#we made each other into something new and unrecognisable

[asumofwords]

Smoke, Fire and Ash

Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence, death and inc3st. Tags will be added as the fic goes on.

This is a dark!fic. 18+ only. Read at your own discretion. Please read the warnings before continuing.

Summary: You are the eldest daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen. You are forced to navigate the difficult surroundings of your upbringing and the eventual disintegration between your family and the Hightower's relationship. What will happen when your older and estranged uncle suddenly takes a more sinister interest in you? (Dark!Aemond x Reader)

Masterlist

Characters: Aemond Targaryen X Reader, HOTD characters.

Note: I have absolutely loved reading all of your replies and messages, it makes my fucking day! Here we are, the reader finally has her dragon... I will be trying to write a new Aemond POV for you all soon x

Chapter 44: War creates monsters of us all

The sun was high in the sky as you steered Vermithor east, across the ocean away from Dragonstone, and back to the mainland. Each beat of his wings carried you swiftly across the ocean. 

It was a strange thing to be flying again, on a dragon so foreign. So unknown. 

Unfamiliar.

Despite his age, and his sheer size, he heeded your commands as you felt him faintly through the bond. And then it hit you all at once. 

You were riding the famed Bronze Fury. 

A dragon that had made men bend the knee out of fear. 

A dragon almost as famous as the Black Dread.

But it would never be enough.

You had lost so much already, and with every moment, you felt yourself losing pieces that made you, you. You were not the same woman that you had been before you returned to the Red Keep.

War did that to people. 

So did grief. 

It mangled you, and mauled you, and created something new. Something unrecognisable.

A monster.

The day Viserys had died, you had changed.

The day the succession was given to Jacaerys, you had changed.

The day Lucerys was killed. 

You had changed.

Today, with the news of Helaena, and the massacre of Strong’s. 

You had changed.

You felt Vermithor grumble beneath you as he sensed your fury, coursing through your veins. His loud growl pierced your ears, as he continued forward towards your destination. You had only hoped that once you got there, Aemond would still be there too.

As you flew, the sun sunk lower, and lower into the sky. You passed over the ocean, and back over the rolling hills, and cliffs of the shore. Then soon you passed over the waters of Blackwater Rush, and then, and only then, did you know that you were nearing your destination. 

Your anger did not once settle within you. 

Those hours you spent atop the now claimed dragon, let your mind reel with thoughts and memories, fuelling your fire. You felt it boil, and turn, and twist inside you like a blade. Sharp and vicious, ripping you apart from within, no possible way to stem the bleeding. 

Loss is a powerful motivator. 

As the sun got lower, it shone brightly on the dragon's bronze scales, their warm colour glinting in the light beautifully. Such a wondrous colour to behold on a dragon. Not golden like Syrax, nor red like Caraxes, but its own unique bronze, unlike any other.

You smoothed your hand along the scales in awe, and as you stroked along his back, a crackling purr broke forth from his chest in appreciation.

“Sȳz, Vermithor.” (Good.) You cooed on his back, channeling all of your emotions into the dragon you sat atop.

You pushed that rage, that anguish, the sorrow and grief through your body, and into your hand. You did not know if this was how to properly bond or not, and no one truly knew the truth behind it, but you tried it anyway.

Vermithor did not react, except the most diminutive twitch alongside the thick, corded muscle of his neck. So small, so almost ephemeral, that if you had blinked, you would have missed it. 

But hope was a fool's ally, and you did not need hope in a time like this.

You needed rage.

And rage, you had.

The sun had begun to lower behind the horizon when you first saw it. 

Off in the distance, was the subtle burning of fires. Tiny little orange dots, surrounding each other in a large encampment, on what you knew now to be the Riverlands. The flames flickered as you flew towards it, the men unaware of your approach. 

You leant forward, pushing your weight down upon Vermithor’s back, willing him to move with you. The Bronze Fury swooped down closer to the ground, so that you could see clearly as the small dots came closer.

Below you now; a trail. 

The grass sat green alongside the dirt track, in which thousands of feet had walked across, where horses had trotted, and wagons and rolled. As you flew closer, the larger those flames became, and now the sight of tents and wagons and the tiny figures of men came into view. 

“Sōvegon, Vermithor.” (Fly) You called as you came closer.

To the figures on the ground, if they were to look to the sky, they would see a large bronze speck, slowly coming towards them, wings spread as he approached, until finally they could make out the form of the large dragon.

As you swooped above the camp of men, you looked below, watching as they faltered in their steps looking up at you. Others ran to their tents, unsure. The tents were beige, and the wagons were dark. You struggled to discern whose men these were.

You felt your chest begin to heave as you looked down at them all. 

Vermithor let out an almighty cry into the sky, deep and grumbling as you grabbed at his back, whilst peering over his side down at the ground below. Horses and men, and carts and tents. That was all you could see with the sun setting upon the horizon, a lazy blue hue settling over the land.

Your breath caught in your throat. 

There below you, was a flag. 

A signet of a house. 

Your breaths became ragged and all too suddenly, that blinding rage was back.

A three headed green dragon stared back at you.

You pulled roughly against Vermithor, pulling him to fly higher into the air above them, circling the camp. 

You watched as the men began to scramble below you like ants, upon the realisation that you were not one of the Princes, nor the King. No, your dragon was not Vhagar, or Sunfyre. You were not here with them.

You were here for them.

A cruel smile cracked across your face as you watched them desperately mount horses and prepare themselves. These numbers were small, perhaps the rest of the men were at Harrenhal, not too far away.

Such a bitter taste in your mouth to see the men below you, who had gone against your mother, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. How they had supported your usurper uncle. How they supported the Kinslaying Prince. 

How they support Alicent and the Hightower’s thirst for the throne, subsequently thrusting the realm into war.

As you looked around in search of a large green dragon, you became disappointed to know that Aemond was no longer here. If he was here at all. 

Your heart beat rapidly in your chest as Vermithor felt the rage within you, his cry calling out into the sky as he turned back around to fly towards the tents. You leant forward, and thought of Lucerys. You thought of the fall. 

Of your uncle's hands. 

Of your Grandsire. Visenya. Helaena.

And then you snapped.

“Dracarys.” You commanded.

Vermithor flew closer to the lines of tents and carriages, men crawling about underneath before opening his mouth, his whole body beneath you vibrating, as he pushed out an almighty gush of fire, incinerating the tents and men below you.

The screams of fear and agony curled up into the air, and you could find nothing but delight at the sweet music. 

Vermithor kept flying above and onwards as you looked back, watching the tents burn and crumble beneath the flames, and the bodies of incinerated men laying in the rubble. The smell of smoke, fire and ash curled its way around you.

You inhaled deeply.

Vermithor’s chest expanded slowly, before another long plume of fire barraged against the Greens army below you. The sound of the flames was deafening in your ears, alongside the screams and cries of the men, and horses who crossed paths with the flames. 

Flying forward, you came to the end of the camp, watching as the men began to flee in all directions, the smart ones anyway, whilst others stood rooted to the ground, swords drawn, ready to fight.

Foolish really. How were they to fight flames?

Once turned around, you could see now how the tiny little flames of their camp were now swamped by the larger ones of your dragon. Their tents fell to the soil below them, and horses ran away in fear. Small figures of men, their bodies alight, ran frantically, desperate to outrun the agony of their bodies, before they dropped dead to the floor.

You pushed down on the Bronze Fury’s neck again, and he slunk close to the ground where you sucked in an excited breath. 

This was for you, Lucerys. 

This was for everyone that has been lost. For Visenya. For you.

Helaena. 

“Dracarys!” You screamed out into the air, as the old dragon reared his head backwards, hovering above the camp, before large flames licked down at the army below you, their cries lost in the waves of your laughter as you watched.

You could feel the heat of the flames licking up your body, casting a warm blanket, of almost comfort, around you, as you watched Vermithor land roughly onto the ground, talons digging into the soft earth, as you watched men run from him.

The sky had turned dark, but now the earth was lit by the flames all around you.

The smell of burning flesh rose under your nose. An odd smell. Something you had smelt before, though nothing like this. Nothing so, pungent. It was almost a sickly sweet scent, comparable to when pork was cooked. 

Vermithor let out a mighty cry into the air as he stalked through the camp, blowing flames at any man, or horse, or tent that he saw as he walked. You watched as you felt the rage lick at your face and your chest.

You had not even realised that tears had begun to fall, until you felt the wet of your neck. Your breaths were shallow and stunted, heaving as you pushed through your fury. 

They did this. 

They killed them. 

You blinked.

Behind the flames was a figure, who smiled at you.

Lucerys was here.

Vermithor’s head snapped down to where Lucerys had been, and you jerked back in shock. You almost cried out, but then the dragon jerked its head and bit the man who had been there, arm poised with an arrow. Directed at you. You blinked as you watched the Bronze Fury tear the man in half, before swallowing him.

Time blurred so strangely. 

Who knew how long you spent stalking through the camp with Vermithor. Who knew how long it had been since you had started. By the time you felt aware of your surroundings, it was eerily quiet in the camp.

The only sounds you heard were Vermithor’s deep rumblings as flames poured from his mouth, and the crackling of burning flesh and wood. The camp around you was flattened. Every tent, every cart, every post and every man was burning beneath high flames, ash falling around you and into your hair.

Lining the dirt ground were the ashes of men, or corpses burning gently in the soft night's air. Some had fallen where they had tried to run, their legs and arms splayed in unnatural positions. Others were caught underneath the burning flames of tents, or hiding places. Horses lay on their side dead, much to Vermithor’s delight, who would pick them up, eating their cooked bodies greedily as he passed through.

Piles of ashes and bones lay about the Greens camp, and all you could do was sneer and smile. Laughter rose from your chest and fell from your lips almost unnaturally. You couldn’t stop it. 

You wouldn’t stop it.

They deserved this.

They reaped what they had sown. This was on them. What they had done to you? That was on them.

Such a feral excitement was inside you, as you turned your head, looking in search of any survivors you had not found yet. You almost struggled to breath from the smoke and ash that curled its way around you. It waa thick and suffocating, but invigorating. 

Such destruction.

Now you knew why all had feared the Bronze Fury.

But it was not enough.

It would never be enough. 

They needed to pay. They needed to all burn for what they did. 

You thought of Alicent, and Aegon and Aemond. 

Aemond. 

His face. His hands. His sneer. 

You leant forward, hands gripping roughly against Vermithor’s back as you thought of it all. The pain that he had left between your legs. The sorrow that he had gifted you when he took Lucerys, and Syndor. 

It would be a short flight. 

Almost half of what it took you to get here. 

You could end this all. 

You could end it, right where it began. 

In the Red Keep of King’s Landing.

A familiar cry called out into the air, the bronze dragon's head pulling up away from the horse below his claws. The sound of flesh tearing and bones crushing beneath his jaws filled your ears, and the metallic smell of blood settled on your tongue. 

The cry came again, and you turned your head.

In the sky, not too far from you was a dragon, flying steadily towards you.

You breathed deeply, in and out, as you watched the scales light up from the flames of destruction around you. A familiar shade of dragon. A comforting one. The bright red scales of Caraxes shone in the night sky as he and your father approached you.

You lifted your chin as Vermithor called out to your father and his dragon, a most commanding call. 

The King of the Dragons. 

A King’s dragon.

Caraxes flew above you before turning around, wings slowly beating, so that the long necked dragon could land nearby in between the flames of a tent, and open bare path of the once Green stronghold. 

The dragon's long neck stretched into the air and cried out in recognition of you. You could see your father upon his back, looking around at the destruction desperately, before his eyes settled on yours. 

His body relaxed at the sight of you.

He still wore his robes from when you had last seen him, and he did not wear his riding gloves that he almost always wore. It looked as though the Rogue Prince had come to you in a rush, and had been searching for you for some time. 

Daemon’s face was a mixture of shock and awe as he looked at you, and then back down at the dragon he had tried for so long to be readied to be claimed, never once guessing that the new rider would be you.

Movement caught your eye. 

To the side of Vermithor, a man had begun to run from his hiding spot. The presence of two large dragons caused him to forfeit his hiding out of sheer shock. He might have survived if he had stayed hidden. You watched as the man ran, pushing his legs against the grass and dirt, ashes and bodies, desperate to get away.

Might have.

You looked at your father as he watched you before you leant on Vermithor. The dragon began a slow stalking chase of the man, like a cat plays with a mouse. The man gazed back at you briefly, realising he had been spotted, before he ran with more desperation. 

You lazily watched him run and channelled that rage inside of you, letting it burn you from the inside out.

Vermithor took three large steps forward rapidly, before his head snapped out, biting down on the man. His cry of pain was short lived, and soon replaced by the sickening crunch of bones and wet sound of flesh. 

The Bronze Fury lifted his head, throwing the mans body down his gullet. 

But you were not done. 

You would not be done until you killed each and every one of them. Until you would reach King’s Landing and burn them all. 

“Tala.” (Daughter) Daemon called into the air.

Vermithor turned beneath you, walking back to Caraxes and Daemon, the smaller dragon chirping out towards yours.

You looked at your father, your chest heaving as you readied yourself to fly.

“Gaomagon daor sagon doru-borto.” (Don’t be stupid.) He called out.

He knew.

He always knew.

“Nyke jāre naejot mōris bisa.” (I’m going to end this.) You called back, teeth clenched.

Why was he stopping you?

“Ȳdra daor.” (Don’t.) Daemon growled, and for the first time in your life, your father made you nervous. 

The Rogue Prince was here.

“Pār māzigon lēda nyke.” (Then come with me.)

Caraxes began to circle you, his neck stretching up, and then low to the ground as he watched, purely reacting to Daemon through the bond. 

They looked nervous. On edge. 

Unsure.

“Tala.” (Daughter.)

Your laughter rang out into the cold air. What was happening? He had been the one to always remind you of what you were, of who you were. He had always been the first to jump to action in court. 

What had changed?

“Y/n.” 

“Issi ao jāre naejot keligon nyke?” (Are you going to stop me?) You joked mirthlessly. 

“Lo istin.” (If I must.)

What? 

You grunted angrily, staring Daemon down, who only reacted to your action by tightening his hands on Caraxes’ reins. 

“Don’t think I won’t.” He threatened. 

Vermithor called out into the air agitatedly, and Caraxes responded in a high pitched screech. Daemon swayed side to side, as his dragon began to move more rapidly on the ground, the flames around you illuminating his bright red scales.

They knew something you didn’t.

“Our Queen commands it.” Your father called out.

You jerked your head to the side, looking at the camp around you, razed to the ground, flames licking the corpses and ruins. Fire was mesmerising. Beautiful. It was cleansing. So very cleansing. Fire could rid the world of scum, and allow for new growth to come forth. 

You knew of certain trees that could only bloom with the assistance of fire. 

Targaryens bloomed in the flames too.

If you went to King’s Landing, Daemon would no doubt try to stop you. And at what cost? 

Would you really fight your own father? 

Would you hurt him? 

Kill him?

No.

You ground your teeth, and tightened your legs around Vermithor’s back, ignoring the twinging pain in your side. Your chest rose and fell in short angry breaths as you looked at your father. 

His eyes glowed in the flame light, and Caraxes had not stopped moving from side to side, readying himself to fight if he needed. The Rogue Prince watched your movements closely, almost cautious of you.

Gritting your teeth, you nodded, and saw Daemon visibly relax.

“Sōvegon.” (Fly.)

Unbeknownst to you, beneath the rubble of the Brackens camp, Alicent’s youngest son Daeron, laid beneath the ashes. Your youngest uncle had died amongst a sea of his men.

The young Prince’s body lay at an ungodly angle. Half of him had been burnt to a crisp, legs and arms splayed in an unnatural position, in his hand, the blade of his sword. 

A pained expression permanently sat on what was left of his face.

And although you did not know of his presence, the Greens certainly did.

And would.

Thanks so much for reading along with me, if you wish to be added to the tag list please let me know :) Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated ! Enjoy <3

Tag List:

@izzicle @ej-shitchats @may-machin @alegria1580 @witchy-jadda @videovampire @inkdelicious @queteimporta39 @virtualsweetsqueen @fo-cus @auratiqs @feyres-fireheart @queenofshinigamis @asoiafwh8re @teasandcrumpets @shesjustanothergeek @grungegrrrl@queenofsarcazm @marihoneywk @curlszx88 @virgogaia @loser-keiji @asoiafwh8re @whore-of-many-hot-men @vipervixxen @theonewiththeimaginaryboyfriends @watercolorskyy @lavendervisions @mazmack666 @chokefrog @orangejump-suit @nik2blog @serrhaewinin @ohemgeewhat @winxschester @cryptidsrcool @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @celestedonut @bloodyvelvet777 @iamapersonthatsalive @av-sos @yentroucnagol @sanzu-s @opheliaas-stuff @bellameshipper @maviee @persephonerinyes @neytiri-09 @ensnaredinwonderland @xbluegracex @sotragedynut @nattieot7

Bold is who I cannot tag!

#aemond targaryen fic #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen smut #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond x reader #aemond x fem!reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond smut #hotd smut #dark!aemond targaryen x reader #dark!aemond x reader #dark!aemond targaryen #hotd #house of the dragon #hotd fanfic #dark!aemond #dark!fic #fic #series #aemond one eye #aemond the kinslayer #aemond targaryen fanfic #aemond #smoke fire and ash

[if-you-feel-lonely]

hi love! i am a fellow jack manifold enjoyer and there's like no content for him (😭) is there any way you could write friends to lovers hcs for him? like about the friendship and how cc!jack fell for reader and all that (im a sucker for friends to lovers and also for jack manifold). maybe they stream together sometimes and all that?

FELLOW MANIFOLD ENJOYER 🛐🛐🛐🛐

there really isn't a lot of content for our beloved bald man </3 but on the up side, today I've been stressing myself out a lot and this is helping me calm down :D

TW: Swearing

I got a bit excited :,D

Friends To Lovers with Jack Manifold

You met when you both started streaming, becoming friends due to you both being small content creators

You guys just... clicked. like when you meet a new person that you can talk to like you've known each other for years

When he blew up, you started doing quite well, too

It became an unspoken thing between you guys to shamelessly promote each other's channels

Chat loves it, your friendship is superior

It took a while for him to come to terms with his feelings

For a while he told himself "no, they're just a really good friend" "no, we're just close"

Bullshit :D

He hated that he had these feelings. He loved your friendship and couldn't stand the thought of messing that up

After he realised, things became different

If you lived nearby, you guys would probably go on walks together, bc going on walks with the homies hits different

Before, it was quiet, but comfortable quiet

But now? It was awkward, like you were strangers

After a while, you started picking up on it, so you confronted him.

"Right, if there's something wrong, just say it. I'm not going to sit here and look at you moping all the time. If you don't want to spend this much time together, just come out and say it."

It kind of unravelled from there...

He told you everything about how he didn't want to mess up your friendship or make you uncomfortable

Poor man went :0 when you told him you feel the same way

"*insert shocked pikachu face*"

Not many people notice the difference in your relationship, you both act just as you did before

Tommy goes 🤨📸 when he sees you kiss

"OH MY GOD IT'S LIKE YOU GUYS ARE DATING." "we are." "... what? 😰"

What a fool

Niki thinks your relationship is adorable

Tommy is absolutely disgusted by the very prospect of two of his best friends dating

Wilbur is obviously happy for you both, but makes jokes about Jack paying you to date him

Whilst in vc with Phil, Jack constantly says things like "Phil, me and Y/N are like you and your wife, but better because we're not old"

Definitely involved in Quackity's couple's therapy

By the end of that, you two could hear each other through the walls in the house

"YOU LOVE MY BALDNESS." "JACK, I CAN HEAR YOU WITHOUT MY HEADPHONES." "DIDN'T ASK."

... Yeah.

MCC is always a thrill

If you're against each other, it's ridiculously competitive

In Dodgebolt, if he kills you, all you can hear on his stream is "JACK, I WANT TO BREAK UP."

MCC on the same team is even worse, though.

"Oh my god, you're so fucking incompetent." "No more than you, I've seen you trying to cook, dickhead."

If you're on the Dream SMP, things are deep

You both fought for L'manberg but went unrecognised

From there, your relationship became a canon part of the lore

It also became lore that it's not a good relationship - your characters fight and shout at each other a lot

It's made explicitly clear that this isn't a reflection of your real relationship - you shout at each other, but it's from across the house asking what you want for dinner or if you feel like going to the park

The majority of the lore between the two of you is angsty as FUCK

Chat rlly says "how dare you, i love it"

On stream, he tries not to be too touchy or affectionate

He thinks people will be invasive or intrusive into your relationship, so he keeps it all off camera

Off stream though? Perfect man.

You two sit on the living room floor with blankets and cushions all over the room, chilling and watching whatever's on TV

At Christmas, you watch all the shit-but-good christmas films

Occasionally, when Josh or Tommy come round, they take pictures of you two, usually captioned something like "disgusting." or "guys they're making me uncomfortable with their love"

All in all, bald man is boyfriend material

#dsmp #mcyt #dream smp #dsmp x reader #mcyt x reader #dream smp x reader #jack manifold #jack manifold x reader #mcyt jack manifold #dsmp jack manifold #dream smp jack manifold #cc!jack manifold x reader #cc!jack manifold #jack manifold hcs #dsmp headcanons #mcyt headcanons #dream smp headcanons #lonely writes #lonely asks

[phlurrii]

Yea rewatching these guys they know each other, after Meau has her flashback of dreaming of mewtwo where I assume she's telling them like I'm having dreams and in it I'm seeing a dark room with an orange tube with something inside Noe turns to her and like the expression on their face feels so very "and what are you going to do about it?" as if asking like this is what you're going through what are you going to do about it, and then they fly off together with them twirling around each other and I did notice Noe flies very close to Meau which makes me curious again they know each other they feel familial especially with them moving up to hug hold Meau to comfort her as she I imagine gets a psychic projection of Mewtwo waking up which scared her because oh god, something is out there and it's powerful and it's what the humans have done and it involves my baby so whatever they are they're from my child. So just hm horrors of the genetic tampering and they've made something powerful and they cant control it and that's my grandchild in some way (possible fear of what will happen if Meau has to face off with them because technically her kin but because of the genetic tampering there's that level of two being unrecognisable but she'd be lying if she thought there was no relation that she could deal with them without feeling)

Noe and Meau just hm, I am hm. They /know/ each other lmao I know I keep saying it but words are hard. Part of me is like does the closeness mean something other than friendship and familial but like her and Noe are probably related unless Arceus had maybe intended for them to be two without any relation to help foster the new world he was making kind of like the king and queen of the pride... Hm now I'm thinking did Noe originally exist alongside Meau and was once whole but gave too much of their dna to other Pokemon during the creation of a thriving world, because we saw how shaky and tired Meau was in her depictions before she made her child could be very easy to push oneself too far I mean even Meau had to go nap afterwards, and ended up weakening themselves to a state of instability where they joined with Meau who preserved their remaining dna within themselves to keep them alive, if half alive through her and giving them the power to come alive through shadows but only briefly as their original form unfortunately no longer exists... Sorry got off on a tangent but like! They know each other they are close but we'll find out how!

Also Meau witnessing Mewtwo escape their anger and violence as they burn down the lab, again it's shaking her to the core, she must know she's seeing these projections because they're both strong with their psychic powers but also related bond like how Meau sensed when mew was in danger, could she bring herself to stop them if she had to? Especially when they too have been hurt by humans or will their rage prove to be something she needs to put a stop to even as it tears her apart.

And if they're actually grown cloned from an organ from her child and not just from their ovary eggs ect then wouldn't that make them in a sense a clone and twin to her child? Could she kill the man made sibling? When they are still genetically hers?

I'm falling into the deep end here I'm experiencing and feeling a lot of emotions here Meaus probably going through a lot and Noe making brain go BRR

Enjoy my insane ramblings

I’ve already stated before how much I loved this, but I LOVED this. They’ve basically nailed the entire animatic intentions, give or take a few things ;3c

Thus I think it’ll be a GREAT refresher… Ehe

#anon #insane and mostly correct ramblings #absolutely loved how you put it ;3 #ask

[collidingxworlds]

4 and 9!

Asks for multimuse blogs || Accepting !

4. Is there a muse that not a lot of people roleplay with?

Yep, I dare to say that there's more than one xD Mostly Sam and Moriarty.

In Sam's case, it's my fault, because I made them before my hiatus and never given them proper time in the spotlight. I'm planning to change that very soon, once I've recovered some brain power.

As for Jim, I suppose that it's because he isn't an easy muse to interact with, also because of how specific his canon is. I need to work on giving him some verses, both general ones and maybe other fandom AUs, to make him more approachable!

9. why were you drawn to each one of your characters?

Oh boy xD Let's see how I can answer this one without writing a novel xD

Abigail: What got me interested in her first and foremost was the duality of the character. For a good part of her arc we don't know whether or not she had truly helped her Dad killing those girls and, if yes, to what extent. The series unfortunately doesn't analyse it too closely, but she tends to swing between two kinds of behaviours and identities: the traumatised victim who is trying to get her life back together after it has been shuttered and the manipulative accomplice who exploits the circumstances to get away with a clean slate. Useless to say, I like to portray her as the latter wearing the former's mask as an act. Another reason why I chose to pick her as a muse is because she has a lot of potential that however was never used. Gotta make up for that xD

Five: For him there's no big, complicated reason tbh xD He's just the type of character I enjoy, both when consuming medias and while writing. Practical, sarcastic, smart, witty, with poor manners because he couldn't care less about being polite (unless it benefits him). But also characterised by a tragic past, a lot of trauma, flaws that caused his downfall and a fierce attachment to something (in Five's case, his family). It's a lot of fun to explore the different sides of his person and find out where the lines blur!

Sam: They are my OC, so...I basically built them fitting the fictional family you, Chloé and I came up with. In a way, they have Abigail's same duality (victim vs perpetrator), but in this case the second side gets openly cultivated by their new family and I found interesting to explore the effects that such an environment can have on someone who has never truly been taught the difference between right and wrong. Sam grew up as an outcast, unwanted and unrecognised, and the very first time they find acceptance is under a woman who believes that killing men for their own advantage is her family's right. That's a fascinating combination xD Also, as a non-binary mun, I've been wanting to write a non-binary character for a while now!

Crowley: He is one of my oldest muses, one of the firsts I picked up when I started to RP on Tumblr. He used to have his own sideblog and all, before I decided to make this multimuse. I had a lot of fun writing him, also because he embodies the only kind of good guy I can and like to properly write. Someone with good intentions but also questionable methods and even more questionable morals. Also, even if in the book/series isn't shown much, I like to dig into the trauma of his Fall and all the consequences of it, how it has left him torn between what he wants to be and his demonic nature. So yeah, another traumatised gremlin xD

Will Graham: Speaking of trauma, here is another embodiment of it xD What got me fascinated with Will first and foremost is the way the series portrays his "pure empathy": how he can put himself into the killers' shoes, actually live through their fantasies, and how all this constant exposure to this twisted minds end up changing him. That's definitely another thing that drew me to Will. His character arc, evolution and how the potential darkness inside him emerges and takes shape. Obviously, all this happens through a lot of struggles and contrasts. Also, gotta love the sass xD

Will Byers: Together with Sam, he is my traumatised kid x'D He has been my fave character since season 1 (and he stayed vanished for most of the season, so that should tell you how much I liked him since the very start). What pushed me to pick him as a muse have been basically two things: the huge potential for the exploration of trauma / PTSD / sexual identity crisis and his connection with the Mind Flayer. There's just so much that could be done in both directions!

Moriarty: Ngl, I picked up Jim as a muse mostly as a challenge. I want to try my hand at a villain and he has always been one of my faves. Love me a psychopath who also has a ton of charisma and a sense of humour (I find him beyond funny xD). Moreover, ages ago I had come up with a whole backstory for him and this was my chance to do something with it!

Gabriel: Last but not least, he is literally one of the first two muses I had back when I started to RP on this hellsite. He is one of my fave characters from the show, has been even before we found out that he was Gabriel (and I refused to acknowledge the shit they did with him in season 13). He is a bit like Five, character wise, but with the twist of being an insanely powerful being. Plus, I loved adding bits and pieces from the Norse myths to his backstory / portrayal, and that was an additional reason because Norse mythology is my jam!

#(( mun scotty's personal log ::ooc:: )) #(( about the mun )) #omniishambles #(( thank you for the asks <3 ))

[bluberryqiu]

I JUST FINISHED THE 3.2 ARCHON QUEST! MANY THOUGHTS!! HEAD FULL!!!

So I have two working theories for why the abyss twin belongs to this world but the traveler twin doesn’t.

1. Abyss twin has pledged allegiance or formed some sort of pact in this world, making them then one with the world - allowing the irminsul to then record their marks on this world (though could be up for debate if that allows their past to be recorded too, assuming they made that pact after journeying for some time🤔).

2. Teyvat (or the world before it was known as teyvat), was originally the twins homeland a very very long time ago before the twins left (for whatever reason). I’m thinking eons, perhaps during the primordial one’s time? But teyvat as it is now has long since changed over and over since the twin’s absence making the present world unrecognisable to them - and the present world doesn’t recognise them.

But let’s say the abyss twin, has made the journey across the nations and at the end re-discovered the origins of this world (the fuzzy part of the irimsul records?). Perhaps the “truth of this world” or at least part of it, tells the abyss twin that this world was originally their home. Perhaps they encountered something that let them recognise/reconnect with the world and henceforth, the world recognised them again - which also allowed them to record the abyss twin’s mark in the new, present world.

So the reason the abyss twin encourages the traveler twin to journey the nations like they once had is because the traveler needs to make the same journey. Traveler hasn’t yet discovered the “truth” or reconnected with their origins so they aren’t yet recognised as belonging to the world. The twins can represent each other in different timelines, perhaps the traveler twin needs to make the journey to better understand the abyss twin …..we may yet discover more about the twins lore as we journey! 🧐

#3.2 spoiler #genshin impact #genshin 3.2 spoiler

[etherealluminescence]

op, p l e a s e do this one.

gn-mc is a great fighter according to their profile, but everyone severely underestimates them, since they’re kinda short and they’re thinking it’s to human standards. as soon as they come though the three (Diavolo, Barbatos, Lucifer) realise that the number of fights have gone down, and that RAD is a lot more quiet. Apparently mc had fought all the trouble makers or scary students on a whim, and has forced like 30+ scary demons into pacts, and plans to conquer RAD’s bad students. on top of that, they’re just like “one day i’ll beat the shit out of diavolo too fair and square, and conquer him as well.” for the brothers and undateables. bonus if mc said they only started their “conquest” because someone tried to bully Luke, so they decided to just conquer the demons for him like a good? older sibling

Holy shit OP this is what I signed up for when I started doing headcanons. Recently I’ve been working on my actual novel but I am still writing these out! I decided to answer this first because the creativity just HIT me.

The part that killed me is just how they did it for luke, I love him like my own son. Also side note the goth theme on tumblr hits different I really like. WARNING - a little bit of language, and violence.

Everyone reacting to GN!MC “conquering” RAD’s demons

Lucifer

He had chosen you and noticed your profile, thinking that is was almost cute humans would consider a tiny thing like you strong.

He immediately brushed you off when he saw how close you were to the chihuahua, thinking that you too, are just like a tiny chihuahua then.

But he soon hears less and less about fights going around, and even Diavolo investigates with him, and he is beyond shocked. He severely underestimated you.

He finds out because he forced some lesser demons to talk, and they were in tears saying you forced them to make a pact with you each time they lose, and by your order they weren’t allowed to fight students anymore, or else you’d punish them.

Although it was the truth he didn’t quite believe it, so they followed you around for a day before realising it absolutely was, you kicked ass so hard, the demon was crying and unrecognisable, and you forced him into a pact while snot was even coming out his nose.

He then sees you open the door behind you and take Luke’s hand before walking away from the bloody scene you had just caused. He was slightly angry and a bit intimidated, how did you, a tiny human do that?

When he confronted you about it, you just held onto his shoulders tightly, answering with “I’ll conquer you too, I’ll conquer Diavolo, I’ll conquer all of RAD, fucker. I am going to protect this child with my life.”

He was about to argue back, possibly attack you, but according to all the students investigated, you had well over 50 pact marks by now, and Diavolo found it amusing, so you were let off with that.

He swears he won’t submit to you, and has to stay on high defense because even at the HOL you will try to attack him with murderous intent to get the pact. 0/10, wants a new exchange students.

Mammon

He was the first one you made a pact with, and afterwards he started following you around like a dog, despite literally calling Luke a dog.

He knew you were a good fighter since you kept saying so, but he kept telling you demons were another level, and you should be glad to have him.

You and Luke hung around a lot, while Mammon thirdwheeled, and finally came the day of your first fight. Mammon was ready to defend you, but you ordered him to sit as you beat the literal fuck out of the demon.

Mammon couldn’t tell if that was a lesser demon or a dismembered corpse at that point, and covered Luke due to all of their screaming in agony. When you were done, you kicked their head into a wall and demanded a pact, making him slightly pouty but happy he’s alive:

Getting the pact, you left and gave a head pat to both Luke and Mammon, telling them that they’re safe with you. Mammon didn’t like it at first but then he loved it.

It didn’t take Lucifer long to find out, and when you told him with such confidence that you’d “conquer all of RAD, including Diavolo” he was like woah!! You’re going to die for that, but you’re amazing!!

And then you didn’t die, because Diavolo found it funny, and you were only serving justice to those who cause mayhem at the moment, so it was fine. He also accidentally finds out that you rival Lucifer in power, and absolutely won’t let Lucifer punish him, because in your words, “Mammon is my property now, whore.”

You were the only person to protect him, and he absolutely loves you, he may be weaker than you, but he loves staying by your side and saying he’d beat people up for you anyways.

Leviathan

Levi never really talked to you at first, nor found out about the incidents because he didn’t go to school, but when he heard Mammon talking about it he thought he was exaggerating a lot.

Even Lucifer said you were strong, but he refused to believe it at first, even denying the pact marks you had. Until you beat the life out of Levi during the TSL games.

He got angry at you and tried to kill you, so you ripped him apart, quite aggressively. He swore his tail had bite marks in them, and that he couldn’t see out of his left eye for a week. The icing on top was you demanding a pact from him. He finally believed.

After you calmed, he made a pact with you, and was now afraid of you, until you comforted and apologized to him, telling him he did try to kill you first.

When Luke comes over one day, you invite him into Levi’s room, no permission, and start to talk, and when Levi tries to make fun of him, Mammon shuts his mouth.

“Luke is the whole reason they decided to start their conquest, the whole school knows that by now!” Mammon shushed him, and Levi began feeling a little jealous that the chihuahua got more of your attention than him. But when he hears that you ALSO want to conquer Diavolo, he’s just like !?!!??? You’re crazy.

But more than that you’re like some over powered anime protagonist who got sucked into a different world with over powered plot armor, Levi thought, and he really liked it.

Begs you to come with him when he’s trying to buy stuff in lines, so anyone who tries to cut gets the life beat out of them when they do.

Satan

Absolutely member #2 of your fan boy club, Diavolo being the first one in it.

He thinks oh yeah, you can fight sure. But when he witnesses it he absolutely loses his mind. A human shouldn’t be that strong, but the way you force a pact mark from them, and even defended the tiny chihuahua before leaving, while being tiny yourself, he was interested in how your body worked.

But what really excited him and made him like you is when Lucifer entered the room and you sent a flying kick to him, putting up a harsh fight as well, before you break the table when you were knocked into it, calling it a tie.

“I swear one day I’ll conquer you and force you to make a pact with me. I’ll wipe that smug look off your face, fucker. And once I do that, I’ll beat the shit out of your prince, too.” You spat, getting up and holding your back.

So now you went from protecting the chihuahua to devildom domination? Basically asks you to make a pact with him so you can use him to fight Lucifer. When you tell him you want a fair fight, and that you’ll beat Lucifer yourself, he’s just so excited because you held your own for five minutes, and Lucifer can’t even kill you!

Literally tags along each time you decided to fight Lucifer and cheers you on so hard. Will purposely try to make you and Lucifer run into each other at the halls, so you automatically try to hurt him.

Please tell him not to eat so much popcorn, we know the show is good but it’s like he has boxes of them now knowing you’re hating? on Lucifer like him.

Asmodeous

Has absolutely freaked out and began cowering in a corner, shaking, begging you anywhere but the face.

He came to watch the show of you beating up a demon, not realizing it was you at first. When he did, he was so shocked and got closer to make sure.

You mistook him for the demon’s crew who made fun of look and tried to attack, seeing red. He held his own for a minute, before you almost rip off his wing in one swing.

He’s begging for forgiveness like the demons, despite not doing anything wrong at all. When you calm and realize it’s just human, you make the other demons unrecognizable and get your pacts, before making your way to him.

He’s just crying not his face, while you just say “Pact mark.” Pointing out you won fair and square against him, too.

He gives it too you beyond willingly, just not his face, he doesn’t even think twice. Nodding, you take Luke’s hand and leave.

He has to leave too for then next class, but then sees Lucifer, Diavolo, and Barbatos confront you.

Is afraid for you but then you literally punch Lucifer and tell him you’ll conquer him, and then turn to Diavolo and declare his ass as your own, making Asmo secretly swoon but worried.

Actively tried to avoid you while at the HOL for awhile, but noticing your docile nature when you’re not fighting, he felt a little comfortable with you, and right now his only concern is how many callouses your hands are getting from punching thick skulls.

Beelzebub

This man wanted to believe you when you said you were a strong fighter in passing conversation with him, but he just couldn’t. You were the tiniest creature he’d ever seen, and he was so sure you’d crush under one of his hugs.

He heard you were protecting Luke from the whispers of lesser demons, but he didn’t think it was through fighting.

This all changes when on his way to practice, he watches you beat up one of his teammates so hard they’re crying, they’re so huge, and yet lost to you, and the fact you sent him flying and cracked a wall, by one kick.

When you said you wanted a pact mark, he was shocked the rumors were true. On top of that, Luke was near by holding a cake he planned to give Beel as thanks for something he did for him earlier that week.

He watched you wipe the blood off your hand and pat Luke’s head, with a gentle smile. When he came in, Luke ran to him and gave him the cake, and he learned everything.

You were the one subduing the demons around here, big or small, and even protected Luke. He even learned that you challenge three totally strong demons, Lucifer, Barbatos, and Diavolo.

He totally believed you could do it now, with what he just witnessed. He’s seen his fair share of fights with egotistical demons thinking they’re so tough just because they play sports, and he’s seen guys at the gym, you were beyond that.

You had speed, strength, and great perception. Wasn’t even mad that practice was delayed, and began going to the gym with you, and will happily play with Luke too, another older sibling figure for Luke.

Belphegor

When he exited the attic and tried to kill you he watch his brothers grab popcorn from the sidelines, as they said to him enjoy dying.

He was confused at first, but then got the LIVING HELL beat out of him, oh how the turns have tabled. He intended to murder you, but you nearly killed him.

You forced a pact out of him as well, kicking him repeatedly where the sun doesn’t shine until he agreed, understanding why even Lucifer stood back. It’s not because they wanted you dead, it’s because they couldn’t stop you.

When he gains consciousness later, he finds out Lucifer is the only brother you haven’t made a pact with, and that you have over 80 pacts at this rate, and that you even planned to conquer Diavolo.

He thought it was stupid at first but after seeing you fight Lucifer, with no cheats just your normal hands for combat, while Lucifer was in demon form struggling, he understood he really liked you.

“Soooo... when are you beating the shit out of Diavolo?” He asks, and he also nearly makes the mistake of calling Luke a dog before Beel puts a hand over his mouth.

Jaw nearly drops and he loses his mind when he finds out you only started beating the shit out of people to make Luke happy.

Diavolo

This man just fucking cackles, like after watching you fight, he’s just in full tears from laughing. He’s just clapping, and telling you that’s amazing.

When Lucifer asked why you did it, you stood tall despite your short stature, and looked him in the eye with no fear. “I’ll beat each fucker who approached Luke, I’m going to defend him with all my fists got, and if you get in my way, I’ll do the same to you.” You said, before turning to Diavolo.

You walked up to him, and pulled his tie down so he could meet your eyes, and declared, “I’ll even beat the shit out of and conquer you too, one day, prince. I’ll be the ruler of this place one day. Prepare yourself for that day, until then, I won’t stop:”

This makes him laugh, not belittling you, but telling you he can’t wait, and he hopes that day comes soon, because he wants to fight you as well, and he hopes you hold nothing back against him.

He loves how strong you are, he loves how you want to protect Luke, he loves that you only did it to protect, and didn’t even bother to summon a demon, you did it with your own style. That took guts, confidence, and the fact you told him of all people with that confidence you would one day conquer him, his heart fluttered.

He would definitely start watching over you, and probably fan boy over you. The first person to ever force the prince of the Devildom to lower himself; and they even declared they would be the one to make him their’s, by forming a pact mark. It was honestly amazing to him, and he likes it.

Barbatos

He really should of seen this coming, a new fighting student, who was clinging to Luke protectively, and suddenly all the bad demons were being silenced.

Guess there’s no need for his torture chamber anymore, you’re much more feral than whatever he does, he just needs to sick you on them.

Joking aside, he doesn’t really take it too seriously. It’s great you can get a lot of pacts, and defend yourself, and even want to conquer Diavolo by forcing him to give you a pact mark, but he knows you’re still no match for him yet.

To get to Diavolo, you’d need to beat him up, and he’s a bit of a harder fight than Lucifer, by that he means a lot, he won’t even flinch if you bite his tail when he grabs you by it and puts you out the room, with a smile on his face.

It’s become a game at this point for the both of you to try and fight each other, you trying hard to get a pact mark out of him. He even offered it to you at one point, but you told him you wanted to win it fair and square, and he’s just in love with you even more because of that.

He’s pretty much a dad to Luke, so he appreciates how kind you are to him, and appreciates how you have your own set of morals for fighting, making him know that if Diavolo were to ever make a pact mark with you, it would all be fine.

Solomon

“Hey... are you sure you’re not actually the demon?” Solomon asks you, looking at the sheer amount of pact marks on your body, one week after coming to the devildom.

He’s seriously impressed by you, considering how easily you beat up demons without any weapons, magic, or underhanded tactics. You simply use your fists and legs, sometimes your head, but you get the job done scarily.

He’s even more impressed when he finds out the reason, you were visiting purgatory hall and Luke was being rather loud. “I can’t believe that’s the 7th demon this week that fought with you! You’re just so cool, you’re so strong! Thank you for protecting me!”

Probably wants to try to enhance your strength with a potion, and offers it to you when you try to have your epic showdown with Diavolo, claiming he is the boss and Barbatos and Lucifer were his right hand men who dragged Luke into this mess.

You decline though, wanting it to be fair and square. Truly admires yet fears you. But then again, i don’t think you stabbing him would making him afraid of you. I don’t think this man can feel it at all, unless it was you dying.

Anyways, he’s delighted to ask the demons you make pacts with to make pacts with him as well.

Simeon

Nearly loses his mind at first. He’s so concerned if you’re hurt,, but then he’s just like wait what.

Luke had told Simeon all about it when he reached purgatory hall, about how you beat up a demon for him, and even promised to always protect him. Simeon is really distraught you may of been hurt protecting Luke while he was busy.

But then Luke tells him about how you forced a pact mark out of the demon, and you didn’t even break a sweat, and that is was the coolest.

He doesn’t tell Diavolo about this thinking it was just a one time thing, and tries to watch over you two more. But then he sees you and he’s literally just frozen.

Humans aren’t that powerful right? And when Lucifer Diavolo finally confronts you about it, he watches as you just stare him down and declare that you’re going to conquer him as well, to make Luke feel happy and safe in devildom.

Needless to say Simeon is extremely panicked about your well-being, but extremely happy Luke is protected by someone so kind to him. Probably doesn’t approve of the violence, but Luke adores you.

Luke

The first time you met him you told him not to worry about the demons, because if they ever bullied him you would beat the life out of them.

He thought you were just saying that, and he said that he too would protect you, which you found extremely adorable and nearly went “I’m taking this kid home with me and he’s my child now.” not that anyone could physically stop you.

He found out you were actually sincere about it when the two of you were alone in RAD’s hallway, trying to leave for purgatory hall since he invited you over.

You two were stopped by a demon, who tried picking a fight on easy prey, and it was quite frankly, the worst mistake of his life, ever.

You beat the LIVING SHIT out of him, and even told Luke to look away, because this man was beyond recognisable, because you were so small you could easily duck and move fast, so the demon didn’t even land one hit on you.

Just because he’s a demon, doesn’t mean his stamina is forever you figured, and beat him up, forcing him to make a pact with you. You had one with Mammon already, so you knew how it worked, especially knew you could have multiple due to Solomon.

When it was over, you told Luke he could look, and there was zero damage to you and he was just like woah!! You’re so cool! And from then on you stuck close to him, literally demolishing any demon he thought looked scary, or just stared at him for too long.

When Diavolo comforted you about it, you stared him dead in the eyes saying “I would literally beat the shit out of you for Luke, so you better hope he starts liking the devildom soon, fucker.”

Diavolo laughed and Luke insisted you didn’t have to go that far, but you just patted his head and said it was okay.

#obey me #obey me swd #obey me shall we date #obey me hc #obey me headcanons #obey me headcanon #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me levi #obey me Satan #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me solomon #obey me Simeon #obey me Luke

[lameghost]

Scream blue murder.

Bonten! x yakuza! leader [part 3]

word count - 2,538

💿 - deathwish by poutyface, to the bone by j.t machinima

Warnings❕- angst + fluff+ suggestive. Mentions of death, sewer slide, drugs, physical and mental abuse.(slight hints of ptsd) Mentions of Izana x reader and others. Spoilers! Bonten arc. Blood and gore. (pinky cutting and mentions of gas poisoning, mass murder.) reader goes berserk! putting a knife in each other's throat? reader is freaky fugg. and also apparently, an expert at chemistry.

[part 1] [part 2]

“So, 12 years… You were gone, just like that and you aren’t gonna say anything, huh? Saying ‘I love you’ like that, ain’t fucking fair, y/n. I missed you for all those years. I searched for you like a madman. Fuck, you didn’t even come by to look for me or shit. You know how fucking miserable I was, after Izana was gone and you too!” Everyone flinched at the sight of the usually calm Kakucho raising his voice. You were surprised too, but you kept on an indifferent facade as you looked down, guilt overwhelmed you.

Kakucho takes a few steps towards you, “I wanna hate you for it but I can’t. You’re too fucking precious to me. The last one I have here, and I thought you were fucking dead.” You did no such attempt to avoid the slap which landed on your face as tears flowed down Kakucho’s face. You heard the faint gasp from all the executives of Bonten. You just kept quiet.

“Hug me, god fucking damn it. I missed you.” With no hesitation, you engulfed him in a hug, basking in his warmth which came into contact with your bare skin. You smiled, relishing the memories of your childhood.

“Fucking hell that was touching as shit.” Sanzu fake cries, deep down he still felt bad since he knew that you were as important to Kakucho as Mikey was to him. Losing you would have meant losing his entire world. In reply, you lifted your middle finger, sticking out your pierced tongue at the pink-haired male. He chuckles slowly.

“Holy shit, yer got piercings, that’s hot, dude.” You nodded at Rindou’s question .

“Show us, I mean your tattoos and piercings.”

“That’s a pretty specific kink you have, Sir Mikey. I mean, I know I look hot as shit but.” He snickered, signalling that he only wants your full identification.

“If you insist, your honour.” You fake sighed as you turned around and began explaining your tattoos.

“29 piercings and last I checked, around 18 or 19 tattoos. Got my first tattoo at 13, illegally. Thank god I didn’t die of infection or some shit. Dude was a nice guy, he even taught me how to take care of a  new tat.” They all gasped, ‘doesn’t that shit hurt you?’. Ran and Rindou who were basically half covered in tattoos were also surprised by your ability to withstand the pain.

“Which one hurt the most though? Your tits or sumn?” Sanzu bluntly asks as he touches the tattoo on your left arm.

“Oh well, yer wanna see? Better pay money though.” You smirked and sent him a wink as you gave him a slight teaser of your tattoo, he blushed. Welp, you broke the dope peddler.

“You’re quite a mystery, aren’t you?” Mikey says, his voice dark and screechy, almost like he has been straining it.

“Your back. That ain’t a tattoo. Someone carved those characters into you.” He traces the Chinese characters on your back. You slightly flinched at the sudden cold touch of his finger. “Only the top brass of Yakuza has this, yeah? Which means, you’re the current hidden leader of the Yakuza. Working for them quietly backstage, is that fun? Don’t you wanna take the credit?” He was inches away from your face, you tilted your head slightly at his demise.

“Take credit? Pftt. Observant but dumb aren’t yer, pretty boy?” You cupped his jaw between your gloved fingers. “I fucking love it when people worship me, bow to me and praise me for all my work but I wouldn’t want my pets to go unrecognised do I? Plus, isn’t it harder to keep myself lowkey from the police that way? I have my plans, baby and I don’t like it when people question me.” You smiled and let go of his jaw, never in his life has he been this stunned by someone’s actions and indifference. This was a first.

“This carving was done by my dad. I was the only child who was able to take over the family business so, here I am. Healthier than ever!” You smiled, highlighting the dimples which brightened your eyes even more under the light which shone above you.

“So, you’ve taken a blood oath?” Kokonoi asks, curious.

“Oh that’s fucken bullshit. We don’t do those. We’re just old delinquents who don’t wanna follow laws, we don’t sacrifice ourselves. I mean that does sound cool though. The most we do is cut our pinky. I’ve cut 12 as of this week,” You sat back down, nonchalantly telling them. You put your suit back on, adjusting the tie.

Bang! A loud gunshot was heard from behind you, in one swift movement, you swooped Ran and Sanzu who were directly in front of you. ‘Top criminal organisers but can’t see a bullet coming their way? Great, fucking idiots.’ You looked down, the bullet grazed by your shoulder slightly. Thank god for that. You picked up the shell and the bullet which landed not far from it. You analysed the bullet, standing up immediately after recognising it. ‘Mauser C96. 0.45 ACP. Made in Germany. Oh fuck, why are they here?’

“Oi, you twinks. Came here to save me or something?” One by one, your members peeked their heads out from behind the oil tanks. Number 2, Tanaka Ryu. This kid has been behind you since juvie days. Once he got out, he looked for you and followed you till the very end even if it meant jumping into hellfire for you.

“If I couldn’t fight, I would have died to these hot dudes, you know? Do we need to practice again? Should I drill it into your brains?” All the members, a good 25 of them, stood at attention, weapons dropped to the floor with their hands behind their back.

“No, your honour!” In unison, their voices echoed one another. Bonten was too stunned to say a thing. Their mouths merely shut tight as your dominant aura overflowed through the entire warehouse.

“Good, and Tanaka, don’t mind, okay? Small mistake. I’m fine, n’ways.”

“Apologies, your honour. Take my pin-” You shushed him as you signalled everyone to get down and ready their weapons. Bonten, who was behind you, followed your command. You gestured for Mikey to come to your side, he slowly strides towards you.

“Mikey, listen. Now, your turf is being infiltrated. You heard that gunshot? Nagant M1895. That strong shit is only used by the Yakuza traitors. Those fuckers have been on my back for the last few months and I need a few extra hands so that I can alert my turf. After that, I’ll help yer. There should be at least 230 of them. 2 top heads and the other 8 executives. The rest are all their lackeys, bad fighting skills but good spirits. Now, we separate, I’ll alert your members too.”

You and Mikey, the leaders, moved into positions immediately. Working together for the first time but it almost seemed as if you’ve worked together for the past 10 years. You stationed Sanzu and your number 3, Haruto, right in front of you. These two are wild and have a few screws loose in their brains, so they make a good pair. They can slaughter some while you make a few alerts to your guards in your territories. You wanted to get it over and done with fast even if it meant, murder. So, you analysed whatever you had in your reach.

“Y/n-chan. What are you doing? I wanna smoke.” Sanzu said, questioning what you were looking at.

“Shush, let me think of a way to get rid of evidence fast and simple.” Haruto drags Sanzu back to their station as they both chat away, swinging the bloodied weapons in their hands. Psychos, I swear.

‘Benzoyl peroxide, TNT, fire extinguisher, bleach, ammonia and diesel.’ Fucking hell, they were making this a bit too easy isn’t it? You called Sanzu and Haruto over to help you. You took the empty tank, putting on your mask before starting and gesturing the two males to do the same. You poured the bleach into the empty tank followed by ammonia.

‘Do you think what you’re doing is right?’ The tiny voice in your head asks. ‘Well these people mass murdered 226 of the Yakuza members, isn’t it only fair?, ‘Of course, but can’t the police punish them?’. ‘What. They hurt me, not the police, I’ll make them save me a seat in hell. Especially that blabbermouth oldie.’, ‘I guess there’s no stopping you, y/n l/n. You’re a murderer after all.’ Wait, what the fuck? I’m not! They did it first, why is it me? Why am I to blame? Fuck, fuck you. ‘You’re a murderer by nature, y/n. That’s why your Mom and Dad passed this onto you.’ Shut up. They’re dead, they are just ashes, seeping into earth or maybe being swallowed by maggots. Those 2 are dead to me. ‘Your mom isn’t dead. Not yet.’ Well, I want her dead. ‘You gonna kill her, too? Like what you did to your old man? You’re naive, a pretty soul, one that I would kill to dirty but you already did it yourself.’

You halted your movements, Sanzu and Haruto stared wide-eyed at your face. Your face contorted with rage, aura screaming murder at them. This brings Sanzu back to 12 years ago when- nevermind. “Earth to y/n, we gonna continue?”

“Haruchiyo. Katana. Haruto, pass him your pistol, I’ll be right back.” ‘You’re gonna regret it, y/n.’

“SHUT UP! HOLY FUCK SHUT THE FUCK UP! UGH!” You let out an indignant roar, making Kakucho and Mikey halt their movements as they continued throwing punches to the opposing team. Kakucho ran towards you, covered in blood which did not belong to him.

“Hey, y/n. Hey, look at me.” You looked at him, tears of anger welling up in your eyes. (You can only cry when you’re angry but not when you’re sad.) He pats your back, telling you to kick some ass to relieve your anger. Well, that was your green light.

You swung the Katana out from your back which had a strap, tailor made for you to store katanas. As always, pecking the handle beforehand, showing respect. ‘About 104 left, gonna be easy.’ The rest of your members and Bonten members along with the executives gathered, wanting to watch you fight. It was almost like a playback of 12 years ago.

You dropped the katana to the floor, jumping onto the first person you see, hanging from the shoulder. You swung around, possibly breaking his spine and picked up two other men by their collars. Swinging them towards the tower of diesel tanks, you made your way to your next victims.

“So, pick yer death.” You smirked, but your eyes were empty and lifeless. Your bloodthirsty aura engulfed the entire warehouse, stripping the audience off any form of excitement. The male approached you, in a split second, he was inches from your face.

“HAHAHAAHA, you’re fast but you lack experience, sweetheart.” You caressed his face, voice coated full of sinister but in his ears, it was like honey. It gave his brain whiplash how contrasting your voice was to your actions. Without batting an eye or even giving him room to recover from your touch, your left leg flew forward. Landing directly onto the wound of his temple, plunging onto the floor. You took the chance to take a seat on his back.

You rummaged through his pockets, stopping when you found his phone. You dialed a number, the others stared at you curious. “I need about, uhh, 7, no, 8 ambulances, for the Shibuya area. The warehouse down the second turn. Thank yer!” You smiled and threw the phone across the room.

“Now, there’s only… let me see… 3 of you left. Rock, paper, scissors. Winner gets to pick the lucky one.” You signaled them to start playing, with trembling figures, the 3 males began playing. You placed the lit cigarette in between your lip, enjoying others misery.

“She’s kinda hot, though.” You heard Sanzu whistling and howling from behind you as you exhaled the smoke and took off your blazer, rolling up your sleeves. You sent a kiss his way as you made your way to the poor male - a prisoner of his own bad luck.

“Hey, mister. Long time no see. I’m bigger now, if you can’t clearly see.” You subtly flaunt, towering over the male before you. You bent lower so you could make direct eye contact with him. The eye contact sent cold shivers down his spine which made him froze, his lips quivered as you moved your gloved finger, gliding down his tattooed back.

“Oi, mister. I’m talking to you, it’s rude to not reply to your master, y’know? It kinda hurts my feelings,” You faked your sadness, pretending to sob into his shoulders. If he wasn’t already stiff, he is now officially the statue of liberty.

“Y-yes, your honour!”

“Good pet. Now, let me get my work done. You know what happens to traitors, don’t you? Perverted old man.” You removed the kunai which was secured tightly in the pocketed garter which hung from your thigh. You simpered, looking pleased at the amount of fear you could elicit from the pathetic man.

“AHHHHHHHH!” He writhed in pain, screaming blue murder.

“Okay, that was the last one! 12 plus 10 equals 22! 22 pinkies!” You giggled, cracking a smile from your scarred mouth. A horrifying sight, it was.

“Fuck, didn’t know you were capable of such cruel shit.” Ran sends a surprised look, scanning you up and down as you wiped the blood off your gloves and chuckled.

“Born and bred to do this shit.”

You knew you were done but there was some unsettling feeling that irked your senses, but what was it? Could it be you forgot something-

“We’ll take over from here, as an apology and a thank you for not murdering us.” Mikey said, a small smile on his face.

“Oh no, it was great working with you, Sir Mikey.”

“Don’t call me that, on god, I’ll put a knife in your throat.”

“Do it then, it’s not a threat Mikey. ” Your little bicker was put to a stop when Kokonoi seemingly  ‘cleared his throat’ loudly.

“So, you’re a professional torturer, a sugar mommy, free show stripper, yakuza leader, a mass murderer, chemist and now, a hooker. What else do we not know about you?” Kokonoi asked, voice laced with curiosity. His eyebrows raised as his eyes searched for answers in yours.

“Oh darling, I’m a walking unsolved mystery. Yer wanna find out? Yer gotta dig deep into the layers of this earth. Yer wanna solve me still?”

“Yeah, I do.” The short, purple haired spoke up. (You forgot his name.)

“Oh then, put on a raincoat. This year’s theme is bloody halloween. Wouldn’t want blood staining yer expensive suits.” You stuck out your tongue, making a move as sirens filled the quiet warehouse. 

‘Roppongi, Don Quijote, 31st October, 9 P.M. Be there or else you owe me candy.’ The boys chuckled, making a run as the police broke in.

#tokyo rev x reader #tokyo revengers #tokyo rev smut #tokyo revengers fic #bonten #toman #kakucho x you #izana #tokyo revengers angst #ran haitani #tokyo revengers rindou #mikey #tokyo revengers x y/n #tokyo revengers x you smut #sanzu haruchiyo #akashi takeomi #kokonoi x you #bonten kakucho #bonten kokonoi #bonten sanzu #bonten ran #bonten rindou #bonten mikey #izana headcanons #mikey x you #tokyo revengers scenarios

[americxn]

Can I request Smut headcanons where reader is a detective and tries to seduce JPM to get information, but she el punished for being nosy.

Marked (JPM x GN!Reader)

alternative (more exciting) fic:

these aren’t really headcanons but we move

also, @undeadcortez very recently posted a fic titled deadly consequences that I would 1000% recommend reading as a general fic rec, but I also just wanted to mention it because I feel like I kinda followed a smiliar mood so please go read it!

warnings: hickeys, spanking, not full smut but still NSFW  wordcount: 2.4k

James knew your game from the moment you first set foot in his hotel, your feigned innocence providing him with endless amusement. Under the guise of a temporarily homeless student needing a place to stay whilst your downtown apartment underwent lengthy renovations, you had booked a room on the fifth floor of the Cortez for seven weeks; of course this was all fabricated: you were an established detective, having graduated from college five years earlier and having been assigned a job looking into the recent disappearances at the Hotel Cortez. The disappearances were perplexing, even to you; five people had gone missing over the span of a month, their bodies undetectable. And hotel owner, James Patrick March, was at the top of your list of suspicions. 

However, one month into your secret investigation had gotten you pretty much nowhere; James, a very private man, had only granted you with two meetings in the hotel’s bar, appearing for no more than ten minutes before excusing himself, leaving you with the barmaid, Liz. This, although incredibly disheartening, was perhaps the only thing that got you to the point that you were currently at now: working up the courage to knock on the door to James’ room for the date that Liz had set you and James up on.

Your nerves were overwhelming, the mounting anxiety that you would fuck this up and lose James’ recently ignited interest in you plaguing your mind as you rapped your knuckles on the hard wood of the door, your breath catching as it swung open almost immediately. You pushed down the flutters of pleasant delight that joined the nervous butterflies filling your stomach at the sight of him, glorious in his usual finery, a smile of genuine pleasure at your appearance growing on his pale face. Leading you inside with a warm greeting, he directed you to your seat at the long dining table in the centre of the room, his personal maid, Hazel Evers, nowhere to be seen. You keep your grimace hidden as you beheld the plate of steaming food already placed before your seat, your nerves reluctant to allow you to eat.

The dim light of the candles cast soft shadows across James’ face, the pale planes of his defined facial structure falling into shadow as you dined together, your glass of wine never empty as he took it upon himself to refill it for you, again and again. He provided pleasant company, and beneath your mask of growing romantic attraction with the man, you were secretly tucking every piece of personal information he offered you, which was limited, into a back pocket of your mind. 

Hours passed, your eyes growing heavy from the copious amounts of wine you had consumed; you silently cursed yourself as a light film of alcohol induced bliss settled over, fogging your mind and softening the usually blunt edges of your conscious. 

You weren’t sure how it happened, but when James offered you a cigarette, you stood from your seat, seizing the opportunity and slinking over to him, plucking the one he was smoking from between his lips, pushing away his empty plate and perching on the edge of the table in front of him. His eyes glowed with a newfound hunger as you gazed down at him, taking a deep drag of his cigarette before passing it back to him. Lifting your legs up, you rested your feet on the edge of his chair at either side of his thighs, your breath hitching when his cool fingers settled around your ankles, encircling them in a light hold. 

Your feigned confidence manifested in a small smirk curving your lips in response to the eager glint in his dark eyes as you leant in slightly, cocking your head before asking a potentially dangerous question: “How do you feel about all those recent disappearances in the news? Has it affected business at all?”

James surveyed you carefully, the room falling silent as you waited for his answer, heart thundering. “I was wondering when you’d ask.” Was all he said, his lithe fingers tightening their grip on your ankles, pulling you off the edge of the table with a strong tug. You fell onto his lap with a gasp, James’ hands moving from your ankles to your lower back, holding you to him. You mulled over his words, trying to sort through all the possible hidden meanings that his tone, thoughtful and dark, presented. His body heat leeched into you with your close proximity, his eyes gleaming with something you couldn’t place as he brought his face closer to yours. “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” 

His lowly spoken words drew your heart to a sudden halt, the muscles in your thighs braced on either side of James’ legs tensing up. He seemed to track the small changes in your body, his breath soaked with the smell of cigarette smoke and whiskey as his smile turned positively predatory. 

“You can report me as being the culprit, but I can promise that it’ll do no good.” You drew away from him, your back arching as you tried to pull away, his hold on your back unwavering, not allowing you to move so much as an inch. “You knew?” You ventured reluctantly, a sense of dread settling over you as his tone fell utterly calm, his eyes never leaving yours as he reached up, running the knuckle of a cold finger down the side of your warm face. He offered a hum of confirmation, his finger trailing along your jaw and to your chin, forcing your head to lift slightly. “You were playing with me.” You concluded aloud, your voice unsteady as the fearful realisation settled over you. “Of course I was. I was made aware of your prying intentions from the moment that you stepped foot into my hotel.”

“I’m sorry.” You breathed in an immediate response, still trying in vain to break away from his close hold. “I’ll leave and just say that I didn’t find anything, I’m not -” you were silenced when James moved his hands to your upper thighs, pulling you roughly to him and bringing his face uncomfortably close to yours. “Are you really so bad of a detective that you resorted to attempting to seduce me for information?” His voice was close to a sneered growl, his hot breath fanning over your face as he spoke. At your injured silence, his words highlighting some unrecognised truth within you, he tutted, pushing you off his lap and abruptly standing, taking ahold of your wrists and forcing you across the room and through the open doorway into his bedroom. 

James was meticulous in extracting his punishment, ripping the clothes off your body whilst you merely stood there, staring at him, transfixed and not at all reluctant to do as he ordered as he pushed your newly naked body on his bed. The smell of him clinging to the deep scarlet sheets was intoxicating and you lie there, gazing up at him. He scolded you when you tried to cover your modesty, reaching down to pry your hands away from your body, positioning them over your head and ordering you to keep them there.

“You’re sinful.” He whispered roughly and you nodded, agreeing with his comment with renewed desperation. “Keep your arms above your head.” You blinked at him, but did as he asked. Satisfied with your obedience, James took ahold of your legs, pulling you roughly to the edge of the bed, positioning your feet against the floor on either side of his body as he lowered his head to the base of your throat, his hair brushing pleasantly against your collarbones. His lips were soft and warm as he pressed several kisses to your skin, drawing a trail up the column of your throat to your chin. You followed his movements by tipping your head back slightly further with each kiss as he progressed up your neck, allowing him better access and silently inviting him to use his teeth to mark you.

As soon as his lips had completed their journey to your jaw, skimming against the bottom of your chin, he pulled away, denying you the full kiss to your lips that you craved. He kept eye contact with you as he moved down your body slightly, his lips latching onto your ribs and proceeding to give them the same treatment that he had just forced your neck to endure. This time, he allowed his teeth to graze against your skin as he travelled from one side of your torso to the other, goosebumps forming in his wake, chasing after his touch.

You couldn’t help but groan when he pressed his nose to the space just beneath your breasts, his hot tongue finally coming into contact with your skin as he kitten licked his way up to chest. From above him, your own eyes were clenched shut, your mouth slightly parted as you forced yourself to keep your hands above your head. All you wanted to do was weave your fingertips into the dark strands of his hair but you knew that in doing so, you risked upsetting James and cutting this intimate exchange short. Using his tongue, he softly traced the area of skin where your ribs sloped down to meet your torso, tracing and licking back and forth.

James continued his thorough exploration of your body, skimming his warm lips along your abdomen, past your bellybutton and to one of your hips. You hissed softly when he bit down on your skin, simultaneously latching his lips onto you and sucking harshly. He moved back and forth between your hips, painting them in turn with blotchy, deep red marks, the sensation becoming slightly more painful as his brutal onslaught on your skin continued. His bites and kisses become increasingly more intense, his teeth closing tighter around your skin with each nip, eventually becoming hard enough to draw blood, leaving you squirming and whimpering beneath him. 

You were temporarily relieved when James pulled away, straightening and gazing across the marked planes of your trembling body with cruel excitement. That relief was short lived, however, when he took ahold of your torso, his strength unfathomable as he flipped you over with ease, placing his hands on your hips and pulling your ass up into the air, your knees scrambling to gain purchase on the edge of the bed, your back beginning to ache immediately with the strain of maintaining the compromising form he roughly positioned you into. The sheets were warmed by your own body heat against your cheek as you turned your head to the side, glancing behind you to see James taking in the view you presented him with, his dark eyes ravenous. 

“What are you doing?” You squeaked, your trepidation growing when James rubbed a warm palm across the curve of your bare ass fully displayed to him. “What? Did you think that this would be fun for you?” He crooned, allowing his nails to drag painfully across your sensitive skin. You winced, turning your head and burying it into the sheets as you braced yourself for what was sure to come next. “You look so much prettier with my marks all over his skin.” He mused quietly, the words causing you to shiver in anticipation as you awaited the harsh impact of his palm that he was sure to land on your feverish skin. When it came, you still shrieked, the force that he used unexpectedly brutal, the crack of his hand against your skin echoing around the large room.

He gave you no time to recover, instead landing another, equally hard slap to the other side of your ass, establishing a cruel routine of alternating between cheeks, each hit more jarring as he worked to increase the sensitivity of your skin, causing a light burn to spread across the entirety of your ass, tears pricking at your clenched shut eyes, squeezing out from behind your lids and soaking into James’ sheets beneath you; he had one hand hooked under you, placed flat against your abdomen to prevent your ass from shying away from the palm of his hand, his rings a cold impact against your soft skin, only emphasising the pain and leaving you a trembling, sobbing mess before him, waves of nausea rolling through you as James inflicted his punishment on you, any arousal that his lips had built dissipating more and more with each collision of his palm on your smouldering skin, the noises he drew from you utterly satisfying to you ears. 

With his brutal onslaught of your ass completed, James leant in licking a wet stripe from the top of your thigh, up your scorching skin to the plateau of your lower back, landing one final hit on one cheek whilst attaching his teeth to the other, sucking a deep purple mark onto your already brutalised skin. 

You collapsed onto your side as he pulled away, admiring his handiwork, your ass glowing with welts from where his rings had hit, pulling small raised marks up onto your burning skin. You watched as he stooped, gathering up all your clothes and bundling them under one arm, making a show of tucking your underwear into his breast pocket with a flourish before stepping away from you. He reached into the pocket of your jeans, locating your key card for your room on the fifth floor and chucking it onto the bed beside you.

“You can find your own back to your room. I’ll be expecting your next visitations to collect these.” He explained wickedly, gesturing to your clothes in his hold, throwing a self-satisfied smirk your way before turning on his heel and exiting the room. You stared after him in disbelief before shooting up, calling his name as he disappeared into the other room.

By the time you had stumbled after him, every inch of your body aching following his rough assault on your body, he was gone. It took you at least twenty minutes to work up the courage to leave the room, racing through the halls to get to your floor, the cool air of the hotel soothing your minor injuries as you barrelled barefoot down hallway after hallway, deciding to take the stairs. Thankfully, the late hour meant that the corridors were blessedly empty and no one was around to worsen your humiliation, much to James’ disappointment, who silently trailed you back to your room, the echo of your hotel door slamming and the following click of the lock making him chuckle. 

Taglist: @kitwalker02 @three-eyed-snail @forevercountess @kitwalkerangel @milly-louise @thecountessesglove @undeadcortez @kitwalker64 @samsassinparvismagna @xmaximoffic @divineruler @liandav @tatesweaterweather @evanmybeloved @tatelangdonsupremacist @ikkleroniekins

#american horror story #ahs #american horror story fandom #ahs fandom #american horror story fanfiction #ahs fanfic #american horror story hotel #american horror story season five #ahs hotel #ahs season five #aaron hotchner #hotel cortez #james patrick march #james patrick march x reader #james patrick march smut #ahs james patrick march #james march #james march x reader #james march x reader smut #james patrick march smut headcanons #jpm #james patrick march headcanons #evan peters #evan peters ahs #evan peters jpm #evan peters james patrick march #evan peters headcanons #evan peters fanfiction #evan peters fandom #i hate this ughhh

[misseffie]

Is Gendry illiterate?

Short answer: Probably not. 

Long answer: 

I’ve noticed a lot of fanfiction trying to address Gendry’s illiteracy once he becomes a noble. Most fics depict him as being completely illiterate. Some depict him as having some level of literacy, but not enough for his new position. So let’s try to figure it out, shall we?

Part 1: Literacy

We have this assumption that in medieval times no one could read or write unless they were part of the nobility. That is not quite true. Firstly, we have to understand what it meant to be literate by medieval standards: 

“In Medieval times, “Literate” actually meant able to read and write in Latin, which was considered to be the language of learning. Being able to read and write in the vernacular wasn’t considered real learning at all. Most peasants prior to the Black Death (which really shook up society) had little chance to learn - hard labouring work all of the hours of daylight does’t leave a lot of energy for reading or writing.

It’s worth noting, however the panic amongst the ruling classes when translations of The Bible started to appear written in English. This really started in the late 14th Century (about 30 years after the Black Death). The level of panic suggests that the Ruling Classes knew that the numbers of people who could read and write English was far greater than the numbers who could read Latin.”

However, there is no language quite like Latin in Westeros. The closest we come to something similar is High Valyrian. Which noble children seem to have a basic understanding of. We can safely assume that Gendry doesn’t have extensive knowledge of High Valyrian - so he is illiterate in that regard. But I don’t think High Valyrian is as widely used as Latin was in the Middle Ages. It’s also not a language with religious significance. As the Faith of the Seven doesn’t use High Valyrian the way that the Catholic Church used Latin.

So… taking that into account. What I assume that is meant by “literate” in Westeros is being able to read and write in the Common Tongue. 

I will say that even by those parameters I don’t think most of the commoners would have been literate. However, Gendry was not in the same situation as most of the commoners.

Which leads me to... 

Part 2: Socio-economic class in Medieval Times

The level of literacy among the commonfolk has to be examined on a case by case basis.

Literacy among “peasants” varied a lot depending on circumstance. So, for example, it’s not strange that Davos, who was a smuggler prior to meeting Stannis, was illiterate. Or Gilly, who was completely isolated from the world and in terrible conditions.

But Gendry is in a different situation.

As @arsenicandfinelace pointed out in this cool meta:

Gendry was definitely born low-class, as an unrecognised bastard whose mother was a tavern girl (read: one step away from prostitute). But the whole point of apprenticing with Tobho Mott is that that was a major leap forward for him, socially.

As Davos put it in 3x10, “The Street of Steel? You lived in the fancy part of town.” Yes, a tradesman of any kind is leagues below the nobility, and could never ever be worthy of marrying a highborn girl like Arya. But Tobho Mott is a master craftsman, the best armourer in the capital city of a heavily martial country. As far as tradesman go, he’s the best of the best, and charges accordingly.

There’s a reason Varys had to pay out the ass to get Gendry apprenticed there. If he had stayed, completed his apprenticeship, and eventually taken over the workshop, he would have been very wealthy (by commoner standards) and respectable (again, by commomner standards), despite his low birth.

Tobho Mott is a tradesman and a craftsman. He is part of the merchant class. * Merchants are often referred to as a different class from the rest of the population. The merchant class in Medieval Times was closer to the middle class of contemporary times.

“By the 15th century, merchants were the elite class of many towns and their guilds controlled the town government. Guilds were all-powerful and if a merchant was kicked out of one, he would likely not be able to earn a living again.”

Mott would be considered to be part of the merchant class - and not even a common kind of merchant either. He was the best Blacksmith in all of King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. So we can assume that Tobho Mott was a very wealthy and powerful craftsman and merchant.  

“That many 'middle class' people (tradesmen, merchants and the like) could read and write in the late middle ages cannot be disputed.”

I’m not saying that all tradesmen/merchants/craftsmen were literate back then. It was still a smaller percentage than the nobility. Only the richer and more influential of tradesmen would learn Latin. But I think most of them would be literate enough in the vernacular to run a business. Considering Mott’s reputation and his clientele I’m certain that Mott is part of that literate percentage.

In season 2, Arya accidentally reveals to Tywin that she can read. Realizing her mistake she covers up by saying that her father, a ’stonemason', taught her. Of course, I don’t think that completely fooled Tywin but why did Arya say her father was Stonemason. Why did his profession matter at all? Surely it wouldn’t have mattered if he was a fisherman or a farmer... a peasant is a peasant, right?

Wrong.

“The Medieval Stonemason asserts that they were not monks but highly skilled craftsmen who combined the roles of architect, builder, craftsman, designer, and engineer. Many, if not all masons of the Middle Ages learnt their craft through an informal apprentice system”

“Children from merchants and craftsmen were able to study longer and continuous, so they were able to learn Latin at a later age. This way, everyone learned to read and write (some better than others) sufficiently for their trade.”

Stonemasons were the architects of the time and no doubt the top tier was literate.

Many trades (by the 15th C) required reading and writing, so it was taught to apprentices by the masters. We know from apprenticeship agreements that many masters were expected to continue the apprentice's literacy or start it, which makes sense for the wider viability of the trade.

The War of the Roses took place in the late 15th Century. So I’m guessing that that’s the time period that ASOIAF is mostly based on.

Part 3: Level of literacy

I think it’s safe to say that Gendry has some level of literacy. However, his “level” is pretty much up for debate. If he’d finished his apprenticeship it’s likely he’d have a decent level of reading/writing comprehension. However, near the end of his apprenticeship he was kicked out.

I’m not sure how much Gendry could read/write by the time that he was kicked out by Tobho Mott. But he’d already been his apprentice for 10 years (in show canon). More than enough time to get some basic reading/writing/basic math lessons. 

It seems that show!Gendry is more likely to have a higher level of literacy than book!Gendry. In the show, he leaves Tobho Mott at 16, while in the book he is 14. This is just my own impression, but I think his education would be more complete by age 16 than age 14.

Not to mention that book!Gendry is still in the Riverlands and working for outlaws. But in the show we can assume that Gendry has been smithing in King’s Landing for years and it is insinuated that he owns a shop. Meaning he might have reached “Master” status and can take on apprentices of his own. It might seem like Gendry is too young for that. But it’s actually not that strange. 

“Apprentices stayed with their masters for seven to nine years before they were able to claim journeyman status. Journeyman blacksmiths possessed the basic skills necessary to work alongside their master, seek work with other shops, or even open their own businesses.”

Considering that Gendry has been with Mott for 10 years in show!canon, it’s possible that Gendry was a “journeyman” and not an “apprentice” by the time that Ned meets him in season 1. But he might be nearing the end of his apprenticeship in the books.

Guilds also required journeymen to submit work for examination each year in each area of expertise. So, a journeyman who perhaps crafted swords, locks, and keys would need to submit each item to his guild annually for inspection. If the guild approved the craftsmanship of the products, the journeyman could eventually move up to master status.

The process of becoming a master could take from 2 to 5 years. Considering that Gendry is regarded as talented, it’s likely that he achieved this in a shorter period of time. As a journeyman he also needed to work alongside a master for 3 to 4 years before he could obtain master status. Which would still explain why he was so upset at being kicked out by Mott - it’s like someone getting kicked out while they’re trying to obtain a PHD. 

By the time we meet him in season 7 it’s very possible that Gendry is now considered a master of his trade.

He also seems to be making armour and weapons for “Lannisters” which means he has a mostly noble clientele. He probably has plenty of fancy clients asking for custom-made products. With sketches and measurements and all that shit. Which is not surprising since he probably has a de facto reputation simply by merit of being Tobho Mott’s apprentice (lets ignore how dumb it is that no one discovered that Gendry was in King’s Landing since he made no effort to hide who he was or try to hide from the nobility lol).

Conclusion: 

It’s safe to say that Gendry had some access to higher education. He can probably read and write enough for his line of work. It’s likely that his level would still leave much to be desired once he became a noble though. For comparison, imagine if someone left school at age 11 and was then required to write a college-level thesis. So he’d definitely need some “lordly” writing lessons and further education.

Gendry is still wildly uneducated for what he needs to do. So...

This meme is still gold 10/10

* Correction: Though Mott would be considered part of the same socio-economic class as merchants he is primarily a tradesman/craftsman, and would be referred to as such. Since merchants didn’t produce the goods they sold. However they could belong to the same guild, along with artisans and craftsmen. 

#gendry baratheon #gendry waters #gendrya #asoiaf meta #got meta

[srbachchan]

DAY 4822

Jalsa, Mumbai                  May 11,  2021                 Tue 11:09 PM     

Birthday - EF - Deepa Krishna .. Iris -  Israel .. birthday greetings and the wishes for happiness ever .. be safe and protected .. love from the Ef ❤️

So they said you have written too much in the last few daya and  so there has to be a break .. 

Hence .. 

GN

Amitabh Bachchan 

..... but no the night is not inviting .. it sleeps for a while and wakes up .. and opens the mind and the eye to return .. return to the page of the connect for the four thousand two hundred and twenty second day .. propelling thoughts that awake get to testify information that has been questioned .. the search continues and references made be turned through several pages and pages of writing and the title is unfound ..

.. but .. and we seem to love this word ‘but’ .. but what attracts in the reading are the words of Babuji and his poems yes but descriptions and opinions on various topics and issues .. in his life in his philosophy in his belief .. and they are not put down able .. even at 4:10 of the AM of the next May day 12, it seems like an ordinary beginning ..

the absolute delight in the readings of Babuji’s experiences are so endearing that there is a sense of him sitting before me and narrating in his inimitable express of those personal moments .. vivid descriptions of events and happenings .. opinions that formed in those early years seem eternal in their content and longevity .. they prevail even now, his thoughts on contemporaries, colleagues, adversaries, public presents at kavi sammelans - poetic symposiums and the varied incidents - some humorous some distasteful some controversial , but ever ending in either the realisation of fact or misunderstanding of the people around and the organisers by them to him .. 

.. they bring the India of the time right before you .. a vivid describe of time place thought habit and circumstance , in a most academic manner .. well almost ..

.. the vastness of his knowledge , his writing is a monolithic structure of encyclopaedic value .. and as I sit in the quiet of this 2.0 ‘awakened night’ , I am in the guilt of the lack of research that should and should have been done ..

.. i do keep getting various dissertations on the research done by individuals and the efforts they make .. but I feel they are in need of assistance to carry the baton so to say forward ..

.. my uncertainty in its progress is loaded with the immaturity of my administration of how something so vast can be designed in the manner that brings the true value of its vastness .. and I must admit it is most disturbing and frustrating to sit here surrounded by his works and write about it to no avail ..

.. the world and its life is moving at speeds that cannot be imagined .. and before long all that needed reserve and time and think, shall perhaps soon disappear .. disappear without knowing what has been lost and regretfully forgotten .. 

.. generations change .. their likes and dislikes take on fresher and new horizons .. horizons that could have other eclectic thoughts ideas and paths, which could not be interested in the writings of the past .. 

.. I see it happening in our own world where each generation identifies with the present .. the past is past .. irrelevant and perhaps uninteresting .. many of the greats and their works unrecognised and never given attention to .. the talk of them by some of those that have respect for those early times is heard with an unheard surprise .. and that is as long as it stays .. its back to the present and the stage immediate .. what is today , now this very instant , is the refrain ..

.. but it is generational .. we too were the past generation and thought of the present of the time .. today that is the past and does not have meaning and effect for the ‘now’ .. LIFE .. 

.. but yes values and bearings shall prevail when the environ of the ‘being brought up’ draws their attention to certain givings that we surround ourselves in .. and the hope and prayer is that some of its elixir shall be retained, not just for the present but shall be noticed and passed on to the next .. a receipt of which , an invoice that shall have to be paid in full and final in order that the product is delivered and seen that it works to perfection .. and that AMC signed for its maintenance .. 

I write far too much .. 

And here is what justifies the above .. the extended versions of the Blog which many in the Ef perhaps do not desire .. not for any ulterior motive but length and speed and delivery of the today GEN is ‘say it , be brief, and leave ..’ .. most of the time do not even say it , for, we, they say, have our own version and opinion of it ... 

.. done and over ..

SO .. many observe that the comments when it all started on DAY 1 for several DAYS were in the 500 to over a thousand at times and now rest at the very best to around a meagre 100 .. and the conclusion then that the interest in the Blog has wained away and there is need to stop or disappear .. or search for another .. 

.. there is reason in the thinking .. 

.. why remain .. its the same routine over and over again .. what is so endearing or of interest here which cannot be topped in the T the FB and the INsta .. and the values there are different and greatly more exciting ..

.. the religious aspects on the T and the FB get the numbers .. the young their escapades, clothing and opinions get the millions on the INsta .. 

.. so what is this ‘grey’ doing here  ..?

.. a good question for which I have no answer , except that the connect even with the ONE is the draw that I value .. because that is how it all began .. just the 1 (one) response , which then drew more .. 

It is now past 5 am of the 12th of May and a few yawns appear .. which does not necessarily mean that the bed doth invite .. no .. the yawn is the human mechanism inviting the lack of O2 .. I think ..

.. and I am certain that the many scientific minded shall have a million adverse theories to it .. so let me hear them .. !!! 

Alright just did another .. YAWN .. 

I shall leave and perhaps seek the viewing in the recline of the incredible Formula 1 series , which I have to admit has been made with exceptional skill  .. the shot takings the editing the sheer pace of the series and its visuals ..  actually puts you inside those F1 vehicles of spectacular design and performance .. breathtaking  !

be in peace .. be in safety .. be in precaution .. be not lax in discipline .. be in line of protocol and advice ..

.. and be in the love that I hold you in .. ❤️

Amitabh Bachchan ... 🙏🌹

[sonoftatooine]

Whumpay 2021

DAY 19: HOPE / DESPAIR

Finally, this one took ages

Characters: Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker

Warnings: Brainwashing

Summary: Winter Soldier AU - Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker disappeared from the face of the Galaxy the day Palpatine executed Order 66. Padmé Amidala, however, managed to escape from Coruscant when the Empire was formed and became a founding member of the Rebellion. Several years later, when Obi-Wan Kenobi manages to capture the Emperor’s infamous Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, Padmé is left to deal with the horrifying discovery of what happened to her husband at the fall of the Republic.

***

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Padmé Amidala, former Senator of Naboo and member of the High Council of the Rebel Alliance, frowned down at the screen displaying the flickering vid feed of her lost husband in the room adjacent to the high security—or as high security as their current base could afford them—cell in which he was being held.  She had been stood there for at least ten minutes, hovering, waiting, and in all of that time, Anakin had not so much as twitched—so much so that she might have been fooled into thinking that she was looking at a still image if not for the rise and fall of his chest and the occasional blink. It was so unlike him—her restless husband, always on the move, but who had always come back to her until the day that he didn't—that it made her eyes burn with the effort to hold back tears. This was wrong, so wrong—

“Yes, Obi-Wan, I'm sure” she said once she was sure she could bite back the sharp reply that was on the tip of her tongue that the man beside her didn't at all deserve. Of course she was sure. How could she not be sure, when this was her husband—the man she loved with all the force of a thousand stars—at stake? She had to.

“You don't have to, Padmé.” Stood beside her, arms folded over his chest, and tired blue eyes fixed as unrelentingly on Anakin's frozen figure as her own, Obi-Wan Kenobi sighed, his mouth curved downwards in an unhappy line. Grief had aged him badly since the horrors of Order 66 and the beginnings of Palpatine's Empire. There were new lines around his eyes, and his auburn hair was fast turning white, but the change over those years was not nearly as stark as that which had been wrought upon him over the past few days. He looked raw and worn down, no matter how he tried to disguise it with his regular stoicism, as if he was on the verge of being swallowed by despair. Ever since the Empire had come for him on his last mission. Ever since they had managed to capture the Emperor's enforcer, Darth Vader.

Vader. Lord Vader. The name sent a shiver of horror through her, but not for the reasons that it once had. Before, she had known him simply as the latest in what seemed to be Darth Sidious' ever replenishing supply of Sith apprentices, and one of the most troubling additions to the Empire's ranks. Robed and masked entirely in black, without even the slightest indication to what lay beneath his impenetrable disguise, he had been a complete unknown to all but Palpatine himself—Empire and Rebellion alike—save for the brutal efficiency with which he carried out his duties. They had watched the Emperor's transmission introducing him to the Galaxy—her and Obi-Wan and Bail, while Luke and Leia slept soundly in their cribs watched over by Threepio and Artoo—from their bunker about a year after the Empire was formed. Padmé remembered seeing him, standing tall and motionless, three steps behind his master, and had felt a frisson of fear and misery run through her that she hadn't quite understood at the time.

She understood now. Oh Force, she thought as the image of Anakin, swamped in black robes and strapped, unconscious, to a gurney, and Obi-Wan's anguished look as he gasped out “he doesn't remember us; he doesn't even remember who he is”, swam through her mind. Oh Force, she understood now.

“Yes, I do,” she said, with a nod that looked far more decisive than she felt. She clutched the pile of warm cloaks and blankets that she had brought with her tight to her chest. Anakin had always hated the cold, and she couldn't bear the thought of him all alone in that cell without at least making sure he was as comfortable as possible. “He's my husband. I want to see him.”

She wanted to see him ever since they had brought him off the ship, ever since she had been dragged away from Coruscant by a harried Obi-Wan and Bail, crying and begging for them to take her back, that they needed to find Anakin, they couldn't leave him there. Anakin who she had last seen standing to the right of the Chancellor during the meeting of the Delegation of the 2000, hands bundled into the voluminous sleeves of his Jedi robes and not quite able to meet her eyes. Who had been sent by the Council to report to Palpatine the day of Order 66, and had never been seen since.

Until now.

“Padmé, he tried to attack me when I went to talk to him,” Obi-Wan reminded her grimly. “Ahsoka too. He doesn't remember any of us. All he knows is what Sidious has made him believe. What if he hurts you?”

Padmé shook his head.

“He won't hurt me” she whispered. He wouldn't hurt her. Anakin would never— But she didn't think he could ever have tried to hurt Obi-Wan either. Or Ahsoka. But he didn't remember any of them, because Sidious had taken him and forced him to forget everything, turned him into his weapon— She was shaking, full of rage and grief, but she pushed them both down. It was alright now. It would have to be alright. He was with the Rebellion now and they would heal him of whatever vile Sith had done to him and then he could meet their two precious children and everything would be alright—

“Padmé.” She thought, faintly, that Obi-Wan had managed to hone saying her name in a tone of utmost exasperation and frustration to a fine art. No doubt Anakin had given him a great deal of practice in the past. “He's not the Anakin we know. Not anymore.”

This time, it took a great deal more effort for her to swallow her harsh retort. Obi-Wan had given up hope a long time ago—the night of Order 66 when his bond to Anakin had snapped. He had thought him dead, and blamed himself for it—the Council had pushed him into spying on Palpatine, he had said, and he was sure that Anakin had discovered the man's secret and been killed for it. She remembered how he had looked, blurred through her tears as they rushed through hyperspace away from Coruscant—dishevelled and worn, the telltale signs of his battle with Grievous burnt into his Jedi robes, and a haunted look in his eyes, misted up with tears that he refused to let fall. He had come back from his last visit to Anakin's cell much the same, convinced that his old padawan had died with whatever it was that Palpatine had put him through, that what was left was nothing but a shell of the man he had loved as a brother.

(It still hadn't stopped him from abruptly ending a call with Yoda when the old Jedi Grandmaster had suggested “lost to the Dark, young Skywalker is; let him go, you should”.)

“I don't believe that,” she said. She had never believed Anakin to be dead. Refused to believe it, told Luke and Leia all sorts of stories about their brave and dashing father that she saw so much of in each of them, hoping beyond hope that one day he would be there to share his own stories with them. She wasn't about to give up now, when he was here—finally here, in front of her, no matter how changed, and no matter what Jedi platitudes about letting go she heard. “We can save him. I know we can.”

She turned her pleading gaze to Obi-Wan, but he refused to meet her eyes. He was still staring at the screen, and though his expression was blank, she could see the longing in his gaze—longing and fear. Fear that he would get his hopes up when nothing could be done. Fear that she would get hurt trying. Padmé sighed sadly. Obi-Wan may have given up hope, but she wasn't about to let him fall into despair.

“Obi-Wan, you'll be here the whole time,” she said, softly, soothingly. “I have faith that you'll protect me, if need be.”

Obi-Wan scowled, finally turning to look at her, but there was a hint of something gentle and fond beneath it.

“The pair of you will be the death of me” he sighed. It was barely a ghost of how he had been before, when they had all been together and happy and none of them had been brainwashed into becoming a Sith, but it was familiar enough that Padmé couldn't help but send him a watery smile.

“Please, Obi-Wan, I'm ready.”

Reluctantly, Obi-Wan nodded.

“I'll be just on the other side of the door.”

Despite her words, Padmé's heart felt like it might burst out of her chest as she stepped into Anakin's cell, the pneumatic hiss of the door closing behind her reverberating in her ears like a threat. She was not afraid. At least, she was not afraid of the figure sitting, head bowed, on the little cot in front of her—he had not attacked any of his visitors since the two Jedi; indeed, had barely acknowledged them, enough so that the High Council had deemed it as safe as it would ever be for her to see him—but she was afraid of what would happen next. Of what she would learn from this meeting. Of looking into her husband's eyes and finding him unrecognisable. But Padmé was never one to shy away from things that made her afraid, and so she took a deep breath, and murmured:—

“Anakin.”

No response.

“I brought these.” She gestured to the robes and blankets in her arms. “I thought you might be cold.”

That got a reaction from him. Slowly, jerkily, as if his head were being lifted up by a string, he turned his face towards her. The sight of him made her want to scream—scream and cry and hold him in her arms and never let go. He looked sick and gaunt, and the change from golden tan to waxy white looked even more stark under the bright lights of the cell, the circles under his eyes dark like bruises. And his eyes, oh his eyes. The sparkling blue that she remembered—had loved and missed so much for all that she saw it every day in the face of their son—had been replaced with the same horrible yellow that she had seen deep set in the sunken face of Emperor Palpatine, gleaming cruelly under the shadow of his hood, during Empire Day transmissions. But that wasn't even the worst of it. Anakin's eyes had always been so expressive, brimming with love and joy and fear and anger and grief, as if he felt too much and too deeply to keep it all inside. It was one of the things that she loved about him. Now, however, he turned those sickly eyes to her and she saw nothing in them but blankness. For the first time in his life, Anakin Skywalker looked upon her and he felt nothing.

Padmé swallowed, fighting back the urge to cry. She wanted to run to him, bury her fingers in his hair and press her lips to his as she used to do each time he came home to her from the war, but, with what felt like a monumental effort, she pushed the desire away. That wasn't what Anakin needed right now, no matter how much she wanted it. Instead, she waited for him to reply, waited for some sort of acknowledgement—anything to indicate what she should do, what she should say.

None came.

She sighed. Stepping forward, she leaned down and placed the pile of clothes next to him on the bed, trying to keep her heart from shattering into a thousand pieces at the tiny flinch he gave as she approached him. Carefully, so as not to startle him, she pulled back, coming to a stop once she was far enough away for him to relax minutely. Hot tears burnt at her eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, wishing that her voice did not sound so shaky, so thick with emotion. Anakin had always had a way of bringing out absolute honesty in her—even when she didn't even know she was trying to hide something—and now, confronted with her husband whom she hadn't seen in years, and who had spent every day of those long years suffering under the man who had enslaved the entire Galaxy to his will, all her politician's training, all her masks and airs had fled her. Even if she had wanted to, she couldn't have done a thing to hide her feelings from him.

Anakin frowned.

“You are Padmé Amidala,” he answered tonelessly. His voice was as dead and as flat as the look in his eyes. He sounded hoarse and tired, like he used to after waking up from a particularly bad nightmare. Like he had when he had when he had dreamt of her death in childbirth, only a week before he had disappeared, before she had run and left him— “One of the founders of the Rebellion.”

“That's right,” she said, with a nod that she wasn't sure was meant to encourage him or herself. “Do you— Is there anything else you remember about me?”

She knew it would be no. She knew he remembered nothing. But she wanted so badly for him to remember at least something of her. Wanted to know that Sidious hadn't taken everything from him. No matter what she wanted, though, she knew what his answer would be. Knew it and feared it.

“I understand that it's more usual for an interrogator to ask their prisoner for information,” Anakin replied. He tilted his head to the side, the expression on his face somewhere between confused and wary. “Not questions about themselves.”

He didn't sound like Anakin. Or rather, he sounded like Anakin—his voice sounded like Anakin, but the words, said in that flat, dull tone— It was wrong, all wrong. Oh my love, Padmé thought. My love, what has that monster done to you?

“I'm not interrogating you, Anakin” she said. She fought keep her voice steady and calm, even as she wanted nothing more than to burst into tears. Anakin's frown deepened, a look of suspicion flitting across his face.

“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” he asked, and for the first time, there seemed to be a hint of something else in his flat tone, a hint of uncertainty, of apprehension. His hands twitched, like he wanted to twist his fingers together like he used to do beneath the sleeves of his Jedi robes when he was nervous. Instead, he balled them tight into fists.

Padmé sent him a watery smile.

“It's your name, Ani.”

My Ani, she thought, watching him twitch oddly at the contraction of his name, turning sharply away. Her Ani who didn't even remember his own name. Oh, what was she going to do. How could she help him when he remembered nothing—nothing about his friends, nothing about her, nothing about himself—and they didn't even know what it was that Palpatine had done to him to cause this? She felt despair rushing in on her like a shark that had scented blood in the water, but she pushed back against it. She couldn't given in now. For Anakin's sake, she couldn't give up hope.

“How much has Obi-Wan told you?” she asked carefully. It was a risk mentioning Obi-Wan—a Jedi, a man he had ostensibly been sent to kill before the Rebellion had captured him—but she needed to know how much he had actually taken in.

Yellow eyes flicked back to her, the wariness and suspicion turning his expression even more closed off and guarded than it had been before.

“He told me I was once his Jedi apprentice,” he replied. “But I suppose you'll claim that I was your closest friend in the Senate. Or have you had the chance to corroborate your stories since Kenobi's last visit?”

The harshness of his words—as much as their content—made it all the harder to hold back her tears. Anakin had hardly ever spoken to her like that, was hardly ever sharp with her. Around her, perhaps, when he was particularly upset or frustrated, but rarely with her. It was yet another reminder of what had been done to him—the changes Sidious had forced upon him, as if he were nothing but a droid to be reprogrammed according to an owner's desire. Well, she would fix it, she would help him, and she would never let that vile man near him again. But to do that, she would have to get him to believe her, and for him to believe her, she—

“I'm not lying to you,” she insisted. “I promise you. It's Palpatine—Sidious—who has lied to you. You were a Jedi—have been since you were nine years old. Near the end of the war, the Council was concerned about the powers Palpatine had gathered for himself and sent you to report on him. But you— They sent you to his office the day he ordered the Jedi killed and then you disappeared. The Jedi thought you were dead, but he took you and he did something to you and you don't remember it because—”

“No.”

The sharp growl silenced her rambling mid-sentence. Her mouth clicked shut and her eyes widened as Anakin stood abruptly from the bed, his expression as hard as durasteel. Padmé swallowed, a flicker of nervousness fluttering in her stomach that she ruthlessly pushed down. She wondered if Obi-Wan was getting ready to dash into the cell from the other side of the door, afraid that he was about to attack her. But she refused to share that fear. She had never been afraid of Anakin, and she never would.

“No,” Anakin repeated, more softly this time. Instead of starting towards her, he prowled away to the far corner of the cell, back not quite turned to her—just enough to keep her in his line of sight—and hunched in on himself, arms crossed defensively across his chest. It was such a familiar gesture that, despite herself, Padmé couldn't help but feel a sliver of relief at the sight of it. Whatever Sidious had done to him, he hadn't managed to chase every last part of him from his mind. “My master warned me about this,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “He told me that you would try to deceive me, turn me against him—”

“He's the one deceiving you!,” she cried, trying to ignore worm of uneasiness in her stomach at the thought of the Emperor warning her husband against the Jedi and the Rebellion—or perhaps her specifically. If she could just get him to see, just get him to believe— “I don't know what he's done to you but please, Anakin, all we want is to help you. All I want is to help you. But to help you, I need you to believe me—”

She approached him, slowly, cautiously, as one might a wounded animal. His gaze fixed on her the whole way, wary, unrelenting, but he did not move, frozen to the spot. She itched to reach out to him, to pull him in and hold him close, but she wrestled the urge down to the depths of her heart.

“Please, Ani,” she begged, barely a whisper. “Please.”

Anakin stared down at her, and for a moment, she thought she saw a flash of blue in those yellow eyes.

“You haven't told me who you are,” he said, after a long moment of silence. His tone was guarded, cautious, just as quiet as her own. “Who you were to me. If what you say is true, what did I mean to you?”

Everything, Padmé thought. You meant everything to me. You mean everything to me. You and Luke and Leia. And one day, I'll be able to have them meet their father and you'll mean everything to them too. Her heart, too full of love and fear and hope and despair, ached in her chest, snatching up all her words before they could reach her mouth. How could she say all of this to him? How could she say any of this to him, when he barely believed she was telling him the truth about his name?

“You're—”

She faltered, unsure what to do. Would it be too much for him, finding out that he was married to a woman he didn't even remember? But what could she say? She couldn't lie to him—wouldn't lie to him. She wanted him to trust her again, like he used to before everything had gone so wrong, and how could they ever help him if they too deceived him?

“I'm...I...I'm your wife.”

Anakin froze stock still.

“...What?” he whispered hoarsely.

“It's true.” Padmé could no longer stop herself. She reached out slowly with both hands, making to smooth down his hair—it had always calmed him down after a nightmare; maybe if he accepted the truth, it might soothe him a little now? He gave an odd little jerk at the contact, his tongue darting out nervously to wet his lips, but he didn't pull away, still frozen to the spot, staring down at her with wide eyes. “Please believe me. It's true. I'm your wife—”

“No,” Anakin cut across her again. This time, however, his eyes had not hardened, and he could see the uncertainty creeping into them. His voice shook. “No, you're a liar.”

His hand—the one of durasteel that she had held at their wedding after he lost it to Count Dooku—darted up to snatch her wrist. But instead of shoving her right away, he held her in place, her hand hovering between them, arm extended towards him, as if he could not decide whether to push her aside or pull her closer. Padmé stared into his eyes, vaguely aware that Obi-Wan was probably panicking by now on the other side of the door. She could feel the strength in his grip, well acquainted with what his mechno hand could do. He had been horribly embarrassed when he had managed to crush several of her cups after their wedding, still unused to the amount of force his prosthetic required compared to his flesh hand. If he wanted to, he could tighten his grip now and crush her just as he had those cups, shatter every bone in her wrist. But he did not press down. He didn't even so much as grip hard enough to bruise.

“I'm not,” she cried—really cried, the tears she had been holding back starting to trickle down her cheeks. “I swear to you—”

“You didn't corroborate your stories after all,” Anakin retorted. “I could hardly have been a Jedi and a husband.”

Padmé shook her head, blinking heavily to keep the tears from blurring her vision. It would be alright, she told herself. She could persuade him. His voice was not nearly so certain as his words, and if she could just explain properly—

“You broke the Code to marry me,” she said. “We kept it secret, so you could stay as a Jedi and I could keep serving in the Senate until the war was over—”

“How convenient” Anakin returned, perhaps not as derisively as he had intended. He still hadn't let go of her wrist.

Padmé shook her head again, more insistently this time. She reached once more with her free hand to cradle his cheek in his palm.

“Please, Anakin, please. I love you. I love—”

“No!” With a cry, Anakin jerked backwards. The durasteel fingers wrapped about her wrist pulled away. “No! You—”

But words seemed to be beyond him. He staggered back, hand shooting out to steady himself against the wall, but it wasn't enough. His legs failed him, and he sank down to the floor, forehead pressed to his knees, trembling violently.

“This isn't—,” he hissed. “You can't— It's a trick. It's a trick—”

His hands fisted in his hair, so tight that Padmé thought he might tear clumps of it out. She rushed to his side, wiping her tears away furiously with her sleeve. She had pushed him too far. It was too much for him—too much at once.

“Padmé.”

Anakin's head shot up just as Padmé turned around to see Obi-Wan standing in the doorway, trying to remain impassive and failing miserably. She caught a flurry of movement in the corner of her eyes—Anakin had forced himself to stand back up, pressed up against the wall. He looked like a cornered loth-wolf, hunched in on himself, ready to spring, his yellow eyes wide and feral.

“It's alright,” Obi-Wan soothed, holding up the palms of his hands to show him he wasn't armed. Despite the calmness of his tone, Padmé could hear the agony beneath his words. “I won't hurt you. We will leave you to rest now.”

He turned a significant glance towards her, and Padmé could do nothing but nod, for all that she wanted to stay. She didn't want to overwhelm Anakin any more than she had already. Swallowing thickly, she forced down her tears, turning to meet her husband's unnatural yellow eyes with her own glistening brown.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry.”

She made it to the other side of the door before she broke down in tears.

(Later, when she came to check on him to find him curled up in the warm robe she'd brought him, she cried for very different reasons).

#star wars #star wars prequels #star wars fic #fic #padme amidala #anakin skywalker #darth vader #anidala #vaderdala #anakin x padme #padme x anakin #obi-wan kenobi #winter soldier au #suitless vader #mine #my fic #whumpay #whumpay2021 #sfw #lost but not forgotten

[automaticneon]

Clouds

Chapter 1: Automatic Love (NSFT)

Baron Helmut Zemo x Reader

Summary: “When desires go unfulfilled, they turn into needs”

Clouds is the most technologically advanced dollhouse in Madripoor. It’s a void for people to escape into, or at least the lucky few that can afford to visit. 

And Zemo is very lucky.

The reader meets a strange new client, a man of mystery and poetic language and when she uncovers a secret most valuable to Helmut Zemo, their relationship goes from professional to something much more profound.

A/N: It’s essentially a Cyberpunk AU, but you don’t need to know a thing about the game! I’ve just borrowed the names of locations and the concept of Clouds. The reader is essentially a high clas s*x worker, if that isn’t your cup of tea, this probably isn’t the fic for you!

If this was high-end, there was no way to tell.

At least that’s what Zemo thinks as his car pulls up outside the mega-building. It’s an unsightly structure but not uncommon for this area of Madripoor, about fifty-storey’s tall and covered in vibrant LED screens.

For a minute he considers instructing his driver to take him back to his apartment in high-town so he can pretend this never happened. He had been averse to this idea already, but a friend from his military days had been convinced he should try coming here. “It’s cutting-edge” is what he had been told, but what exactly cutting-edge meant was a mystery to Zemo.

“Would you like me to wait for you, Sir?” the driver asks, snapping Zemo out of his thoughts.

The baron swipes his hand over his face, taking one last look at the building outside the window before responding.

“No, I’ll call when I’m done.”

He reckons his driver knows what he’s doing here. Mega-building H8 was known for only one thing, its position on the layline between high and low town meant it was frequented by all wealthy inhabitants of Madripoor. Mobsters and politicians alike congregated at this monster of architecture, hopeful of its contents and desperate to go unrecognised.

And now they can add a Baron to that list of unfortunates, Zemo thinks with resignation.

He leaves the car before the embarrassment can fester in his chest.

 The building is worse up close than at a distance.

Climbing the flight of concrete stairs Zemo is transported from the sidewalk and into the belly of the beast. The entrance to the megabuilding is a low-ceilinged sprawl of street-vendors and food stalls. It’s loud and busy, but Zemo has no problem blending into the crowd. He weaves through the stream of people, illuminated by neon signs that grow increasingly vulgar in their images the deeper into the building he moves.

Eventually, towards the back of the building, he finds the metal gates of an industrial-style elevator. He slides the grate open and steps inside to find the space is lit by multiple illuminated advertisement screens rotating through various commercials, each more obscene than the last. For a moment Zemo takes the moral high ground, musing with distaste about the sort of men these adverts are geared towards. He takes the moral high ground until he remembers what he has come here to do. Defeatedly he admits to himself he has no right to feel lofty.

The illuminated keypad flashes at him, and he reaches out to input his destination.

 Floor 12 – CLOUDS

 The elevator is slow as it climbs past the levels of cheap apartments and eventually comes to stop at level 12. As Zemo goes to open the grate again, he wonders if he’ll be greeted by some of that high-class sophistication he was promised.

He is not.

This floor is much like the entrance hall, only this time it’s a balcony that wraps around the interior of the mega-building and faces down into an open-air atrium. Zemo notices that the elevator he steps out of does not go any higher than this level, the floors above must be the luxury apartments and must have their own entrance.  He begins to follow the neon signs again.

“I don’t get why you’re so hung up about this?” A man near him says to his friend. Zemo bristles at the strong American accent, but carefully allows himself to eavesdrop.

“I don’t know, man,” The friend responds “It just feels wrong, you know? Like I’ll be cheating on my girl with one of these dolls”

“But that’s just it! These girls are dolls, man. They’re not real. It’s like sleeping with a blow-up-doll. No difference”

“You know that’s not true; the difference is they’re real. They’re made of flesh.”

“That’s what makes them great though. They’re dolls made of flesh.”

Zemo moves on before he can hear anymore.

He follows the signs until he reaches a wide hallway into the building, and there at the end is the rather simple looking entrance to Clouds dollhouse. The low ceiling of the hallway allows for little decoration, but he supposes a place with such an infamous reputation needs little in terms of advertisement. Soft pink neon signs flash the name of the establishment, and beside the double glass doors a glitchy hologram of a woman dances away. As he approaches, a pre-recorded voice rings out from a speaker at the base of the hologram.

“Looks like you could use a little automatic love.”

He refuses to acknowledge the projection.

Inside clouds is arguably worse than outside. The hallway is lined with tattered posters and it smells of something cheap and artificial. When Zemo enters the small, empty reception the lady behind the desk looks up with a smile.

“Welcome to clouds, where we always know what you’re looking for.”

  -

 None of you can hear a thing from the changing room.

“Do you think he’ll fire her?”

“I’m not sure. Depends how angry the client was,”

“Shut up I’m trying to hear,”

The room falls silent as Divine presses her ear to the door.

Moments ago the dressing room had been full of the usual chatter as you and the other dolls prepared for the evening shift. There was nothing to indicate the night would be anything but normal, that was until a few minutes ago when Woodman, the caretaker of dolls, had knocked furiously at the door and demanded that Azure come to his office down the hall for an immediate meeting.

“Is it just Woodman?” you ask. Azure could be abrasive at times, but she was certainly one of you favourite colleagues and you desperately wanted her to avoid being fired by management.

“I think so. I can’t hear anyone else.” Divine says, leaning back from the door.

“She’ll be fine, I’m sure,” one of the other dolls assures the room “She’s been here the longest. If they haven’t fired her yet, I doubt they ever will.”

“True. We can’t let this ruin a good Friday night. Five minutes until we need to be out in the booths, girls” Divine announces, and promptly returns to her table to finish her makeup.

Moments before the timer goes off the dressing room door flies open, and Azure stalks back to her table in silence. She’s not upset, but you can see the frustration hidden behind a poor attempt at offhand indifference. You want to ask if she’s alright, but the aggressive way she’s searching through her desk drawer makes you think it’s better to leave her be. The other girls do the same, cautiously looking over at her but making no attempt at conversation.

When the timer rings out you take one final sip of water and head to the door, grabbing the key-card for booth three as you leave.

 - 

“Welcome to clouds, where we always know what you’re looking for.”

The pink light of the glowing reception desk illuminates her face from below. That, combined with her uncomfortably bright smile makes the receptionist look like some sort of robot from a sci-fi film. Zemo lets out an amused huff at the very ambitious welcome promise.

“With all due respect, how could you know exactly what it is I want.”

“Clouds always knows. Your deepest desire – we find it. You’ll have your needs fulfilled – and maybe much more. ‘Less’ is not a word we use around here.” The receptionist replies.

“And how is that supposed to work then,” Zemo questions with a tilt of his head.

“Our algorithm searches your social media. With your permission it will create a personal profile based on any information if can gather, including personal preferences for you partners appearance. The algorithm will then select a doll for you, and create an experience based off that information.,” She slides a form across the desk “of course we ensure this is entirely confidential, this form confirms our promise.”

“I’ll admit I’m impressed. However I do not have a social media presence I’m afraid.” Zemo responds.

He couldn’t lie, the process seemed interesting. It was obviously a successfully programmed algorithm if the establishment had such a strong reputation. He found himself for the first time tonight not entirely doubting his choice to come here. He was interested to see what they would do for his situation.

“In that case I’ll have to ask you a few general questions to select a doll for you. If you are unsatisfied with their performance, you’ll be entitled to a refund at the end of the session.”

The receptionist begins to read a series of questions from her computer screen, gender preferences, what sort of experience he’s looking for. She concludes with organising payment, and the price is eyewatering even with the slight discount she applies since they cannot use the algorithm. When all is paid and signed for, the receptionist asks for a safe word. Admittedly it throws Zemo for a minute.

“It’s company policy” she says.

“Pontiac” he says bluntly, after a moment of thought.

“Fantastic.” The receptionist enters his response to the computer “Welcome to clouds. Serenity will be waiting for you in booth three.”

Zemo passes through another set of double doors and finds himself in a labyrinth of pink lights. The walls are lined with black, opaque glass and every so often a blue neon number protrudes from the wall indicates the booth behind it.

It doesn’t take long for him to find booth three, but he pauses before pressing the button to open the door. He takes a breath, collects his thoughts and lets his head and shoulders drop. He doesn’t want to look at his reflection in the tinted glass. Five years ago the thought of coming to a place like this would never have touched his mind, even in his questionable youth he had always been opposed these places. The risk that they were run unethically was far too great for his conscience. But he was not the man he was five years ago. Since Sokovia he wondered if he had a conscience at all anymore.

He presses the button, and the glass panel slides open.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the room. It’s dimly lit, faint blue and purple lights shine against the walls that are lined with the same dark, opaque glass as outside. There’s a chic, white sofa against the left wall, and against the right is a simple bed.

Sat atop it, kneeling with her thighs spread and covered by a short black night dress is the prettiest girl he’s seen in years.

 - 

He’s handsome, is the first thing you think when the glass door slides open.

It’s rare that you ever receive a client you’re inclined to call attractive, even the most conventionally attractive men that come here bring with them such a foul soul that it taints their appearance. Not this man, though.

He’s smartly dressed in dark trousers and a well-fitting grey jumper. His hair is styled nicely, it’s either brown or very dark blond (you can’t tell in the coloured lighting). He carries himself well, but after a year of working here you’ve grown accustomed to seeing through the façade’s of your clients. He’s apprehensive. Unsure if he belongs here. Hesitant.

“You must be Helmut. It’s nice to meet you,”

You try to make your voice sound soft and gentle, cocking your head to one side to beckon him in. You get the sense he wants something authentic, or at least that’s what his profile had said when it was sent through from reception moments ago. No porn-star moans or obscene pick-up lines tonight.

He collects himself, and the harsh line his lips have been pressed into relaxes as he enters the room. The glass panel slides shut, trapping the two of you in the bubble of the booth. It’s tranquil. You think he must need that.

“And you must be ‘Serenity’” He responds, crossing the room to sit on the sofa. His eyes don’t leave you as your ‘name’ rolls of his tongue with amusement. You can hear the next question in your head before he even opens his mouth again.

“So what’s your real name?”

They always ask you that. They ask every doll that. The clients are desperate to form a connection with you. To brag to their friends that they have a special relationship with a doll at clouds. You’ve never told anyone your real name before, it’s against company policy. Clouds attracts the rich of Madripoor, and rich in Madripoor usually means dangerous. It’s for your own protection more than anything else, you really don’t need work following you home.

You picked a name the day you were hired and that’s the name every client has known you by. This man will be no different. You begin your usual response:

“A name is a name, Helmut. A title. An advertisement of who you are. I want my name to tell you exactly who I am, so that you can know everything about me. I want to bring you peace.”

He adjusts his hips and rests his arms across the back of the sofa. He regards you quietly, and you’re positive he can tell that your response was a deflection. His eyes squint slightly, and a flash of humour appears in his dark pupils.

“Well I hardly think that’s fair. You get to call me by my name, but I don’t get to know yours?” He lets out a huff of laughter “Actually, I don’t think I’ll let you use my name. We should be equals, should we not?”

You admit you’re enjoying this. The smooth accent and playful tone of his voice keeps you interested. You swing your feet around so that you’re sat facing him on the bed, reclining back on your palms to match his casual stance.

“What should I call you then?”

“You said a name is just a title. So then my title can become my name. You can call be Baron, Serenity” He says your name like it’s some sort of inside joke, taunting you to give up and tell him who you really are. You won’t be so easily swayed.

“So what’s a Baron doing in Madripoor then?” You say with genuine curiosity. If it weren’t for the NDA’s you’re forced to sign you would be buzzing to tell the other girls who you’re spending the night with. You can’t imagine that aristocracy visits this place frequently. “And do you drink?”

“I do, thank you” he says, and you hop down from the bed and walk to the low table in front of the sofa that carries a few glasses and a bottle of expensive-looking alcohol. You know he’s looking at the satin hem of the night dress as it tickles to top of your thighs, and when you bend down to pour him a glass, you make sure he gets a tasteful peak at your cleavage.

“I’m here to work, actually.”

Did aristocrats work? You thought they were just for show.

“I’m… translating some documents. It’s taking me a very long time,” He continues, watching intently as you finish preparing his drink.

“A Baron and a translator? Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate” You loop around the table, perching beside him on the sofa and handing him his drink.

“It’s more of a personal project I suppose, but a very important one” he says, accepting the drink with his free hand. The one that rests behind you on the back of the sofa comes up to rest between your shoulder blades. It’s a very gentle touch, just the tips of his fingers making contact with yours skin and moving in a tiny little circle. He’s testing the waters with you, seeing how receptive you are. It’s almost gentlemanly.

“It must mean a great deal to you. We could talk about it, if you like? We can talk about anything you want to,” You reach up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck, enjoying how he melts into the action.

“Anything but your name?” He shoots you teasing look from the corner of his eye, and you give a little strand of his hair a small playful tug in response.

“Anything but that, Baron”

“Tell me something else about you. Like why you came to Madripoor, I can tell you weren’t born here.”

Jesus you can’t tell if this man is a pest or just being polite. It’s unusual for him to be asking these questions of you, most men would usually have you on your knees by now. You hum and give him one last stroke down the back of his neck, before climbing off the sofa and walking back towards the bed.

“Very perceptive. I’m not from Madripoor, no,” you crawl onto the bed, taking your time so that the baron can take a good look at where the night dress rides up over the curve of your ass “but we’ve only just met, and only my friends get to know my life story.”

You settle yourself comfortably at the top of the bed, lying down and propped up on your elbows so you can maintain the measured look he’s giving you.

“Perhaps I should come over there and get to know you better” he says calmly, with the barest hint of a suggestive undertone.

Thank god he’s dropped the topic of your true identity. You can handle sex; you don’t need an interrogation tonight. Slipping into character you drop your voice to a low whisper and cock your eyebrow.

“Perhaps you should”

The corner of his mouth twitches into a smile as he accepts your little challenge. In one fluid motion he downs the rest of his drink, places the empty glass back on the table, and rises to walk towards the bed. No, he stalks towards the bed with a natural swagger that admittedly makes your chest squeeze tight.

Within a second he’s onto you, slotting himself between your parted thighs and pressing his lips to yours. Your baron kisses well, is the only thing you’re capable of thinking as he uses his body to push you down into the cushions. One of his hands slides up your body, skimming across your neck before coming to rest below your jaw. He doesn’t squeeze, just gently holds you in place so that he can kiss you how he pleases.

After a moment he tilts your head up slightly, pausing the kiss so he can look down at you. You reckon you look a picture of arousal, pupils blown and cheeks flushes as you catch your breath. Your baron seems to agree; he’s looking at you like the cat that caught the canary, and you shiver when his grip gets just a fraction tighter on your jaw.

“So pretty,” he praises quietly as he dips down to skim his lips over your pulse.

The tender pressure makes you whine and arch up beneath him and he acknowledges you with a hum and a hand on your breast. As he continues his assault on your neck, the free hand on your chest squeezes the flesh softly, finding your nipple beneath the silky fabric and circling it with his thumb.

When it pebbles to his satisfaction he pulls away and you keen at the loss of contact. He tuts, pulling down the straps of your nightgown and peeling it down below your chest, shuffling down slightly so that his face is level with your now exposed torso.

He breathes out against your nipple before latching onto it, with one hand he squeezes your neglected breast and the other slides from its place on your jaw to the base of your neck. Again he doesn’t squeeze, just exerts a level of control that lets you know where he wants you. If you wanted to you could break free, but why would you want that? The way his thumb begins to circle your pulse point has you practically melting into the bed, the thought of telling him to stop can barely manifest in your mind.

You reach down to dig your fingers into the baron’s back, instead only making contact with his expensive-feeling jumper. You huff in disappointment and pull him from where he’s entertaining himself with your tits, meeting his hazy eyes that are riddled with confusion.

“I thought we were trying to get familiar with one another?” you ask, and his eyebrows pinch in confusion “How are we supposed to do that when you’ve got so much between us?”

The baron’s face melts in amusement, and he reluctantly pulls himself away from you to pull the jumper off and start undressing fully. You take a moment to catch your breath, watching him peel away his clothes to reveal his impressive body. He’s slender but impeccably well-toned, his torso is covered by a light dusting of hair that leads your eyes down to the impressive bulge in his underwear.

Tonight should be very entertaining.

Your sit up, reaching out to run your hand down his chest but before you can begin to pull at the waistband of his underwear, his hand shoots out to grab your wrist.

“I don’t know where you think you were going, but I was quite enjoying myself” he says roguishly. He gathers both of your wrists into one hand and pins you pack against the bed, with both hands restrained you have no choice but to let him bury hid face into your neck again.

This time he uses his free hand to skim along the inside of your thigh, getting high enough that you think he’ll reach the apex between your legs but instead he trails his fingers back down towards your knee again.

You whine in frustration as he continues his cycle of teasing up and down your leg, he ignores you until you tug against his grip on your wrists. He makes a low noise and quickly tightens his hold on you. The sudden movement sends a chill down your spine, and for the first time in a long while, you feel genuinely inclined to beg a man.

“Please-” you breathe out shakily “I want-”

Your voice cuts off suddenly as his hand moves boldly to cup your pussy. You can hear how embarrassingly wet you are as his fingers move through your folds, and he hums happily when he finds your clit with his thumb. Slowly he circles it, applying just the right amount of pressure to have you wriggling in his grip.

“This? Is this what you want?” he asks, and his voice has dropped at least another octave.

You shake your head furiously. Right now this is just not enough, you can feel his dick rubbing against your leg and you’re beyond desperate to have him fuck you open with it.

“No?” he says with feigned innocence “What is it that you want then?”

“More” is all you can get out “I want you in me. I’m wet enough, see?”

Your baron seems unconvinced. He circles a finger around your entrance before pushing in, rocking it gently inside you as he tries to decide if he thinks you’re really ready. He continues for a moment more before adding a second finger, now with two fingers stuffed in you and his thumb still working on your clit you’re almost ready to cum. It’s making you desperate, and it doesn’t help at all when he buries his face in your tits again.

Finally he lets your wrists go and immediately your hands grab at whatever part of him they can, eventually you settle with gripping his shoulder and hair as you try desperately to urge him to fuck you. He gets you right to the edge, literal moments away from finishing on his fingers when he pulls them away from you with an obscenely wet noise.

You let out a frustrated, desperate whine as he separates from you. He looks down at you with satisfaction as he takes in your flustered state.

“Stay still, you’ll get what you want” he says, and he reaches for his pants to retrieve a condom. It takes him a minute to pull himself free of his underwear and put the condom on. In your desperate state it feels like an eternity.

He positions himself between your legs, lifting the hem of the nightdress so he can get a good view of your pussy whilst he lines himself up. He pauses before he presses forward, looking up at you for any last-minute hesitation.

You nod your consent instantly, not trusting yourself to get any words out.

When he pushes in you think you might cum from that alone. He’s a perfect size, long enough that you feel as though you could feel him in your belly. When he finally bottoms out you can’t help but squeeze him tight, and he slumps over you, his face tucked into the side of your neck and swears in a language you don’t recognise. He nudges his hips forward as if to get deeper than he already is. The both of you gasp out at the sensation and he repeats it a few times, just the tiniest movements of his hips that causes him to rub against something deep inside you.

He pushes himself up on his forearms so that he can get a good look at you. In turn, you get to see the state of him as well – his eyes are impossibly dark and glazed over with something wildly lustful, his once pristine hair hangs dishevelled over his reddened forehead. Your baron’s lip curls wickedly as he sets a punishing pace, pushing you deeper into the sheets. It feels like he’s trying to fuck you through the bed.

His previous teasing had done a real number on you, and within minutes you’re moments away from cumming. You don’t think you could get much out of your mouth other than pathetic little whimpers right now, instead you reach up and pull the baron down for a deep kiss, one that he melts into fully.

When you do cum it’s fucking incredible. You’d never use a word that strong to describe a client before, but your baron brings with him many firsts for you. You cry out into his mouth as he picks up the pace to ride you through your high, your fingers dig into his shoulder so tightly you wonder if you’ve drawn blood. If you have, he doesn’t seem to mind. If anything it spurs him on as he fucks you to the point of oversensitivity.

He finishes just as you think you can’t handle anymore. His hips stutter momentarily, and tremors run down his spine in waves. The entire time he’s rambling in a foreign tongue against your skin until his pants of exhaustion overtake his ability to speak.

Your baron collapses on top of you but you hardly have the brainpower to care that he’s crushing you. Instead you reach up to run your fingers through his hair, listening to him as he catches his breath against your chest.

You yourself are struggling to even out your breathing, it feels as though you’ve run a marathon and the man on top of you seems thoroughly amused by that.

“Come now,” he says as he smooths a hand up your side “I wasn’t that good.”

You can hardly help the genuine laugh that escapes you.

“Humility doesn’t look good on you baron.”

The man in question huffs out a laugh before peeling himself away from your sweat-slicked body.

“I suppose I should make myself scarce. I imagine you have other, much more interesting clients to see tonight” he says, moving to sit on the side of the bed.

“You can stay and talk if you want, it’s entirely up to you. You paid for this, after all.” You say, secretly hoping he’ll stay for just a minute longer. You don’t intend to entertain anyone else tonight, but part of you is quite intrigued by your newest client.

“Well in that case I have one final question I’d like to ask” he says as he slowly begins to dress himself again.

“Ask away.”

Once his trousers are securely over his hips he pauses to look at you. There’s a soft expression on his face, as if he already knows he’s not going to get the answer he wants.

“What’s your real name?”

You really shouldn’t be surprised that he’s asked again. Truthfully, it’s not the question itself that’s thrown you, it’s how tempted you are to answer it. His voice is so compelling at the moment that your name nearly springs from your tongue without you noticing.

“Oh baron,” you say quietly “you know I can’t tell you that.”

His lips press together in acceptance, and for a second his eyes leave yours. As he begins to get ready again, he gives his response.

“It was worth a shot.”

#my writing #clouds #baron zemo #helmut zemo #baron helmut zemo #baron zemo x reader #helmut zemo x reader #zemo x reader #baron zemo x y/n #helmut zemo x y/n #marvel x y/n #tfatws x reader #tfatws #marvel

[aphrodite-would-be-proud]

🕯Anon said : Can I request headcanons with a Modern Au Teacher!Erwin and his s/o is a slightly famous artist like a painter that’s always in the basement. Maybe have a moment where the art teacher begs him to bring them to the school when they find out who Erwin is with. ? 🕯

Teacher!Erwin brings you, a famous painter, to work.

{ Erwin x Reader | tw:none | fluff, suggestive kiss | modern }

{ "Leisurely Sunday in the Villa Comunale in Naples" 1993 by Francesco Tammaro Born in 1939 }

Grassy fields surrounded the old big building as the trees undressing of their leaves onto the sidewalks, currently being swept away by the janitor.

Students were filling the halls, the sound of chatter and laughter following after. Outside in the yard, the whistle of the gym teacher could be heard following by heavy footsteps as the football team started their morning practice. Not long after the bell rang, the halls were empty again only for some crumbled papers and snack covers left behind.

"Pigs, all of them. There's a trashcan right there." Levi scrunched his nose at the smell of axe spray and deodorant near the trophy cases. "Tell Miche to spray his running monkeys with soap every once in a while."

"Now now, what got you so grumpy this early in the morning?" Adjusting the lab coat on their suit, Hange replied. "Oh cut the kids some slack, their big game is coming soon or something."

"And he's been implenting a more strick hygiene policy." Said Erwin, holding a plastic binder with a stack of exam papers, mostly marked red. "He's trying to convince the principal to ban deodorant during practice because it's making his nose burn."

Huffing in response, Levi crossed his arms. "Yeah because the principle will definitely listen to him after that whole sniffing people scandal- Hey! Brats, don't you have classes"

As Levi went to scold the two students currently hanging a handmade poster for the upcoming game on the wall, a couple of students came up to Hange, looking in a hurry as they explained the Science lab was locked and they're getting tired of sitting on their backpacks outside.

Soon after, Erwin too made his way to class.

Upon entering the room, the talking quieted down as the squeaking sound of people going back to their own desks followed. Walking upfront, Erwin dropped the binder on his desk beside the empty mug, a couple of groans filled the room as the students realised what it was.

"Mr.Smith, didn't we just take the test yesterday? Shouldn't you like...I don't know double check or something? Maybe you rushed grading them?" One student called from the back as some chuckles and agreement followed from the rest.

Taking the stacks of papers out, Erwin made his way between the students, giving each on their graded paper. "I don't know Connie, maybe you should've double checked your answers instead?"

The playful atmosphere of the classroom was cut short as the door slammed open, making everyone freeze in their seats, none other than the art teacher walked in.

Nile Dawk, current art teacher who fails at least a quarter of his class each year. Who has oh just the most swell relationship with Erwin and anyone can tell you that.

You see, Erwin adored art, both the classic and the modern. Nile admired history and knew just how each art era had its link to a historical event.

And the pair couldn't stand each other.

Crossing his arms, Nile said "Erwin, you have explaining to do." Before dropping a newly printed magazine onto his desk, 

Its cover, showing a brand new art museum that just finished construction and is hosting a lot of different paintings from unrecognised underground talents. 

"Nile, I think you misunderstand. I teach history, I'm not an architect." He said raising an eyebrow, before tilting his head as if he's deep in thought, "or do you want me to explain what a museum is?"

Sneering at his remark, Nile flipped through the pages till he reached a certain one. It depicted a one of the paintings that will be displayed in the museum, a portrait of a blond man with broad shoulders and sharp blue eyes seemingly distracted from reality by the book in his hand.

The soft glow of the fireplace next to the red armchair he sat in, adding a certain orange hue to his light complexion. His long fingers holding the leather book as a glass-stained maroon vase sat on the small table behind him, containing a single red rose.

It's clear from the details poured into his eyes and the shading for each strand of his hair that whoever made this painting, held a great affection for the man.

"Now Mr.history teacher, care to explain why your face is on this painting? By one of the few promising artists of this useless generation?."

Hushed murmurs filled the classroom as students took out their phones googling the name y/n, showing each other the said painting while staring with wide eyes at Erwin.

Rubbing his temple with his fingers, Erwin frowned at the scene the other was causing. Knowing very well it won't take long for this fire to spread, he decided to add more fuel to the flames.

He took a long breath, before telling the class to quiet down with a stern expression. 

"Mr.Dawk, are you really asking me why y/n, my love, the person I'm married to, paint me?" He said facing the other, looking directly into his eyes. "Maybe you should ask y/n instead if you're so insisting on forcing yourself in my private life."

Narrowing his eyes, Nile snorted. "You know what Erwin? Maybe I should.

And that's the story Erwin told you while having dinner that day.

He looks at you with pleading eyes as if to silently apologise for dragging you into this mess, his plate still half full and drink untouched.

Please reassure him that it's alright, you don't mind taking a day off to visit his work

He'll reach out to gently squeeze your hand in his, whispering a small thank you as his thumb rubs against your skin.

He also says he'll do the dishes that day, you can go rest and he will join you in bed after a while, a relieved smile on his face.

The next day, as he wakes up early like usual. He makes sure to wake you up with a kiss, stroking your face before murmuring "good morning" against your lips. 

He knows because of your work you don't wake up early, so he's really patient and understanding if you happen to get grumpy for a while.

Handing you a warm drink to help wake you up, he'll make sure you eat something before changing and heading out.

You're not surprised to find him already done and dressed himself.

Hair as perfect as usual.

On the drive to school, you'll feel the cool morning air against your skin while your head leans back into the seat, eyes fluttering shut.

You can have your mini nap, Erwin will make sure to wake you up when you arrive.

When arriving, he made sure to open the car door for you. The fresh air and green scenery surrounded you both.

When arriving at the teacher's lounge, you're almost surprised to see two people already there from how early it was.

The first was sitting on the old black couch near the window, his dirty blond bangs covering his eyes. The second you could see making tea on the other side of the room Where the kitchenware was.

Both of them glanced up when Erwin called their name, staring at the way he had an arm wrapped around your waist while introducing you.

It was Miche who came first, standing from the couch you noticed just how tall he was. Offering your hand for him to shake, only for him to pull you into a tight hug instead.

He pulled away, tapping his nose before a smile slowly formed on his face, nodding in approval

The second was Levi, who ignored your offered hand only to sip on his teacup, assessing you up and down.

Not too long after, a person with a messy ponytail and a colorful lab coat arrived.

They took one glance at you, then the matching wedding rings on yours and Erwins fingers before taking an immediate interest in you.

Hange asked questions faster than you can answer them, with sparkling eyes and a wide smile.

At the first sign of you being uncomfortable, it was Levi who stepped in to tell Hange to tone it down before apologizing to you.

And it was Miche who got you some snacks from the teacher's secret stash after.

You've heard stories and one sided phone calls about them from Erwin, yet it still didn't prepare you for actually meeting them.

While overwhelming at first, the more time you spent talking as Erwin reassuringly sat beside you, you noticed how genuinely interested they were.

Levi, while seemingly cold, was actually the most considerate and paid the most attention to you. He'd step in whenever things got too much and would be really polite despite having a colourful language. By the end of it he even made you some tea, something that seemed to surprise Erwin and the rest.

"It's just...he never trusted someone this quickly before."

Hange was genuinely interested in you, having researched you and your art beforehand. They really were eager to hear even the most boring details and were capable of understanding your way of thinking. They even gave you a small rubber frog they carried around in their pocket to hand out. It would've been cute wasn't for the fact immediately after they mentioned the real human skeleton they have pinned to the lab door.

"His name is bean! I've been actually investing into getting him a human heart for Valentine's day, but all the ones I've found so far were in jars."

The most quiet of them was actually Miche, although he'd smile at you whenever you looked his way. Despite his intimidating size you learned how harmless and easy going he is, the most chill out of the three. He did mention knowing Erwin for the longest time out of them, having been childhood friends even. He promised to tell you all the embarrassing secrets Erwin tried to erase from existence as he added his number on your phone.

"He ain't as proper as he looks, I got the dirt on him."

You saw Erwin's jaw tightening before he changed the subject quickly, giving the side eye to Miche who only smiled back.

The rest of the day went by smoothly, Erwin didn't leave your side for one minute and made sure to check on you constantly. 

He introduced you to the rest of the teachers and seemed only amused at any teasing he got from students passing by.

By the end of the day, as the sun began to set and the students already done with their clubs, you and Erwin had one final place to go.

The art classroom.

"Just one more thing before that" he told you, guiding you into an empty classroom.

You saw his desk, the mug you gifted him on father's day as a joke sat on his desk, several paper sketches you made were framed next to it.

It was his classroom, with only you and him, the door open.

He closed it.

You stood against his desk as he moved closer, arms circling you, not breaking eye contact.

"May I?" He whispered, licking his own lips.

As he got your permission, he pressed his lips against yours, arm stroking your back before pulling away after some seconds.

He rubbed your swollen bottom lip with his thumb, a small smile on his face before pulling away.

Your heart was still fluttering against your chest as you left the classroom, while Erwin seemed to be smiling at nothing with a slight curl to his lips, steps more lighter than before.

Right after that he took you to the art classroom. The smell of oil paint and sound of brushes scratching against paper filling the air.

Stepping inside, the scratching sound stopped as a certain black haired man stared at you, eyes wide and lips parted.

Disbelief clear in his face, Nile was quick to mask his emotions as he noticed the smugness Erwin was in.

"Nile, I'd like to introduce you to my lovely darling, y/n." There was a chipper to Erwin's voice as he leaned in to kiss your cheek. 

#Erwin🕯 #modern aot🕯 #suggestive🕯 #erwin smith x reader #erwin x reader #erwin x y/n #erwin smith #erwin headcanons #aot #aot x reader #aot x y/n #snk #snk x you #snk x reader #fluff #fluff🕯 #romantic? #suggestive #teacher!Erwin #painter!reader

[evilzoldyck]

Hell is Other People

Admiring the heavy rock that was tailored perfectly to match your finger in silent awe you gleamed almost as brightly as the diamond which glittered underneath the moonlight. 

You could hear the murmurs of your guests and the faint music of the orchestra playing in the background from afar as you stood in your private balcony to revere the ring that symbolised an emblem of eternal faith and affection. To be quite honest with yourself you hadn’t seen it coming, just earlier in the day you’re mulling over which dress to wear for the evening party that your partner scrupulously planned for since months, now that he had proposed to you in front of all your highly esteemed company it all made sense.

This was your engagement party. 

Pleading with a resolute ‘yes’ for an answer, the colossal baroque hall erupted into an applause at the sight of the new happily engaged couple. Wiping a few tears of joy and sharing quick loving kisses from your partner he proudly showed you around where his parents eagerly took you in as part of the family. His Mother held you tight as if you were her very own and his Father kissed the back of your hand cordially in response. You’ve never felt so welcomed before, the warmth of having a real family was one that was foreign but comforting for you.

Taking a break from meeting all the guests he had personally invited to witness his ardent declaration of love, you stood alone in the cool breeze to process all the adrenaline in blissfully. To think, engaged during a peaceful warm season, you couldn’t believe you’re going to celebrate your anniversary every year on such a beautiful weather, making a special connotation to the word summer now. 

Suddenly feeling an unwanted presence behind you, your face that was once graced with a contented smile had turned into a sour frown. You knew exactly who would turn the most happiest night of your life upside down, trailing after a bloody carpet and reigning chaos until the dawn rises. 

The harbinger of death itself, Chrollo Lucilfer.

“So he’s finally proposed,” his dark timbre voice reverberated through the quiet night, startling such a tranquil silence. “I’d congratulate you on your engagement, but I can’t say I’m quite pleased.” There were hundreds of guards your partner employed on duty at the whole premise, guarding every entrance and exit making sure to keep trespassers at bay to keep this party perfect. Though with all the security money could by at your disposal, you weren’t completely surprised someone like him could get through easily, he is the head of the spider after all, capable of going in and out wherever he pleases.

“Chrollo,” you acknowdleged him with an air of indifference, turning around to the slightly to see him dressed in a fine black suit and tie, oddly appropriate for the occasion. “Where are the rest of the troupe? Couldn’t imagine you pulling off a heist on your own.” It was true, there were many treasures such as valuable paintings and ornaments all held in a considerable amount of monetary value scattered along the place, and even then, there were hidden assets stored deep underground that even you had just learned about, or perhaps he’s come for the family’s precious heirloom?

“No need to be so tense, it’s just me tonight.” He suddenly appeared before you, holding the hand in which the engagement ring was secured onto. Smiling bitterly at the glistening jewellery, he showed no movement or even an ounce of intention to take it away from you, rather he looked to be quite pensive as he studied it with a forlorn expression. “I don’t necessarily like to intrude, but it seems that I was uninvited by your charming fiancé.” 

Taking your hand away from his cold hands without ever leaving your skeptical eyes off of his lackadaisical form, he reluctantly lets it go. “The feeling still stands.” Glaring at him with a scathing passion. “There is nothing for you to take here, nothing that you have not already seen before. Leave this people alone, they have nothing worthy of you to steal from.”

“You seem to be quite fond of them,” Chrollo commented motionlessly, closing the space even closer. “Perhaps even more than me.” A distasteful tone from him had you nearly shivering in your heels, however you needed to stand your ground you couldn’t let him ruin everything you worked so hard for. 

“I’ve let you had your fun, released you from your ties, gave you time for yourself and now what do you do? Run into the arms of another man.” He trapped you in between his body and the stone carved balustrades. “Don’t tell me I’ve been replaced,” he whispered in bitter disbelief before placating himself quickly and placed a gentle hand upon your cheek. “My dearest friend, do I really stand no chance with you? Didn’t you once held me high in the standing of your heart?”

Your throat went completely dry as he bared his unbridled affections for you. “Once,” you answered truthfully. Years before in Meteor City you both shared the same vision, the same utopian perspective of your future filled with comfort through grim determination. However as time progressed he began to stray further away from what you both shared. You watched his avarice grow beyond expectancy, stepping over bodies to get what he desired without a vestige of remorse or empathy. Time turned him to be such a monster, an unrecognisable stranger who’s oddly keeping you alive by his side. “A long time ago, but now I barely remember the traces of where I held you in such position.”

Chrollo smiled sullenly at your response, as if he was expecting the daggers of your tongue into his heart. “You’re too cruel,” he detached the palm of his hand from your soft skin. 

“I can’t help but ask after all this time.” He placed a hand against the railing, thoroughly interrogating you closely. “Was it fun, making me chase after you? Did you enjoy the idea of me grovelling for your attention, for you to spare me a simple kiss? I’ve circled the world for your heart and yet it never seems to be enough.” 

He kept the bitter quirk on his lips as he continued, “like I’m never enough.”

Gripping onto the hard stone you willed yourself not to let your knees give out. Though he didn’t show it, you could see the raging storm of emotions in his eyes, the pain and betrayal he felt when you left and the sliver of intention to hurt you. You wanted to calm him down, pacify his anger like you did before when you were both younger. However you couldn’t reward his behaviour anymore, you couldn’t be on the same side where history would echo the time in which evil was left untamed

“What is it he has that I couldn’t give you?” He spoke so softly you could feel the sincerity in his words. 

“It’s not something you could give me,” your tone as careful and gentle as ever around the capricious being. Unfortunately that set every fibre of his being on fire. 

“Do you even love him?” 

You took his challenging words as a personal affront to your integrity. “I find it hard to see if that is any of your concern.” 

“He’s nearly twice your age.” Chrollo staunchly dismissed. “I see the way you look at me, you look at me with such anger in your eyes, like I’m the lowest being to walk on earth; a vermin with no moral compass.” The warm night air suddenly turned frigid at the sound of his strained voice that was holding back such malice. “And you’re right, but what differentiates me from you is that at least I don’t lie to myself.” 

“And the worst thing is that you don’t even seem to realise it do you? You willingly use others for your own interests and discard them once you no longer had use of them. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself, you and I both know your true nature. You’re exactly like me- in fact you might even be worse than me, robbing people blind. I do my work in the dark but you do yours in broad daylight,” Chrollo stated. “I’m not the only monster here.”

“Don’t talk to me of hypocrisy when you value those philosophical books so much,” you angrily countered, noting how much time he spent on the ideas and theories discussed in heavy literatures such as the Leviathan. “Never have I met someone so ridiculously obsessed with Western perspectives on rules and regulations and yet completely disregards them in practice.” 

“But isn’t that what’s so appealing about it? Of course I don’t take these words as gospel when there’s so many critiques to each theory. It’s too nuanced and complex to ever rightfully regulate civil society that who could determine what I’m doing is immoral? For Hobbes I’m merely exercising my right of nature as it is ‘the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will for himself, for the preservation of his own nature,’ you remember right?” He quipped, reminding you of the times he shared his esoteric books with you, engaging in meaningful and intellectual thoughts until the candle burned out. 

“I have not consented to the laws of nature and therefore I have yet to surrender my natural rights. Thus the sovereign is illegitimate to me and I’m under no obligation of the state as I have not entered in any form of contract bound by the will and rule of the sovereign. I’m not bound to any laws of this land for I do not conform to the will of others but myself. Plato’s Crito would further support his argument on the laws of consent.”

Scoffing at his misconstrued interpretation you vacantly refuted. “Hobbes also said that if there is reasonable hope in preserving peace to seek and follow it.”

“However I may think it not necessary or the best for my life to be best preserved then I may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.”

“Nevertheless all that is futile for his argument remains that the design of men is the willingness to put restraint upon themselves for a more contented life thereby. We should ultimately consent for the second law of nature requires that we should covenant for peace if others are willing.”

“If others are willing.” He repeated and stressed out the first word. “Do you remember where we lived? No person there would opt for peace, it’s every man for themselves. It is what he hypothetically calls the state of nature, a horrible nasty, brutish and short life, except it’s real. Meteor City is a lawless land and as he states that no contract could be formed in the state of nature. Thus this paradox leaves us in a perpetual natural state of mankind; war.”

“You know there’s more to philosophy than just the Leviathan, Rousseau’s Social Contract and Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government has a lot to say on your so called ‘freedom’. There is no advantage to stay in the state of nature, the natural progress of humanity is the establishment of a common political authority for the sake of improving our way of life.”

“Actually Locke and Hobbes states that the state diminishes our sense of freedom but is justified in doing so, by no means did they implied our freedom would be retained, and that, is what I don’t find an improvement.”

“Rousseau would disagree with you, the state is a necessary condition of our freedom for the sovereign is the construction of all through the general will and so is directly exercised by the citizenry. Therefore, this eliminates the tension between political authority and individual freedom.” You sighed, “Chrollo even if you wanted to retain individual autonomy over yourself you’d surely remember Mill’s first sentence on the harm principle, ‘the only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to attain it.’ In other words, as long as you don’t harm others you can do whatever the fuck you like, but you seem to struggle with that concept of freedom don’t you?”

He suddenly chuckled lightly at your remark. “How are you so quick to mark me wrong as if I had forgotten your favourite book?” You suddenly shifted uncomfortably on your feet as he smirked amusingly at your cornered form. “I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the revered Mary Wollstonecraft, we would often read her passages for hours didn’t we? A Vindication of the Rights of a Woman, well, I guess we’re both hypocrites here.” 

“What was her argument? That women were rendered weak, lacked the use of reason, had no special moral value?” He droned on and looked afar as if he was in deep thought before returning his sharp gaze to yours. “You had a lot to say about the sexist social arrangements in today’s society, you argued that women are deprived of their natural rights to acquire virtue through the use reason. How Wollstonecraft would be so disappointed if she could see you right now, the most passionate proponent of her work devoting her energies in pleasing and making herself attractive to men.”

“Stop it.” You hissed as he jabbed at your pride, mocking your own words of the past to further humiliate your contradicting present.

“What were the words you used to quote to me? ‘Have women so little in ambition as to be satisfied with such a condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure and render themselves conspicuous by practicing the virtues which signify mankind? Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away merely employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid hours, and soften the carress of a fellow-creature who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks, when the serious business of life is over.’ Aren’t you becoming the women she is scathing about?” 

“What’s so wrong with pleasure? Wanting to be taken care of? The want and human need for companionship and love is not one to be jeered at. Might it just even cross your mind that I chose this life instead of ‘building my faculty.’ Those texts described the social conditioning of women back in the eighteen hundreds, women have more options now and are more than capable to choose. Times have changed.” 

“Have they?” Chrollo hummed. “Is the pleasure that you insist on promoting for you, or for him?” He rubbed the silky garment of your dress impassively. “Don’t you wish to be more than a pretty ornament? To have purpose and participate in the natural rights of mankind? ‘Virtue, says reason, must be acquired by rough toils, and useful struggles with worldly cares.’ Sure you are provided with goods and raiment but liberty and virtue are given in exchange. You could build your character by the sense of struggle of living-“

“How can you call that living?!” You exploded abruptly, pausing for a moment to realise that you were shaking all over as you stood in your designer heels before him with glassy eyes. “What we did- to those people, those families, it was never enough for you. I may be what I despised in my youth but I’m better off being an indulgence for others rather than taking account for mass genocide; for what I lack in virtue I make up for my own compassion.”

“How kindly of you,” he nodded absently. “Then perhaps we should test it. Referring back on your comment on Mill’s harm principle, you must know then that the cause of evil not only takes account of a person’s action but also their inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable for the injury.”

“What are you saying?”

“Let’s hypothesise that I would come back on your white wedding day and that I would kill everyone present during the reception, by learning this information, you then would be held responsible for each of their death.” You griped your hand so hard you’re sure that you’ve left specks of bloody crescent moon marks on the palm of your hands. 

“I have no obligation of duty towards you, therefore the harm principle does not apply to me for I am not responsible or related for your actions.” You countered at his allusion to the other-regarding actions where a special role of obligation is placed within the liberty principle.

“No unfortunately you’re not,” he agreed. “But him, would you not protect him at all costs? Surely as your soon to be life long partner you would do whatever it takes to promote his health and well-being. If you would simply come back to me before the day of wedding, denounce your engagement and reinstate your affiliation and loyalty towards the troupe everybody gets their happily ever after.” He finally took a step back. “In failing to meet our obligations to others we are actually harming them.” 

“I’m tired of your philosophical rhapsodies, if you were to kill others or even yourself I would not hold myself accountable so I suggest you’d best return to whatever matters you currently have and leave us alone.” You’ve grown anxious and wary of the dangerous connotation of his words and with the way he was impishly grinning at you suggested that he saw right through your bluff. 

“Its getting late, you should return to your awaiting fiancé before he realises you’ve been gone for too long,” looking back down at the sight of pretty swirls of dresses on the ballroom quietly dwindling down as the night grew longer. “It’s reassuring to see that you haven’t changed at all, I missed our philosophical prattle.” 

“I can hardly say the same, discussing Western philosophers on an engagement party is certainly not in the least enlightening, I suggest you turn to the East for matters such as these.” 

Chrollo gave a half-suppressed laugh and an amused smile, one that was rare and sincere in which held no trace of malice or cruelty. “Before I forget to tell you, you look beautiful.” You didn’t let your hardened expression change when his comment took you by surprise as he slowly backed away from you and into the shadows.

You heard your name being called out by Thomas where he sighed in relief and ran towards you in a light jog before taking you into his arms. “So this is where you’ve been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he playfully chastised with a turn on his lips. He led you back inside the bright chandelier lit hall to bid your guests farewell for the night, however, you couldn’t help but glance back from your shoulders to see that Chrollo had disappeared. 

Though his presence was now absent, his words still rang loudly inside your head. His confrontation of your nature, how the spotlight is too blinding for someone like you and how it’s just a matter of time you would run into the dark once more with your back up against the wall and tangled up in his web seem to be conveyed as a confident prediction rather than insults to your moral character.

Chrollo wasn’t here to steal anything, not even you, he wanted you to come to him on your own accord even if he had to force pieces to make you submit to his will. However, his appearance tonight also wasn’t meant for mere formalities, in fact he made his purpose and intention clear when he first spoke of the day you would finally be wed. 

It was a warning.

#this is gonna be the last fic for a while :( #im gonna fuck off for a few weeks since my break is over #chrollo lucilfer #yandere chrollo #chrollo x reader #yandere chrollo x reader #yandere hunter x hunter #yandere x reader #hunter x hunter #yandere #genei ryoudan #yandere genei ryoudan #Phantom Troupe #yandere phantom troupe

[bvccy]

Tenderness and Ferocity | 1. The First Day

Pairing: Winter Soldier!Bucky Barnes x Hydra!Reader Fic Synopsis: The Winter Soldier is starting to make stupid mistakes in the field, which is Bucky's way of trying to wrest back control and sabotage his handlers. Hydra brings a new doctor to figure out what's wrong with him and fix it. As she spends time with him, she becomes fond of the Winter Soldier, and he becomes fond of her. Bucky has other ideas. Or, a fic in which the Winter Soldier is the good guy and Bucky is actually the bad guy. Inspired by two imagines [1] [2] from @hushyourimaginationistalking (can be spoilery). Warnings for this chapter: None Word count: 2386 Read on AO3: [link] [Fic Masterlist] [Next Chapter]

"There resides infinitely more good in the demonic than in the trivial man." — Kierkegaard

Away from the world and beyond the scrutiny of common knowledge, secreted away into a methodically manufactured nothingness, in a damp room in a concrete fortress, a flock of doctors busied around the returned Soldier — The Asset. Or, today, the Problem.

As they performed the standard tests and checks and tinkered at the dents in his mechanical arm, he sat quietly, personless. Underneath all that, he was expecting another "corrective calibration", another session where everything hurt until it went blank. His whole body was expecting it, tight with muscle-memory that ran deeper than his own with horrors he no longer had access to.

He had almost failed his mission, he completed it by dumb luck alone. He knew it, and his handlers knew it. What was left of his ego had bitterly learned long ago that his successes were due to the brilliant doctors, but the failures were his own.

Nevertheless, there was no fear in him — at least, not at the level that was present, that watched the doctors taking readings off the machines, recording his vitals in their notebooks, checking his restraints against the cold metallic chair. But there were parts of him where the real fear still lived. He could not bring it up, and examine, or control, but he felt it stirring in the pit of his mind.

At the periphery of his consciousness, he knew what they were thinking: those failed parts of himself had gotten in the way, had compromised his mission; like a bad reflex in the wrong direction at the worst moment. So they were going to try harder this time, keep trying, keep trying, until they cleaned up all that was left of his dissenting self at the bottom of his brain.

The Soldier waited for them to begin, like last time, and the time before that. But some were talking to each other, some were sitting down and waiting, others were drinking their coffee... They were doing things they weren't supposed to do, and the part of him where the fear settled was starting to itch. What was different about this time?

Get out get out get out.

When he heard the echoes of a walking pair come closer, saw their shadows licking up the wall beyond the foggy lab door, and saw them stop to talk right outside, the Soldier didn't think, nor feel, nor react, and for once it wasn't because the Soldier didn't do that, but because he made a conscious effort not to.

He didn't miss the guarded gaze shared between the nurses securing his legs, but then they got up, and with the rest they gathered their gadgets and scopes and manila folders and ambled out of the room. The pair outside waited for them all to leave, exchanged some parting words, then one of them went inside with him and the other closed the door with a hiss and a click: locked.

The Soldier had never seen this doctor before. Was that what she was? She did wear a lab coat, with the Hydra insignia pinned to her lapel, a standard issue name tag, and had in every other way the look of all the rest of them.

The way she looked at him that first time, scanned him from a safe distance as she clung to her folders like a lifeline, told him she had never seen him before, at least not up-close. But her eyes didn't linger on his metal arm — so she knew about it? They didn't stay anywhere very long, though she did direct a second's worth of a frown at his naked chest — oh, were they supposed to have dressed him up for her?

She took a deep breath, thinking so loudly he could almost hear it, then took a solid step forward in a straight line toward him. Her scent could reach him now, a sweet and stinging perfume that was familiar but now unrecognisable, with fresh notes on her throat and warmer aftertastes lingering in her hair, which was clasped back in a tight French twist. Underneath that, soap and bitter coffee, the sterile air of the facilities, and freshly ironed cotton. She looked right at him, and through him. Perhaps she did not like how his eyes followed hers. She seemed afraid, but of him?

Of failure.

She came to a stop at the table by his side and busied herself arranging her files. Her shirt looked standard issue: white, pressed, keeping its form rigidly while her tight chest fluttered underneath. Her waist held her up stiffly, unmoving, as she bent slightly forward. Her straight black skirt went down to her knees. Her legs were clad in imperceptibly thin stockings, tapering in black doeskin shoes.

The Soldier's gaze caressed its way back up to her face to find her disapproving look waiting for him. He looked back without shame, taking in her elegant little features gentled by large eyes, a soft mouth, lashes that left spiderweb-shadows on her cheeks under the clinical light.

She kept her eyes on him unwavering as she stepped back and around to face him, to look at him from the other side, then closer, then back again. She was examining him like all the others did - like an object - but he didn't mind. Her attention melted the fear away.

Finally, she got closer, and with a touch made to gentle a wild animal tilted his head back and up. She stood to his right where his flesh arm was, checked his pupil dilation with a little light, checked his pulse with her fingers, his blood-oxygen with a pinch at his thumb — he could have told her the other doctors already went through this with him.

But why tell her anyway?

And just like that, she was back to not looking at him. She finished her check-up and turned briskly back to her papers. He noted her face had moved first and her body followed — disgust, avoidance; ah, did he smell? They never did prioritise cleaning him after a mission.

"Can you speak?" she asked, looking straight at him again.

"Yes."

"What are you?"

"Soldier."

"What am I?"

"Doctor."

"Sit up straight... Now close your eyes."

He heard her step closer, heard her stop right in front of him, between his spread legs. Her voice was so close now, and much too soft.

"I'm going to touch the sides of your face. You will tell me if it feels the same."

She lightly ran the tips of her fingers from his temples, down his cheekbones, down the hollowed stubbled cheeks, ending at his chin, then back up and down again.

"Same?"

"Yes."

"Keep your eyes closed. I'm going to make small sounds with my fingers next to your ears, you will tell me which side it's on."

"Right. Left. Right. Right."

"Open your eyes now."

He caught sight of her just as she stepped back.

"Did they finish the repairs on you?"

He looked at his left arm and saw everything was closed back up. "Yes."

"Alright. Make fists with both of your hands, and hold them up, like this. Alright, now keep them steady and don't let me press them down."

She tested his right fist, then his left, her hands barely covering the span of his knuckles. Both fists were steady as rocks against her efforts.

"Now, close your eyes again. Can you touch your thumb to your index on your right hand? Good, now go through all the fingers, touch the thumb to the fingertip... then back to the index. Good. Now your left hand, keep your eyes closed."

He could hear her throat work to swallow at the clink-clink of the metal digits.

"Alright, stop."

She stepped back to the table, picked up a little silver hammer with a rubber head, then came back to his side. "Keep your right arm relaxed, I'm just going to check your reflex."

She pressed her dry, cold thumb to the inside of his elbow and tap-tapped against her finger, his arm bouncing slightly in its confines.

"Alright, now I'm going to do something a little silly. But you won't laugh at me, will you?"

"No." His dry delivery didn't put her much at ease.

Moving to his left side, she did the same thing to his metal arm. She tapped the little hammer over her thumb, where the inside of the titanium elbow was, and tapped and tapped.

"Makes sense I guess..." she said to herself when nothing happened.

As she ran her tests on him, he could feel her relax, noticed her start to speak not just at him but to him, like other people spoke to each other. The Soldier wasn't sure it was smart of her to drop her guard like that, but he couldn't begrudge it. He wanted to speak to her like a real person too, but the want knocked itself against a wall.

She worked her way around him, back to a desk, sat down primly, opened a folder, crossed out some boxes on a yellowed piece of paper... He watched her openly, sliding his gaze down to her tightly-crossed legs and back up, but was not too fixated on the ornamental parts of her to not notice her swallow hard and squeeze her pen as she became instinctively aware of being looked at.

"I'm going to ask you some questions." she said without looking up. "Do you know where we are?"

He had to think for a second for this one. "Headquarters Alpha 3."

"What's the nearest town?"

"I don't know."

"What country are we in?"

"I don't know."

"What day of the week is it?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know what year it is?"

"No."

She wrote something down and sighed — she wasn't disappointed, was she? After all, he didn't need to know those things. But when she looked back up, she didn't seem upset with him. She even smiled at him a little, he almost smiled back.

"There are some more tests I want to run, but I can't do that with you tied up. We'll have another session, if it's approved."

He didn't nod, didn't blink, didn't betray the hope he felt at the anticipation of being trusted. Even untied, she would be safe with him, he wouldn't hurt her. Did they know that? Did she know that?

A knock on the door grabbed her attention. Too eagerly for his liking, she jumped up and opened it.

"Done?"

"Yes, I'll just get my things."

Standing just a step inside the room, the Director looked straight at him, then turned his attention back to her, waiting.

They stepped outside together, but by negligence or uncaring left the door ajar. He listened on as they whispered to each other.

"So?"

"Both hemispheres seem very well coordinated, as well as I can tell considering the arm... There seems to be no... leakage of anything from one side or the other, or from previous missions. To me, the Asset seems fully functional. But I need more tests to assess the state of his memory."

"What's the problem?"

"As I suggested in my proposal, Sir, the methods used in the Project affect his explicit memory, but the implicit memory isn't really addressed. I need confirmation."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means we should probably schedule..."

"No, what you said about his memory."

"Oh, well... As I wrote to you, Sir..." She took a pause to swallow her words. "Explicit memory is... the things you can bring forward in an instant, that you can talk about. But if you were to... if you were to smell a perfume, for example, and you suddenly remembered it because it was what your mother wore when you were a child, that's implicit memory. It stays in the brain but you don't know it's there unless there's a stimulus. And because it's there, it can still influence what you do, even if you don't realise it..."

"I see. Couldn't our equipment fix it?"

"I don't think it can be calibrated for something like that. Such memories are usually connected to real functions, like muscle memory or the senses. And besides, wiping him repeatedly probably resets his integration level, which can be counterproductive... especially if he was predisposed to higher disintegration before the serum."

"So what do you need?"

"First of all, he might need to be kept... er, thawed, at least for a while."

"If your little experiment is a failure, we're gonna waste valuable time on him."

"It's just that it isn't good to freeze and unfreeze even an ordinary slab of meat, let alone a complex animal like that. It could be connected to the malfunctions they're reporting with his behaviour. Not to mention the lack of REM sleep, which makes it even worse for stabilising his thinking, his reflexes..."

"Alright, we have empty cells we can keep him in."

"And for the next session, if it's approved Sir, we should maybe have a brand new room. Not this lab, and not somewhere where he's locked down. Subjects usually form underlying associations with common environments, it impedes the process."

"I fear we might be spoiling him, you know. His own 'suite', his own lounge now, no more cryo, and I don't know when the last time was that he saw a woman..."

"Certainly he sees them all the time on missions, Sir."

"Yeah, through a scope. Will that be all?"

"One more thing... if it's possible, to not have surveillance during the sessions, Sir..."

"And why would you ask for that?"

"In case I need to apply unethical methods."

"'Though I can respect that, don't you think you're asking for a bit much?"

"Oh, please Sir."

The Soldier could hear the smile in her voice, the deliberate lightening of the tone to something girlish, and through the fogged glass he saw her brush a hand over the Director's elbow, just quickly enough to stay professional. The armrest under his bionic arm started creaking in his grip.

"I'll keep it all under budget, I promise. Oh, and could we maybe arrange to have him washed more often?"

"I'm going to leave before you ask for dessert. You better deliver."

"Yes, Sir. Hail Hydra."

"Hail Hydra."

#Bucky Barnes imagine #Bucky Barnes x reader #Winter Soldier x reader #James Buchanan Barnes #The Winter Soldier #Bucky Barnes fanfiction #will develop into a very angsty fic with some smut #but not yet #so the fic is written in the 3rd person but that's just because I'm uncomfortable writing in the 2nd person #and telling other people what they think and what they feel #but the character is basically nameless and not described much physically #so I just don't use the Y/N convention but that's it #Tenderness and Ferocity #bv;fanfiction #Bucky x reader #Bucky x you

[zeta-in-de-walls]

How Tommy and Tubbo oppose Technoblade and Wilbur ideologically.

*This is a post for the characters portrayed on the Dream SMP, not the actual people. Heh, this got pretty long. I’ve been wanting to do a pretty in-depth post.

During the reclamation of L’Manburg war, L’Manburg got blown up by Wilbur and Technoblade. These two colluded to destroy the nation because they did not believe in it. Tommy and Tubbo meanwhile wanted to save it, and still wanted to fix it even after it was destroyed.

Technoblade has been clear that he is a violent anarchist, and feels that all forms of Government are bad, believing that they inherently lead to corruption and tyranny. In destroying L’Manburg therefore, he is saving the people from a greater evil. 

Wilbur’s thought process was a little more complicated. He once believed in L’Manburg but after being exiled and watching the nation he once loved morph into something unrecognisable, he lost faith in it. Slowly the people he once cared for began to mean nothing to him and he felt destroying it would be better than its continued existence. Technoblade’s values seemed to have influenced him as well for he claimed that he no longer believed in Governments anymore.

Tommy and Tubbo reject these ideals. Their faith in L’Manburg has not wavered in spite of the turmoil they have faced. Recovering the nation is worth fighting for, even in its broken form. Because broken things can be fixed, they can be made better. They believe that forming a government, a society, a collective identity is worth it and that through their work, it will not fall to corruption and tyranny - it can be a good place.

So we witnessed them come head to head. Wilbur planned to make Tommy president only for Techno to denounce him as a selfish power-hungry tyrant just like the one they forcibly disposed while Wilbur blew up the nation. 

Here’s Techno’s speech: “I did not spend weeks planning this revolution, giving you guys gear, for you guys to go and replace one tyrant with another. Don’t you see what’s happening here? Don’t you see history repeating itself? You think Schlatt was the cause of your problem? No - it was Government! Power corrupts. 

Tommy, do you think you’re a hero? Is that what this is? [Tommy: I just wanted L’Manburg.] You just wanted power. You just did a coup. You just did a hostile Government takeover and then immediately installed yourself as President. And then you gave it to your friend but that’s still a tyrant Tommy. The thing about this world Tommy is that good things don’t happen to heroes. Let me tell you a story, Tommy, a story of a man named Theseus. His country, well his city-state technically was in danger and he sent himself forward into enemy-lines. He slayed the Minotaur and saved his city. You know what they did to him Tommy? They exiled him. He died in disgrace, despised by his people. That’s what happens to heroes Tommy. The Greeks knew the score. But if you want to be a hero, Tommy, that’s fine. You want to be a hero, Tommy? Then die like one!

It’s a powerful speech. Technoblade believes that inevitably a new tyrant will replace the old one. Any idealistic person will die, be rejected, or become the very thing they swore to destroy. Corruption is inevitable. Technoblade sees it as his mission to destroy oppression by destroying Governments and any sort of system that seeks to impose its will on the people. 

But Technoblade’s ideology isn’t one that’s gone unchallenged. Tommy and Tubbo refute the image he tries to paint. Tommy’s immediate response as he tries to convince Technoblade not to summon the withers is this:

“Technoblade, don’t do this. We’re so close. I’m not the hero! No one’s the hero. We’ve got L’Manburg for each other.” 

To Tommy and to Tubbo - L’manburg is something worth fighting for. Technoblade claims they were interested in power - that’s why they took control of L’Manburg. But to them it’s not about power at all - in fact Tommy rejected power. Here’s part of Tubbo’s speech upon being made President.

“I wasn’t expecting to be up here surrounded by friends and enemies which I don’t hate all that much, I’ll be honest. But I enjoy seeing the unity and I feel like that’s what really matters. Everyone is brought together, whether we were fighting against each other or together - and I feel like that’s important. There’s a solid future to be built on here. Yes it has damages, but everything has damages.”

Tubbo acknowledges that their nation is imperfect and not everyone agreed with everything - but that’s not a reason to give up - it can be made better. And their Government, their nation, their community has value - it brings people together. Tommy thinks the same - L’Manberg is for the people. It’s not just his L’Manberg or Tubbo’s L’Manberg - it’s everyone’s L’Manberg! It’s for the people and its leader therefore has a responsibility to lead them the best they can.

Technoblade accused Tommy of seizing control of the Government because he wanted power. But Tommy defied that expectation and immediately gave up his power because he knew he had divided interests and therefore wouldn’t be the best person for the job. That’s selflessness. They took back L’Manberg in order to make it a better place. 

Why have a Government? Because society can be made better through cooperation and unity. It’s better than a chaotic, lawless world. Yes, it can be dangerous in the wrong hands, but no man is an island. Working together can allow you to achieve greater things - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Even if it also leaves you open to betrayal.

Wilbur is a character who has fallen from his former ideals. He once believed in L’Manberg and spoke about using words to fight rather than violence. He was a good man and a good leader. Then he got ousted from power and betrayed by his former nation. Technoblade spoke about Theseus - a hero who got exiled and died in disgrace, despised by his former people. Was that not Wilbur - whose legacy is now the destruction of L’Manberg rather than its creation?

In the end, he stopped caring for L’Manburg and for his friends and decided to blow it all up. He didn’t just blow up the land - he also betrayed all his old companions who once meant the world to him. He felt that by blowing it up, he would end it all. Wilbur didn’t have much to live for once he’d lost L’Manburg, soon all he had was that promise to press the button.

Tommy had been exiled too, he lost L’Manberg along with WIlbur and yet completely opposed this way of thinking. He believed it could still be reclaimed even in its broken state. Tommy gives this brief speech in front of the L’Mantree - a new symbol of hope.

“Tubbo, L’Manberg is still alive. It doesn’t matter if it’s blown to smithereens, it doesn’t matter if Techno kills everyone. As long as we’re still together, L’Manburg lives on. Tubbo, President Tubbo… we’ve got a lot of work to do.” 

To Tommy and to Tubbo the land doesn’t matter - neither of them care much for material possessions. They’ve lost everything before and they don’t care because they still have each other. Wilbur believed the blowing up L’Manberg was destroying it - but to them it lives on. 

To some, perhaps destruction reigned victorious on that day. But Wilbur’s gone now. And Technoblade was on L’Manburg’s side - welcomed by all of them until he chose to work against them. Now he’s alone - a figure who is feared by all. Tommy and Tubbo still have each other, still have friends around them in spite of their many losses. This isn’t the end - it’s a new beginning. 

#dreamsmp #analysis #tommyinnit #technoblade #tubbo #wilbur soot #dream smp #yeah this is a long post #these are some great character #i'm particularly fond of tommy's #and hope that his idealism will work out #keep the flame burning #never give up hope #never become a villain - remaining an idealist in spite of the struggles - thats strength