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#she says she lives in a constant state of joy! so she figured it out ig
lackadaisycats · 5 months
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Hi Tracy, i wanted to ask a somewhat personal question. How do you deal with losing beloved pet? I recently lost my 9-year-old tortie a month ago to kidney failure and GDV and even though i still got three other babies to dote for (and they're all lovely), it's really hard to feel as much love as i did with my tortie. She was my first cat and was incredibly loving and patient with, helped me immensely while grieving for my father's passing a few years ago.
With her gone, it really does feel like a lot of me also went with her. It makes living very hard. I made tiny sculpture and wood soldering in her memory but i don't really know how to deal with the actual emptiness inside me. Sorry for the word vomit but i figured since you also lost a precious cat before, you might have insight for this situation
I'm so sorry for the loss of your beloved tortie.
I don't have any special skills for dealing with death, really, but I suppose I can speak a bit about personal experience.
I think it's natural to feel a yawning emptiness when something so intimately intertwined in your life - a constant companion, a source of joy, something around which your daily schedule is structured - is suddenly gone. It can be a very lonely sort of grief too, as the loss of a pet doesn't generally come with the same community and ritual that human death does. To others, your dear companion was perhaps just an animal. Not to equate it with human death in the broader scheme, exactly, but it can mean personal devastation, compounded by being alone in coping with it. Societally, we probably do ourselves some significant harm believing we must rapidly "get over" losses like this.
There's no getting-over-it that I know of, anyway, but there is the knowledge that the nature of grief changes over time (it sounds like you're no stranger to that). The stormy waves that knock you about with the immensity of the loss gradually give way to more placid waters. The sadness remains, but grows gentler and maybe sweeter even, because it creates a quiet space to reflect on the pet that enriched and graced a chapter of your life with their presence.
In the meantime, while awaiting some peace, I personally find there's an analgesic effect to making the feelings of grief actionable. The meditative nature of art and the act of memorializing a companion animal won't fill in that void, but it can help you start to process and accept it, to find a way to transmogrify it into a repository for your feelings and memories of love. I'd say keep making sculptures, make a scrapbook, draw a picture of her - anything, if it puts you in a different state of mind as you're doing it.
Looking after animals that are in need of care and attention in the moment, even if you feel emotionally distant, might help you regain some footing too. Setting up shelters for feral cats and fostering rescues are some things I like to do. There's a sort of grounding, self-rescue interwoven in focusing some energy on the living.
Most of all, grant yourself time. Do yourself the kindness of not feeling bad about feeling bad. Mourn without believing you must rush to find a cure for the sadness.
If, however, you are suffering or finding it impossible to function day to day, please do reach out to seek qualified counseling.
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manogirl · 3 months
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My Year in Reading, 2023
For the first time since 2012, I didn't do a GR reading challenge. In every year between 2012 and 2021, I read over 150 books. Some years it was closer to 150, some years closer to 200. In 2022, I read 83 books. In 2023, 79 books.
See, in 2022, my world broke. My brain broke. The big bad burnout turned my brain inside-out and upside-down and I lost reading. In that same long first half of 2022, I realized I had to leave librarianship. Not just my job, but my fucking career. See, I was a fiction librarian. I had this ultra-rare position that was my dream job, and reading was a part of my job. When people tell you not to make the thing you love your job, I know. I know what they're saying.
I spent the second half of 2022 living in a state of nearly constant joy. And I wasn't reading for a lot of it. If you asked me three years ago, I couldn't possibly have foreseen this turn of events. And for some of 2022, I was stressed about how much I WASN'T reading. I am trying to figure out how to express this, because it didn't feel BAD to not be reading. It felt right and it felt like I didn't want to be reading. But it also felt wrong because reading was a huge part of my life, and then....it wasn't.
I decided 2023 had to be different, in terms of how I related to reading, so I jettisoned the reading challenge and just let myself...be. Here's what I found out:
I read a lot of BL manga. I'm not a huge graphic novel OR manga fan, so this was a new and unexpected joy. This probably isn't surprising to you if you know me on tumblr through BL, but it was surprising to me. I figured I would dip into queer romance novels, but nope, it was the manga that I loved.
Danmei isn't for me. No idea why, because it seems like it'd be just my cup of tea, but it isn't. I like it, I just don't LOVE it, and right now I want to love the books I'm reading, especially if it's fiction because...
I read SO MUCH NONFICTION IN 2023. It's what my brain asked for, so that's what I fed it. It also probably contributed to my lower numbers; dense nonfiction takes a LOT longer to read than fiction/manga. I think...I'm a person who feels passionate about learning; I love it so so so much. And when my consumption habits switched to mainly frothy TV shows about men falling in love with each other, my brain was like, uh, you better feed us some facts, lady. So I did.
I...like?...memoirs? In my book club, I'm the person who hates memoirs. Memoirs that everyone loved I scoffed at. Memoirs, yuck. Except...apparently no. Apparently I like a memoir now. I guess this is maybe an offshoot of the nonfic bias but nonetheless, my brain continues to shock me and the people who know me best.
Anyway, here is a short, lightly annotated (not in order at all) list of my fave reads this year:
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Fuck yeah she doesn't miss.
Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. Oh this is the real shit, and she also doesn't miss.
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Okay, a fiction book that I devoured. Sports + love + grief = a meditation on life.
Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer. I sometimes go back and read my highlights from this, because it was so fucking powerful and spoke to me so powerfully.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. I loved this in a way I don't think I can explain. Simply stunning in all the right ways.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Video games + love + grief = a meditation on life. Fucking amazing.
Stay True by Hua Hsu. Oh jesus fuck this is sad but it is so so so so good.
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree. Cozy fantasy that isn't romance is something I need more of in my life. Yes to orcs opening bookstores and coffee shops and very little fighting.
Witch Hat Atelier, all existing volumes, by Kamome Shirohama. I've been sharing these with my 8 year-old niece and it's just the nicest little happy thing.
Vagina Obscura by Rachel Gross. Yes, please explain my fucked up innards to me. Endometriosis ftw!
Fat Talk by Virginia Sole-Smith. Real, solid advice and real, solid evidence, and real, solid writing. Two thumbs up.
Maybe someday I'll do a post about how I've been tracking my reading since November 11, 2004. I guess we're hitting the 20th anniversary this coming year, after all.
I guess I do know one thing: I'm never NOT going to read at times. I still do love it, even if my needs and wants around it have changed. Happy New Year, all!
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bahandis · 2 years
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( maris racal , cis woman , she/her , twenty-four ) ⸒ a little birdy told me AURORA “RORY” BAHANDI just moved to sunset hills . have you met them yet ? i heard them driving down the street playing TO HAUNT, TO STARTLE by PENNY AND SPARROW , they sounded a little pitchy but they had the spirit ! must be their favorite or something . hey … it looks like they just moved into MIDNIGHT PARK . have you heard about what they do for a living ? someone told me they’re a LIBRARIAN / ASPIRING WRITER , but who knows if that’s even true . guess we’re just gonna have to wait and see . nervous ? don’t be , i think you’re gonna get along just fine ! i can’t wait to see what they get up to .
hi all! i’m vee and this my baby rory! pls come love her. 
tw for death and grief 
when rory was born, the population of ojai, california went up by two, becoming a cool 6,324 as she along with her twin sister lindsay came into the world red-faced and screaming
her family was particularly the closest kind, sunday night pillow forts and friday and eating her mom’s adobo, listening to her dad’s records 
her family was a light, not without their problems, as all families are, but still enough for her
rory was a social animal growing up, she spent her weekdays playing volleyball and getting ice cream after school, often dragging lindsay along with her. 
she also found charm in her own quiet moments, reading every novel she could get her hands on or just whatever she picked up from the local library 
performing as rory got exhausting sometimes keeping up that constant state of energy and magnetism, this was when she would retreat to the library reading books and imagining another life for herself 
it was easy to figure out what she was going to do with her life relatively. there was nowhere she was at peace as much as the library, so she would be rory publicly, and aurora privately in the comfort of the library stacks 
the desire to write the next great american novel however came in her sophmore year of high school after signing up for a creative writing elective 
writing quickly became an outlet for all the things she felt unable to say, for someone so quickly distracted sometimes having a thousand thoughts a minute felt all too much 
the manuscript she’s working on now she’s been pounding out since her senior year of high school, despite it’s completion she still mulls over its imperfections editing and rewriting chunks 
though arguably she’s mostly looking for an excuse not to submit it to any publishing houses because she’s terrified of rejection 
it seemed like she had her entire life ahead of her to be so full of joy but all things must come to an end eventually 
two years ago her sister lindsay graduated college with a bachelors in biomedical science. though overjoyed rory had caught a nasty case of strep throat and was relegated to her bed for the week 
though as lindsay embarked she’d promised she’d bring leftovers from dinner with their parents. that was the last time she would ever see her, or the rest of her family 
in the blink of an eye her family was there and then they weren’t 
it wasn’t until aurora was watching the steel corpse of their minivan being pulled away by a tow truck that it clicked. she was alone 
the grief was overwhelming, she felt like she was being eaten alive. family flew in from the philippines to help with the funeral but rory was a husk of a person, body acting on autopilot just to sleep 
everywhere she turned they were reminders of her family. for two years she wallowed in her grief barely getting by until the pitying looks and the memory of it all became too much 
a month ago she sold her parents house, stuffed was little belongings remained into a uhaul truck and moved to sunset hills 
the anonymity was intoxicating, here nobody knew her story, nobody even knew her name. 
she’s not quite the rory she used to be, she’s still figuring out who she is after everything, and trying to make a life here despite it all. 
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studiomiguel · 7 months
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For better or worse, we don’t necessarily choose who comes into (or stays) in our lives. For better, Deb came into mine in the spring of life, when I was just a small town boy living’ in a lonely world, falling in love with her big sister. Soon after meeting them, she and the love of her life extended their friendship to me. First, they looked askance at this weird kid, then accepted and finally embraced me. 
Thirty-three years ago they invited me to pile into their brand new 1990 Isuzu pickup with a camper shell for a road trip to San Isabel National Forrest in Colorado. It was an AMAZING trip. One of the most memorable of my life. The first time I had ever seen a real mountain, breathed alpine air, felt the chill night in the middle of summer! I never knew such experiences existed. New experience after new experience. It put me in the mind of Jean George’s, ‘My Side Of the Mountain’ wherein a young boy named Sam escapes to the Catskill mountains and lives on little more than his wits for a year by making a home in the burned out hollow of a tree. Every morning, I would get up early, hike in the wilderness and imagine that I had escaped my droll reality to a life there in that paradise. On one of those walks would I cut a small sapling into a walking stick. Long-forgotten, they thoughtfully saved this and recently gifted it back to me. 
Every time I drive over Raton Pass on the southern border of the state, I remember the first time in that little pickup at 7800’ with those two dear friends-soon-to-be-family. We laugh together when the trip comes up and Deborah Anne points out that I had eaten the trip’s entire stash of homemade chocolate chip cookies before we ever left the great state of Texas. In my defense: 1) The cookies were delicious and 2) Texas is HUGE! Debbie & her heart understood John Muir’s famous statement: ‘The mountains are calling and I must go'. She and her family would answer that beacon many times in the following decades. 
The second of three sisters, she has always been an upbeat, outgoing and infectious personality with a rapier observational wit. Always the constant and stable mother-figure, it took me years to believe the stories my wife would tell of her wild side before she settled down to care for a family and raise two rambunctious boys.
Growing up as I did with two sisters, it was an easy transition to include a new one in my life and as my own siblings and I grew distant over the years, she proved to be a wonderful surrogate-sister filling that emotional place in my heart. It has always brought me especially great joy that Debbie brightens my own wife’s disposition so and their relationship is perfectly portrayed by Louisa May Alcott in Little Women. If my own love is Jo, then Debbie would be analogous to Meg… maybe a dash of Beth from time to time. Perhaps sisters understand each other in a way that one one else (especially brothers) can. Neither she, nor those like her, realize the feelings of envy that many women feel toward families like her own. Not perfect by any stretch, but thoughtful, engaged and always always connected. I like to say ‘thank God that love is temporal and not geographic’, I have truly seen love defy time and space between my wife and her sisters. 
Rich in the possession of a good man's heart, Deborah raised two children, drove trucks, roofed, baked cookies, worked disaster relief, started (& retired from) a career as a white-hat and now in the third chapter of life in this existence, I see her face new and terrifying realities. Always one to wear a brave face (what mother isn’t), you’d never know monsters stalk in her shadows. I suppose something else she is teaching me is that it isn’t the looming threats or realities that define us, but the faith we exercise when we face them, confident, as my dear sister is, that victory will be ours. 
I wish words could heal us, they are the only power we have. 
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2/19/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription
Leviticus 19 - 21
Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible Chronological, I'm China. Today is the 19th day of February, welcome. It is so great to be back here with you today. Today we are continuing in the book of Leviticus. We are in chapters 19 through 21. Since it is a new week, we are switching the translation. We are going to be reading from the New Living Translation this week.
Commentary
Reagie, what do you think about that story? (Reagan babbles) Yeah, that was a lot of rules and a lot of things that the Lord was telling his people that they needed to live by. Yeah, she's trying to figure out the headphones. I have her in the studio with me today, but yes. So something that I hear a lot in today's reading in the past few times that I last week was reading with you is the Lord is really saying, observe my sabbath, remember the sabbath, observe my sabbath, days of rest. I am the Lord, your God. And I think that this is something that is really powerful for us to grasp is that the Lord is yes, exactly. The Lord is saying, is that worthy? The Lord is reminding us there's value and rest and there's value and joy. Right Reagan? But truly there's value in rest. And the Lord is asking us to observe it so much so that if you don't, there's going to be repercussions. And we see a constant theme after every line and every stanza is the Lord saying, I am the Lord, I am the Lord your God. And I don't think this is because the Lord's forgetting who he is or kind of like his text signature, but I think it's truly that he is in stating, this is who I am. This is who I am as the Lord, this is who I am as God. And you can trust me in these areas. I want you to know me as good in these areas.
Prayer
And so, Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you so much that we have your perfect and good word filled with so many stories and testimonies of people who tried their hardest or maybe didn't try at all, but that we constantly see you in pursuit of their hearts. And God, I thank you that your law, your regulations, your instructions were because you loved us and you wanted to set us up well. And so I thank you that we live in your free will offering. And I thank you, God, that you give us your instructions because you love us. And so I pray that you would give us wisdom in our day to day lives and our coming and our going, our decisions, our thoughts and our words and our deeds. And Lord, we just thank you that you trust us. And God, I pray that you'd continue to trust you and say in your name we pray, amen. I'm China, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Recap from Israel
Thank you once again China. Well, friends and family day 13 in the books Daily Audio Bible Pilgrimage 2023 has come to a close. What an incredible journey it has been overall, individually and collectively in this community in Israel. Today was a very full day, very full day. We started in the upper room and of course that story in the New Testament where the Holy Spirit fell, tongues of fire. From there we went to the Mount of olives, we stopped and smiled for the camera, for our epic group photo. We then went to the Garden of Gethsemane, we went to the Joffe Gate, we walked the Christian quarters to get to the Church of the Holy Scepter. And what you should understand is most of the monuments, probably the most famous of places that people want to visit in Israel, the birthplace of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, where they laid him, where he was laid after he was taken from the cross, where the tomb of his resurrection was. All of these places have had some sort of cathedral, church, spiritual holy monument built literally on top, encased around these sites. So when you're cooking dinner or getting ready for work in the morning and you hear the Bible read and you hear the stories, you're envisioning this manger in the middle of a field with a wooden in type contraption that you may or may not have ever seen emulated, it's not like that. And sometimes these places are so crowded, they are so adorned that the vision that you keep in your head might be less disappointing than the actual place. And so the Church of the Holy Scepter is this unimaginably beautiful, incredibly spacious, very ancient looking church. And it's very busy, very crowded. People are very emotional, people are very overcome with emotion, as you can imagine, seeing some of these places. And so there's all types of responses that are happening around you and there's not really space for quiet and contemplation and processing. You just sort of ride the wave of the moment as you're experiencing it with literally hundreds of people at the same time. And you're lucky if you get your couple of seconds, good picture selfie if you're lucky, and then you move on. But it is stunning. There are still masses that take place while people are visiting, so they do shut certain parts down for the sake of worship and that's right and honorable and reverend, but it's a very overwhelming place because of the busyness of it. So it can be a little difficult to have any sort of holy moment there. But I look for the beauty and I find it every time. And then we left there and we escaped to the garden tomb. And that is a place that is outside, that is a place where it is far more quiet, complaintative, serene. And we collectively and individually as a group take communion together. This is where we end and this is where we ended today, the pilgrimage. And it all comes down to that final moment it comes down to that final moment on the pilgrimage. It comes down to that final moment in life, really to remember. Remember the sacrifice that Jesus made, remember what he asked us to as we gather together. May we never forget. It all comes down to the Holy Eucharist, communion, whatever you call it, in your rhythm of worship. But in my heart and my spirit, I know it's coming and I dreaded it today. I have never been on this pilgrimage and didn't not want it to end. I have always kind of come to the end of the rope and been very ready to get home, but I think it's just good to be back. And it was such a sweet group and such a sweet time together. And we've been away for a few years and that anticipation built and everything and everybody makes it what it is. And over the course of almost two weeks. Brian and I get to stay focused on what it is that we are doing. And we just sit back and watch a group of people, most of whom have never met until this moment, care for one another in a way that I think we're supposed to care for one another. And you see those able bodied to help the ones that are having difficulty and you just see those that forgot something and the ones that brought it give freely. And it's just such a zoomed in beautiful picture of the body of Christ to be in this place and in this space, sharing this time together is something very, very special. And so we left the garden tomb and we traveled to our final dinner, or farewell dinner that we have together, where we get to say our thank you's, we get to say our goodbyes and then we get to just hear from the group, whoever wants to share what this experience was like for them. And of course, we're always moved beyond tears and tonight was no exception as well. For the 100 or so people that have been here. I think I can say that our lives once again will never be the same for what we have experienced and how we have experienced this together in this space. And it also could not have happened without the prayers of the community. We did have some very minor hiccups along the way, but it comes with the territory, but it was minimal. And we thank you for that covering, that blanket of prayer that can appease us from the bottom to the top and from the top down to the bottom. And we don't take it lightly. It's a really big thing, it's a really big deal and we are really very grateful. So we will get a night's rest, we will fly home in the morning and our journey is not over because that is the worst part of the trip, is going home. We've got a long flight, we land and then we're still not home yet. So if you would just continue to pray for us, keep everyone journeying home in your prayers and then for the integration back into our own culture, our own real lives, our own time zone, our own space, our own beds, we would really appreciate it. And I can't believe I'm going to say this, but Daily Audio Bible Israel Pilgrimage 2023 has come to an end and we will never be the same people that we were. Thank you for your prayers until tomorrow, love one another.
Community Prayer Line
Greetings my dearly beloved DABC family. This is Fill my Cup Lord, from California, and I hope that February is treating you well and as best as it can. I'm calling to pray for a few people. Father, I thank you so much for giving us life. I thank you so much for the energy, the encouragement, the inspiration and the purpose. God, you bless us with the Lord by giving us yet another day to see life. So Father, it's from that space. I pray for little baby Hunter, ashley's friend's baby, who is undergoing a regression in his development as a baby. Father, I pray that to help the doctors to figure out what's really going on, in fact, help her friends to take the baby, dear God, and get the help that's necessary as far as figuring out what's going on. And Father, that they have the remedies for this so that he can progress in his development. Lord, you know exactly what's going on in their dear God. So open the physician's eyes and open her friend's eyes to dear God. Father, I pray that Ashley is a great help, dear Lord, even though she's miles or hours away from her friend. Lord, I pray also for the young woman and her twelve year old, and she's presently pregnant with 13 weeks pregnant and had to leave North Carolina or South Carolina to go back and live with her mum in Michigan. Lord, I pray that you guide her, you comfort her, God. I pray that their relationship is actually much better, especially given the predicament that she's in right now, but I pray for reconciliation and strength in Jesus name.
Hi DABC family. This is Summer in the songbird in Nebraska. I have been a DABber for five years, just over five years and just added the DABC this year. I just finished or I'm in the middle of listening to the prayers on the February 11 podcast. Who carey from Michigan, Jesus girl, and your daughter ariel, I'm sure from when you recorded this. I hope she has now made it to Michigan in his home safe with you and your granddaughter. Thank you God, for giving ariel the courage to leave such a violent, scary thing. I pray you will draw her close to you, Jesus. Let her find you in this through this really horrible experience, this wilderness experience. Draw her close to you, Jesus, that she may know you as savior. Give her health reminder that the stuff she had to leave behind is just stuff. Give her health for her children and guide carrie in this process. This is a big transition. Just lift them all up to you God, because you are bigger than all of it. Bigger than the hurt, bigger than the fear. You're so good, Jesus, we love you and pray in your name.
Hi DABC family, this is the Burning Bush that will not be devoured for the glory of our God and King. I am calling for our sister carrie. Jesus girl called in with a prayer request for her daughter who is pregnant now, and her daughter's significant other has manifested signs of abuse and so she's heading back home. Father God, I pray for carrie's daughter. God, I pray oh Lord Holy Spirit, that you will touch her heart in this process and soften her heart towards you and come against every seed that was planted in her heart of mind that causes her not to want to believe in you. Father God, I pray that you free her, that we bind every plan the enemy has for her life. In the name of Jesus god, I pray that you would get her safely out of that situation, protect her older daughter in the name of Jesus. Father God, I pray that you will give them new beginnings when she arrives to her mom and father, I just come against every thought of depression and just self loathing. I pray that she will be encouraged. O Father God, I pray that you surround her by people who love you. Father, I pray for people her age who believe in you. I pray that she enters her mother's house, Father God, that you will make your presence known, that your grace and your love will be felt in that home. That in the name of Jesus, oh God, that she will be saved because of the love manifested by her mother towards her. Come against every plan the enemy has destroy her in the name of Jesus. Come against unforgiveness and bitterness in Jesus name, God, I pray, oh Lord, that you will heal her heart. I pray for the unborn baby, Lord, in the name of Jesus, that child will grow to know you, to love you. I pray for the relationship between Jesus girl and her daughter. May it just blossom into something brand new and beautiful like you. Thank you, Father, and Jesus name, amen.
Hey, family. It's bridget calling from Baltimore. I'm playing catch up, so I'm just doing a quick call in for the Burning bush that may not be devout. I think that's her name. I'll listen to the February 9 podcast and she usually calls in. She's really bubbly, really happy and good spirits. But she didn't really sound like yourself that day. So just praying that all is well with you and all will be well with you and that God continues to keep you, your son, your daughter and your husband and your friend that's looking for housing in his hands. I also want to pray for cody. We haven't heard you in quite a long time, brother, so just check on you. Praying that everything is all right with you. Praying for Adrian from Maryland in regards to her grieving the loss of her best friend. So that's it. Family, continue to keep me in your prayers. Continue to petition God on my behalf, asking that I be a better steward of my time and that I be obedient in working through my past childhood traumas and that the Lord healed me and delivered me. Love you guys. God bless you. God bless you, Jill. And God bless everybody. Love you.
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longdeadblonde · 1 year
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About Fausta
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NAME: Fausta Warren. ALIAS: Faustina Blackburn, Theophania Warden. AGE: 10-27. TITLE: Princess, High Priestess. SPECIES: Demonic nephilim subspecies. GENDER: Cisfemale OCCUPATION: Elementary school student (verse dependent). HEIGHT: 4'2"-6'4". HAIR: Silver-white. EYES: Black-blue. FACECLAIM: Sophie Nélisse, Anya Taylor-Joy.
Personality:   Fausta is the most recent addition to the Warren clan, though her blood relation to the family is something that is heavily debated. Only a very small amount of the family has the slightest idea and those who are aware keep it a secret for reasons undisclosed. The girl has unknowingly caused a bit of a stir in the family, of course for reasons beyond her understanding or control.
  Like most children, Fausta is innocent but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to lie to her. She seems to have a “bullshit sensor” embedded in her head to which she regularly uses to pull the “It’s not nice to lie to little kids” card. She’s also very curious and like to explore and snoop around places she probably shouldn’t. Due to her constant acrobatics, she’s very accident prone. She has this strange knowing to her, and she wields it like a shield. Like she knows something nobody else does.
  An issue that Fausta has is that she’s clingy. She hates being left behind and might even throws tantrums if she’s left at home. It wasn’t until recently that she had any real parental figures or siblings so she has an intense fear of being abandoned by them. She is also quick to anger. She takes out all her aggression on her toys. Almost all the dolls and plush toys are severely damaged and hastily patched up to the point that some are unrecognizable. Her temper is something that gets her into a lot of trouble at school since her has the bad habit of picking fights with any bullies. She’s a little scrapper too. Once she latches on, it’s a literal pain to get her off.
Biography: TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEVERE CHILD NEGLECT/ABUSE.
  Born Faustina, Fausta spent the first few years of her life in difficult conditions. Her biological father, Raphael Blackburn was a wealthy man but that wealth was not shared with his child. He clothed her, fed her, did the bare minimum, but left her alone in a dark room, chained by the ankle to a bed that was bolted down into a concrete floor. Any evidence of her existence seemed non-existent until one day, the neighbors noticed her wandering the neighborhood; barefoot, frightened, and with chains still around her ankle.
  Naturally, the authorities were notified and Fausta was quickly scooped up by social services, her father taken into police custody, he was incosolable, screaming and sobbing and praying for forgiveness for his "hubris". All he was able to disclose was that the girl was in fact his child and his responsiblity and that he had no idea where her mother could be. More than anything else, claimed that the girl should be killed for everybody's sake. Of course, these were all chalked up to be ramblings of a madman.
  Fausta spent the next year as a ward of the state, going through heavy amounts of counseling and responding very well, all things considered. She was very bright and while having her hiccups with behavioral issues, was able to thrive due to said counseling and socialization. Adopted at the age of six, the process seemed to be done heavily under wraps. This is where Faustina Blackburn's paper trail seems to grow increasingly sparse before falling off entirely and Fausta Warren's seems to creep into existence. Many of the people who worked on the girl's case can no longer say with certainty where she's ended up.
  Fausta's memories of her previous life seem to become more spotty by the day, as she mostly just remembers darkness, the blindingly bright sun, and seeing various doctors before her big sisters came to take her home one day after she'd gotten better. She lives happily with her brother and sisters, spoiled and loved. For now, at least.
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d3nt4l-d4m4g3 · 3 years
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An Analysis of Daddy Issues: with Sally Kempton
Source: (1971). Liberation Now! Writings from the Liberation Movement. Dell Publishing Co.
Excerpts from "Cutting Loose, by Sally Kempton (1970): Sex occupies even the economic center of [girls'] lives; it is, we have been brought up to feel, our lives work, Whatever else she may do, a woman is a failure if she fails to please men. The adolescent girl's situation is by definition dependent: she must attract, and therefore, however she may disguise it, she must arrange herself to conform with other people's ideas of what is valuable in a woman.
Kempton claims that because women are raised to be sex objects, all their own hopes and dreams are forced into that aspiration.
I was early trained to that position, trained, in the traditional manner, by my father. Like many men who are uncomfortable with adult women, my father saw his daughter as an antidote to his disappointment in her sex. I was someone who could be molded into a woman compatible with his needs, and also, unlike my mother, I was too impressionable to talk back."
The first relationships that most women have are with their fathers. and whether those men know it or not, they are molding their daughters into their "most hopeful self-image."
"It reached a point where I later suspected [my father] of nourishing a sort of eighteenth century fantasy in which the count teaches his daughter to read Virgil and ride like a man, and she grows up to be the perfect feminine companion, parroting him with such subtlety that it is impossible to tell that her thoughts and feelings, so perfectly coincident with his, are not original."
Because she has been so successfully groomed, the girl has no idea that the ideas her father puts into her head are not hers and serve his purposes rather than hers. Her mind is his.
"And since it also seemed to me that be preferred me, his daughter who never disagreed with him, to his wife who did (and that was a fantasy of course, but one to which my father devoted some effort toward keeping alive), I came to feel that male pwer, because uncoercible, could only be handled by seduction, and that the most comfortable relation between men and women was the relationship between pupil and student, between parent and child." (42-43)
The father-daughter-relationship is a narcissistic one. I could even go so far to say that a father's relationship to his daughter is a sexual one because when a father molds his daughter, he is molding an object of his own desire. Even if he is feeding you knowledge and proclaims himself liberal, a guide, your prophet... that knowledge, that conversation he affords you, all serves his purpose of being a childlike sex object. This will happen whether he knows it or not, because it is baked into society.
"My task, it seemed to me, was to find a man in whom there resided enough power to justify my acting the child, that is, to justify my acceptance of my own femininity. For I regarded myself as feminine only in my childlike aspect; when I presented myself as a thinking person I felt sexless." (43)
The male-teacher female-student relationship is indistinguishable from the father-daughter relationship. it replicates trauma, and that, as we know, can be comforting when that's what you know. But make no mistake. When a male teacher replicates the father-daughter relationship with his idolizing student and that relationship becomes sexual, he has conquered both her mind and her body, because she has been molded to produce his ideas. Her mind has been replaced with his mind, and so she, as he, makes her body his willingly.
"It is not much of a step from seeing oneself as a child in relation to men to seeing oneself as their victim; obviously a child does not control its environment, obviously a child is powerless before adults. All children are potential victims, depending on the world's will". (44).
Because women are kept AND KEEP THEMSLEVES in this state of childhood/sexual malleability—if they don't, they are told in a thousand ways they have no reason to live—they will continue to be victims with about the same vulnerability as a child has.
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raineydays411 · 3 years
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Oh, what am I supposed to do without you
Loki x daughter!reader
Summary: Loki thought he was in a good place. He was married, happy and having a child. He should’ve known the universe wasn’t that kind.
A/N: God I’m so sorry about this one lol. Not much of the reader but I will be  making a second part. I hope yall like this one though. Inspiration came from “Mr, Loverman” and this fic.
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The silence was rattling. It creeped into the room, slowly,menacingly. Threatening to make him go mad. It wrapped around his body like a familiar friend. Making it hard for him to breath as it suffocated him. He knew they were staring at him. Trying to figure out what he would do next, whether he would break or not. Truthfully he didn’t know what he would do. For now he just starred as well. Not at them, of course not. He stared at the one thing that mattered. His reason for waking up and living. The one person in this entire universe who gave his world color. He reached out to touch her. Touch the hands that were always so warm against his cold skin. Hands that held his firm and sure as she pulled him along behind her, a smile on her beautiful face. Hands that were now cold and limp, the radicant glow she had been known for gone dark. The colors she brought to his world dimmed to dull, gre, muted hues. Then a sound broke through the silence. two sounds actually. One a wail of new life, a baby taking her first breaths, and another. A wail of a man who has lost everything. A wail of agony and pain.
As the healers bustled around him, Loki had only one thought in his head. 
“What am I supposed to do without you”
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Three months later and Loki still felt the emptiness left by his love. He heard her at night, humming sweet melodies as she stroked his hair. He hears her heartbeat as he eventually falls asleep, worn out by his constant tears. His room is in shambles, his clothes strewn about the floor, furniture smashed, everything is destroyed. Except for the things that belong to her. Her silk dresses that draped on her body perfectly were still hanging, untouched. The books she spent hours reading and re-reading remained on the shelf, collecting dust as they were no longer used. He doesn’t let anyone in their chambers. The space where they both shared. Space where they fought, made up, made love. To let someone else in would be tainting it. Soiling the memories they made together. That was one thing he could never do.
Another was look at the little monster who is responsible for this tragedy.
It was a girl. The daughter of one Loki Odinson and his beloved. 
Ironic. This child was supposed to bring happiness with its birth. Not even cleaned and it already managed to take away Loki’s light. He can barely stand looking at it. He tried, of course  he tried. But within minutes he had to call the nurse to take it away. Why? 
Because she has her mothers eyes.
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“Loki”
“Get out”
“Loki, it's been nine months since your child was--”
“THAT THING IS NO CHILD OF MINE”
Frigga was taken aback. She knew her son was heartbroken, devastated at the loss of his wife. But to disown his daughter, that was something she didn’t see coming. 
“Loki, you are being unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable? My wife has died because if that creature--”
“It is a child. A babe who has no idea who her father nor her mother is.”
“And as far as I’m concerned she never will!” Loki shouts, finally looking up at his mother. 
Frigga heart breaks for her son. She sees the utter agony he is in, the inner torment going on in his soul. Even if she didn’t see it in his face, the state of his room and self gives it away. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in the nine months that has passed. His clothes were rumpled and wrinkled, hair unkempt and wild. His face was pale and hollow, as if he was only eating enough to survive. He had dark bags under his eyes that showed that he hasn’t been sleeping well.  He truly was a man who was broken, almost beyond repair. 
“My son” Frigga said carefully,” I can never understand the pain you are going through, I pray to Valhalla I will not have to anytime soon. But please if not for yourself or that child, for the memory of her, attempt to see your daughter before making a rash decision.” And with that, she walked out of his chamber, leaving Loki to the silence again as he stared at the spot his mother stood. considering her words, he got up. picked up his room, went to bathe and walked out of the room for the first time in nine months. 
His face held no emotion as he walked down the hallways. He saw the servants stop and stare at him, shock filled their face as they saw the prince. He glared at them, sending them scurrying at the dark glance. He reached the nursery, the maid who oversaw the nursery tried to stop him. 
“My lord, you--” 
“Where is the child.” He said, calm and cool. The maid looked at him in fear, not knowing how to respond. At her silence, Loki scoffed and pushed her away, marching into the nursery. Upon entering he froze, memories of him and his beloved discussing the design they wanted for their child
**“Darling, why does the color shade matter? It’s not like the child has expectations.”
Laughter fills the air, “Loki, we must put every effort into showing our child they are loved. That includes finding the perfect shade of green to go with the room”
Loki looks at his wife, gently smiling.”If you say so my dear”**
The room was perfect. The walls were a beautiful shade of green that allowed the light into the room. There were vines and flowers crawling up the walls and draped over curtains. A white and gold crib stood in the middle of the chamber. A veil draped over it, preventing Loki from seeing the child inside. He was thankful as he worked up the courage to walk up to it. He looked out the window, seeing the stars that covered the sky, the lights of Asgard covering the earth. 
She would have loved it.
He took a deep breath and walked toward the crib. He pulled back the veil only to see that there was no child in there. 
“The babe is with your mother my lord.”
He turned to the maid. Embarrassed that she might have witnessed him reminiscing.
“And where is my mother” He asked
“In-in the dining hal--” 
He walked away before she was able to finish her sentence. He took long strides to the hall, wondering his his mother had tricked him into eating with the family.On the way, he passed a window overlooking the garden. He thinks of the times where he used to sit in it and listen to her read.
***  “...exquisite, in question more. These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows”
“My love, why do you insist on reading these midgardian stories?”
Her laughter  reaches his ears, “Because beloved, it's a different perspective to something familiar”
“Oh? and what is that ?” 
“Love”  ***
“oki--”
Hearing his name, Loki is brought back to present times once more. He looks to see Thor, watching him with careful eyes. 
“Brother, it is wonderful to see you.”
“I wish I can say the same.”
Thor laughs, a soft chuckle compared to the booming laughter Loki knows he is capable of. 
“Ah Loki, your dry wit has been missed”
Loki rolls his eyes and starts walking and Thor follows. The two walking in silence. 
“What is it like?” Loki says softly. Thor looks at him in confusion.
“It?” 
“The child.”
“Oh brother, Y/n is--”
“Y/n?” 
That was the name she wanted. If they were to have a girl. She was determined, seeing the name in the book she loved to read. He remembers when they were telling his family she was with child.
*** Everyone was seated, servants bustling around the long table. Laughter filled the hall as the sun was setting. 
“Loki, you said you had news to tell us” Frigga said, taking a sip of her wine. 
Loki smiled, looking at his wife. Her face absolutely radiant as she flashes a smile of pure joy.
“ Well,” Loki waits till Thor has taken a large swig of ale, “ My beloved and are are expecting a child.” 
Gasps fill the room as well as Thor's hacking, ale being spewed on the table. 
“Oh Loki that is wonderful!!”  Frigga exclaims standing from her seat to embrace him. “Oh my dear, this is the most wonderous news,” 
“BROTHER I can’t believe it!” Thor exclaims, lifting Loki in a crushing hug. And for once, he didn’t mind it.  He turns to her and hugs her more gently. “ You are just full of surprises aren’t you, starlight”
Laughter, “Thor, I thought I told you to stop calling me that”
Silence fills the hall as Odin clears his throat, “ Loki, you have made me proud.”
Loki smiles as his love beams at him. 
“Thank you father.”**
They reached the dining hall. A cold feeling formed in the pits of his stomach. He can see his mother, talking with a maid as she bounces the child. He can’t see it, as Frigga's back is turned to him. Odin’s presence is notably absent, a small relief on Loki's part. 
Thor notices his brother’s nerves, he pats him on the back and says, “You can do this Loki.” Then walks off to join his mother. He kisses his mothers cheek and smiles at the child. He picks her up, bouncing her a few times  prompting a small laugh. Loki gimances at the sound. 
Thor walks up to him with the baby. 
“Loki, this is Y/n Odinson”
He looks at the child. He takes in its features, Beautiful curly hair, already thick and voluminous even at this age. Brown skin, unblemished and clean. Cheeks, chubby with baby fat. And...its eyes. Those damn eyes, he could barely stand it, (e/c) eyes, the same as his lost love. In fact, almost all it’s features that once belonged to his darling. A pain filled his body. He really couldn’t stand looking at this child. 
Not when his beloved wasn’t there to gaze upon their child as well. 
No, this was not his child. Not anymore. 
“Get rid of it.” 
Shock filled the faces of both Thor and Frigga. 
“Loki you cannot be serious.”
“Brother..”
“I SAID GET RID OF IT” Loki shouts. “I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THAT LITTLE MONSTER.” 
And with that he leaves the dining hall. Leaving behind  his mother, brother and the last piece of his wife he had. He hears it’s cries fill the silence.
He had only one thought in his head as he entered his chambers.
“What am I supposed to do without you”
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spideymarvelws · 3 years
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 had so much fun writing the first scene dude... i feel like as a fanfic writer its a sin i haven’t written anything like it yet lmfaoo (to be fair i probably have but I just dont rem💀) anyways i hope you enjoy!
REPOST BECAUSE OF TAGS!!!
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Prompt : 9. “Then what are you waiting for?”
Warnings : just some cute floof, some cursing here and there
Word Count : 2.2k
Hesitation
Technoblade x GN!Reader
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It was always peaceful in the tundra right before the sun set. Not only did the orange and red colours that reflected off the shiny snow send a wave of tranquility through the lands. It was a specific time where all the animals would go back into their homes before the mobs spawned at night fall, leaving the lands in complete silence.
Phil loved working at this time, getting small tasks done around the house that he wasn’t able to do throughout the day. Whether it was washing the dishes or dusting out the book shelves. Maybe even lounged around near the fireplace, planning out what he had to do the next day. It was always quiet, void of distractions to keep him from doing them.
But of course, with peace always came chaos.
“YOU CHEATED!”
“NO I DIDN’T!”
“YES YOU DID!”
The door cracked open, slamming against the wall behind it making the blonde jump from the sudden noise. He was ready to pick up his sword by his side until he recognised the voices of his house mates, shouting like little children.
Phil sighed, continuing to wash the dishes in front of him. While the bickering tended to amuse him at times, right then he just wanted to stay in the silence. He was quick to grab a pear of earplugs from his chest, pushing them snugly into his ear, blocking out the noise you both brought into the house while humming a small tune.
“There’s no way that your horse is faster that Carl! That’s just not possible!” Techno shook his head, his entire body still except for his left foot tapping consistently on the floor, “It’s just not possible.”
“Okay-” you pointed your finger in his face, “First off, her name is Raven and secondly, you just can’t admit that she’s better than Carl.” you crossed your arms on your chest, looking up at the piglin with teasing eyes.
Tech threw his head back with a groan, turning around gruffly and taking off his cape along with the skull mask covering his face.
“I won’t admit it because it isn't true!” he turned back to face you, mimicking your stance and tilting his head slightly to the side.
You raised your eyebrows at his response, nodding slowly, “Alright, alright,” you slowly took of your cloak, bunching it up and throwing it at him, his reflexes catching it before the fabric hit his chest, “Maybe it’s just the ridder and not the horse.”
Techno gasped, “You take that back.” he threw your cloak to the side.
You hummed, looking up and faking a thinking face, “Nah... I don’t think I will, I said what I said.” you stepped closer to the hybrid, sizing up his figure, “And what are you going to do about it?”
Techno squinted his eyes, a small smirk making its way to his face before he grabbed you by the waist, throwing you over his shoulder and walking away from the entrance into the living room.
“Hey!” You pounded at his back, wiggling in his tight grip, “Put me down you loaf!”
He laughed at your words but obliged, throwing you on the couch near the fireplace. Before you could sit up, he crawled over your form, knee besides one side of your waist with his other foot planted on the floor, keeping him steady hovering over you.
“Techno-” you chuckled nervously, trying your best not to stray away from his intense gaze, fighting the heat starting to rise to your face. Your hands pushed at his chest, weakening when he brought his face closer to yours, making you feel smaller than you already were.
He didn’t say anything, instead his fingers dug into your stomach, wiggling them across the fabric of your shirt. Your laugher filled the air, high pitched and bouncing off the walls of the cottage. You tried your best to control them, not wanting to give in to the blood god’s actions so quickly. But your hands on your stomach did nothing to stop his.
“Oh. My. God! Techno! Stop you fucking- oh god!”
“Take it back Y/n!” he laughed along with you, continuing his assault on your stomach, “Take it back or I swear to god you’re going to loose a canon life from being too ticklish.”
“NEVER!” you shouted between laugher, screaming when his hands began to move faster, knocking the breath out of your lungs. In the heat of the moment, he took your wrists into his fist, pinning them above your head, keeping your hands from interfering with his plans.
“Say. It.” even with one hand we was doing enough to keep you squirming underneath him, desperate for an escape.
“Okay! Okay! You- You’re a good rider Techno! You’re a good rider!” you finally admitted, your body falling limp against the cushions when he finally raised his fingers from your stomach.
Techno laughed at your state, leaning back with a cocky smirk on his face, “Glad to know we could come to an agreement,”
“I hate you,” you mumbled, your head rolling to the side on your shoulder as you caught your breath. You closed eyes in relief that the past few minutes were over, nearly falling asleep with the amount of energy you spent laughing.
Techno chuckled, taking your chin into his fingers, turning your head to look back at him, “Is that so?”
You nodded, fluttering your eyes open to look up at the pink haired man. Your breath hitched when you noticed how close his face was to yours. His entire presence felt suddenly close, his chest puffed out with long breaths, his legs practically tangled with yours, his face hovering over you, radiating heat you didn’t notice while he was tickling you. You watched as his face lit up red, his piglin ears straightening out of the side of his head, probably taking in the proximity as well.
Techno wasn’t one to get flustered often, but when he did it was always with the people he cared about. He trusted them enough to let that blood god persona he put on fade away leaving behind his shy, nerdy side you always adored. The side of techno who would read by the fireplace with Steve sat snuggly in his lap, the Techno who would spend hours trying to fix his glasses that broke constantly in his strong grip only having to craft a new one. The Techno who would grumble about compliments from you and Phil but the subtle spread of pink across his face told everyone otherwise. The Techno you grew to love the more and more he let you it.
He began to get a lot more playful with you as you friendship grew. When you moved in with him out in the snow it only increased drastically. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for the both of you to end up in this position or something similar to it (like the time he pinned you down during training), but he would always stop before things got too intimate and while it hurt, you’ve grown to accept it. You were glad to be his friend, his companion. You would take his friendship over not knowing him at all any time of the day.
You waited for him to pull back. To stand up and dust off his clothes, offering you his hand to pull you up with him and continue that night like normal. But he stayed, his dark, dull eyes staying down at you with a shine you’ve never seen up close before.
Techno didn’t know what to do either. He didn’t know what was prompted him to stay in this position, the sudden confidence that pushed him to keep his hand on your face, his lips so close to yours.  Maybe it was the voices in his head, annoyed with the constant stares and thoughts of adoration when you rode Raven around in the snow, your cape flowing beautifully behind you, face showing nothing but pure joy. They were relentless, calling him out on every emotion he was feeling because of you.
He wanted to move for your sake, he was the one on top of you in the first place, pinning you down. You were probably being polite not shoving him off of you, even if you’ve never done it before, he just always pulled away before you could. But he couldn’t, his muscles stiff and unable to move.
A small part of his brain told him you wanted this too, but he ignored it for his own sanity.
“Techno-” you whispered but before you could continue, the hybrid immediately took the single word as a protest, finally letting go of your hands but keeping his body close.
“Shit I’m sorry that- that was probably a bit much.”
You giggled softly, “No- uh, it was fine tech, no worries,”
He looked down at your bright smile glowing in his face.
“You’re really beautiful Y/n,” he whispered, letting the rough pads of his fingers trail down the side of your face, blushing when you nudged them with your cheek, accepting the comfort.
“You think so?” you whispered back, looking up at him with doe eyes.
“I-” he started, his breath hot against the tip of your nose as he glanced down to your lips, quickly looking back into your eyes. Why weren’t you moving? Why weren’t you cringing, laughing at the thought of ever kissing him?
“You- Do you want this.” you whispered, letting his thumb pull down at your bottom lip, watching as the plush skin softly bounced back.
He nodded, shivering when you tangled your fingers into his pick curls, pulling his face down and nudging your nose against his. He closed his eyes, a small, cute snort coming from the back of his throat at the affection.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“FUCK!”
You jumped at the sudden curse, Techno falling off of you and on to the floor besides the couch. Before you could process what just happened, the curse sounded again followed by a crash, both of your senses on high alert when you realised it was Phil’s voice coming from the kitchen. You rushed to grab your weapons from nearby, quickly pulling yourself together on the fact that your friend was in trouble.
You both ran as fast as you could, Techno in front of you with his sword drawn while you were behind loading your cross bow with an arrow. He barged into the kitchen, holding his blade in the air, ready to attack but all he was met with was a pair of wings slapping him in the face.
You dove under the large feathers, bumping the winged man to alert him of your presence.
“Oh... hey guys!” He smiled, taking out something from his ears and resting them on the kitchen counter. He sent a pointed look to the weapons in your hands, crossing his arms over his chest in confusion, “Why the weapons?”
“Are you alright?” Techno said, rubbing his nose from the hit.
“We heard you scream, thought you were in trouble.”
Phil chuckled nervously, “Sorry, my bad,” he turned around to face the both of you, “I just dropped a plate.”
You and Techno let out an audible sigh, dropping your weapons to the floor with a clank. You didn’t know how many times your heart could deal with the sudden bursts of adrenaline. Walking up to Techno, you took his hand away from his face, inspecting the soft red mark across his face from the whip of feathers. No matter how small the attack, you always made sure to check up on him, even when he didn’t need it.
But with your delicate touch came memories of the events that just happened
“Were- were you here the entire time?” Techno said hesitantly, looking up at his father with worried eyes. You took in his words, immediately pulling away from the hybrid, ignoring his small noise of protest.
“Yes, but i put in some ear plugs,” he pointed to them on the counter.
“Oh!” you piped in, “That’s- That’s good.”
“Was there something I missed?” he crossed his arms over his chest, looking at the both of you curiously.
“Nothing!” You both shouted at the same time, chuckling nervously.
“Okay?” Phil dragged out, pointing back to the sink, “Well, I’ll just-”
“Yeah! You- uh, get to that phil,” you began walking backwards, bounced into the edge of the counter. You played off the pain with a quick thumbs up and walking quickly out of the kitchen, mumbling curses under your breath.
“Are they alright mate?” Phil asked his son who seemed to be lost in his own world, staring at the spot you were once in, “Techno?”
“I- what?” He shook his head, “Uh, yeah- they’re,” he let out a small sigh, letting  his hand pass over his face, “Yeah, they’re fine.”
“Are you alright?”
Techno didn’t respond for a while, stuck in his own thought. Phil turned to his son, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Tech?”
“I think-” He let out a shaky breath, “I think I love them.”
...
IM SORRY FOR ENDING IT SO SUDDENLY
it was just getting to long and i didn’t want to loose motivation writing more😭
Permanent Taglist (Dream SMP) : @ossinsworld @lunarinnit @starstruckllamapuppy @shio-yuki @lovelychasbug @alice-blue-skies @chaosofsmarty @imamybubbles
Technoblade Taglist : @hyumiid @whenpugzfly @sammyxn @jackalopedoodles @notmesimpingfortechno @immadatmostthings
Crossed out mean couldn't tag :(
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adorerdraco · 4 years
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Healing Heart ✧ Draco x Reader Mini-Series PART 5
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Summary: PART 5 ! of Draco accidentally falling in love with reader during his sixth year (HBP) and figuring out how to survive his new life while finding out a way to keep you in it. 
Warnings: angst, mentions of death, torture, blood, death eater stuff - the usual ! 
Words: 7.8K
A/N: FINDING WAYS TO PROLONG THIS SERIES !!!! 😼 AND SORRY IF THERE ARE ANY MISTAKES ITS VERY LATE AND I NEVER CATCH THEM 😔 but omg my little week long hiatus I took was against my will but i’m back and healthy again and can finally think out sentences again lmao !!! also i DO own gif 
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Draco stared at the vast, dark marble ceiling as he lied awake. His black silk sheets were strewn across his king bed in a lofty heap from when he had woken up. There was a sheen layer of sweat across his skin, but his room held no warmth and the draft that was coming in from his open windows was nothing less than freezing.
There wasn’t a moment where he had enough peace to sleep, but when he ultimately did; he always regretted ever drifting off when he felt the hot, ravenous feeling that ran through his body when he would jolt awake from a nightmare with his heart thundering against him and the inability to differentiate reality from a subconscious image. He would lie back down, breathing unevenly, and fixate on a random crack in the ceiling and let his now very tortured conscience remind him, “it all happened, you can't escape it!”
And that little malicious voice in his head was right. The horrible images in his mind weren’t made up or conjured by his brain - they were very real and he had lived through them.
He remembered the agonizing decision he had to make when he left the love of his life, jinxed and in hysterics in an abandoned classroom. He remembered his Headmaster, who he had cornered and disarmed who still offered him genuine help and guidance despite the wand pointed in his face. He remembered his once-favorite Professor, kill his Headmaster who he thought for maybe a second would be able to help him. He remembered bounding down the steps of the astronomy tower, wanting to topple over and vomit while he followed closely behind a billowing cape and several sniggering and smug Death Eaters into the halls of the unsuspecting school. He remembered his aunt wreaking havoc on the Great Hall with pure joy as he could only watch in horror while she shattered the windows in her celebration. He remembered walking through a maze of trees in a dazed stupor towards Hagrid’s hut, Bellatrix giggling maniacally beside him as she skipped past him. He remembered seeing Harry run towards them, hurling any hexes and curses he could think of towards Snape while he scurried off. He remembered meeting his mother at the momentarily failing barrier, her hand wrapping tightly around his arm before she apparated them home. He remembered the cold wooden floors underneath him and the way the Manor’s structure seemed to be crashing down onto him as he tried to catch his breath and collect his thoughts.
When he would finish going over every mistake he had made that night, and every choice he could have made instead, he would turn over in his bed and stare out the large window in his room where he could see the cloudy night sky and the nature swinging around in the wind like it was in a constant state of what seemed like an approaching tornado. He would wonder about you, and what you were doing and what you thought of him. He wondered if you meant what you said - if you would truly never forgive him for leaving you there. He wondered if you thought it was him who killed Dumbledore and how you probably saw him as a killer now. He was in ceaseless disarray of wonder, a painful wonder that he couldn’t escape.
He didn’t dare try to owl you, especially with Bellatrix around the house as a very vigilant guard dog that noticed anything and everything. There were barely any opportunities in which he could leave the Manor, not by foot, by broom, or apparate. He was a prisoner in his own home, just as much as he was in his mind. The increasing amount of Death Eaters that came and went every day made him feel more unsettled than ever, all of them giving him intimidating and sneering looks as if he was a joke while they forcefully turned the Manor into their place of 'work'.
The day Lucius was released from Azkaban, Draco felt a slight hope that things would improve, that his father could somehow find a way to fix things for them as he always had and the young boy could finally step down from the responsibility he felt for his family. But what he saw in the foyer of his home wasn’t Lucius Malfoy; influential, formidable and feared by many - he saw a shell of a man who had lost all sense of who he was and had paid greatly for his failures. He recalled how his father had embraced him in a weak and shuddering hug, clinging onto him as a spew of desperate words incessantly flew from his mouth without making much sense. 
He knew immediately then that his father couldn’t swoop in and fix all his problems, and his mother couldn’t be left alone in all this. He was stuck, whether he liked it or not, and he had to follow through on anything and everything the Dark Lord expected from him or wanted out of his family.
He hated the way his home was defiled with death and wickedness. He hated the way there were lifeless bodies littered around the living room sometimes. He hated the echoing cries and pleas of those who were locked up in the dungeon below. He hated seeing Voldermort use his home as his headquarters, pacing the room in a self-given majesty and humiliating his father every chance he could get. The only reason the Malfoys weren’t killed off yet was, in Draco’s opinion, to be used as an example of what happens when you fail the Dark Lord, to be used as malicious entertainment, and to see just how far someone could be tortured from the inside. Draco did mend the cabinet, but he didn’t kill Dumbledore or die trying as his master had desired. He was always visibly apprehensive of everything he had to do and every order he was given. He wasn’t willingly cruel or vile and hated the idea of actually hurting anyone. His father had failed every mission he was given, and his mother wasn’t a Death Eater, to begin with. They were just there, as pawns and as sadistic pleasure. 
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
It was subsequently, a rare day that the Manor was empty. No one was walking through the halls or running their mucky shoes on the expensive upholstery of the furniture as they relaxed into it. Even his father was out, along with Bellatrix, which left only him and his mother at home.
Narcissa Malfoy was just as arrogant as her husband, valued the pro-pure-blood ideals she grew up with, and always appeared to be very cold and haughty. Yet there was one thing that she valued above most; her family. She was entirely devoted to her son and husband and loved them profoundly. It was for Draco she worried for the most and would do anything for. It was for Draco she would risk everything for and go against the Dark Lord for. 
So on the night she brought her son back home, and he was breaking down in her arms with cries about a girl she had never heard of - it piqued her curiosity more than she wanted to admit. She had asked Draco who you were a handful of times since that night, but he always refused to answer. She even went as far as asking Snape, pulling him aside one night behind a dark pillar in her home as everyone was leaving and whispered secretly to him.
“Severus, I know I’ve asked too much of you already but I need to know this,” she rushed to say in a very hushed and imperceptible tone but she knew he had heard her. He raised an eyebrow, looking at her quizzically. 
“What might that be?”
“On the night Draco came home, he was calling out for someone,” she began, “do you know if he was involved with anyone by the name of Y/N?”
She could have sworn she saw a twinge of muscles move in his cheek, but he only shook his head shortly from side to side.
“I apologize, Narcissa, but I know no student by that name,” he sighed. “Draco spent most of his time mending the vanishing cabinet, I doubt he had time to be venturing out in his love life.”
She wanted to believe him. But she couldn’t brush off the intuition that was beating against her gut, nearly screaming at her that she was being lied to and there was more to the story. It’s not like she wanted the information to hurt you or to judge, she simply wanted to know who had broken through to her son during the year he was the most closed off. Who had impacted him so greatly, that now that it was seemingly over left him in shambles and withdrawn almost completely. If anything, she wanted to help. And if there was a possibility where she could, she would help Draco take it if it meant it would make his life easier. There was nothing more she wanted for him, free of pain and filled with hope, and if a certain individual would help her get him there - she would be willing to see it through.
With the opportunity of everyone gone, Narcissa trailed up to Draco’s room, letting her knuckles fall softly against the wooden double doors three times.
“Draco, dear, would you like to join me on a walk?”
She heard a shuffling from behind the door and a sharp sniffle, taking in a deep breath to prepare herself to see his poorly hidden tears that she knew she would be met with.
As she predicted, the doors opened and the blond stepped out of his room, lowering his red-rimmed eyes to the ground so he wouldn’t have to meet her worried gaze. He looked well-groomed as always, but she took notice that his skin seemed gray and dull. His eye bags were deep and nearly black from all his crying and lack of sleep. When she linked her arm through his, she felt the slight weight he had unwillingly lost in the past month that he’s been home. Her mind was spinning with concern, promising herself there that she was ready to do whatever she could for him, anything she could.
She led them out of their cold and darkened home, stepping out into the gardens that sat behind the Manor in a large vastness of gorgeous flower arrangements of whites, greens, and reds. There was a large marble fountain placed in the middle of the garden, spewing water smoothly from a small bowl that spilled into a larger one beneath it. It was boxed in with stone and surrounded with red amaryllis flowers, giving anyone enough space to sit around it without being splattered by droplets of water. 
It was a gloomy day, but a warm afternoon sun had peaked through the clouds and cast a glowy light around the house that she hadn’t seen in ages. It made her feel hopeful as she walked her and Draco through the garden, thinking of ways on how to approach him. She knew he had shot her down and changed the subject every time she brought up your name, even if it was in privacy, and she pleaded to the stars that this would ultimately be the chance she would get to find out. 
When they reached the fountain, she sat them down and watched as Draco slouched, silent and staring distantly at his shoes.
“Dear, I know you hate for me to bring this up,” she started slowly, shaking her head as she spoke, “but I want to know who she is. I want to be able to help you, and maybe even her. I know you’re in love, I see it in your eyes and I see it now that you’re apart. I know everything else certainly applies to how you’re feeling, but there’s a look for heartbreak, and you have it.”
Draco looked up at her, finally peering into her worried eyes as he contemplated what she said and what she offered. The last time he told someone about you, he was reprimanded and denied any sort of help, only suggestions for abandonment were given. He wanted to tell his mother all about you, but he wished it was under happier circumstances, however. 
He wished it would be him coming home during the summer, no Voldermort or Death Eaters in his life or his family’s, and arriving with you by his side after sending an owl to his parents about the new love in his life he wanted them to meet. He would boast about you and your smarts, care, ambitions, and beauty. He would make sure his parents understood just how important you were to him and just how amazing you truly were. He imagined their inevitable surrender and allowing him to invite you on one of their luxurious trips to somewhere beautiful and expensive. He pictured a yacht ride in Italy, your skin glowing and your smile bright as you gazed at him in delight under a warm summer sun. Or a grandeur trip to France, walking around the Parisian streets with you as he spoiled you with gifts and delicious gourmet food while ending the night under the Eiffel Tower. He wanted to see you leave on shopping trips with his mother, the two of you coming back with heavy bags and new memories while his mother would walk by him and secretly whisper, “I love her!” to him. He wanted to flaunt you, and boast and gloat all about you - but the circumstances now were dreadful, and to talk about how he had failed you made him want to cry all over again. 
His mother waited patiently for his reply, clasping her hands together in her lap as he stayed quiet while he decided. He was so used to sulking and torturing himself on his own in the past month, that seeing a genuine look of concern and desire to help pushed him into making his final resolve.
“I met her around the beginning of last year,” he breathed out finally, “her name is Y/N Y/L/N, we had a Potions class together but I met her in one of the corridors where we accidentally bumped into each other. I sprained a finger trying to catch myself and she healed it without a second thought. She wants to be a Healer at St. Mungo’s after Hogwarts, and she’s very skilled with her wand. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and the kindest. She always listened to me, and helped me, and encouraged me. She always reassured me when I needed it, and if it weren’t for her I don’t think I would have mended the cabinet or even had the energy to wake up every day. She stayed with me even when I told her the truth about everything. I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel the way she does, I can’t explain it, she makes me feel-”
“Alive?” His mother softly finished for him. “She makes you feel alive.”
“Yes,” he nods fervently, “I love her and I failed her. I don’t think there’s anything I can do now and neither can you.”
“I beg to differ,” she briskly interjects. “It’s never too late for anything, Draco. There’s always an opportunity to make things right, as long as you try. She at least deserves an explanation and an apology, and it will be up to her to decide what she wants to do. She sounds wonderful, and I’m glad you met someone who brings out your best.”
Draco agreed wordlessly, his tears sitting at the brink of his eyelids begging to be released as he mulled over everything that was said. He knew where you lived, having learned the fact somewhere in your relationship when you were talking about your childhood and where you were from. He knew the place you called home and the address that came with it that you constantly reminded him of in hopeful jokes that he would visit you over the summer.
“There’s no one here, no one would know you’re gone,” Narcissa encourages swiftly as if she knew what he was thinking about. “It’ll be a few hours before anyone returns. Go to her.”
“But if I become involved with her again, he’ll find out, won’t he?” He insinuates in distress. “The reason I left her was to keep her safe from him, I don’t want her anywhere near this.”
“He won’t find out,” she promised, “I’ll make sure of it. Go.”
There was a hopeful and elating sensation that ran through his veins as he stood up, turning back to look at his mother as she nodded at him optimistically. He suddenly lunged towards her, giving her a tight hug and muttering thank you’s to her like a broken record before running out of the garden towards the front gate of the Manor.
As soon as he reached his exit, he used his newfound Death Eater ability to half-apparate himself into a thick black cloud of smoke that allowed him to fly over to where you were - not giving a care in the world if he were seen by muggles as he recklessly took every shortcut he knew towards your hometown.
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*
There was a slight breeze in the cloudy air that brought you comfort. It was cold, but refreshing - a sharp contrast against the burning feeling that never seemed to leave your body. You were back home now, in your small little town in England that held little to no wizards.
You spent a lot of your time wandering around the local stores and cafes nearby, mingling with strangers as you told them fake life stories for fun. There was also the small forest behind your house you regularly enjoyed, and all the small hidden creatures that you encountered along the way. You always brought along your family cat, the chunky orange tabby always finding his way for you outside of the forest when you got too far in, or if he sensed there was nearby danger and would warn you. Sometimes you would talk to him, complain to him about everything that was bothering you and he would respond to you now and then with broken meows and chirps that made you feel like he understood, even though he didn’t. It made you feel less alone.
Of course, you had your family that worried over your changed behaviors. They weren’t oblivious. They noticed the puffy eyes, the sniffles, and the quiet sobs that escaped under the space of your bedroom door when they would pass by in the middle of the night to get a glass of water from the kitchen. They noticed your sudden quietness, and your lack of interest in everything and hardly found you in the house. You were always out and about, trying to find anything and anyone to distract yourself from what was going on in your mind.
 It wasn’t that you didn’t want to talk to your family, even though they had incessantly offered their support, you just knew they wouldn’t understand. They would want to know about Draco, his family, and their beliefs. They would eventually figure out of his involvement with the Dark Lord and the looming second Wizarding war. They wouldn’t approve, and you didn’t want to hear the scolding you would get for ever giving him the time of day. You were bitter enough as it was, and the last thing you wanted to hear was how bad Draco was and how you were better off without him.
But even if you were supposed to be better off without him, a life where he wasn’t in it didn’t feel good at all. It felt empty and lost. You were used to his presence always being around you and how he was always a few minutes away from you. He was always available to you for anything and willingly; for company, affection, comfort, reassurance, love, everything. You hated the fact that you let yourself get attached, especially when you knew deep down the direction the relationship was going in.
There were days when you would wake up okay. Days where your mind blocked out your feelings entirely, including Draco and all the memories that came with him. There were days when you felt like you had finally forced yourself to move on, but always finding it to wear off when you’d clamber into bed at night and your brain started illustrating everything you didn’t want to remember. The silver band bracelet he had gifted you was in constant movement from your wrist and jewelry box, hidden on the days you wanted to forget him or sitting pretty on your skin on the days you missed him the most. As much as it hurt to think about him and remember him, you couldn’t stop the way your whole being drifted towards him.
You were currently stepping over a big fallen tree trunk covered in thick green moss, your cat following closely by your leg as he pranced and jumped over all his obstacles. You walked mindlessly around the greenery, not taking notice in the shape of the leaves of the fern you were placing your hand upon to move out of your way. It wasn’t until you felt the sharpened ends of the leaves dig deep into your skin that made you recoil your hand back in pain, a slight hiss leaving your mouth as a small gash began to form with blood flowing quickly upwards out of the new cut. Your hand was held in the air as you frantically looked around for anything that would stop the bleeding that was now dripping sleekly down your arm.
“Stupid ministry and underage magic,” you mutter under your breath. Your wand was in your pocket, begging to be used, but the idea of being sent a letter from the ministry that was now under the Voldermort's control quickly dispersed any desire you had to use it. “Come on, kitty. Let’s go back home, please.”
'Home' was a word the cat did understand. He bumped your leg with his head before meowing loudly at you as he began trotting off to your right side towards the exit of the forest. He moved stealthily, dodging in and out of everything that was in his path as you attempted to follow in his cleared steps. Every time you would trip or rest briefly, he would stop ahead of you and wait until you would walk towards him again before he started back on the journey.
When you finally saw your house in the distance, you sighed in relief at the thought of your first aid kit waiting patiently for you in the bathroom cupboard. And belatedly, your feet hit the stone path that led home, skipping slightly with your hand in the air before nearly toppling over your cat as he stopped abruptly in your path. You moved out of the way, last minute, and very clumsily before eyeing him suspiciously.
He was looking up at the sky, his ears pulled back and the fur on his back straightening up as his eyes frantically searched around the clouds above him. He wasn’t hissing like he normally did when he felt something dangerous coming, he looked more confused and alert than anything. You searched the sky with him for a minute before concluding he was being too wary so you bent down and pick him up with your uninjured hand, nearly scooping him into your arms until he carefully swiped at your arm.
“You’re being dramatic, there’s nothing there,” you exclaim at him irritably. You were stumped, on one hand, literally, you were still bleeding though it had significantly slowed down and was now just coagulated blood, and on the other hand, you couldn’t leave the cat outside because of the number of dead critters he left in his past outdoor ventures around the yard and his sometimes week-long disappearances that left everyone in the house worried.
In just a few seconds of your thinking, he had sprung forward and rushed towards the large open field that was a few feet away from your house. Although it was summer, it had been rainy and allowed the grassy field to flourish in tall and wild greenery. This did not help as you watched the fluff of orange disappear into the small jungle that lied ahead and you began to sprint after him, spotting his bushy tail in your vision every time he jumped over something. If you could use magic, this little ordeal would have gone much more different - but you couldn’t.
You chased him until the very near end of the field, spotting him sitting calmly as he looked back at you as if he was expecting you. Rolling your eyes, you reached towards him again to pick him up, if he wanted to go back to the house scratching and biting then so be it. You trained your gaze on him, trying your best to grab him as carefully and as slyly as you could. But as soon as your hand landed on the silky fur of his back, you heard a soft whooshing sound a few feet away in front of you and a very audible shuffle of dead grass crunching underneath someone's shoes as they moved slowly. 
You didn’t look up, all of a sudden feeling scared at who could have magically appeared in front of you, and instead, you waited for your cat to hiss and attack, but he sat himself down in a loaf as if he were in the most comfortable place in existence. This is when you looked up, and the sight before you was like an invisible force that knocked you onto your bottom as you jumped back in surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
What was supposed to sound like a concerned question, came out a little ruder than you had intended, almost seething at the boy that was fearfully staring down at you.
“I’m sorry,” Draco ran his hands over his pallid face in distress, “I shouldn’t have come.”
There was an awkwardness that hung in the air. The two of you were finally where you had wanted to be, together, but now that you were face-to-face it couldn’t have been more perplexing. He didn’t know how to begin, and you weren’t sure if you should even listen to him. It was like a weird staring competition, he was taking in everything about you as you were doing the same to him. It was obvious you were both a wreck, and the damage was apparent on him the most as he was dealing with his Death Eater status now more than ever.
“Your hand is bleeding,” he stated suddenly. You didn’t have time to answer before he had cautiously walked over to you and sat down beside you in a flattened patch of grass. “Let me see it.”
Like magnets, your hand instantly fell into his cold grasp without you thinking about it. You eyed him carefully and quietly, observing him as he turned your injured hand over in his and inspected your gash like you had done many times in the past for him. You didn’t stop him when he took his wand out of his pocket and waved it over your wound, murmuring a familiar spell that closed the cut with ease, a small pink scar left in its place. 
“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” you say lightly. “Thank you.”
“I learned from the best,” he smiles faintly. 
Neither of you moved from your sitting spots, and neither of you said anything. He would meet your eyes now and then and search them with such a pained expression that it took everything in you not to just throw yourself into his arms and cry in relief that he was there.
“I know it was Snape who killed Dumbledore and not you,” you break the silence apprehensively. “Harry told me.”
“Potter told you?” He grimaced, but he let out a breath of relief. “I would’ve thought the git would have loved to throw me under the bus. I didn’t even know he was there, then I see him chasing us down-”
“Draco, why are you here?” You asked him again, gingerly this time and cutting him off from his rambling in hopes that he would just cut to the chase on his unannounced appearance. He sighed, looking down at his now muddy, once expensive dress shoes.
“I needed to see you,” he answers honestly. “And I wanted to apologize for how I left things.”
You peered up at him with a raised eyebrow, bringing your knees up to your chest so you could rest your head against them as you faced him. “Let’s hear it.”
“I’m serious,” he frowned. “I’m sorry I used my wand against you. I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I left without giving you much of an explanation. I’m sorry I abandoned you and disappeared off the face of the Earth. I’m sorry I broke my promise that I would never leave you again.”
“Draco-”
“No, wait, I need you to understand that I thought leaving you was the only thing that would keep you safe. I would have never forgiven myself if I let you die for trying to help me, even if you say you’re ready to accept whatever fate is in store for you, I’m not. But I don’t want to run anymore, I don’t want to be away from you, I can’t do it and I always think I can let you go for your safety, but I can’t.”
There was a brief period of stillness as you contemplated his apology. Your head moved to fall in between your knees as your hands began to fiddle with the long strands of grass beneath you. You were stripping it and pulling at it, hoping that there would be a hidden message underneath the earth that would give you an answer on what to say or what to do, but it wasn’t possible. The only thing you found was the loose pitiful tears slipping down your face that seeped into spots of dry soil. Draco stayed wordless beside you, the only sound coming from him was uneven breaths as he stressed over your reaction.
You were caught in between wanting to give in, wanting to forgive him, and hug him and kiss him to make up for all the tortuous time lost, but there was also a part of you that was now afraid to trust. You wanted to, so badly, but everything felt so unpredictable. You weren’t sure whether you could handle him leaving again if he had to. And if he were to die at the end of all of this? There was no way you’d be able to recover from a loss like that. He was on an unforeseeable path that held no clear outcome.  
“I’m scared, Dray,” you sniffle, closing your eyes tightly as you began to answer him. “We’re not kids anymore fooling around at school. Everything is getting more real by the day. How am I supposed to be comfortable with the idea that you might-”
You stopped yourself from finishing, a soft sob escaping your throat at the near mention of his possible death. You felt him scoot closer to you, stopping about a few inches away from your shuddering body as he placed a reassuring hand on your lower back.
“You say you can’t accept the decision I made when I said I’m ready for whatever fate lies ahead of me,” you mumble miserably. “Well, I can’t accept yours either.”
“I won’t make any more promises I can’t keep,” he starts warily, “but I can promise you that as long as I’m around, I won’t let anyone hurt you, ever. And as far as my future goes, I promise that I’ll do everything and anything I can to survive this.”
You had unhooked your arms from around your legs, bringing them underneath you as you sat yourself up to face him better. He was staring at you intently, hopeful gray eyes boring into yours with every emotion under the sun flashing through them. He didn’t show it, but he felt like at any moment he was going to faint. He had never seen such uncertainty on your face and it killed him, but he tried to remain stoic as he spoke and kept a brave face at every concern you had. He couldn’t guarantee you anything that lied ahead, but there was also nothing he wouldn’t do for you now.
“Okay,” you agree, finally giving him the consolation he had been woefully praying for. “I believe you, we can get through this together.”
There wasn’t another second spared before you speedily moved out of your sitting position to pounce him with a tight and suffocating hug. It was desperate and smothering, his arms wrapped tightly around your lower back as he pressed you deeply into his body as if you were going to disappear any second.
You didn’t care that you could barely breathe against his chest or that your knee was digging into the mud below you. It was the most relieving feeling in the world, finally being in his arms again with new hopes and possibilities that always found a way to present themselves. It was one of the many reasons that you knew he was the one for you. Everything with him felt easy, even if the world was crashing down around you. He could melt away all your pain and worries with one look, touch, or words. He felt like home and heaven all in one.
It came to you in the middle of your longing hug, that there was always going to be something looming over the two of you in the current state that the wizarding world was in. There’s no point in wasting time when everything could change overnight, just as it had that unforsaken day at Hogwarts before you were dragged home the next day. There was no reason for trying to stay away from him when it was everything you wanted and you knew then that you needed to take advantage of whatever time you had left with him.
“I'm sorry for saying I would never forgive you that night,” you murmur into the crook of his neck. “And for being stubborn.”
“You had all the right to be angry with me,” he laments.
“But it didn’t make it okay,” you nuzzle yourself deeper in his embrace, frowning to yourself as you recalled the night.
He looked down at you, a pang of guilt hitting him when he saw the corners of your lips pulled down in sadness. He leaned down and carefully placed a kiss on your temple, lingering for a bit before moving away and muttering, “nothing about that night was okay.”
✧・゚: *✧・゚:* 
There wasn’t an inkling of an idea how long the two of you were sat outside, holding on tightly to each other as you filled each other in on any news that happened in the last month since you’ve seen each other. The only indication that let the two of you know that time had surely passed was that the sun had begun setting behind the valley in the distance. The moon now had a faint appearance in the purplish evening sky that was for the first time in a while, free of the heavy cloud covers.
You listened attentively as he told you about the Manor and how it was being used as a Death Eater meeting place. He told you about his father being released from Azkaban as a treat for the Malfoy’s since he had fixed the cabinet and disarmed Dumbledore for Snape to finish, unknowing to him that he would. He explained to you how ghostly he felt when he was venturing out of the school that night. He even scarcely described the horror that had gone on in the dead of night, when victims had been brought back to the house for ‘interrogations’ and the way their screams would keep him wide awake for days.
You nearly felt sick to your stomach the longer he went on, empathizing with him delicately when he would sometimes stop talking to take a deep painful shaky breath. The guilt that was eating away at him wasn’t hidden or pushed down, he expressed it very obviously and you couldn’t picture how he managed to hold a straight face in the sea of terrors he had encountered.
“You’re nothing like them,” you whispered tenderly to him when you saw the distant broken look that clouded his eyes. “You are good, Draco. Not once have I ever changed my mind about that.”
He was slipping, far and fast into the depths of his despair. His new life away from school was eating away at him now that he was forced to experience it upfront. He wasn’t cut out for it, nor did he want anything to do with it. It physically pained you that there was nothing you could do except offer him what you’ve always been able to provide; a listening ear and to remind him that he’s not the evil monster he deludes himself to be. 
“I don’t want to talk about me anymore,” he mumbled gloomily, taking your hand into his as he turned to look at you. “I want to hear about you and your summer.”
“It wasn’t pleasant or anything, honestly,” you shrug, “I spent most of it in the village nearby and the forest behind my house with my cat, who by the way knew you were coming somehow.”
You both suddenly turned to look for the orange tabby who had seemingly disappeared without either of you noticing sometime throughout the evening. 
“Where is the little critter so I can thank him for leading you to me,” he chuckled softly as you rolled your eyes.
“He’s probably back at home now but I’ll pass the message,” you bite back a smirk.
Draco felt the familiar fluttering of pixies in his stomach as he looked at you, a sense of exhilaration and delight shocking his body from its usual anguished state. He was so far gone in you and he never wanted to leave the feelings you left him with and with such little effort. He couldn’t count how many times he had the same thought in his head when he was around you, much like your own, he knew with you was where he was at his calmest and his happiest. It was like a chunk of agony being released from him that made him feel like he could breathe again without feeling like he was going to drown. Even if it was just for a few hours, he was always grateful for moments he shared with you and the comfort you brought him.
“I love you,” he said dazed, eyes locking onto yours intimately. “I hope you know that.”
"I love you,” you repeated, a coy smile making its way onto your features. 
“You know,” his thumb began mindlessly running over your knuckles as he spoke, “if it wasn’t for my mother knocking some sense into me earlier, I wouldn’t have had the great idea to show up here.”
He looked over at you when he felt you tense up completely, slightly worried at first before a small amusement quickly replaced his fear when he noticed you were gaping at him with wide wondrous eyes. 
“You told her about me?”
“All about you,” he nods, “I accidentally let your name slip a while back and she’s been asking me about you ever since. I didn’t want to say anything in case someone heard, but everyone was gone today and she got it out of me.”
“What did she say about me?” You asked him timidly as if it was the most important thing in the world for you.
He chortled quietly at your nervousness, “she said she thinks you’re wonderful and she’s glad we met. She pushed me to come and make things right with you and she offered to look out for us.”
There was an intense delight that beat against your chest at his answer. The only other person in his life who’s opinion he valued the most above all had made one about you, and it was one that was better than anything you could have ever hoped for. Narcissa Malfoy had vouched for you before she’s even properly met you and it left you feeling astounded and beyond appreciative.
“When you get home, please send her my regards,” you plead heartily, your hands clutching onto the lapels of his suit jacket as he laughed lightly. 
“I will, I will,” he smiles, “I have to be home soon, so she’ll hear about it within the next half hour.”
Draco pulled you up with him as he stood up, both of you finally stretching out your limbs with groans and sighs of relief from the tension of sitting for so long.
As you peered up at him, you let your hands slide up into the platinum blond strands that looked brighter than ever under the now bright moonlight. He placed a hand over one of your wrists, a smile growing on his face as he noticed the silver band sitting warmly against your skin. He leaned forward to press his forehead against yours, letting himself stay there for a minute as he tried to revel in the last few moments of peace he was going to try and prolong for the rest of his night.
“I’ll be back soon,” he cupped your cheek with one hand, his thumb grazed delicately over your cheekbone as you leaned into his touch. “Right back with you.”
“I’ll be waiting, Malfoy,” you grin.
For the first time that night, he ducked down and pressed his lips soft against yours. The gentleness quickly dissipated into longing and fervor as he kissed you like it was the last thing he was ever going to do, seeking the closeness and union he missed so desperately. Neither of you made any move to pull apart as you melted into each other, basking completely in the feeling of being so close to one another like this again.
If it wasn’t for you worrying about his timely arrival back home before everyone, you would have allowed him to keep you like that forever. But much to your dismay, you tapped him lightly against his chest that let him know it was really time for him to leave if he wanted to keep his secret trip, secret.
You stood there sadly, watching him as he unwillingly backed away from you and whispered one more goodbye to you before he disappeared into the sky in a ghost of black smoke, the aroma of his cologne still lingering in the air and a swollen feeling against your lips that left you feeling fuzzy.
✧・゚: *✧・゚:* 
The Malfoy Manor was staring eerily back at Draco when he finally arrived back in front of the main gate of the home. It was deathly quiet and dark, only a small light could be seen from the living room as he approached further into the property.
He swiftly ran up the steps, hand falling carefully onto the brass doorknob of the front entrance, stopping in his tracks completely when he heard a mixture of hushed angry voices.
“I told you, Bella,” he heard his mother exclaim fiercely. “He only went out to clear his head.”
“Clear his head of what?” his aunt sneered. “He’s falling weak, Cissy. He should be running around in joy that the Dark Lord has him in his inner circle.”
“My son is not weak, don’t you think this can all be a little overwhelming for someone who hasn’t even finished his schooling?” His mother defended him and he could picture the exact sneer on her face as she spoke.
“I want to know where he went,” Bellatrix says hotly, “he’s been gone too long.”
Draco ran through a list of excuses in his head, swallowing back the lump in his throat when he decided on one and put on a straight face as he turned the doorknob, cautiously stepping into the dimly lit living room where both his parents and aunt were waiting for him.
“Ah, there he is,” his father announced as he was the first one to see the boy clambering inside.
“I’m sorry I went off for so long,” Draco spoke up before anyone could ask. “I remember someone mentioning they had spotted Potter around a village nearby so I tried to go look for him.”
“Did you?” Bellatrix chastised. “And nothing?”
“Nothing,” he shrugged with a feigned annoyance.
“And you were alone?” She added with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, all by myself.”
Narcissa gave her sister a pointed look as she walked up to Draco, hand gripping tightly onto his arm before leading him away from the surprise interrogation and towards the foot of the stairs where she stopped him hastily.
“How did it go?” She asked almost inaudibly.
“Y/N sends her regards,” he whispered, “thank you.”
He gave his mother a warm hug good night before he hurriedly bounded up the stairs, looking down towards the living room once more where Bellatrix was eyeing him carefully. He decided on giving her a curt nod before vanishing into his bedroom and letting himself fall against the shut double doors, a large exhale of relief slipping past his lips as he was now safe to freely recall the night with a dazed smile he didn’t want to let go of.
PART 6
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APOLOGIES IF I FORGOT ANYONEEE 🥺 BUT I REALLY HOPE EVERYONE ENJOYED THIS CHAPTER EVEN THO IT WASNT TOOO EVENTFUL ❤️❤️❤️❤️ I GOT ACTION FOR THE NEXT PIECES THO JUST WAITTTT
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palaceofpassion · 3 years
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Neo’s Arc 2
Part 2 to the Neo’s Arc Commission!
Jaune couldn’t believe it, he’d actually done it!  Had ACTUALLY made his way into Beacon, THE BEACON!  He wasn’t sure what God had blessed him with such luck, or what the headmaster had been thinking when he let him in.  Jaune himself, despite constant training with his sister, had felt rather inadequate compared to the other students.  But hey he was here, he wasn’t going to complain either.  Not when he had Neo by his side, and oh boy was he happy to have Neo by his side!  His sister, slash, lover had gotten to him… perhaps a little too quickly when they had landed, leading to the two of them becoming teammates.  And well, he couldn’t ask for a better team if he was being honest!  
“Good night everyone!”  He smiled brightly as his team, which consisted of his glorious splendid sister Neo, the lovely and kind Pyrrha Nikos, and the originally snooty but actually a very sweet girl Weiss Schnee!  He may have started on the wrong foot with the two of them, but after talking things through, a few troubles with the team next door, and well some arguments here and there.  They’d truly become a close team, and… and well it felt nice being near three GORGEOUS Women.  Even as loyal as he was to his sister… he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander sometimes, especially with how striking Pyrrha and Weiss were… especially with how often they liked to show those damned fine legs of theirs… sue him he was a leg man!
“Good Night Jaune.”
“Night Arc.”  
Shuffle~
Ah and here was the other thing, the reason he probably HAD not snapped with all the feminine wiles surrounding him.  It was because of his dear~  Lovely~  Precious~  Cock Hungry sister.  
Neo had been absolutely grateful that she’d ended up on the same team as her precious, hunky, loving brother.  She wouldn’t know what she would have done if he’d ended up on a team of all girls, especially if she wasn’t nearby to keep an eye on him.  Not that she didn’t like Weiss or Pyrrha… but she wasn’t blind.  She could see the way those harpies eyed him, like he was some kind of prize to be won, or prey to be snatched!  She would have NONE of that, he belonged to her and her alone.  
Well, even if they did like him, it wasn’t like they’d done anything to show it.  And if they weren’t going to make their move, then as far as she was concerned he was all hers, would forever be hers.  As quietly as a mouse, she swiftly snuck towards him, her clothes gently dripping to the floor below.  The cool night air doing nothing to abate the intense heat originating from her womb.  She’d grown so needy, so wanting of her brother’s hot throbbing cock.  Of being close to him, touching him, experiencing the warmth of her beloved.  She couldn’t imagine a world where that wasn’t a thing, where she couldn’t touch him like she wanted.  
No… she didn’t want to imagine a world where she was alone.  Putting those thoughts away for now, she gently slinked within his sheets, the shuffling of the bed quietly humming through the room as she pushed herself against her already buck naked brother.  “Hey~”  A little tingle ran down her neck as he gently whispered into her ears.  She LOVED how he’d expected her to show up, his fingers already dancing upon her posterior, clinging onto her and bringing their bodies closer together.  
The burning heat intensified within while his blazing hot dick slid between her thighs, sandwiching itself between the plump sticks of meat.  Her lips quivered against his, their tongues slipping beneath their hidden sheathes as they tangoed into one another.  This was why she LOVED being here, she needn’t hide from her siblings, from their mother.  They didn’t need to know about her twisted relationship with her brother, blood or not.  No… this worked out the best as far as she was concerned.  
She didn’t even care if her roommates knew.  She imagined they’d had an inkling, despite the steps she and Jaune had taken to be as secretive as they could.  But, even now she could imagine them, staring from their own beds.  Their bodies gently rising in a faux nocturnal state.  The exhibistionistic glee in her took over, the thought of being watched, of being seen as the tip of his burning hot cock pressed against her wanting entrance.  The thought that both girls, who eagerly yearned for her brother’s affection, could do nothing but spectate as she and he made passionate love.  It… well it did things to her. 
It did lovely things to her, especially when he slowly slid one of his fingers up her spine and gently against her neck.  Her hairs stood on end as he touched her softly, gently grasping the back of her head and tugging her forward, pressing them together for an even tighter hold.  Gods above she loved her brother, loved him more than perhaps her own life.  She wanted nothing more than to touch him, to feel him, her fingers grasping against his back, sliding between his strong shoulder muscles.  She wanted more, wanted to inhale his scent further, wanted to feel his warm touch against her body.
The more they were apart the more she ached, the closer they were, the more she wanted it.  She knew she was greedy, knew she was unreasonable but she couldn’t get enough of the way that he smelled, of the way that his lips tasted against hers.  She clung to him, like a newborn, wanting to never let him go.  Wanting to forever be loved and held by her dearest person.  
She felt a sense of joy knowing she no longer had to fear, fear that they may get caught by their family and torn apart.  She didn’t care about these other girls, only cared about Jaune.  If she could make sounds she would squee, would let out a yelp of pleasure as his tongue brushed against hers.  Their lips parting ways for just a moment as trails of spit dripped upon their shared pillow.  
She needed not say a word, only simply stare him in the eyes, her heart pounding thoroughly in her chest as he nodded.  She loved him so dearly, loved that he knew exactly what she wanted without her having to say a word.  She knew no one else would ever get her the way that he did and she never wanted anyone else to.  “Ah!”  She may not have been able to speak, but her lips could still part, a muffled sound nearly escaping as she felt his thing brush against her lips.  
The splintering hot sensation of the tip rustling against her quiverly sex was enough to nearly to send her into a tight orgasm.  But she needed him, needed for him to shove it deep inside of her.  She had an itch that only he could scratch, one that only he could fill and oh brothers did she want it badly.  
“Oh brothers.”  She tried to arch her back, tried to pull her head away from her brothers as his girthy cock slid inside of her, her lips parting to make way for the added space, but he kept her locked in place.  She loved the fullness she experienced whenever he pushed into her, whenever the two of them became one.  The rigid dick, veiny fat cock, scratched against her insides, rubbing into her ridges and sending pleasant scritching sensations through her.  She knew she wasn’t satisfied yet, that she needed and wanted more.  But this was a good start.  
Her nails began to sink into his flesh, their auras turned off, the intimacy of their bodies being directly connected being what she wanted.  Her toes began to clench as her muscles in her legs tightened.  Slowly he pushed against her, the swell in her belly growing larger and larger as he gently rubbed himself upwards.  She needed this, needed to be filled to the brim with him.  She wanted his seed inside of her womb so badly that she almost pushed herself down upon him.  Even if she couldn’t get pregnant right now, she’d taken the shot to keep her infertile till she was done with class, she wanted to at least feel like she could!  
Jaune couldn’t keep his hands off his sister's sinuous figure, his hands roamed, letting his animalistic lust take hold of him, his hunger burning as he frantically squeezed and groped at whatever he could.  Their bodies were already entering into carnal passion as their tongues wrestled with one another.  The sweet and sultry scent wafting off of her moistening form intoxicated him, the way she held onto him intoxicated him, her tightening cavern enticed him.  
He’d long gotten over any doubts about what he wanted from this twisted relationship of theirs.  No longer did he care that they were siblings, even if not by blood.  No longer did he stop himself when he desired her, he no longer bothered to hide his dark cravings and the lust he felt for her.  He simply took her, simply allowed himself to bask in her form.  The softness of her skin felt wonderful to his touch, her voluptuous form pressed against his chest was exquisite.  He could hardly get enough, he didn’t want to get enough.  He wanted more, he wanted to touch her whenever he could.  HIs fingers tightened around her bottom, grasping and squeezing around whatever he could get ahold of.
His powerful digits kneading into the soft doughy swells, he found himself letting loose.  Squeezing into her soft cavern he split the malleable hills apart, he could feel a gasp of air escape her lips as he pushed further inside of her while doing so.  Her every reaction, the way she let him know she loved what he was doing, always did it for him.  The stimulation from their simple touches, the way that she squirmed when he took command, he never knew he needed and now he could never live without.  
His hips rocked back and forth, her insides massaging his manhood, tasting the pleasures of the flesh as they pushed further into one another.  He knew he had to be quiet, lest their teammates wake up, but he found himself far too enthralled to care if they did.  In fact… perhaps the thrill of having one of his gorgeous teammates watch them, perhaps too stunned to do anything, was something he could really enjoy.  He whispered gently into her ear as he worshipped her small lithe form, “I love you~  You’re my goddess~  My beloved~  I want to breed you, I want you to bear my fruit so badly.”  
Her response was the same as usual, a little tingle encapsulated her womb as she bit down upon his lip, tasting his flesh as she attempted to endure his loving assault.  She was weak to his teasing, weak to the way he made her feel loved.  She could never get enough, never wanted to get enough.  His words danced within her head, powerful feelings surging from deep within her body.  Her core, trembling weakly as it was, began to give on her.  The feeling of completeness seeped from her very depths and while she tried to savor the soft touches.  She wanted more, wanted him to take her so very badly.  
She couldn’t speak, but she knew how to get him going, a simple peck to the lips as she grasped upon his shoulders.  Tugging against him she flipped their bodies, he was now above her, their blankets no longer covering their naked forms.  She found herself awestruck, like she always was, when the soft silvery moonlight fell upon his chiseled body.  She’d done so much to help him get to where he was, and she’d be damned if she didn’t appreciate the results.  Even now she couldn’t help but run her finger down his biceps, slowly tracing towards the abs.  A mighty thirst filled her, eyes falling back to him as she begged him.
“Fuck me, break me.”
She wanted him badly, wanted him to treat her like a toy, wanted him to let loose like he hadn’t been able to do till now.  She began to care not if her teammates knew, in fact they could know all they want, she wanted them to realize just how much he belonged to her.  
Jaune got the message loud and clear, any reservations he may have had about being quiet quickly went out the window as he shoved himself further against her.  Her tightness grasped upon him, his body moving as she wished him to ravishing her till she began to release him reaching for the sheets as her fingers sunk into the bedding.  
Creek Creek Creek
The bed began to move as his pace skyrocketed, his body penetrated her depths, no longer slowing down he began to ravage her insides.  The harder and faster he went the more she tightened around him, her bumpy ridges massaged against his cock, grinding against the fleshy stick as he immersed himself in the pleasure.  
Neo lavished the sensation, her insides tightening around him needing him inside of her more and more.  The tip of his cock grazed against her cervix every time he pushed into her, with every new lunge he got closer and closer to battering against her womb and she loved it.  She loved the way that he grasped her legs, and pulled them back over her head.  Loved the way her lower body no longer touched upon the bedding.  She loved how he began to fuck her, to ravage her, to rape her into the sheets.  Her body needed this, she LOVED him dearly, she loved how easily he could switch for her.  And she LOVED how he pushed her further down.  
Even as the first orgasm hit the two of them he refused to stop.  Even as her body quaked in overwhelming pleasure, and even as his jerked baby maker released its batter relentlessly into her oven.  He’d refused to back down.  Incited by perhaps the thought of being caught, he’d entered a frenzied fuck.  No longer where they having sex, she could tell this had become something else.
“Get pregnant, I want to get you pregnant, have my children, bear my babies.  I need you to have my kids, please get pregnant.”  His voice chanted loudly and clearly to her, his body now entering a rut.  He was no longer fucking her for pleasure, he was fucking her with the intent on spreading his seed far and wide.  Oh how she wished she could accept it now, but she knew that he knew they couldn’t.  Not just because of the shot, but because both of them had goals in mind.  While she wanted to protect him, she’d always dreamed of helping those that were lost just like her.  
So his words, they reached and touched her heart, but they both knew they couldn’t happen.  Still, her womb reacted accordingly.  As he plunged into her depths, her cervix opened hungrily, drinking his seed hoping that his constant thrustings didn’t spill the precious nectar.  
The stirred liquid sloshed within her body, succumbing to the pleasures of being filled, of having her womb poured directly into.  She couldn’t help but enjoy the wonderful feeling, and as for Jaune?  He’d lost it, no longer thinking with his upperhead, he buried himself, slammed himself, devoted himself to breeding her as best as he could.  The two, so caught up within their sinful desires, failed to notice though the jealous green and sky blue eyes watching them.
Neither of them noticed the way that their sheets shifted as their hands worked between their legs.  
Weiss… Weiss couldn’t believe what she’d seen, couldn’t even fathom that what was happening in front of her was actually happening… but there it was.  The brother and sister duo had always struck her as odd… and she kind of always knew something was going on.  But to actually see Jaune… that buffoon… that idiot… that… that specimen of a man!  Push his sister down, take command, and BREED her.  That hadn’t… that just… it was too much.  The thick smell wafted within their room, her mind falling into a deep haze.  She didn’t know how they’d planned to hide it, not with the thick scent of sex filling her lungs as easily as it was.  
She hadn’t meant to start, but her body desired touch, it craved satisfaction, so before she could consider stopping she’d already begun to reach between her legs.  Her fingers slaking across her soft core dipping into her tight virgin slit.  She began to want more than this, it wasn’t enough… and she… oh gods she needed it.
Pyrrha was very much the same, she thought seeing her crush crushing his sister would have been more upsetting than it was.  But instead she found herself directly pulled to it, she’d been unable to pull her gaze away from the very start succumbing to the desires of the flesh.  She wanted to be treated that way, wanted Jaune to plunge into her to take her virginity and taste her flesh.  She… she wanted to be bred like Neo was being… she needed to.  
Unlike Weiss, she had no reservations about sliding her fingers between her thighs, a pool of moisture forming and sliding down her leg and onto her sheets before she’d even started.  Her body stirred into action as she rubbed against her clit, her shudder and a sigh escaping her lips as she started to play with herself.  Her digits roaming freely within her.  She needed to do something, her fingers proving not enough to cleanse the burning fire boiling within her.  And… as she watched Jaune and Neo, she came to a conclusion.  It just so happened that Weiss came to the exact same agreement.  They wanted Jaune, and they would have him one way or another.
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sexyglances · 2 years
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Dusik's Self-Isolation, the "Doorkeeper" Poem, and Hyejin's Presence
It's been said many times before about Dusik, but episode ten once again showed how he has dedicated his life to a series of active choices that results in purposeful denial of providing love to himself. He deliberately distances himself from others and tries to deny his love for anything and anyone as a way for repenting against his past 'sins' of loving people who all died too soon.
To Dusik, his love has been nothing but a condemnation to others and himself, and he feels like he must live a life in limbo purgatory as penance, neither giving nor receiving too much companionship, lest he condemn another person via his love. Is his carefree lifestyle that carefree? Or is it his way of willfully keeping himself from attaching to anything? Because life has taught him that if he has strong emotion for something, then that is a harbinger of destruction for what he loves.
All the people he cared for most in his life died too suddenly and too early in his life, before he could process how to say a proper goodbye. And he feels directly responsible for at least one of their deaths--we see him say so explicitly to both his therapist in general and in more detail to Hyejin about his grandfather. To Dusik, his grandfather died because he let himself love soccer more than being vigilant, even though he didn't know there was anything to be vigilant for at the time. Then after his last loss in his mysterious five years away from Gongjin, it seems like Dusik abandoned direct expressions of love for anybody. He learned that vigilance is the only expression of love that he should offer other people.
Staying vigilant of other people's needs while also staying vigilant of not getting too close is his way of protecting other people for their needs and from himself. This is partly why he tried to deny his feelings for Hyejin for so long, dancing between the friend zone and something more. (As an aside, this focus on his own vigilance may also play into his love for photography. He seems drawn to capturing moments to look back on, not wanting moments to pass by unnoticed.)
As part of his vigilance, Dusik created a life for himself back in Gongjin as an unemployed jack-of-all-trades, a fix-it man, an unofficial neighborhood chief that can show up at a moment's notice when help is needed. Dusik has made himself into a person that can be reliable in any situation. And he threw himself into that role by learning as many trades as possible so he could fix any problem, from HVAC repair to barista certification to fruit carving and anything in between. But even though he wants to be known as a reliable entity in town, he also makes sure to position himself as a periphery figure only. He only shows up from outside other people's routine lives. He purposefully does not live on any fixed schedule that is permanently tied to anyone else, and he surrounds himself with a thick air of detachedness. This is how he ensures he can't become an albatross to anyone's life again. He can't be accountable for destruction of life if he's simply a hired part-timer and a neighborhood helper; and nothing with any inherent responsibility that can't be explained away by utility rather than love.
Sure, he's a chief that other people turn to for help, but he rejects anything more official than being a helpful neighbor. He refuses to express his love for individual people because experience has taught him that his love can destroy lives, so he only shows his love for the people of Gongjin as part of a whole entity, detaching himself from anything that can be seen as preference for individual people. This is something Chunjae noted in their conversation the night Juri ran away. Dusik accepts other people's problems and their joys, but he doesn't actively share his own in full-fledged reciprocation. The exception seems to be halmeoni Gamri, at least to some extent, but even then he tends to frame any explanation of him going above and beyond for her as a way of paying back for how much she cared for him growing up. Dusik lives in his own manufactured limbo where he has made his existence entirely fixed as an untethered entity.
Dusik has turned his pain into a lifestyle where he knows he must keep his heart guarded from other people by becoming too attached, keep himself from sullying his hometown and the people he's dedicated himself to with the infection that is him asking for reciprocity. His infectious disease is spread through baring himself and his full-fledged feelings to other people, and thus he quarantines that part of himself from anyone. Denial of love is his love. So he flits from job to job, works for minimum wage, and tries to pretend that he does not attach himself to anything or anyone but himself. It's easier for everyone this way. That way he cannot drag anyone down into the surf that is his destruction.
He has decided that it's better for him to be a solitary observer, taking up space in a manmade shipwreck away from others, both literally and figuratively, as is shown by how he made the choice to keep his grandpa's boat out of the water, perching it on a hill so high and isolated that he could barely get it up there in the first place. Even if it is incredibly difficult to do, he is determined to meet his goal of self-exile. It's the only way he knows how to protect himself and everyone else, through self-imposed isolation.
But like the poem Dusik read to Hyejin, once she entered his life, she would not stop showing up for him. She didn't willingly ascribe to the rules he set forth for other people. He told her to cross lines freely, as if she had already been doing so. She may have verbally pontificated about not crossing lines, but her actions said otherwise, and she was crossing Dusik's boundaries before he even knew it. She didn't fit perfectly into Gongjin or Dusik's life, and her stretching the limits of what is 'acceptable' is what he needed to open himself up to a new perspective other than steadfast solitude. It was through her own actions, stepping into his circle of solitude and making her presence known, that he began to question if isolation was really what he wanted and preferred.
From the very beginning, Hyejin asked Dusik to stay with her, literally tugging on his shirt to keep him from leaving on the beach the first day they met. And she hasn't stopped holding onto him. First it was out of helplessness, then when she held onto him and asked him to stay before her first town hall meeting, it was her asking for his support, then when she ran into his arms when she was scared, it was her showing her deep trust for him, and now most recently, in her half-asleep state on the couch, it was her desire to emotionally connect with him in a way more profound than he does with others. Her presence is her way of asking him to open the door to his heart.
And like the poem said, and what Dusik realized as he was reading it, his staunch gatekeeping betrayed him and he fell in love because of his own stubbornness in refusing to leave his post. He found someone who reliably showed up to his post as dependably as he does. Or rather, she showed up and found him in Gongiin. He was always there to keep his metaphorical door closed, and she was always there to check if it was still closed. Dusik was so sure that gatekeeping would keep him safe, so sure that his constant monitoring and vigilance would keep him protected, that he failed to realize what would happen when he began to rely on his denial. His continued refusal became something reliable in itself, though not because of him, but because of her showing up. After all, what is there to refuse if there is not someone knocking at the door every day? His vigilance betrayed him because he forgot that actively guarding his heart was also keeping his heart active.
Dusik tried to deny Hyejin entrance inside his heart, but then her existence in Gongjin took up space all around him. She became like the sea itself, constant and deep and reflective. And just like Gongjin would feel incomplete without the presence of the sea's waves lapping on its shore, so too is Dusik starting to feel incomplete without Hyejin's assured presence. So much that when she's gone, as he said at his grandpa's memorial ceremony after she left, he misses her so-called noisiness and disruption of his habitual silence. He misses her. Without him realizing it, the silence he used to crave has started to feel like an empty void, and it's no longer silence he seeks. Instead, it's the steady sound of her waves crashing against his shoreline that has started to bring him comfort. Her tides coming and going, leaving bits of herself behind with him and changing his coastline with her presence is more dynamic and interesting than the unvarying landscape of the dry hilltop perch he made for himself.
Dusik's gatekeeping has evolved in that its purpose is no longer about resolute solitude and staying away from others, but about taking up patrol in order to be near her. Subconsciously Dusik found himself willing to abandon his sentry, not even noticing that he was walking away from his guard post and leaving himself wide open to her. This is so interesting coupled with the line Hyejin said a few episodes earlier, "He's always around when you least expect it." Both in that she too unexpectedly became a part of his life like she claimed he did with hers, and also how in some ways the reason he is always present is because he actively finds ways to show up around her and enact his gatekeeping. Just like the lines from the poem, Dusik became the doorkeeper whose "job is to wait for you the next day to deny you. / My job is to wait for you the next day and fall in love with you."
And then Hyejin confessed, and Dusik made the conscious choice to abandon his barricaded doorway to go be with her and kiss her. Because his barricade wasn't worth keeping up if she was baring herself to him so openly and and unguardedly. Isolation and vigilance lost their meaning in the face of the buoyancy he feels when he is with her. Hyejin tried to say that he could leave his door closed. She put her hand up to his mouth, and with that she meant she didn't expect anything in return, that he could leave his door closed, and she would still be there, her feelings unwavering. But her bravery made him brave as well. And he made the active choice to pull back his own door, lower her hand, and kiss her. Now, his doorkeeping is meaningless without her. And after all these years, his carefully cultivated isolation is worthless if it means isolation from embracing Hyejin's presence as well.
The poem said, "denying my love is my job," but Dusik finally realized he was ready to accept more than just denial in this life with Hyejin. He was finally ready to make the active choice to accept someone in his heart again. Hyejin's presence made Dusik acutely aware of the weight of his isolation and he knew it was again time for him to firmly reject something. But this time instead of rejecting another person, instead of rejecting the feelings of reciprocal love, he rejected his own self-isolation. His rejection was in favor of love rather than against it. Hyejin knocked, completely content with the closed door of Dusik's existence, but this time he flung his door open and made the move to kiss her and return her feelings back. His purpose is no longer to deny his love, it's to accept love and give love back to her.
-----
And just in case you wanted to read the poem in full, I've pasted it below:
"Doorkeeper" by Kim Haengsook
It's my job to say, "You shouldn't do this here."
It's my job to deny your purpose.
It's my job to deny you the next day.
It's my job to wait for you the next day to deny you.
My job is to wait for you the next day and fall in love with you.
Thus, denying my love is my job.
I will not cry because of my vocation, he wrote. I cried sometimes when I wrote a diary.
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opalesense · 3 years
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the last appointment
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zhongli & gn!reader
3.4k words • ~25 min. read
summary: as a studious and credible fortune teller in liyue, you discover something about your last client of the week that completely derails your outlook on life.
warnings: liyue arc spoilers, little bit of existential dread, slight mention of family member’s death
notes: might make more parts to this idk?  just kinda wanted to dip my toes into genshin writing for the first time!!
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LIFE IN LIYUE HARBOUR seemed to be repetitive and mundane.  For the past few years, you would wake up, open your fortune telling shop, analyze the futures of your clients using your geomancy, possibly take a stroll around Liyue when you needed to run errands, and then call it a day.  You performed the same routine constantly, sometimes travelling beyond the harbor to collect crystals and magical supplies for your shop, but rarely did anything truly change in your routine.  If something was off in the slightest, it was never too exciting to note.
   As anyone would have suspected, you were tired of your state of limbo in life.�� Other vision holders seemed to be going on adventures, travelling with companions and exploring the vast mountains and valleys of Teyvat.  Other vision holders seemed to be fighting against evil, helping citizens, and saving the world from imminent dangers.  You could even recall a recent event where the Qixing had evacuated the harbor to defeat a terrifying sea monster.  The Jade Chamber had been sacrificed for the safety of the people of Liyue, and yet here you were, playing with a bunch of rocks for a living.  Despite being able to grasp the glowing Geo vision that held your coat together, you could not grasp why you felt doomed to tend to this shop for the rest of your days.
   You didn’t know where or how to “start” your life.  The small, inherited establishment from your late aunt was located in the small alley of Chihu Rock, practically out of sight from most of the foot traffic in the harbor.  Not many people came to visit, though your name was still decently known.  In fact, most of your appointments were simply previous clients from your aunt, regulars that relied on her readings for years and believed you were the next best thing after she passed.  Especially considering you were the first vision holder in your family, it made your credibility even stronger.
   You still remember how you got your vision.  The morning after your aunt had passed, the elemental gift somehow made its way into your hand as if the timing was meant to be perfect.  You didn’t celebrate such a special and momentous occasion with pride or joy.  Your face stiff with tears, you instead reflected on why you received your vision at that moment in the first place.  With the shop doors closed upstairs, you gripped your vision and did what you felt needed to be done.  With your family’s legacy and tradition on the line, adventuring like other vision wielders was not a priority at the time.
   But after years alone of research, a social life consisting only of interacting with customers, and a constant state of grieving the experiences you could’ve had in your youth, you were now in your late twenties and closing the shop for the day.  Your last appointment was either extremely late or not showing up at all and you were tired of working today, just like every other day. Regret gripped you tightly as you wondered how you managed to get yourself in such a boring, slow burning loop.
   That is until the shop door opened, eliciting a gasp from you at the sudden noise, shattering the previous thought.  You accidentally dropped the basket of cor lapis you were refilling and immediately knelt down to pick up the precious pieces that thankfully hadn’t cracked on the way down.
   “Hello, [Y/N],” the tall figure practically glided through the doorway, “My deepest apologies for being late.”
   He closed the door behind him, “...and for startling you, it seems.”
   You sighed, checking for any scratches on the gems and sighed again with relief based on the good results.  You grinned to hide the fact you had just been in deep thought.  “It’s quite alright, Mr. Zhongli.  It’s kind of you to stop by at the very least, even if you’re late.”
   Mr. Zhongli was one of your aunt’s longtime clients.  Since you were a child, your aunt had always described Mr. Zhongli as a complex yet thoughtful man that had always shown kindness to your family for many years.  When Mr. Zhongli learned of your aunt’s death and began to receive readings from you instead, you quickly realized what your aunt meant by calling him complex.  Mr. Zhongli was truly a tough nut to crack in every single reading, his sessions taking longer than most other cases.  That is why Mr. Zhongli would always offer to take the last spot of the day at the end of every week as to not trouble any of your other clients.
   As you took a few of the best cor lapis from the basket, you could see Mr. Zhongli’s acts of kindness and thoughtfulness unfold in front of you.  He seemed to carry what was now clearly a gift basket at closer inspection.
   “This gift is for you,” Mr. Zhongli took a few steps forward to set the basket on a countertop.  “I brought you your favorites.  Slow cooked bamboo shoot soup, qingxin, glaze lilies, and all the crystals I could find…  needless to say, let this be a token of my appreciation for your patience and hard work from our last few sessions.  I know I am not the easiest to read, but you truly have a talent.”
   You were speechless at the gesture as your eyes sunk into the intricate detail of the handwoven basket and decorated items inside.  No one had ever done something so kind for you in so long.  It was astonishing enough that he remembered your favorite soup that you mentioned only once a few months ago, let alone your favorite flowers and crystals as well.  “Thank you so much, Mr. Zhongli!   I’m at a loss for words – this is so thoughtful of you!”
   “I even brought you that Rex Incognito series you had mentioned, although, I am not sure why you would need to read the series when I am fully capable of educating you on the history of Rex Lapis myself,” he flaunted, taking his seat on the cushioned chair in front of the reading table.
   “Now, Mr. Zhongli...” you picked out some prithiva topaz from another basket, following the usual protocol you had with such a personalized, frequent client like him. The required materials for his readings were imprinted into your memory like carvings in stone. “You know I don’t want to burden you with my curiosity.  And with such an intriguing topic like Rex Lapis... once I start asking questions I’m afraid I will not stop.”
   “I have all the time in the world,” he got comfortable in his seat as you sat yourself across from him, “I truly think it would benefit you to discuss the history of Rex Lapis with a learned scholar such as myself.  We can even have some tea as we discuss.”
   You chuckled at his eagerness.  He seemed more forward than usual. “You are too kind, Mr. Zhongli.  Perhaps I’ll take that offer someday, but at least let me put those books to good use first. Maybe I won’t need to bombard you with questions if I’m already well briefed on the subject.”
   He sighed happily.  “You make a good point. And you will enjoy them, I’m sure.”
   You settled into your seat as you arranged the crystals between the two of you.  “The usual for tonight?”
   “Yes, please.”
   Your hands meticulously placed the last crystal in its spot on the surface.  You closed your eyes and hovered your hands above the rocks, clearing your mind to make way for the usual reading: a reflection on the past, any significant events of the present to focus on, and some insight into the future.  You held this hand gesture for awhile, letting the energy from the rocks lift into the air and envelop your gloved palms.  When you felt there was enough energy to work with, you opened your eyes to reveal the manifestation of his thoughts in front of you, able to take its physical form using the powers from your glowing vision.
   No one had ever taught your this skill, not even your aunt.  If you had to bloat your own ego, one could say you invented this Geo fortune telling process yourself. The process indeed came to you naturally, a true display of pure talent.
   You slowly lifted your hands to allow the visual manifestation to settle on the table among the gems so Mr. Zhongli could watch his reading unfold in front of him as well.
   “Let us analyze the past first,” he spoke, already knowing the routine without you needing to ask him where to start.  You slowly waved your hands as if you were digging a hole in sand on a beach, the manifestation displaying ambiguous patterns that wouldn’t make sense to any commoner’s eyes but could be interpreted easily by yours.
   Two pairs of focused eyes fixated on the picture as you spoke your mind out loud.  “You have recently given up something extremely important to you, it seems.  I see you handing over something…  small, physically, yet unbelievably significant and personal.  I can’t tell what it is exactly, only that it glows like the sun with its energy.  But you have handed this important object over to a very... evil... figure?” you cocked your eyebrow, confused.  “You seem to be brooding over the fact that its aura is dark with malicious intentions.”  You hesitated, “Well, that can’t be right, can it?”
   He sighed.  “Unfortunately, that is indeed what happened recently.  But it had to be done.”
   “Didn’t we talk about a similar situation in a previous reading?  If I remember correctly, I thought I had advised you to not give up whatever that object was.”
   “I am aware of the consequences that will follow.  Especially with your future guidance, I’m sure the events following this one questionable decision will unfold in a better way soon enough.”
   “I will always be here to help you, Mr. Zhongli.  But please be careful in the future with these decisions.  The importance of this object seems to be off the charts.”
   He nodded.  “It is as you say.  Please, have faith in me now. I cannot change what happened in the past, after all.”
   You hovered over this image of the sacrifice.  You couldn’t make out what this object was, no matter how close you tried to inspect it.  It had the likings of a chess piece, but surely this wasn’t simply a chess piece, was it?
   “Let us move on, if that is alright with you,” his low voice cut the silence.
   You wiped the image from your mind and waved your hands again, as if you were slowly putting the sand back into the hole you dug before.  If the last image wasn’t enough bad news, this new one that formed was even more painful to witness.
   “You have been grieving your losses very recently,” you said gently.  “Your mind is currently weighed down by your past.  I see you looking out at the sea in deep thought.  There are flashes of…”
   You stopped as you inspected the graphic images that suddenly appeared beyond your hands.  You gasped at the terrifying horrors.
   “What is it?” the low voice tried to search for understanding of what you were seeing.  Even though the image was clearly laid out in front of him, it was still too ambiguous to tell when he lacked your years of experience.
   “There are flashes of war,” your breath stifled as you watched his thoughts splayed out in images of lifeless bodies and destruction.  “Very graphic details of war and death.  Mr. Zhongli, I believe this image of suffering has been weighing over your mind like an anchor in the sea.”
   He paused to process your comparison.  “That is... a very good way to put it.”
   “Though, I believe that despite the sorrow that emanates in this image, you are in a state of relief and tranquility.  It seems you are grieving, but you are simultaneously at peace,” you hesitated again, “Yet I wonder what these graphic images of war are meant to represent.  Surely we are not in an actual war, are we? Perhaps you are at war with your past, wanting to move on but haunted by your memories?”
  Mr. Zhongli unfortunately knew the images you were seeing were, in fact, real events he had experienced in his life time and the truth was that lately he had been reminiscing on these events.  Mortal life is kind to humans for them to be blissfully unaware and carefree of these harsh realities, he internally commented.
  He still put your analysis into thought, though.
  “I am haunted, indeed.  I have been attempting to come to terms with my troubled past, just as you advised me only a few weeks ago.  I have tried to follow your guidance, and although they resurface what I have been trying to repress, I believe I am coming to peace with what happened.”
  You grinned.  “That is very good to hear, Mr. Zhongli.  I believe you are currently making good progress when it comes to moving on.  Just remember that it is okay to remember your sorrow.  Let your emotions pass through you instead of repressing them or rushing to move on.  It is okay to take your time and let the thoughts bubble inside of you for awhile.”
  He closed his eyes as you continued, letting your advice seep in.  You continued. “Imagine the stillness of the sea.  Many creatures and lost remnants take their place in the depths of the waters, but on the surface we see constantly moving yet serene waves wash over what is hidden below.  Your memories are there to stay, Mr. Zhongli.  But your present self, the surface of the water, can peacefully coexist with whatever is hiding deep within.  Let these thoughts weigh you down momentarily, but rest assured, you will find balance and acceptance in due time.”
  His eyes fluttered open as he reflected over your words.  You always seemed to know what to say.  “Your words have truly resonated with me, [Y/N].  And you are absolutely correct.  I have been fighting these memories to avoid the pain, but it had not dawned on me that sorrow is... what I am meant to feel, not push away.  I suppose your advice has put my mind at a bit more ease, and I suppose I am focusing too much on when I will be able to move on rather than allowing my thoughts to coexist for a moment.”
  “Now you’re getting it,” you grinned with the relief that washed over his face.
  “Shall we move on?” he offered.
  You got to work on the last segment of the reading.  If manifesting the other images didn’t take long enough, reading one’s future always took the longest.  Interpreting an event that hasn’t happened yet always made you a bit nervous with your words.  You never wanted to let a client down with an inaccurate reading.
  On the contrary, this reading, despite taking quite awhile to appear on the surface on the table, was very clear.
  “That is undoubtedly an image of me,” your eyes glazed over the facial features of the person in the manifestation.  “I apologize for the delay, Mr. Zhongli, I must have accidentally let my thoughts seep into yours–“
  “Do not fret, I believe this is accurate,” he interrupted.  “Keep going.”
  Your perplexed expression remained as you continued the reading.  “I am admittedly stumped.  There is nothing left in this image.  I suppose it is simply me standing in what looks like some ruins.  I am holding a staff, or some kind of long object.”  You paused to think out loud.  “Why am I in your reading?  What could this possibly mean?”
  Mr. Zhongli chuckled as you thought out loud.  “Perhaps this is a good time to tell you why you are in my thoughts.”
  “I’d love to hear it, I have never appeared in someone’s reading in my last decade and a half of experience.  This is quite unique.”
  He folded his hands in his lap, “For some reason, I have had this strange vision of training you.  I’m not sure why, since you don’t seem like the fighting type, but there is some voice inside me that is telling me you are destined for something great and i need to take some part in it.  What do you think, now that you see this vision as well?”
  Your eyebrows rose in shock.  “Training me?  I guess this does relate to something I have been pondering as of late.  I do not want to lay out my troubles on you though, my job is to interpret your life, not mine.”
  “Our lives have clearly intertwined in this vision,” he insisted, “Please do not hold back for my sake. I have the time.”
  You thought for a moment.  How could you form the words without seeming too selfish? How could you maintain professionalism by talking about your personal problems?
  “I am not the fighting type, Mr. Zhongli.  Though, lately I have been quite depressed about the fact that I am not doing as much with my vision as other vision holders are.  My life is uninteresting.  The truth is that I am a simple fortune teller that plays with rocks.  I hope you can understand why I am failing to interpret this reading,” you apologized. “It’s because this doesn’t seem characteristic of me at all.  And with all due respect, after giving you readings for years, I would have never guessed you were versed in combat to train me!”
  He chuckled.  “I respectfully disagree.  To tell you the truth, your talents surpass the abilities of many other vision holders.  Not everyone can read thoughts or tell the future.  Now that I mention it, I know of one talented astrologist in Mondstadt, but think about that.  You are one in hundreds of thousands in Teyvat,” he reassured.  “You did not receive your vision for no reason and I truly believe you are destined for something big.  I regret not being able to realize this before.”
  “How are you so sure of this?  I would love to believe you, but I’m afraid I am not destined for much, really.  Again, I am simply a fortune teller.  What could I possibly do for Liyue other than read some rocks?”
  He sighed and connected his palms with yours, interrupting the reading and wiping the manifestation off the table.  The hovering crystals dropped onto the surface, making you gasp at the sudden sound.
  “I am not who you think I am,” his amber eyes finally met yours for the first time this evening, which sent a chill down your spine.  “Promise me you will not fret, for what I am about to show you may shock you.”
  “What do you mean?  What are you doing, Mr. Zhongli?” you slightly panicked as he firmly grasped your hands.
  Suddenly, the room was engulfed in golden light that emitted from the seat across from you.  Scattered, distorted images of a mystical dragon, a devastating war, and seven seats in Celestia flashed across your eyes as you stared at the beams of light.  Death seemed to swallow you, but not take you.  The baskets of crystals around the room shook with the surge of energy.  The world seemed to destroy itself then remake itself over and over again within fleeting moments.  These thousands of years of memories made your body tremble.  It all happened within fleeting moments, and after a few seconds of your senses being overwhelmed, you finally pulled yourself together and connected the dots.
  His expanded knowledge of Liyue’s history.  The sudden gift of your vision immediately after your aunt passed.  Grieving his losses and having flooded thoughts of war and death.  Offering combat training.  Remembering your favorites the same way he would remember Liyue’s customs and traditions.  His glowing amber eyes alone.
  Mr. Zhongli was the God of Contracts and overseer of Liyue.  Rex Lapis, a being that lived for millennia, sat in the seat across from you. He had been posing as a mere mortal for years, taking readings as if he were any normal customer. The realization shook you to your core as you sat there bewildered, grateful, and horrified at the same time.
  He let go of your hands after seeing that the information successfully processed in your mind.  He saw something in you that was yet to be awakened, where the sky was the limit under your own expectations.  This daydream of his was no simple vision – it was a calling.  Internally, whether you agreed to it or not, he vowed that he would not leave your life until your true destiny was fulfilled.
  He would see this vow fulfilled by offering you a contract that would change the course of your life forever.
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bookofmirth · 3 years
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ok so this might come off as a bit rambly so please bear with me lol
i've noticed that the acotar fandom has this incessant need to be right when it comes to canon and it really sucks out the funness of fandom. shipping is supposed to be fun but when it comes to this fandom, it's almost like a competition to see who will be more right when the books come out. engaging with theories/predictions about characters and the plot is supposed to be exciting but when it comes to this fandom, some of the theories/predictions are problematic at worst and nonsensical at best. like how can you say with your full chest that you're so confident about where the series is heading in the future because of this or that theory when you're stuck in the past and refuse to see what all of the text is telling you in the present. it doesn't make sense. the selective reading is so strong that it has me looking sideways sometimes lol
i guess my question is why do you think the fandom is so divided when it comes to ships right now? i've seen people say this wasn't the case for feysand and nessian, so what's the difference here?
Oh boy Brielle, I have some thoughts on this. It's complex.
To be clear, I am not saying that this applies to literally every single person who ships a certain way. This is a commentary on the fandom as a whole, and there are always exceptions.
This got really, really long, so I'm putting it under the cut.
I think that one of the main draws of this series, and of sjm's writing in general, is her ships. I think that people get very, very attached to their ships.
I also think that sjm does NOT fully think through some of the choices that she makes when writing. See: the way that she takes from all these different cultures and mashes them together, which could be seen as disrespectful of their origin. She has retconned things, like Mor being queer and Lucien being Helion's son. I think that she thoroughly thinks about some of the aspects of her books, like Rhys's reaction to sleeping with Feyre for the first time, but then really half-asses other aspects of her books, like Mor coming out.
Then, we have your good old misogyny and homophobia - people in the fandom don't like Mor because she hurt the poor bat boy's feelings when she didn't sleep with him, and they don't have a mating bond, but she's never really told Azriel "no", and so every single moment of pain that Azriel has felt in 500 years is Morrigan's fault. And Mor's experience as a closeted queer woman who feels unsafe around the people she should trust the most is completely disregarded by the fandom.
Finally, I think that a combination of these factors has created the monster we know as e*riel, and that the fandom is perpetuating its own mythology.
What all of this comes down to, and the real reason I think that the fandom is behaving this way right now, is that e*riel is dead. It's never happened, it's not going to happen, but because we don't have the clear closure we got with moriel (where people would be accused of homophobia for continuing to ship it), people are still trying to figure out any possible way for e*riel to become canon, though every single sign points to it being a non-issue.
This weird thing where people have to be "right" all the time, and the way that "right" = "canon" is a relatively new development. It's as if everyone in this fandom forgot that they are in fact in a fandom, which inherently diverges from canon.
However, I think that the need to cling to canon is because the alternative would be to admit defeat and say "well, even if it doesn't happen I will still ship e*riel, it's fine, I will live with that." But they don't want to do that. In response, they look at canon so hard that they are reading the white space between the letters to create their theories, which as you noted as largely nonsensical and often fail to take into account who the characters are as individuals, how they are connected to other characters, and why it would or wouldn't be appropriate for them to be involved in various plots.
People could say, as eluciens having been saying since day one, "I really ship this thing but I can see that it might not become canon". But they don't say that. They literally refuse to see any other possibility than e*riel becoming canon.
You pointed out that people are stuck in the past - absolutely. The number of reimaginings I have seen of scenes where either Azriel or Elain has literally zero to do with the scene, but people try to shove one or both of them in there. And this from books ago. People are stuck on the Truthteller scene, and refuse to acknowledge that neither of them have acted on their feelings, whatever those might be, for years. And they ignore the fact that once Elain and Az do act, it goes horribly wrong.
Here are the facts as of right now:
ACOSF is the most recent book. In that book, sans extra chapter, those two had no interaction other than looking at one another.
If we include his POV, then he said it was wrong, we got confirmation that nothing has ever happened between them, she returned his necklace. Elain was aroused, but that does not mean she was ready to even have sex. "Yes" to a kiss is not "yes" to every single sexual act Az can think of. They parted on awkward, bad terms after a scene in which it seemed like they were about to start something. Yikes. Unlike Wings and Embers, they did not end that chapter still thinking of one another. After they part ways, the omniscient narrator does not mention Elain, or Az thinking about Elain, again.
His POV occurs months before the end of the book. They do not interact after that.
Elain has a mate she has not rejected, nor accepted.
So anyway, your question was why are people like this. lol. I think the fandom created a monster, and that monster is clinging to life. It can't accept the idea of morphing into a non-canon ship, though it never was canon in the first place. It had just convinced itself that it was.
There are other aspects to this, that have to do with gwynriel and elucien.
Gwynriel is a new ship, it's almost guaranteed to happen, people are super excited to ship it and give Gwyn all their love. I'm sure they would rather create content for that ship than argue about whether or not it's going to be canon, but they are in constant defense mode. Some people honestly didn't like e*riel before because they don't like Elain, or because they don't like Azriel, and those are valid reasons for not liking it. Why people ship gwynriel doesn't matter. The tone of the discussion is, unfortunately, being shaped elsewhere, which I will mention below.
Elucien is an old ship, older than e*riel. I can speak from this perspective - personally, I have been holding my tongue for 4.5 years. I have been letting people live, and just talking about the things I like. Then when acosf came out, it was like I could finally say all the things I had been thinking about Azriel, because I now had proof that the things I thought about his character (and because of that, about e*riel) now had solid canon foundation. This is 4.5 years of me holding in a lot of shit and finally being able to say it. Sometimes yes, I might take joy in having been right.
I think that a few people are clinging to canon, and that sets the tone for the discourse in the fandom. Someone says "according to page whatever, blah blah blah" and people feel the need to respond, and then it turns into and "I'm right" contest instead of... a fandom... A lot of us like debating. To me, it's fun. But when Person A starts a conversation that's about canon and it actually ignores canon, it's hard to let that conversation go by and just keep creating whatever we want to create. Instead, we respond, and so the tone of the conversation is shaped by what Person A decided to say.
I also think that there is a lack of distinction between theories (what will happen in the future) and meta (analysis of what we have now).
There is also a lack of "I" statements. Opinions are being stated as fact.
idk if there is a way to make it better, other than to just go back to ignoring one another. This whole situation makes me want to throw out every single canon ship I like and create exclusively non-canon content, just for spite. Except I really like doing meta, and so I don't want to. I guess for my point, I'll just keep doing meta, keep creating different content, and keep reminding people that they aren't here to continue perpetuating canon, but to play with it.
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drosera-nepenthes · 3 years
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A Royal Recluse: Princess Clotilde
Just at the time when, in consequence of the weakness and folly of the republican government, certain French Monarchists are looking to Prince Victor Napoleon Bonaparte as the possible savior of their country, the Prince, whose marriage to Princess Clementina of Belgium recently brought him before the public, was watching by the deathbed of his mother, Princess Clotilde of Savoy, who breathed her last on June 25. The story of this royal lady is a pathetic one and, apart from the interest that is attached to her as the mother of the imperial candidate to the French throne, her personal character was one of rare beauty.
She was the daughter of Victor Emmanuel II, first King of Italy, and of Adelaide, Archduchess of Austria, and was born at Turin on March 2, 1843. Her mother died in 1855, leaving five young children, of whom Clotilde was the eldest, the others being Humbert, the future King of Italy ; Amadeo, Duke of Aosta ; Maria Pia, the queen dowager of Portugal, and a son who died in childhood. The Queen of Sardinia (Victor Emmanuel had not at that time laid violent hands on the independent states of Italy) was an exemplary wife and mother, and her orphan daughters were carefully educated by the attendants whom she had placed about them.
Never was a princess more ruthlessly sacrificed to political interests than the eldest princess of Savoy. When a mere child of sixteen, Clotilde was chosen to cement the alliance between France and Sardinia, and was promised in marriage to Prince Napoleon Jerome, nephew of Napoleon I and first cousin Napoleon III, the reigning sovereign. Princess Clotilde was connected with the Bourbons, her very name was French and was given to her in memory of the French Princess Marie Clotilde, sister of Louis XVI, who married a King of Sardinia ; but allied as she was by close ties of blood to the Bourbons, she had nothing in common with the Bonapartes who occupied their place, and a more ill-assorted couple never existed than the middle-aged, violent, cynical and free-thinking Prince Napoleon and the daughter of the most ancient royal house in Europe, who traditions and surroundings were strictly conservative and religious. Their marriage took place at Turin on January 30, 1859. The bride was sixteen and the bridegroom thirty-seven. He had a handsome presence and was intelligent and well informed and well informed, but neither his private life nor his freely expressed opinions on public matters made him estimable or lovable. His attitude with regard to his cousin, the Emperor, was one of constant opposition, and it was reported that his anti-religious views led him to take part in the banquets organized by a group of free thinkers on Good Friday. Under the Second Empire the French Government was officially Catholic, and Prince Napoleon's hostile and aggressive attitude was pronounced ill-bred, if not worse. Throughout France he was distinctly unpopular.
The young bride, married to this unsympathetic nephew of the great Napoleon, probably had few illusions as to the sum of happiness that awaited her in her new home. There are still some old men living who remember her when she took possession of the Palais Royal, Prince Napoleon's Paris house.: a slight, pale girl, with fluffy, fair hair and bright eyes, not pretty but singularly attractive. Her high breeding stood her in good stead in the somewhat parvenu atmosphere of the Court of the Tuileries, she had a royal dignity all her own, and her simplicity of heart was combined with much quiet firmness. From the first she ordered her life according to the principles in which she had been educated. An early riser, even at the Palais Royal, she gave much time to prayer and to works of mercy, but her piety, says M. Emile Ollivier, a former minister of Napoleon II, “never made her tiresome or intolerant. She believed that the most useful sermon was the practice of the virtues that are taught by faith.” Her husband, although so widely apart from her, acknowledged her goodness. “Clotilde is a saint,” he sometimes said ; “if there were many like her, I believe I myself should end by becoming devout.”
When the disastrous war of 1870 brought terror and shame upon France, the Princess was in Paris. During that fatal month of August every day came news of a fresh defeat, and the revolution that was to break out on the 4th of September was already distinctly perceptible; the infuriated and terrified people made the imperial government responsible for the reverses that so keenly wounded their patriotic pride.
Princess Clotilde was alone at the Palais Royal ; her husband was with the army, her three children she sent to Switzerland, where Prince Napoleon had an estate; but she steadily refused to leave Paris while the Empress Eugénie remained at the Tuileries. There was not much personal sympathy between the two; it was Princess Clotilde's feeling of loyalty that chained her to the post danger as long as there was a semblance of imperial government in Paris.
In vain her husband wrote imperious messages bidding her join her children at Prangins; in vain her father sent the Marquis Spinela to Paris to escort her ; the Princess so yielding in everyday life, was unbending in her decision to remain at the palace as long as the lonely woman at the Tuileries was the nominal ruler of France ; she had shared the splendors of the Empire, and it went against her noble spirit to desert the Empress.
The letter this young woman, a stranger in a strange land, wrote to her father on August 25, 1870, has been quoted by the French papers. It is a right royal letter worthy of the daughter of kings:
“I am a French woman,” she says. “I cannot desert my country. When I married although so young, I knew what I was doing and if I did it, it was because I wished to do so. The interest of my husband, of my children and of my country require that I should remain here. The honor of my name, your honor, my dear father, and that of my country also demand it. Nothing will make me fail in what I believe to be my duty to the end... You know that the house of Savoy and fear have never gone together, and you would not wish that they should meet in my person.”
At last, when the Empress was driven from her palace by the mob, the Princess considered that she was free to follow, but how different was the departure of the two women!
The brilliant and beautiful sovereign, closely disguised, was only able to leave Paris owing to the assistance of her American dentist, Dr. Evans; her young cousin made her exit as a princess. In an open carriage, accompanied by her lady in waiting, she drove to the railway station in broad daylight. The excited people, awed by her courage and dignity, saluted her as she passed out of their sight, a truly royal and saintly figure.
Princess Clotilde lived for some years at Prangins, near Geneva, where she devoted herself to the education of her three children; then, when her husband was allowed to return to France, the difficulties of her married life were such that by mutual consent she retired to the Castle of Moncalieri, near Turin, with her young daughter. Here, in the home of her childhood, she spent nearly forty years. They were years of peace, largely marked by sorrow. Four times only did she emerge from her retreat, once in January 1878, when she heard that her father lay dangerously ill in Rome. She had suffered cruelly from the spoliation of the Holy See by the house of Savoy, and the remembrance of her father's part in the matter prompted her to fly to his bedside. On the way she heard that he was dead, and she sadly returned to Moncalieri. In 1891, she again started for Rome, this time to visit her husband, who lay dying at the Hotel de Russie. Those who saw the Princess during those solemn days can never forget her sweetness, earnestness and gentle patience. What passed between her and Prince Napoleon none can tell, but Cardinal Mermillod a frequent visitor to the sick room, professed himself satisfied, after two private interviews, that the dying man was fully conscious. The Princess, whose married life, it is well known, had been a via crucis, remained near him to the end, praying incessantly for the soul that probably owes its salvation to her intercession. Again in 1903 and in 1904, she left Moncalieri to visit her sister-in-law, Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, whose deathbed she attended.
Her life, as it neared the end became more and more that of a recluse. Her sons lived their own lives in Brussels and in Russia; her daughter, having married a Prince of Savoy, was near to her, and their visits, occasionally brought an element of joy into the silent castle. Last autumn, Prince Victor Napoleon's marriage to the Princess Clémentine of Belgium gladdened his mother's heart. It was celebrated at Moncalieri, and to those who attended the ceremony the most striking figure present was the slight, gray-haired lady, plainly dressed in black, whose eyes had the far-away look of those who are nearing the eternal shore. Even in the days of her youth Princess Clotilde's spirituality struck M. Emile Ollivier. It gave her, he says a singular insight into all questions that touch on right and wrong; she possessed the gifts of the true mystics, “who judge human affairs with a clearness and rectitude born of detachment.” Her chief link with the outer world during the long, silent years of old age was her love for the poor, to whom she gave royally, with a loving kindness that made her gifts more precious. Their grief was great when they heard of her death, and their prayers will follow her remains to the royal mausoleum of La Superga, near Turin, where the daughter of the Sardinian Kings sleeps with her ancestors.
America. United States, America Press, 1911.
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wolf-and-bard · 3 years
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The Geraskier Dungeons and Dragons AU of my dreams (inspired by the TAD AMA and Joey apparently being an amazing dm):
-"Why do you hate fun," Eskel complains - for the fifth time that day - after Geralt refused his invitation to a new DnD campaign - for the fifth time that day. Geralt doesn't hate fun. He hates play-acting and games, especially if they rely on luck and are overly complicated, he hates big groups of people, and he hates being told stories. Dungeons and Dragons encompasses all of those aspects and that is why Geralt avoids it like the plague. "It's not for me," he mutters and hands Eskel the sandwiches he made for him to take to work. - "But this Jaskier guy is legendary, like I heard he's the best Dungeonmaster in the state." - "Likely an exaggeration...." - "Pleeaaaase. I had to bribe the hell out of Aiden to have him give up the two spots he had." That piques Geralt's interest. "What'd you bribe him with?" Eskel scratches his head sheepishly. "I may have sold our brother's hand in marriage." - "That's ballsy for you... does Lambert know of his luck yet?" Eskel shakes his head and Geralt huffs a laugh. His brothers are unbelievable, one so nerdy it makes up for Geralt's complete lack of interest in pop culture, the other an oblivious prick that tends to get arrested for being offensive. Ciri is their only hope. "So are you coming?" - "Absolutely no way."
-Geralt doesn't want to go and until half an hour before the game is supposed to start, he keeps his resolve. But then Eskel bursts into their shared living room - their flat is still attached to their father's house, but separate enough that it feels like their own; Lambert has a type penthouse suite to himself and Ciri still lives with Vesemir in the main house - with an excited blush and wearing a WoW shirt and the biggest, brightest puppy eyes, and begs Geralt on hands and knees to come with him. "Why though?" Geralt asks. "Would be more fun if I stayed away..." - "But I'm awkward and your pretty face may distract from that." - "Esk, we have the same face." Which is true, save for... oh. The scars. Of course, Geralt wants to smack himself. Eskel always tends to be more self-conscious in groups of new people because of his marred face, an accident in the zoo when they were young. He believes having Geralt with him shows other people how he is supposed to look like. Geralt doesn't believe it's a great coping mechanism, but he can never deny his twin anything. "Fuck," he grumbles and a triumphant grin blooms over Eskel's features.
-That first session is to go over the basics for anyone who needs a refresher and to talk about what each player expects from the campaign bla bla bla; Geralt doesn't contribute more than the odd grunt and is soon distracted by Jaskier's bright eyes, his pretty mouth, his whole energetic demeanor... he develops a little fixation over the course of the evening and gives up on trying to understand the game
-Jaskier approaches him after, while everyone else is exchanging notes on their characters, excited and electric and Geralt hasn't the first clue on what to do. A light hand on his shoulder, a welcoming smile. "Geralt, right?" Geralt nods curtly and Jaskier pulls up a chair and sits. Way too close for Geralt's comfort. He doesn't... mind? Fuck are those butterflies? Already? "If you have trouble figuring out your character, we could always do a private session to get you going. What do you say?" - "Saturday," Geralt grunts in reply. Jaskier claps delightedly, then is distracted by one of the women, Calanthe Geralt recalls, asking if she can play a lioness shapeshifter. He lets Eskel collect him, endures his brother's constant prattle on the ride back. He dares to give the whole thing a shot.
-Their private session starts out with Jaskier explaining different classes of characters, a few bottles of Geralt's favourite Redanian Lager on the side. He tries to listen, at least at first. But then Jaskier keeps licking froth from his lips and some of the perspiration from the cold bottles runs down his exposed neck and fuck, Geralt just can't stop himself. Eskel said over and over that Jaskier was basically a magician, but Geralt thought that would be restricted to the game. Nope. His dick definitely twitches when Jaskier leans over him to grab the dice Geralt brought upon Eskel's recommendation. Geralt catches a whiff of his shampoo - vanilla? - and Jaskier's arm brushes Geralt and well. He lets out a low whine. Jaskier hums a question mark, but when he sees the look on Geralt face his encouraging smile turns devilish, knowing. "Good," he breathes, drops the dice and climbs onto Geralt's lap. "I thought it was only me." Geralt catches Jaskier's hips and they kiss. No classes are studied that day, no alignments picked, no attributes determined. Instead, Geralt learns all the beautiful noises Jaskier can make, learns some of his own anew. They will need another private session to make up for lost time
-"Perhaps I should just design a character for you," Jaskier pants into Geralt's neck as he slow-fucks him on their couch, Eskel being out with Lambert to clear up the whole Aiden thing. It's the third time they're meeting to figure out Geralt's character. Geralt grunts and accelerates just enough to keep them both on the edge. His skin is burning and Jaskier writhes, his shoulders littered with bite marks. "Oh, fuck, Geralt, please." Later, Geralt agrees to Jaskier's suggestion. He makes him pancakes for breakfast.
-When the first session is well underway, everyone quickly realizes that this game really isn't for Geralt. He tries, he does. Jaskier was kind, gave him a stoic half-orc warrior that communicates mostly with grunts, but he still doesn't get all the rules and Calanthe is getting impatient with him, her boyfriend Eist amused by this, and Eskel keeps throwing the dice for Geralt, and these girls, Téa and Véa, stare daggers at him. Jaskier's watches it all with amusement, gently steering the group back towards their adventure - not that Geralt has the first clue what their objective is. But Geralt wants to keep playing if only because Jaskier is so fucking beautiful in his element, imitating voices, using the most ridiculous vocabulary, glowing with pure joy. It's a privilege to see, Geralt understands that now. And he has to thank Eskel for taking him despite his reservations
-"Won't you go on a normal date with me?" Geralt asks one night when they are wrapped up in Jaskier's bed, contented and tired from their earlier activities. "I could take you hunting or whatever." - "That's what you call a normal date?" Jaskier laughs and kisses him lightly. They haven't defined whatever it is they're doing, but Geralt is in no rush. Especially because he hasn't yet dared to breach the topic with Eskel who quickly befriended Jaskier (and everyone else of course, at the end of the day Eskel is a social butterfly, no matter what scars he bears). "Just... go out with me." - "You know, usually I have a strict policy for dating players, but... well that's already way out the window so, yeah, okay. I'll go out with you. But we're absolutely not going hunting, I'm a vegetarian." Alas, there had to be some catch.
-Geralt keeps playing and his permanent confusion becomes part of his character as well. It isn't ideal, but the others - and Jaskier's forgiving storytelling - drag him through to the end of it. By then, Geralt almost gets it. "Well," Jaskier concludes. "That was a bit of a different campaign. Hope you all liked it." The bastard acts abashed. Hah. Geralt and Eskel are the last ones to leave after they all toasted and talked about playing again some time. "You coming?" Eskel asks, hovering near the door. He's long past his initial anxiety, his fangirling, his self-consciousness. That too has been a glorious part of this, seeing Eskel unfold, gain confidence, be at ease. He likes that he could give his brother the safety he needed. "I, uhm," Geralt starts, but Jaskier interrupts by threading his arm through Geralt's. "We are! What's for dinner?" And he drags Geralt past Eskel who raises a brow. Geralt tries to communicate with his eyes all he neglected to tell Eskel. It's only because they're so close that Eskel at least understands that they are something like boyfriends now. He laughs.
-"My baby brother," Eskel lulls later when Jaskier is already passed out from too much wine and Geralt and him stand outside, sharing a rare cigarette. He ruffles Geralt head. "I'd wondered why you stuck around so long." - "Fuck off," Geralt says.
-The next time Eskel invites him to a campaign, Geralt tags along. Not because he particularly wants to, but because now there are two pairs of puppy eyes, begging him, and he can't say no to either of them, let alone both (maybe someday he will actually enjoy the game for its own merits)
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