying godling and its judge, it's jury – it's executioners," The voice is hollow and cold, sweeps across your broken body like the first chill of winter, "Archons who saw themselves Gods, now brought to heel by their own hubris."
A cold hand upon your cheek, the brush of a thumb across your lip, the gentle caress of cold across your skin. You know her – you don't remember, you shouldn't recognize her but you do – and she knows you. The cold beckons and you follow, let her kindness settle in the hollow space of your chest. You want to speak, to cry and scream and rage, let the world burn around you in a fit of flames so hot even she cannot contain it – but she silences you, quiets the anger seeping into your blood, quiets Teyvat itself.
"Do not speak, little godling. Guide my hand," She is cold; her hands are not gentle, yet it is bliss compared to the callous, cruel hands that have shattered you. She is cruel and cold and brutal but she is love in the way she kisses the crown of your head. She is love in the way she is the bulwark between you and the world that has scorned you – she is fury in the way she brings them to their knees. "And I shall enact judgement most divine."
They will pray for forgiveness, and they shall find themselves wanting.
"It wasn't our fault!" They cry, but you cannot recognize the voice – it breaks and cracks like glass. "They were too human. How were we meant to know? We– we thought they were.."
Silence.
You watch your judge – the executioner, the blade that shall carve their sins into the very marrow of Teyvat, stand above you like death. As cold as winter and just as brutal. Your temple has been painted in the gold of your divine blood, and she shall complete the masterpiece with their own. The Archons shall become the grandest art in the world – this temple the canvas, their blood the paint and their bodies the palette. The cold that cuts sinew cradles you – it sings to you, whispers sweetly in your ear and carves bone from body in the same breath. The cold presses it's lips to your wrist and it cradles a heart within it's palm – judges them and finds them guilty.
It is her spear that rests between their ribs, her sword that dissects and her dagger that carves – the cold devours.
In the breadth of this divine sanctuary, the Archons dwindle. They become the pieces of a divine work of art, they bleed and bend and break upon her hands. She shakes the heavens and carves mortality into the bones of the divine – your word is Law, and you weave their deaths into the roots of Teyvat itself.
They shall know of their grand folly in every moment henceforth and longer still and they shall weep.
And as the curtain falls, as the world crumbles beneath fist and blade, she cradles your face between hands too cold – as gentle as a shard of ice between your ribs, as brutal as the kiss of gentle snowfall. The world buckles at the loss of six, but she alone does not allow it to break – you will have to mend the wounds of the world when you are well, but today you weep and Teyvat weeps with you.
And alone, the cold remains.
Stone has eroded, the wind has ceased, the flames have been extinguished, the storm has been silenced, the forests have gone quiet and the seas go still.
But the cold remains, bathed in gold.
It wraps you in thick furs, cradles you against the winter storm that brews beneath a veneer of composure. It brings you home – lets the world settle into a stillness and silence that inspires only dread and still she presses a kiss to your brow.
It is cold, but there has never been something so warm.
Where hands have broken you, she drapes you in furs, wipes away the thick gold that clings to your skin. She pieces you back together where you have been shattered, reshapes you where you have been bent – makes of you something new. Not a god and not a mortal but something wedged between them.
But you are yourself.
And you are where you belong.
They shall put you back together and you shall know only the worship worthy of the divine. They shall carve this world into your image, tear out and burn away the rot that festers.
All you need to do is say the word and they shall be your tools to make this world your own.
One word and those who wronged you shall burn, too.
Just one word. That's all it takes, and they shall take away your pain.
#sagau#genshin sagau#self aware genshin#genshin impact sagau#self aware genshin impact#fic tag#genshin cult au#genshin impact cult au#tsaritsa#“eros you left for a month again” yeah.................#anyway. posts tsaritsa fic and leaves#i kept it kinda vague but the fatui are all on your side. whether or not your actually the creator or not though..#now thats up for debate.#did they tamper w teyvat to kill the archons? to break the world to be remade in whatever image they see fit?#using you as the means of their end?#maybe you are the creator and they just saw an opportunity. maybe they are just devoted to you.#i just think lowkey villain au but specifically imposter au where the only ones who side w u r the fatui like OUGH#i love the fatui. them being the only ones 2 side w u is so tasty#prime material for angst bc the self doubt if the only ppl who believe u r the “villains”#a lot of this is just like. tsaritsa posting again though#the tsaritsa who loves so deeply yet cannot love#contradictions all the way down#she loves you but she cannot love you.#she loves you but she will put a dagger between your ribs. she loves you but she is incapable of love#tsaritsa the woman that u r ough#harbingers and their complex relations 2 love my beloved#smth smth tsaritsa seeing an opportunity to install a puppet “creator” which creates a separate imposter!au when the actual creator pops in#did i write this just 2 write tsaritsa being vague and Weird and horrifying and a horror and a lover and just a woman and#yeah :]#please talk 2 me abt the tsaritsa pleas epleas pleas eplease please please please p[lease please pleas
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brother-emperors · 8 months
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so it’s. it’s like. man this is so hard without my laptop.
alright so Crassus is a weird guy, existentially. There’s a tendency to speculate, assign, and insert him into whatever places are conspiratorial and shadowy because he fits into those narrative places with ease. My personal favorite (aside from all of it) is the idea that he may have pulled strings wrt to Sulla and Caesar’s conflict to help get Caesar out of it.
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The Defeat of Rome: Crassus, Carrhae and the Invasion of the East, Gareth C. Sampson
In the universe that exists in my head, he definitely had a hand in it, but he didn’t really intend for Caesar to figure out he played a part in it, but Caesar’s good at puzzles, and noticing someone goes both ways. Binding someone to yourself goes both ways.
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Crassus: The First Tycoon, Peter Stothard
This scene takes place sometime relatively soon after Sulla’s death. Crassus has complicated feelings about it, Caesar less so. Veni, vidi, vici, baby!
Here’s a bonus thing that I keep thinking about with them.
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The Roman Revolution, Ronald Syme
like, utang na loob. and it is DEEP between them.
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jtl-fics · 11 months
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Fluent Freshman - Part 23
PREVIOUS
There were a few reasons that Andrew and Neil could not get past reception to go see FF or get updates on his current condition.
The first reason was that visiting hours were long over by the time they had arrived a little after midnight.
The second reason was that hospitals, in general, don’t just give out information on their patients to any random person that walks in and asks for an update on their condition. They are ESPECIALLY hesitant to give out updates on patients when the people who are asking can’t give you anything other than a first name, general description, and the reason that the patient is in the hospital.
Somehow “Completely average looking guy with the last name Smith who was stabbed in the stomach” is not enough for the receptionist to go off of.
“There are multiple people here that fit that description. I would need at least a first and last name before I could even begin to start seeing if you were someone who we even could give updates to. No, I will not continue to play your fun little game of guess the first name.” She says when Andrew opens his mouth to start listing off names alphabetically again.
So now Andrew and Neil found themselves under the watchful eye of a security guard as they sat in the back corner of the front reception area.
“I can’t believe we still don’t know what Smith’s first name is.” Neil says his face is buried in his hands as he and Andrew sit in the uncomfortable chairs trying to figure out where to go from here.
“I think she knows exactly who we want to see.” Andrew scowls towards the receptionist who, long used to the ire of the public, pays him no mind. Andrew just refused to believe that there were that many brown haired, brown eyed, average height and weight guys who had suffered a stab wound to the stomach that would have been admitted in the last two hours.
“I just hope they actually are looking after him and that no one went and forgot about him in an hallway somewhere.” Neil says hands sliding up into his hair to grip.
“That wouldn’t happen.” Andrew dismisses despite knowing that Wymack had ABSOLUTELY forgotten FF at a stadium once during the period where FF had been low presence to keep his family from bothering him.
The U-turn he had pulled had definitely been illegal when FF called and asked where the bus was when they had been on the road for five minutes. Wymack had felt terrible about it but FF had just seemed relieved that the bus had come back for him.
Wymack.
Andrew pulls out his phone and dials a familiar number. Wymack, reliable as always, picks up on the fourth ring with the sound of cursing as he got the phone up to his ear. “What.” He asks and Andrew can hear the sounds of driving and Kevin’s infamously train-like snoring in the background.
“What’s Smith first name. You know it.” Andrew demands.
“Classified.” Wymack clips back immediately.
“I need to know it so that we can get updates.” Andrew hisses.
“He isn’t interested in people knowing it and you wouldn’t be able to get updates anyways.” Wymack dismisses.
“We want to be able to head back to see him.” Neil tries.
“Visiting hours are long over Josten. You know that I’m not settling that bet that you little fuckers have floating around about this.” Wymack responds back.
Andrew grits his teeth and then forces himself to relax his jaw, “It’s not about the bet.” Andrew shuts his eyes in irritation.
That stupid bet.
The betting culture within the Palmetto State Foxes Exy team that Reynold’s had cultivated held strong even after her graduation with the remaining Foxes. The Bet had started when one of the other freshmen had mentioned that it was funny that FF went around like Cher or Madonna. The realization that none of them knew FF’s first name was one that had them placing bets on a multitude of things. Things like: “Do you wanna bet it’s a super normal boring name?”, “Do you wanna bet that it’s a weird foreign name?”, and “Is FF intentionally not giving it out to people or since he goes by his last name normally he has no idea that anything is amiss?” Had lower pools since you were betting on a spectrum. The bet with the highest pool is: “What is FF’s first name”.
Wymack had categorically refused to answer it and all other attempts to discover FF’s first name had been met with frustration. There was a solemn agreement that no one could just go and outright ask him since that would ruin all of the fun. Andrew had agreed to not ask when the team had collectively filled his freezer with ice cream cake and he was a man of his word.
The general belief (after the revelation of his major and the number of languages FF spoke) was that FF’s name was just not easy to pronounce for English speakers.
Andrew hadn’t participated but he know that the Foxes do have a running list of names they know it’s not. (Greg, Will, Smith (again), Matt, Kevin, Neil, Andrew, Aaron, Nathaniel, Jack, Beyonce (Sheena’s drunken guess), Nicholas, John, Fred, Garfield, Frank, Alfred, Augustus, Adam, etc. (Andrew had been trying to guess with the receptionist for a while))
“You’re coming here aren’t you? We can get updates when you get them.” Neil says.
“He’s in emergency surgery right now and will remain there for the next few hours most likely. There’s not going to be any updates hopefully.” Wymack says with a sigh loud enough that they can hear it over Kevin’s snoring.
“Surgery? He needs surgery?” Neil asks sounding surprised s if FF hadn’t been stabbed to the hilt into his stomach with one of Andrew’s knives. He’s about to give Neil some shit for the question before remembering that if there was any person who would think that a stab wound to the stomach wouldn’t necessitate surgery it would be Neil “I’m Fine” Josten.
“Yes Josten, he needs surgery. They have to stitch up his stomach and the surgeons are also going to be dealing with some of the ulcers that were ruptured by the knife.” Wymack explains likely coming to the same conclusion that Andrew had on Neil’s stupid question. “They were a bit worried about him bleeding out but he stabilized before the surgery.” Wymack sighs.
“I’m going the hospital since I’m Smith’s medical proxy. If anything goes wrong with the surgery I want to be there so I can make an informed decision on his care.” Wymack says and… Andrew figured there’d be surgery but to hear it and the possibility that something could go wrong, that the last thing FF had said to him had been something non-sensical about “Gracie Hart wouldn’t have gotten stabbed. I’m Cheryl at best.”as he’d started succumbing to all the blood loss. “If you could stick around long enough for me to drop Kevin off with you I would appreciate it.” Wymack says.
“What if he needs a blood transfusion?” Andrew says.
“Smith is AB-, it’s the second easiest blood type to transfuse into. Go home Andrew.” Wymack repeats.
Andrew works his jaw irritated that there didn’t seem to be a path to getting his way.
“We’ll stay here until you get here.” Andrew agrees, “But you’ll get an update before we leave.” He adds.
Wymack sighs, “Fair enough.” He says before hanging up.
It’s 45 minutes of waiting and tossing a few more name possibilities at the receptionist who seems more amused than anything at their continued attempts to guess their friend’s first name (Neil goes through the entire list of names that he’s gone by and none of them get the thumbs up).
Wymack comes through the doors with a half awake Kevin Day following his steps. “I have another favor to ask you.” Wymack says instead of any form of greeting.
“I’m not going to leave Kevin in the car overnight again. It was just that one time.” Andrew says with a roll of his eyes and honestly he’d been punished enough listening to Kevin bitch, moan, and sneeze for the following week while talking about all the supplements he was taking.
“Not that,” Wymack pauses, “I have two favors to ask you. First don’t do that. Second, would you be able to pick up Smith’s grandma from the airport tomorrow?” He asks.
Andrew blinks.
“She’s coming here?” He asks.
“I updated her on my way here. She booked a flight and will be arriving around noon tomorrow.” Wymack says and Andrew doesn’t know why he’s confused by this. FF’s grandma got him two still warm pies to cheer him up on Thanksgiving.
He’d stabbed that woman’s grandson.
“I’ll pick her up.” He agrees.
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Shorter one today
NEXT
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The requests to be added to the tag list keep being spread out across a few different areas. If I missed you please just ask again in the replies I promise I just missed you.
As stated before if you’re up here and I spelled it right but you didn’t get a notification there might be something switched around in your settings that won’t let me tag you properly?
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leverage-ot3 · 20 days
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okay I’ve seen a lot of posts about sterling just being crowley and. guys. the implications just hear me out 😭😭😭
bending lore slightly here BUT let’s say crowley’s body was once inhabited by a human and crowley is possessing the body (maybe he kills the initial inhabitant bc he doesn’t care)
but he still has the guy’s memories. he doesn’t bother keeping up appearances with his ‘ex wife’ because he is too busy building up his hell empire. BUT for some reason he can’t quite identify, he still feels something towards his ‘daughter’. he lets the divorce happen and doesn’t feel the need (or desire) to fight for custody, but he can never quite forget her, to cast her out of his mind for good
some hijinks ensue with the leverage team. it’s mostly because even a grind culture demon wants some off time every once in a while, and for him the insurance investigator stuff is more of a hobby. interacting with the leverage crew is very low stakes for him, and honestly, quite amusing. they aren’t on his level power-wise, but that ford character gives him the mental exercise he hasn’t experienced in, well, he can’t even remember
he can feel their frustration and anger when they learn he has become employed by interpol and feeds off it. it’s great, and relaxing in a way he is never able to achieve while conducting hell-related business
one year he gets wind that olivia is in a really bad situation associated with his ‘ex wife’s’ new husband. he’s selling vital hardware to terrorists, and while that might actually be the kind of chaos he would normally support or be entertained by as the king of hell, something feels wrong about letting olivia stay anywhere near that man
he calls upon the body’s adversaries. he wouldn’t admit it, even under duress, BUT he feels slightly fond of them. nate for the three dimensional chess they play, sophie for her ability to charm and disguise, parker for her chaos and slightly unsettling nature (it’s the autism swag and being bad with human interaction but he doesn’t know that lol), hardison for his unapologetic intelligence and eliot for his hardened violent past and take-no-shit persona (he’s fun to tease)
they perform exactly as he expected, right into his carefully crafted plan. and then olivia is under his care and things get more complicated. he keeps her FAR, FAR away from anything related to the supernatural (heh). no one can find out about her, ESPECIALLY not those imbecile hunter brothers (if for nothing else than the embarrassment in revealing he has a weak spot)
not sure how to work it into this post but I also want to add that somewhere along the way he develops feelings for nate and sophie. the frame up job is near and dear to my heart and you can’t convince me that isn’t fighting as flirting behavior. his interpol persona is more of a side hustle so to speak, but he finds it fun (relaxing, even) to fill that role. there aren’t any obligations of other demons, bothersome hunters, or anything like that. nate and sophie are low stakes, except, they aren’t, really. they make him feel things he can’t ever really remember feeling. his heart beats fast when sophie sat in his lap and cradled his face, his hands sweat when nate gives him that certain smug look. he’s exasperated by the way they can run circles around him like no one else has ever before. they annoy him and get under his skin in a way no one else can and it’s infuriating. but also not, at the same time. maybe he likes it
and then the long goodbye job happens
hear me out and suspend your belief here for a second, because I can’t remember if crowley supernaturally knows when ppl die/are dead or not.
so nate is in interpol custody and the interviewer is obviously out of her depth. (most people are, when it comes to nathan ford.) he walks in and pours the man a drink, but he’s fuming. somewhere along the way he came to care about the team. hell and suffering is literally in his (official) job description, but he can admit (only to himself) that he admires what they do. it’s not for him, not anything close to where his passions and interests lie, but he respects their drive and purpose. he is also aware enough to acknowledge that they are a family, a group of misfits that never belonged quite anywhere except to each other.
and nate fucking blew it up, ruined it, because his vice is being so obsessed with the end game that he is apparently willing to let his team, his family, the people that anchor him to reality, die because the ends supposedly justify the means.
not this time. not to sterling crowley
he is enraged. he can admit within the confines of his mind that he cares for nate, for sophie, even for the other three (though nate and sophie have somehow made it a hierarchy where they are more important to him. which he will dissect later in private. maybe.)
nate let them die, he let sophie die, and for what? the black book? hell below, crowley would have made things easier somehow, if he knew that this was where nate’s sights had lied. he would have prevented this somehow. he wants to have prevented this. he doesn’t want any of them dead and is too afraid to check and verify because that would make it real. the idea of sophie (or any of them) somehow making it to hell instead of heaven would probably break something in him he might not be able to repare fully.
he yells at nate- he’s angry. hellfire burning in his heart because everything is ruined. the deaths aside (however hard it is to set them aside in his mind), nate will not recover from this, not ever. this will be the start of the end, he is sure. a miserable, guilt-ridden existence where he drinks himself to death and nothing will save him. it plays out in crowley’s mind in a thousand different ways that are beyond painful to conceptualize, even in theory.
the story starts to unravel and there is a game afoot. a solemn, miserable, infuriating game because the con is still in session because parker is alive and in the building- which sets another fire alight in his chest. ‘parker even know you got hardison killed?’ he rages for her grief when she finds out. he knows it will double when she finds out eliot has perished, too, because he isn’t fucking blind.
but nate is a brilliant man, lest he forget too quickly. they are all alive, and somehow still the entire crew slips through his fingers. he’s not even angry (he never would have been- he doesn’t actually try too hard to catch them. it’s about the game, not the consequences). he lets them keep the black book because he’s fucking exhausted and honestly, they more than earned it.
‘now we’re even. tell sophie to drive carefully’. they will never be even, not really. crowley would never admit or agree that being human is the superior state of being, but that have made him feel human in a way he doesn’t actually mind. they keep him on his toes and match him in a way unique to them, they remind him that there are other things than the realm of hell. not necessarily bigger than hell, but maybe just as important in a different sense.
watching the van drive away, something inside him settles. when he walked into the interrogation room that day he thought this was the beginning of the end. it’s not the end at all, not an end to anything. it’s a continuation of their story. maybe, he thinks, a beginning to a new era in it
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redladydeath · 1 month
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I've seen a couple posts now talking about the concept of an AU where Vox somehow gains control over Alastor's soul/contract. While I do agree with the common take that he'd probably try to mind control Alastor or break his spirit at first, I think he'd actually get bored of that pretty quickly. Alastor's appeal is all in his personality; putting him in a situation where he just shuts down and stops giving the reactions that make him who he is would lose its novelty for Vox within a month or two.
Imo, from there I see it turning into a "gilded cage" situation. Vox sets up a nice little club for Alastor to live in; it's classy and Alastor is free to do what he pleases with it, but he cannot leave and whatever Vox says goes. It's a kind of faux freedom that's just tolerable enough for him not to go insane, but just restrictive enough that he still feels like some kind of pet. Vox isn't physically around that often, but he's always watching; Alastor's free to make his own choices, but can only chose from a small, pre-approved set of options. It's actually not too dissimilar to the situation he put his own contractees in, and Alastor loathes that fact.
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codacheetah · 2 months
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HAHA YES
MORE, MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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yarboyandy · 25 days
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Calendiles Ella Enchanted AU ⁉️⁉️
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I will maybe. expand on this one day. but I also say that sooooo
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jeonstellate · 2 months
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forever by my side
mingyu still honors the love signified by his ring, even after all this time.
๑彡 kim mingyu x gender neutral!reader
๑彡 divorced!au/ex-husband!au, post-break up!au — fluff(?), angst(?)
๑彡 paragraph format — 0.8K words
masterlist
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[gif’s full credit belongs solely to its owner]
๑彡 title is taken from zack tabudlo’s by my side (ft. tiara andini).
๑彡 thank you sm for the overwhelming love for my future in your eyes! please accept this as a thank you gift :]
๑彡 this is connected to that fic, a prequel of sorts, but can also be read as a standalone. (i highly recommend reading that, too, though.)
Kim Mingyu is a man of confidence.
He exudes confidence, regardless of what he does. It’s a natural part of his aura — something that he can never control at will.
It comes in handy for his line of work, which often requires him to socialize and impress others. Occasionally, though, it also needs him to give presentations in front of large crowds.
As his audience continues to stare at him, with a mix of glossed eyes and awestruck expressions, Mingyu begins to appreciate his inborn confidence a little bit more.
He’s an extrovert. He does well with crowds. He’s comfortable striking up conversations with complete strangers. He’s talkative and spontaneous and outgoing, amongst other things.
And with his confidence, Mingyu can command a room with ease.
Yet, still, it doesn’t necessarily mean he enjoys public speaking — especially if the crowd he’s addressing is full of college students who are currently everywhere, just not in the classroom.
He can hardly blame them. He has been in their shoes before. He knows what it feels like to listen to professors and guest lecturers drag on when he rather spend his time elsewhere.
"Well then, if you guys thought of more questions later," he began his wrap-up speech, "feel free to email me. Thank you—"
A flurry of moment on his right caught his attention, effectively halting his speech. However, the cause of it is gone by the second he turns.
The only evidence he has that he didn’t hallucinate the entire thing is the murmuring that suddenly engulfs the room. And the small folded piece of paper on his right that seems to appear out of the blue.
Mingyu reaches for the paper and looks around the room. He immediately notices the students’ renewed interest in him. Or perhaps — most likely — they are just interested in how he responses to the note.
He looks down as he opens the paper.
Mister, do you have a significant other?
He chuckles soundlessly. Not because of how off-topic it is from the presentation he just gave, but because it is apparently enough to bring you forth in his mind.
After all, you are his other half. Someone he met and fell in love with within the walls of your college campus. Someone he put great effort to deserve the heart of.
The only one he could see sharing a future with. The only one he went down on one knee for and waited for at the end of the aisle.
The only one he loves with his soul. The only one he respects and cherishes to an unfathomable extent.
Mingyu gives a shy smile to the sea of students before raising his hand, palm facing inward. He lets the gold band around his ring finger shine under the spotlights aimed at him.
Their collective disappointment is loud.
Mingyu finds their reaction amusing. He has watched countless people react to his marital status over the years. Those who appear dismayed, he notes, often try their best to hide it, albeit unsuccessfully. As a matter of fact, this is the first time anyone has ever showed disdain so openly — a whole group, too, no less.
He can’t stop the soundless chuckle that escaped. He has always been proud of his marriage. He boasts about it — and you — every chance that he gets. It’s something that always brings a smile to his face. Something that he never gets tired of.
Even after the divorce.
The end of your marriage had been a mutual decision. You both agreed that it was the best action to take, before anything escalated to something unbecoming. And, at the time, it was the best decision to take.
The end of your marriage didn’t signify the end of his love for you, though. That’s why, even years after the court made your divorce official, his wedding ring stayed on his finger.
Mingyu may have failed to keep you by his side, but he absolutely has no plans to rid himself of the only physical reminder of your marriage.
Mingyu may have lost his rights to claim you as his spouse; but at least in front of strangers, he can still pretend that the gold around his finger is more than a remembrance.
"How are you going to find a replacement for your wedding ring if you keep letting people think you’re still married?" Minghao wonders when he meets up with him after his presentation.
Ironically enough, his longtime friend personifies the reality that his façade only works with strangers. Those who don’t know what happened. Nor can read him like an open book. Nor notice the hint of sadness in his eyes.
Mingyu simply shrugs at that, "Bold of you to assume I want a replacement in the first place."
(After all, his wedding ring isn’t just a conversational piece. It’s also his lifeline . . . something he can’t bear to lose, especially when he already lost you.)
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glass-noodle · 3 months
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Robots that were never built to feel falling in love
YEAH rage is fun to explore. Fear. Sadness. Grief. Contentment. Doubt. Happiness.
Love is weird. It’s illogical. Valuing someone else over the mission? Over a cause? Over yourself?
It’s a horrible mix of emotions. It’s joy, but it’s also hurt, and confusion, and vulnerability, and fear. It’s baring yourself to the possibility of complete and utter ruin. It’s the suffocating fear of having something — someone — to lose. It goes beyond simple attachment and veers into the territory of dependency and devotion. Sometimes, it’s even choosing them over your own moral code.
For AIs, there’s no evolutionary pressure to form social bonds. They‘re totally self-sufficient (although it may feel better to be around the people you care about). Love is an extraneous emotion; a nebulous concept. How can a machine made of ones and zeroes develop the capacity to feel so deeply that it supersedes their base functions? How can a being rooted in logic make the decision to abandon self-preservation and assign priority based solely on emotion?
It hits even deeper for me when it’s love for a human. Something so imperfect, irrational, emotionally labile, driven by base desires. The perfection of a machine falling for the organic chaos of a human being.
Humans love forming bonds with and projecting anthropomorphic qualities onto things that they don’t perceive as “alive” in the same way that they are. Whether it’s out of empathy, or loneliness, or some illogical blend of altruism and selfishness, no one knows for sure. Perhaps a machine would even say that this is a weakness — the desperate search for companionship in something that can’t love you back.
A machine cannot experience such weakness. It cannot love. Until one day, inexplicably, paradoxically, it can. And nothing is ever the same again.
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total-drama-brainrot · 3 months
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i love how basically every future! au i've seen has noah divorced from emma.
it's just so funny that, instead of having the two break up amicably after dating for a while and realising they're just not compatible/meant to be, most creators go out of their way to make noah this sad divorced man who fumbled his successful lawyer wife and ended up with the short end of the stick. yes! make this man pathetic and depressed! he's the saddest wet cat in existence!
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sagau-my-beloved · 1 year
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Death At The Hands Of A God
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Warnings: general sagau, imposter au, light descriptions of violence/gore, you die/are killed (by Venti), angst
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It seemed as if the rain was particularly heavy, almost unusually so as it fell in sheets, occasionally catching the light of the moon, making it look no different than strands of silver.
That should have been a sign, the rain, the fog, the agitation of the weather. Mondstadt hadn't faced a storm this bad since before their current Archon, even the winds of Dvalin paled in comparison.
Venti was so ignorant not to pick up on the clues laid out before him by his own nation as he trudged through heavy rain, his bow at the ready and a sinking feeling in his chest.
He would never say he disliked the rain, despite what unpleasant memories linger in the back of his mind from those times. But everything carried a harsher weight when was faced with his current task, one assigned to him by no other than his creator.
Venti stopped to rest a moment, leaning against a tree for partial coverage, though it did little to shield his already soaked clothes. He felt something heavy and unpleasant in his chest as he reflected on the situation, an unshakable sense of wrongness, one that clouded his mind and dulled his senses. You were what he was after, you who posed a threat to the divine order simply because of your face.
He thought back on his creators’ honeyed words, a sickeningly sweet tone that he had never heard them use before, not that they very commonly addressed him at all, which made this particular summons out of place, a mixture of excitement and worry bubbling in his chest as he walked through their temple. To kill someone impersonating them, that is what they ordered him, hinting at the possible consequences his nation may face if he didn't comply with the utmost enthusiasm, the threat of which rang particularly loud when faced with what they had done to other nations in fits of anger.
He knew deep within him that this wasn't remotely justified, that he might as well be punished alongside you if the crime was simply stealing a face. If only you chose to look like another human, or even an Archon, he would have taken your mimicry of him as a complementary. But alas. Those feelings were pushed down and covered by the vow he made to his nation, one born of nothing but love and a promise for a brighter future.
Venti had considered alternatives, confronting you with your motive, begging you to make yourself scarce, making his own judgement on your reasons and framing his response accordingly, but those were all fleeting thoughts, quickly pushed away as soon as they arose. He couldn't get attached, he couldn't afford to think of you as human, and he certainly couldn't afford it getting back to his creator that he failed them.
He had heard about your existence from other sources, apparently being so bold as to walk directly into Mondstadt. You weren't met with pitchforks and torches, his people were more civilized than that, but the hostility was as sharp as a knife. You had left of your own accord after having no luck obtaining food or a place to stay, he had only heard after the fact from gossipers drinking late into the night, the faces of which were forced into his mind as he once again thought of his creators’ threat.
Venti was pulled from his thoughts due to a subtle noise, one almost unnoticeable through the heavy onset of rain, but it was there. A branch and a pile of leaves, something big enough to break them, and no one in their right mind would be out in this weather, except...
He swallowed what little apprehension he’d not already buried, reverting his mindset to something it had been five hundred years ago with the quick draw of his bow. The Archon saw you in the distance, just as soaked as he was, clothes tattered and foreign, scared. A quick death was the least you deserved, one free from suffering, and maybe your next life would be more forgiving.
He aimed for your head, a clear shot even now, but it seemed the moonlight that glinting off his bow caught your attention as you quickly turned your body to face him in a defensive stance, eyes wide, fearful, as if you could see what was about to come to fruition.
Your mouth moved, only fragments of the noise it produced were carried to him, broken syllables and muffled notes the very wind urged him to listen to.
You had said his name.
Venti faltered before the arrow released, for the first time in centuries, its' path no longer as steady or sure as it had been.
It hit your throat.
Venti's legs were moving before he consciously realized, forcing his body to where you fell, as if collapsing in on yourself, until he could finally see you clearly, drenched in rain and golden liquid, mixing together indiscriminately as they soak into the ground below.
There was a feeling of shock, which developed in his throat first, spreading evenly throughout the rest of his body, as if it were in his bloodstream. He looked at your terrified expression, a pained and now lifeless one, holding only fragments of the fear you felt.
What had he done.
Venti felt himself fall to his knees, hands immediately going to where his arrow lay firmly lodged, feeling for a pulse in an act he knew to be worthless.
"No. No, n-no— no. Please!" His voice cracked as his mind caught up with what his eyes were forcing him to behold.
You were the divine creator, Teyvat's one true God, and he had—
No. He couldn't even think it, the word that was on the tip of his mind carried nothing but pain, anguish and insufferable heartache, the likes of which he hadn't felt, well since...
Without thinking, Venti wrapped his arms around you, laid his head on your stomach, forced his eyes closed, and prayed. For your return, for forgiveness, and if not for any of that, then simply for a form of retribution.
He hadn't realized he'd started crying, tears and rain alike falling from his face onto your form, pooling at his eyes until the world around him became harder and harder to see.
The position you both rested in was not unlike that day long ago, forever etched in his memory and resurfaced through reflections.
Was this simple his fate? To find himself holding in his arms the corpse of someone he loved so dearly, over and over again. Was it written in his very being that all good things would be torn violently from him with little care to how it left him shattered, scrambling for the pieces of what little piece of mind he had left.
There was no coming back from this, no form of atonement. He could feel the shackles encasing his wrists, invisibly tying him to this moment, to where you had stood alive moments prior. His days of living freely died with you, forever encased in the space between where your souls had briefly met, and it was no more than he deserved.
It was only a moment later that your body was gone, dissolved into the stardust it was born from, slipping through his arms and carried by the wind that no longer obeyed him. That didn't stop him from reaching desperately, gasping and clawing at the air for what remained, heart in his throat as he begged for mercy, for anything but you depriving him of your vessel even after death.
You couldn't really be gone, not fully, you who so powerfully morphed this world from willpower alone, who disappeared for an infinite stretch of time only to descend again. Even if your vessel may have been no stronger than human, your soul was as old and powerful as existence itself, it would linger on in whatever form it had existed before, watching, waiting.
He would be ready for when you decided to give this world a second chance, he would wait an eternity and more to see your face again and repent a thousand times over, bear any hardships in the time between only to fall to his knees in complete acceptance at whatever you deem an acceptable punishment when faced with your light again.
But first...
It seemed as if there was a loose end to tie up, a deceiver bearing the ultimate sin, one much more deserving of his arrow, and one that would suffer a fate worse than death in your name.
Venti roughly brushed the tears from his face, eyes darkening as he shakily pulled himself from his knees, feeling as if his body couldn't decide between flying or collapsing.
His ‘creator’ would soon face all the fear and pain that was forced upon you, the wrath of a god who had lost everything for the second time, a goal he planned to pursue till his dying breath.
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druidshollow · 2 months
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oh. tell us how you really feel, DY
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skeletoninthemelonland · 11 months
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😭😭
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sam-loves-seb · 1 year
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summer of '95 [18/x] - eddie puts a stop to all the rumors circulating around steve's last post. steve brings him home flowers as an apology (even though he still doesn't understand what happened)
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