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myhairpintrigger · 1 year

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hello!! hope ur having a great day! i read ur recent piece and was completely bewitched by your writing 🫶🏽

i saw ur reqs were open and wanted to request the following!

darkling x reader, where the reader misinterprets his relationship with alina, and pulls away from him (maybe they were friends / acquaintances before?) but they don’t know that the darkling secretly has his eyes set them only. so one night at a ball, when the reader is flirting / dancing with a grisha, they’re confused as to why the darkling snatches up to his quarters? and a confession entails 🫶🏽 could it be some smut if u wish?

thank u !! <3

my lovely anon, I apologise for the quality of this imagine </3 I stayed up far too late to finish it.

as always I am begging for more requests. pls send them in

warnings: smut, a little bit of angst. please only read if 18+

word count: 6.5k

Yours

(Aleksander morozova x AFAB!reader)

The first day you realized that something had changed was a mere day after the Sun Summoner arrived at the Little Palace. You sat at a table with Aleksander and David early in the morning and you stirred honey into your cup of steaming tea and your eyes traveled back and forth between David’s distracted eyes and Aleksander’s very focused ones. The intensity upon which Aleksander stared off with was not uncommon, in fact, you’d learned that it was actually quite normal for him. The two of you had become friends when he had found you, a skilled Heartrender, working on the frontlines with his army and had eventually relocated you to the Little Palace. He gave an excuse saying that you were more useful here than out close to the war, but you eventually came to suspect that he worried about you just enough to put you somewhere safer. Ever since being moved to Os Alta, the two of you had only become closer, spending almost every moment with one another. You considered him to be your closest friend and you were grateful to be considered his in return.

You decided to break the comfortable silence by clearing your throat and flashing an excited smile at Aleksander, “Are you still taking me riding today?” you asked expectantly, excited to finally see your best friend after weeks of him being away.

He tore his dark eyes away from the wall he had been so fixed on and he reached across the table and patted your hand affectionately and his face softened apologetically, “I am terribly sorry, darling. I have to take care of a few things with Miss Starkov. Can I take you tomorrow instead? Just after breakfast, I promise.”

Your eyes raked his face and you blinked a couple of times. You let out an understanding hum and then nodded, “Yeah, that's fine. I know you're busy. Just don’t ditch me again, or you’ll be sorry.” you threatened with a wink and pointed at him with the spoon you were just stirring your tea with.

“Ditch you? I could never.”

But he did. He did ditch you. Quite literally, too. You had hurried through breakfast excitedly and hardly wasted any time going out to the stables, to find that he wasn’t there yet. You waited for nearly half an hour, first messing with your horse’s mane and then moving into the stall adjacent to greet Aleksander’s horse. When it reached an hour and he still hadn’t come, you let out a low huff and you dragged your hand through your hair moodily. He had never stood you up before. Ever. If there was one person who was always true to their word, it was Aleksander. You decided to cut your losses and walked out of the stables, a slight worry growing in your stomach. Perhaps something had happened, that was the only explanation as to why he would have simply not come. Your face twisted worriedly and you hurried inside to check on him. You made your way to his chambers as fast as you could and you swung the door open to reveal an empty room. You stood in the doorway confusedly and you reached up with one hand to rub your face with your palm and you let out a long sigh. Where on earth could he be? You wondered, taking a step back out of his room. You felt your back collide with someone and you spun around to see Zoya’s bitter face, though, right now it looked particularly like she’d bitten into an especially sour rhubarb, all scrunched up and angry.

“Oh, my apologies, Zoya. I didn’t see you.” You said, keeping your tone as light as you could, not wanting to set the feisty girl off.

She simply nodded once at you and you grabbed onto her arm gently. Despite her fiery personality and overall unpleasantness, you never had any qualms with the talented Squaller, so you gave her a sympathetic look and gently brushed your thumb across her arm where you held it, “What’s wrong? You look upset.”

The contempt in the girl’s eyes didn't lessen upon your question, in fact, it just got worse, “I’m so sick of seeing that stupid girl getting paraded around on Kirigan’s arm. All morning she’s been stuck to his side while he’s been introducing her to just about everyone under the sun,” Zoya let out a sound that resembled a scoff and a grunt mixed together and you let go of her arm, “and furthermore, it doesn’t help that he looks at her like she’s going to personally hang each and every star in his sky.”

You looked at her curiously, your jaw dropping, “He… He’s been doing that this morning?” you asked, clearly shocked. The Squaller nodded once and then she pointed down the hall towards the banquet room and you blinked a few times, your chest filling with something between fury and disappointment, and without another word, you trudged down the hall and stood in the doorway to indeed find Aleksander with his hand on Alina’s back as he was introducing her to a few of his friends. You stood there unmoving for a while before his eyes shifted and fell upon you, and you watched the polite smile melt off of his lips and turn into instant regret when he saw you. You could tell he was readying himself to walk to you, but you only scoffed and spun on your heel, leaving his sights immediately.

The week following, you had successfully avoided Aleksander, though you were almost sure that he hadn’t been looking for you all too urgently. It was nearly midnight and you sat in the library with Genya, a habit the two of you had formed together when you couldn’t sleep. The two of you sat in comfortable silence for a long time before she cleared her throat.

“The General was looking for you today.” she remarked casually as possible, not bothering to look up from her book.

You didn’t dare look up from your own, wanting to avoid the emotion that would betray your face if you looked up into her kind eyes, “Well, he knows where to find me, so I doubt it was all too pressing.” you replied.

The only sound in the room for a few moments afterwards was the turning of pages and the crackling of the fireplace. You felt your nose begin to sting a bit and you almost laughed in spite of yourself. There was no way you were tearing up over this.

“Why don’t you just talk to him if you are upset about the Sun Summoner situation?” she asked, her voice flat, and you could tell she was half distracted by her book.

“Alina Starkov is not upsetting me.” you sputtered, your cheeks flushing.

Genya flicked her eyes up at you and then back at her book and she shrugged, “You seemed pretty bothered by her and him the other night at dinner. I’ve not seen you ever sit with Zoya before and she, too, is having her own conflicts with Alina.” Genya pointed out and you simply shook your head and buried your nose back into your book, but Genya wasn’t done yet, “I invited him to join us in the library tonight.” she added and then looked back into her own book.

You closed your own book so hard that the smack echoed in the warm room and you stood up from the chair, “Well, tell him I went to bed early.” you muttered

“Or you can bid me goodnight before you leave.”

You froze in your place and looked over at the door to see Aleksander standing there in the dim light. He wasn’t wearing his kefta and his hair looked a bit out of place and he had a soft smile on his lips. Everything about the man looked so inviting and sweet in that moment, and you had to swallow the feeling that bubbled up from your stomach into your chest and up through your throat that screamed at you to run into his arms. You impressed even yourself when you stayed rooted to the ground and you shrugged once, setting your book down on the table next to the armchair you sat in.

“Would you even care to hear it if it wasn’t in Alina’s voice?” you snapped, your hands sliding into the pockets of your fluffy bed robe. You stared at him defiantly and he cocked an eyebrow upwards at your words.

“Don’t be childish.” he chided and then took a few steps into the room, closing the double doors behind him gently. Genya took this as a good opportunity to get up from her chair and scuttle out of the library like a retreating animal, leaving you alone with Aleksander.

His words infuriated you and you shook your head and looked down.

“I have every right to be a little childish right now. You stood me up. You’ve never done that to me before.” you said indignantly and looked up at him again. You wore a stone expression on your face, but as you met his eyes, your own eyes burned with hot tears. You tried to keep them from falling over your bottom lashes, but your chin wobbled and you instantly lowered your face into your hands and hid it from him. You didn’t have to look up to know that he was approaching you, and when he reached you, he gently grabbed your arms and pulled your hands away from your face. You were sure the look on your face was pathetic, because you watched his ever-serious eyes soften greatly, and he reached up to wipe your cheeks with his thumbs.

“Oh, y/n. Don’t cry, please. I'll make it up to you. I swear it. I know I’ve been distant as of late and I am terribly sorry. I didn’t know it hurt you like this.” he said with a sincerity you seldom heard from him. You felt weak and desperate at the same time and you leaned forward and planted your face against his chest. This certainly was not the first time that Aleksander has seen you cry, and it wouldn’t be the last, but you couldn’t help but feel ashamed this time. His arms found their way around you and he gently pet your hair as if you were a kitten in distress.

“Let me take you riding tomorrow afternoon, sweetheart. I promise I’ll show up this time. Why don’t you meet me in the courtyard around noon? Yeah? And we can spend the afternoon together before my meetings.” he offered, his tone velvety and soothing, making you feel much more at ease, bit by bit.

You nodded once and stayed against him for a few more minutes before you pulled back and looked up into his eyes. He looked down at you in return with a certain serenity you’d not seen in his eyes before and for the first time in the last three years of knowing Aleksander, you wanted him to kiss you right there and then. The thought surprised you deeply and this must have been evident on your face because his own face twisted in curiosity and he cocked his head to the side.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked gently and you didn’t respond. Not outwardly, at least. You wanted to know where the sudden urge to kiss your best friend came from, and why. You knew for absolute certain that, for one, Aleksander did not see you as anything other than his closest friend, and that was evident in many ways but mainly because you knew he had been actively sleeping with Zoya as recently as a month ago. For another, you knew that if this was a path you let your mind go down, you would eventually have to say something to him, and by doing so, you would jeopardize your entire friendship. But then that also begged the question: did he value your friendship? The past week had you questioning this much more than you were willing to admit to yourself for comfortability reasons, because despite your best efforts to hide from him, if he wanted to find you, he simply would have. And of course, there was the matter of Alina too. His Sun Summoner. His Equal. The current recipient of his attention and the topic of his every thought. You were ashamed to admit even just to yourself that you were jealous of the sun girl for taking away your closest friend, but the truth of the matter is: you were. You were angry and you were hurt, and the multitude of realizations and emotions that had come to you in the last five minutes filled you with dread. The kind of dread that filled you slowly, as slow and quiet as one of Aleksander’s shadows. Your stomach twisted painfully as your mind raced and you began to feel rather anxious. You’d almost forgotten that you were in Aleksander’s arms until he shook you a little bit and looked down at you with concern.

“Y/n. You look ill.” he commented and you wiggled yourself free of his arms and you shook your head.

You let out a puff of air and you rubbed your eyes. She was important to him, he seemed content, and you were just the best friend that wanted him to kiss you. The panic of it all consumed you and you gently pushed him away from you and you shook your head, “No. I don’t wanna go riding with you tomorrow,” you breathed. You wanted to get away from him, you wanted to stop feeling so overwhelmed. You had to push him away before he picked Alina over you or before you could say something stupid and ruin it all anyway, “I want you to leave me alone, Aleksander. Go back to your Sun Summoner or whatever. Just leave me be.” you said pathetically and you shielded him from seeing your face with your hand and you brushed past him and darted towards the door and slipped out of the library, holding a sob in until you reached your room.

Aleksander hadn’t sought you out in almost three weeks now. Of course you’d seen him in passing in the halls and such, but you hadn’t stopped to say hello. Rumors were now swirling around the Little Palace about him and Alina being a little bit more than just… friendly. In fact, the day that he asked to take you riding, he’d instead gone with her, and one of the servants for Alina told someone who told someone else who told Zoya, who inevitably told you, that he’d even tried to get her to start wearing black. His color. Of course this tore your insides up, but by the third week of ignoring Aleksander, the rumors stopped surprising you, and the sadnesses and pains were reduced to a dull ache that only bothered you when you dwelled on it. Which you tried to make as infrequent as possible.

You were awoken today by a loud knock on your door and when you finally mustered up the will to rise and answer the knock, you were pushed back into your room while Genya pushed her way in. She laid a thin, white box down on a small table you had in the middle of your room and she sighed, pointing at it.

“This was just finished this morning. I had them change it. I didn’t think you’d like the initial… design.” she explained and you eyed the box curiously.

You finally walked up to the table and opened up the box and pulled out an intricate, long red dress with silver embroidery over the sides of it and you looked up at Genya, confused, “What do I need a dress for?” you asked, but then remembered as soon as the words left your mouth. The Queen’s birthday party was that evening, and you had promised Aleksander you’d go with him. You stuffed the dress back in the box and closed the lid, shaking your head.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be insolent. Come with me if you’re going to be that petty. But this dress took forever and you’re gonna look so nice in it. You’ll have fun, you always do.”

Yeah because I always go with Aleksander, you thought and then looked up at Genya for a long time, contemplating. She stared you down in return and you were determined not to buckle under the intensity of the redhead’s stare, but you did nonetheless and you sighed dramatically.

“I'll go. But I’m not staying all night and you cannot do another set up. I mean it. I don’t want to be around him.” You stated and she agreed, pointing to the box.

“Then get yourself ready please. You’ve slept late enough as it is.”

The walk to the grand ballroom was made with your arm linked with Genya’s, and many bystanders that were standing outside of the party rather than within, all cleared out of your way when the two of you walked past. You supposed it was either due to the fact that you two were so clearly Grisha or perhaps it was the dreary look you wore on your face. Either way, you didn’t mind it. Once inside of the ballroom, Genya finally released your arm and she caught a server and grabbed two glasses of wine and passed one to you.

“You do look nice, you know.” she said kindly and you glanced down at your dress. It was true, she had done a lovely job at fixing you up so that you were presentable for the party- she’d even put some intricate little braids in your hair.

“Thank you, Genya.” you said softly and she gave you an affirming nod before she squeezed your arm gently. You took a sip of your wine and went to say something else to your friend, but instead your attention was pulled elsewhere. Up close to the King and Queen, Aleksander stood with a pleasant smile on his face. He was dressed in all black, looking much more regal than usual. As you would have expected, Alina stood next to him in a simple yellow gown, and he had his hand resting against the middle of her back. You turned away, but not before Aleksander could catch a glimpse of you. You pushed down the ache that you so often found yourself suppressing and you turned your attention to Genya now, who was talking to a Inferni boy now, and when you inserted yourself into their conversation, she eagerly introduced you to the boy who simply went by Eli.

Eli was kind and he was friendly, and even when Genya walked away to greet David, you had no problem staying back and chatting with the boy. After what seemed like hours of talking to him, he offered you his hand and gave you a bashful smile, which you returned.

“Can I dance with you? Or rather, will you dance with me?” he asked clumsily and you let out a giggle and graciously accepted the offer, not aware of The General’s bottomless eyes boring into your back and staring daggers at your dance partner. His jaw tightened and he had begun to phase in and out of the conversation he held with Alina, The King, and the prince Vasily.

The Darkling’s hand shook around the glass he held and he didn’t dare tear his eyes off of the dancing pair, worried that if he did, they’d disappear together.

You danced with Eli with elation and you let out a content sigh, “You’re pretty good at dancing, you know.” you pointed out, and the boy blushed brightly.

“I learned when I was fairly young. Just something my parents insisted on.” he said humbly and you simply let out a little laugh and continued to dance with him.

Aleksander watched you laugh from his spot across the room and felt a certain patience inside of him snap. He set his glass of wine down on a table near them and he excused himself gruffly as he walked through the crowd of partygoers to reach you and your dance partner.

When he finally did, you didn’t notice until Eli had frozen in place and stared off over your shoulder. You looked up at the boy concernedly, but he simply bowed his head slightly and you turned your head back over your shoulder to see Aleksander standing there, his face cold and furious.

“May I steal your dance partner from you for a moment or two?” he asked icily and Eli nodded, clearly nervous to be in the presence of the Black General. The boy dropped your hands and stepped away from you before Aleksander grabbed your wrist and yanked you towards the door. You tried to stand your ground and not allow him to drag you, but that lasted for all of two seconds when he completely overpowered you, tugging you out of the ballroom and out into the courtyard.

Once you were outside, you tried to pull away from his iron grasp again, but he simply yanked you up closer to him and glared down at you with an anger that burned like fire in his eyes, and he spat one word in a tone that chilled you to the bone: “Don’t.”

You looked up at him, clearly frightened now, and he continued to drag you the rest of the way across the courtyard and to the Little Palace. Once you two had arrived inside, he grasped the back of your neck and steered you to his chambers. Though silent, you could practically hear the rage in his breath, and you could certainly feel it radiating off of his skin. Why he was so mad, you couldn’t figure out, but you assumed you were just about to find out why.

He gave you a little shove into his bedroom and he slammed the door behind you two and locked it, finally letting go of your neck.

You spun around to face him, but the second you did, he grabbed your wrists and pushed you back against the wall.

“Who do you think you are?” he asked furiously, his grip tightening around your wrists enough to make you yelp.

“Excuse me?” you squeaked, taken aback by the sudden physicality and anger he was displaying, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t scare you.

His lip twitched upwards in disgust and he shook his head rigorously, “Oh, don’t play dumb.” he warned and you looked up at his face that was consumed with rage and you shrunk back a bit. You wanted to fight back, but he’d never ever been this way with you, let alone raised his voice to you.

You opened your mouth to speak but he held up a hand and effectively silenced you, “You ignore me for almost a month now and then go and blatantly parade yourself around with another man in front of me, in a dress completely different than the one I had made for you. If you’re trying to enrage me, y/n, let me begin with how well it happens to be working.” he seethed and leaned closer to your face.

You gaped up at Aleksander and opened your mouth to speak again, but words seemed to have escaped you. The wrathful fury on his face twisted his soft features into something you didn’t recognize, and you suddenly knew why his enemies were so fearful of him. You’d only seen him angry once, and it was during a battle. This ferocity that he displayed reminded you vividly of that, and suddenly you couldn’t take it anymore. Your bottom lip wobbled a few times before a sob escaped your lips, and by then, the softening of Aleksander’s features was pointless. You buried your face in your hands and you shied away from him as much as you could. He very slowly moved his face away from yours and he felt his stomach drop as you sunk down to the floor, instantly pulling your knees up to your chest as you cried into them.

Aleksander often prided himself on his patience and even temper, his ability to control himself at all times. He felt white hot shame brand his insides and he dropped to his knees in front of you and he took your hands in his own, to which you promptly pulled away.

“y/n…” he began and you shook your head a few times.

“No! No, Aleksander! You don’t get to make this better now!” you cried and he watched you with an ache in his chest that wouldn’t let up.

“My love, let me make this right, I should not have ye-”

“I said no!” you exclaimed, hurt and sadness swirling around in your chest, “nothing you can ever say will make this right! You have been unfair to me ever since Alina came here! You have not been a good friend, and I wanted to just forgive you so badly, but you never even bothered to apologize properly, and it doesn’t help that you go and display her on your arm every day. She’s your little saint, your miracle, whatever else, I get it, but I can’t just stand here and watch anymore while I have to sit on the sidelines and just be in love with you silently as she gets all of your time and attention!” you blurted and then you placed your hand over your mouth and looked up at him with wide eyes.

The room was silent. There was no trace of malice on his face, it was as if it had never even been there in the first place. Your eyes watered even more in embarrassment and you moved to stand up, but Aleksander delicately caught your arm and pulled you close to him.

“I didn’t mean any of that, I just-”

But he cut you off by tugging you down by your arm and shut you up entirely with a kiss that would have brought you to your knees if you were standing. He could taste the salt from your tears on the corners of your lips and you could taste the strong red wine he’d been drinking at the party on his, and you blushed darkly when he parted his lips and bit down on your bottom lip, tugging it backwards some before he released it and broke the kiss. His forehead met yours and you closed your eyes tightly, your brain trying to comprehend what had just happened.

He let out a short breath that tickled your face and he stared into your eyes, and at this close proximity, his looked like two pits of pure blackness, “My dearest friend, I will never be able to apologize enough for the way I have behaved tonight with you, for the way I have failed to see your pain, for all of it. But you must listen to me and know my words ring true when I say that there is nothing going on between Alina and I. Do you want to take a guess as to why, Little Angel?” he asked and you closed your eyes and shook your head once. He was quiet for a long time before he let go of your arms and took you into his entirely, cradling you against his chest, “Because, my love, I have only wanted you. I am so terribly and adamantly in love with you and you alone.” he insisted, and you would be more inclined not to believe him if it weren’t for the tone of desperation that was clear in his voice.

You pulled your head back to look up at him and you blinked back more tears, which he must have noticed, because he brushed away the wetness from your under eyes with his thumbs. You studied his face for any trace of falsity, but found none, and you didn’t know what else to say, so you said nothing at all and instead, moved in to let your lips touch his for the second time that night. The kiss was tentative and experimental at first, but he quickly changed that as he swept a hand up into your hair and pressed your lips closer to his, and you let him take the lead. Of course you’d been kissed before, it wasn’t as if you didn’t know what you were doing, but nothing had ever felt like this before. It was as if each kiss was an expression of emotion all of its own. You felt his happiness, his desperation, and his affections for you all in that one kiss, and it had you crumbling under his touch. He pulled back only when air became necessary and he stared into your eyes for a long time before his lips crashed into yours once again. This time, the kiss was much hungrier, much more intense than the last two, and Aleksander grabbed onto your jaw, holding you in place. You let out a soft whine into his mouth and he broke away instantly, his bewildered eyes searching yours.

“Let me show you that I am yours.” he whispered and you looked up at him almost hazily. You gave him a little nod and he leaned back in to place a wet string of kisses against your exposed neck, biting down every now and then to leave a little mark against your skin. You reached up and tangled your fingers within his neatly done hair and you gave it a little tug, earning you a groan from him. He pulled back briefly only to grab at the neckline of your dress and he nodded towards you.

“Are you okay with this? All of it?” he asked and you needed only give him a nod before he was yanking the gauzy dress up over your head and you lifted your arms to help him rid you of the clothing. You gasped softly at the cool air of his room when it touched your bare chest and Aleksander stood up, pulling you with him as if you were weightless, and he brought you to his bed and laid you back against it. By now, the anticipation of what was to come was beginning to set in and you bit down on your bottom lip as you stared up at him. He unfastened his kefta and shrugged it off before he leaned back over you and attached his lips to your neck again, his hands both finding their way down to your thighs.

No words needed to be exchanged, he simply looked at you with one eyebrow cocked up questioningly and you nodded once before he nudged your legs open and he brought one hand up to trace one finger over your clothed clit. Your mouth opened slightly and you wiggled your hips down toward his touch just a bit. He laid one hand on your hip to keep you from moving and he glanced up at your face and shook his head, “Calm down. I’m going to take care of you, Angel. Have patience.” he said, his voice as smooth as the black silk sheets that adorned his bed. He dragged his finger up and down your covered folds and he let out a little sigh before he carefully ridded you of your underwear. He tossed the garment aside and he outstretched his fingers to collect a bit of your growing wetness on the tips of his fingers and you looked down at him with a frown.

“Aleksander, please.” you pleaded, needing him to do anything at this point.

He seemed to finally understand your need for his touch and he carefully slid one of his fingers inside of you, brushing the pad of his finger against your walls. You let out a little whimper and he began to slowly pump his finger in and out of you. You closed your eyes and willed yourself to be patient while he seemingly toyed with you, and just when you were about to beg for something more, he dipped his head downwards and covered your clit with his lips, taking the sensitive bundle into his mouth and he sucked at it gently. You tossed your head backwards and gasped his name, and he took this as an opportunity to add another finger inside of you and he curled them upwards, his fingertips pressing a spot that had you gasping for air. Noticing this, he repeated the motion a few times before he moved his fingers in and out of you faster now. He flicked your clit with his tongue a few times and you reached down with one hand to grasp at his hair. He moved his mouth away from you and reached up with his hand that held your hips down to lazily rub at your clit with his thumb.

“You sound so pretty for me, you know.” he cooed and you looked down at him, your lip trembling a bit.

“Aleksander, please.” you whispered and he raised his eyebrows.

“Please, what?” he asked, a devilish glint flashing across his eyes.

You struggled to find words as his fingers continue to hit that one spot and you moaned, your head falling to the side a bit, “Please, I need you to fuck me.” you whimpered and he looked up at your face and he let out a little hum.

“You need me to fuck you?” he asked playfully and you nodded a few times, closing your thighs around his hand. He thought about it for an agonizing moment before he nodded and pulled his fingers out of you. He brought them to his lips and licked them a few times before he brought them to your lips instead and nodded once.

“Open your mouth.” he commanded, and you did so without argument, allowing him to slide his fingers into your mouth. You sucked on his long, slender fingers and looked up into his eyes and he turned his head and cursed quietly under his breath before he pulled his fingers from your mouth. He sat up on his knees and ridded himself of his clothes and stood to get his pants off, which had become tighter in the moments that had passed. He let out a sigh of relief when he freed his cock from his pants and he crawled back over you and settled himself between your thighs.

“Look me in the eyes.” he commanded and you obeyed immediately, “I am yours. Wholly. Say it.” he ordered and you blushed softly.

“You’re mine.” you whispered, and he gave you a nod.

“And you’re mine. Say it.”

“I’m yours.” you whispered, and a proud little smile made your lips curl upwards.

“Good. Such a good little Angel.” he murmured and reached down to position his cock at your entrance. He slid into you very slowly, giving you time to adjust to his size. You squeezed your eyes shut and let out a moan, shuddering just slightly when he had finally fit his entire length inside of you. He waited just like that for a moment until you whined and rolled your hips against his, and he took this as a signal to move. He drew his hips back and moved them forward into you once again and you reached up to wrap your arms around his shoulders.

“Oh, saints, Aleksander.” you moaned and he reached up to grab your chin.

“Keep your eyes on mine. Don't look away.” he breathed and you nodded, your eyes staying glued to his as he began to rock his hips against yours steadily. He never sped up too much, but instead kept the same medium pace, allowing you to feel every single inch of him, and he leaned down to kiss your lips a few times, “So good, darling. You feel so good.” he praised and you reached down to grab one of his hands. You grabbed onto it and dragged it down between your thighs and you pressed it down against your clit. He took your not so subtle hint and he pressed his thumb back down against your clit firmly and began to rub it in circles in time with his thrusts, which gradually became harder.

He hit a spot within you that rendered you entirely breathless and he took advantage of this, making sure to hit that spot every time. He had you seeing stars in the edges of your vision and you felt tension building rapidly in your stomach. Aleksander could feel you tighten around him and he moved his thumb against your clit a bit faster now, determined to get you to your climax, which he could tell you were steadily approaching. He drove his cock into you with a bit more speed now and you arched your back off of the mattress and whimpered his name, causing a proud smile to form on his lips. His name, of which was kept a secret to nearly all of the world, was now falling from your lips in ecstasy, and it filled him with a sense of pride, and he fucked you harder, still moving his thumb against your clit. He could tell you were close by the way you squeezed his cock and he gave you a soft nod, his eyes meeting yours, “Eyes on mine, darling. Tell me who you belong to.” he prompted, making sure to hit that spot deep inside of you each time he drove his hips forward.

“Y-yours. I’m yours, Aleksander.” you stammered and kept your eyes on his. All it took was one perfect thrust more, and you were cumming around him, your fingernails digging into his shoulders. He intently watched the way your face went dazed as you came and your release triggered his own, and he came nearly right after you, still fucking you through both of your orgasms. He finally slowed when the two of you came down from your highs and he moved his thumb away from your clit and went to sit up, but you tugged him back down.

“No. Stay like this for a little longer. For me.” you requested in just a whisper, and Aleksander nodded once, keeping himself inside of you, his head settling against your chest. The two of you laid there in the soft candlelit afterglow and he placed a few lazy kisses to your chest.

“I love you, you know. I am deeply ashamed of my outburst earlier.” he said softly.

You simply hummed and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, “I love you too. You’re mine.” you said sweetly, a wave of exhaustion overtaking you. Your eyes fluttered shut and the last thing you remember hearing before you drifted off was the soft voice of your lover, whispering back what you now already knew.

“I’m yours.”

#aleksander morozova imagine #aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #the darkling imagine #the darkling #the darkling imagine #the darkling x you #the darkling x reader #general kirigan #general kirigan imagine #general kirigan x reader #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone #grishaverse

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marvelmusing · 1 year

Text

In Another Life

Part Three

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x Alternate Universe!Reader

Summary: You and Aleksander journey to Kribirsk, where everything starts to become real for you, as your plan is finally set in motion.

Warnings: canon level violence, brief nightmares, references to death.

My Masterlist • Series Masterlist • Next Part

It had taken some time for you to become accustomed to the rocking sway of the coach as it rattles down the Vy. The roads of Os Alta are smooth, so you are quite well adjusted by the time the wheels begin to turn over rough earth and grass.

Aleksander sits beside you, with Fedoyr in front of you and Ivan next to him. Ivan doesn’t speak unless directly spoken to, usually by his husband, and Aleksander seems rather content to watch you and Fedoyr interact with one another.

The heartrender is very easy to talk to, and his bright friendly personality puts you at ease, though you still need to concentrate on your words. Throughout your conversation, you realise how effortless you find lying. You answer his questions with a surprising number of half-truths, which you’re certain impresses Aleksander.

The two of you had come up with a simple story to explain your background, which you relay to Fedoyr. When he asks about your family you respond with the truth. That whilst you were close with them, you hadn’t seen them for a long stretch of time.

“Do they plan on visiting you sometime?” Again, you respond with the truth.

“I’m sure they would love to. Though I don’t think they’ll be able to any time soon.” The fact that they exist in another universe makes it highly unlikely.

“A shame.” You nod in agreement, and quickly redirect the conversation towards his family. He has a large collection of older brothers and sisters, and you’re smiling as he tells you about them.

Surrounded by new people, it’s easy for you to hide how your thoughts linger elsewhere. After an hour or so, you reach Balakriev. As the you pass through the town, your eyes remain fixed on the streets lined with people who turn to stare at the sight of the Darkling’s coach tearing by.

Once the coach reaches the outskirts of Balakriev, it slows to a stop in the courtyard of a well-maintained inn.

Aleksander offers you his hand as you follow him out of the coach, and you stretch your aching legs as he speaks with some of his oprichniki.

Aleksander doesn’t remove himself from his soldiers, staying with them as your small group eats an early lunch at the inn. Whilst he isn’t actively involved in the conversation, he gives whoever is speaking his full attention. You will admit that you spend plenty of your time looking over at him.

Once lunch is over, the majority of your group heads to the stables to change over the horses, which will hopefully mean that you will arrive at Kirbirsk earlier than expected.

Needing a moment to think, you sit down on a nearby bench. You can see into the courtyard where Fedoyr is preparing one of the horses alongside an oprichnik.

Aleksander surveys them intently, his brows furrowed as his eyes scan over the cobbled courtyard. His chin lifts, and he turns his head as if he’s searching for something. In a slow, smooth motion he continues to turn his head, until his eyes fix on you.

Offering him a small smile doesn’t appear to be enough reassurance for him, as he’s soon striding through the courtyard and crossing the grass towards you.

“Are you alright?” He asks, sitting down slowly beside you on the bench, the wood shifting once he finally makes contact with it.

“I’m fine.” You insist.

He waits as you stare down at the blade of grass being twirled absentmindedly between the pads of your fingers.

“It’s just… talking with Fedoyr made me realise that I might never see my world again. I’ll never hear my favourite music, or read my favourite books. Even the clothes are different. It’s all gone. It might sound silly…” He shakes his head insistently.

“It’s still a loss.”

Turning to him, there’s a startling amount of understanding in his eyes. But of course he understands.

“It is.” You agree quietly.

How much has he lost to time? So many things have changed since he was a boy. It must be hard, to mourn each and every familiar thing as it fades into nonexistence.

No more words are exchanged between the two of you after that moment. Every now and then, you feel the weight of Aleksander’s eyes on you but you don’t turn to look at him.

Once the new horses have been attached to the coach, you and Aleksander return to join the rest of your travelling party. The oprichniki don’t pay either of you any mind, as they simply follow their orders. But you can sense Fedoyr and Ivan looking over at you as they mount their horses.

With just the two of you left in the coach, you’re able to ask Aleksander questions about things he would never discuss in front of another person. His expression softens when you tell him how beautiful the Little Palace is, and then you ask him about when the palace was built.

There’s a sparkle in his eyes as he tells you about the designs he himself had made, and you laugh when he describes the tasteless and irritating Royal Architect that he was forced to work alongside.

Around an hour after sundown, your eyelids begin to grow heavy. But, with the unsteady rocking of the coach, and the lack of any sort of headrest means you have little chance of being comfortable enough to sleep.

Besides, you haven’t slept well since you arrived in Ravka as your dreams have been far from sweet. It’s only once your head lolls lightly against the window frame for the third time, that Aleksander decides to speak.

“Come here.” You blink at him as he moves closer to the side of his seat, and realise he means for you to sit beside him. Shaking your head immediately, you insist,

“I’m fine.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

You know he isn’t the kind of man that enjoys repeating himself, so despite your hesitation, you cross over to sit beside him. Aleksander leans back against the cushioned wall, one of his shoulders pressed against the edge of the window frame.

With a gentle motion, he encourages you to rest your head against his other shoulder and soon your eyes are fluttering closed. There’s a small frustrated huff that leaves your lips as you remain unable to relax.

“I can ask Fedoyr or Ivan to help you fall asleep.” He suggests.

“No, please don’t trouble them.” You insist, fingers curling around his sleeve as you turn your face further into his shoulder. The fabric of his kefta is surprisingly comfortable. “I just need to stay like this for a while, if that’s alright with you?”

“Of course.”

Hopefully with Aleksander so close to you, his presence will reassure you enough to lessen your nightmares. If not, then perhaps the jarring motion of the coach will prevent you from sleeping deep enough to dream properly.

Eventually you sleep. Your first dreamless night in Ravka.

»»---------------------►

When you wake sunlight is weaselling it’s way through a small crack between the dark curtains that Aleksander had drawn shut once night had begun to descend.

Shifting slightly, your eyes soon meet the man in question. Aleksander’s features are softened as he sleeps. The morning sun illuminates a few stray strands of his hair, shimmering flecks of gold amongst his dark locks. He looks so beautiful like this. Peaceful. Content.

Even as you notice his eyelashes beginning to flutter as he wakes, you can’t find the strength to look away from him. His eyes open, and meet yours immediately. Embarrassment warms your cheeks at being caught so quickly.

“Good morning.” He says softly, and something inside you shatters at the sound of his sleep heavy voice as that damned half smile tugs at his lips.

“Good morning.” You mumble, shuffling away from him as you reach towards the curtain lining the window.

Pulling the delicate fabric aside with a finger, you squint in the bright light as you attempt to survey your surroundings. Open fields of long grass, dried by a summer of heavy heat, stretch as far as you can see.

“Are we almost there?” You ask, turning towards Aleksander, only to find him leaning over, his face inches from yours as he looks out of the window.

For a moment you can only watch his face. His lips parted, eyes focused on the scenery as he searches for recognisable features. Then he nods, and you look away from him quickly.

“We should arrive some time within the next half an hour.” He informs you, and you nod in acknowledgement before you move back to take your place on the seat in front of him.

Kribirsk is a ramshackle of a town, made into a port over the centuries once people began using the town as a means to stop before any attempt at crossing the Fold. It certainly isn’t desolate. There’s plenty of ordinary civilians, and tradespeople clamouring about their produce, as well as First and Second Army soldiers wandering about.

The coach comes to a halt near what you assume is Aleksander’s tent. It’s black, which is the main giveaway, and much smaller than the Grisha tent beside it.

Aleksander climbs out first, and once again offers you his hand as you step onto the edge of the doorway. It’s once your feet are settled on the firm dirt ground that you get your first look at the Fold.

“It’s tall.” You remark, swallowing down the surge of fear at the sight of such a colossal wall of shadow with monsters lurking in its depths.

Aleksander nods, watching your expression carefully. Perhaps he’s waiting for you to change your mind about helping him, now that you’ve seen the Fold for yourself. Instead, you make a mental note to never ever go into the Fold, and nod resolutely at him as he steps backwards towards the tent. You follow him inside.

The inside of his tent isn’t dissimilar to his war room. There’s a large, circular table in the centre with a variety of maps and papers laid out over the dark wood. Around the edge of the tent there’s a few cabinets, chairs, stray flags and banners that bear his symbol - the sun in eclipse. Candles are strewn about, casting very little light, though you can see quite well due to a horizontal slit above the entrance to the tent, which allows a ray of sunlight to shine down onto the table.

Trailing behind Aleksander like one of his shadows, you observe who he talks to as he issues orders and makes demands. The older Grisha look at him with respect, and the younger ones have awe and fear in their eyes when they catch a glimpse of him.

Occasionally, Aleksander will explain your presence to a few Grisha after their curious eyes linger on you. In response you nod politely, and offer them a small smile.

After what feels like a long stretch of time, the two of you are finally alone. Aleksander sits down at the table, brows drawn together as he reads through a series of missives.

“Would you be able to fetch Miss Starkov and the tracker for a briefing?”

“Me?” Amusement sparks in his eyes, though his lips remain unmoving as he glances up from a report to look at you. He nods.

“You do know where they are currently. Don’t you?” There’s a pause as you take in his words. Then you realise you do know where they are.

“I’ll go get them.”

Whilst you theoretically know that Alina will be meeting up with Mal outside his tent before they cross the Fold, you don’t exactly know where his tent is.

For a good length of time, you wander through the First Army tents, dodging soldiers who barge by you as if you’re invisible. At one point you almost get knocked into a rather deep puddle, and you begin to worry that you’ll never find them.

Then you spot someone with a cartographer symbol stitched onto his shoulder, and you move towards him. From his appearance you can guess that he’s Alexei. There’s a pang of guilt in your chest as you realise that he will most likely be dragged off by the volcra in a few hours.

You can’t save everyone.

The group’s conversation is rather loud and a few of the boys are exchanging jokes boisterously.

Once you hear the mention of a black coach you realise they are talking about Aleksander. You remember the stories passed around by the First Army soldiers. Of a healer sealing a man’s mouth shut after he betrayed his country. Of heartrender’s bursting hearts and crushing lungs with a simple wave of a hand.

It’s only once you hear a particular remark that you stop walking.

“He’s not natural. None of them are.”

Of course you had read those words plenty of times before, but hearing them feels so much different. Especially now that you know Aleksander. Now that you’ve seen his hair tousled from sleep, and know how he takes his tea in the morning.

“Corporal Ortsev. Miss Starkov.” You call out.

The words come out sharper than you had intended, fuelled by their words about Aleksander and the Grisha. A boy turns sharply, tossing his towel onto his shoulder. Behind him, a young girl stands up. She’s small and thin, with dark hair pinned up underneath her standard First Army hat. Alina.

“General Kirigan has requested to speak with you both.”

“And who are you?” The boy, who you assume is Mal, asks.

“I’m the General’s assistant.” Another boy who sits nearby on a barrel leans forward to eye you with a smirk.

“Since when did the Black General have an assistant?” Lifting a brow at him, you fold your hands together casually.

“Since now, though I certainly don’t want to be the one to explain to him that we were delayed by people asking stupid questions.” Turning your attention back to Alina and Mal, you look between them both. “Shall we?”

In this moment, you’re insanely grateful that the Grisha tent is as large as it is, providing you with an easy route back to Aleksander’s tent. Mal and Alina exchange nervous glances with one another as you step inside, though they quickly follow you.

“Moi soverenyi.” Aleksander looks up at you, watching intently as you bow. “Corporal Ortsev, and Assistant Cartographer Starkov as requested.” He nods.

“You may leave us.”

You bow again, and turn on your heel. This is where you leave Aleksander to do what he does best. Convince people to do whatever he wants.

You decide to go in search of the bag you had packed. The only belongings you owned were what Aleksander had given you, but when you had been preparing for your trip to Kribirsk he asked if there was anything you wanted.

At the entrance to the Grisha tent, you find your bag. A medium sized cloth satchel that sits perfectly on your shoulder. Inside there’s a shawl, a notebook, and a collection of pencils.

Whatever clothes Aleksander had ordered for you had been packed alongside his things, in the large trunks currently sitting next to your bag. Adjusting the strap slightly as it settles on your shoulder, you head towards a pile of crates near Aleksander’s tent.

When you sit down, you realise you had chosen an opportune place to be able to see both the entrance to Aleksander’s tent, and a good proportion of the First Army’s encampment.

Pulling out your notebook, you begin to scribble down a makeshift map of Ravka, detailing travel times and observations about the landscape you had seen during your journey.

You’re in the middle of contemplating the width of the Fold when someone familiar walks by you. Alexei looks around nervously, keeping a large distance between himself and Aleksander’s tent.

“They’re still with the General.” You call out towards him when he nears you for the second time. He jumps a little, even though you weren’t particularly loud. He nods.

“Oh. Thanks.” He wrings his hands together, eyes scanning over the people around you. His frantic glances towards the Fold itself don’t escape your notice. You tell him your name, in an attempt to distract him from his obvious nerves.

“I’m Alexei.”

“How long have you been a cartographer?”

The two of you talk for a little, though his attention snaps towards the entrance to Aleksander’s tent as it flaps open. Alina and Mal both look bemused, and a little relieved.

Alexei heads over to them immediately.

“I’ve been reassigned.” You hear Alina tell him, and the tension returns to his shoulders.

Aleksander steps out from his tent, his cloak clasped around his throat, which sways dramatically in the breeze. Heads turn towards him, both Grisha and otkazat’sya. You snap your notebook shut and slide it back into your bag. Climbing down from your seat on the crates, you move towards Aleksander.

As you’re passing by the group, Alexei reaches towards you, prompting you to frown lightly and turn to face him. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Aleksander watching you. You’re certain he’s close enough to hear Alexei as he says,

“Thank you.” You swallow hard, nodding in response, and you walk with him as he moves towards the edge of the port.

“May the Saints protect you, Alexei.” You say, feeling the hollowness of your words in your chest as you stop by Aleksander’s side on a platform that overlooks the port. Alexei nods his thanks to you with a nervous smile, before he walks down towards the skiff.

As the sails fill with squaller winds, and the skiff begins to move, you grip tightly onto the railing at the edge of the port, nails digging into the battered wood.

“That boy is going to die today. Isn’t he?” Aleksander says quietly as you both stare into the Fold.

You nod.

“Though I hope I’m wrong.” Your voice is low, ensuring that he is the only one who hears you. “Who knows, Alina might have been what drew the volcra in. Without her on the skiff, they may be able to get through.”

Feeling the weight of Aleksander’s eyes on you, you turn to look at him. One glance at his face, and you breathe out sharply,

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you’re searching for hope.”

A small sigh falls from your lips, and the skiff disappears into the darkness.

“What else can I do?”

»»---------------------►

Aleksander, and in turn you, stay in Kribirsk for a week after the launch of the prototype sand-skiff. The skiff had actually managed to reach Novokribirsk but with heavy casualties.

A smaller skiff, carrying artillery, brings a missive a few days later, reporting the deaths. Aleksander glances over at you subtly as Ivan reads out Alexei’s name, but your face is perfectly collected.

That night, you dream of the Fold.

On every side of you, people are being torn apart by volcra. Screams and cries echo in your ears; the scent of blood hangs heavy in the air. Alina throws her hands out, failing to call the light.

There’s a sickening twist in your stomach. You were wrong about her. You had been wrong, and now you would all die because of your mistake.

Aleksander’s eyes meet yours, wide with horror, only for him to be ripped away from you. He disappears into the shadows, but you can hear his screams.

If Aleksander hears you crying into one of his pillows as he works late at his war table, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

At first you had protested against sleeping in his bed, after all, there was no threat to you within the camp. But when you wake in the middle of the night and are able to walk a few paces, lift a curtain aside, and join Aleksander as he works, you’re glad that you relented.

Seeing him alive and well is a comfort to you, especially after witnessing him being torn to pieces by the volcra in your dreams.

Neither of you talk. Occasionally he will glance over at you, meeting your eyes for a long moment before he continues with whatever he’s reading or writing. You keep your knees tucked against your chest, resting your chin against one of your kneecaps.

He works until the candles burn low, and he must reach a point in his work where he is satisfied to leave it. He casts out a hand, plunging the room into darkness.

Aleksander’s fingers curl around yours, urging you to stand and be lead through the darkness, back to bed.

»»---------------------►

Soon enough, you’re preparing to return to the Little Palace. Aleksander had been pulled into a last minute meeting with the Kaptain before you planned to leave.

Over the week, Grisha had soon learnt that your word was as good as their General’s and that you should be addressed accordingly. A few of them had even started bowing to you, which you had quickly assured them wasn’t necessary.

There were still some who didn’t accept your authority, after all you had appeared out of nowhere and suddenly had an important position beside the General. They have every right to be suspicious.

Aleksander had asked you to oversee the final preparations while he met with the Kaptain.

So, you had ordered for Aleksander’s tent to be dismantled, and all his important documents to be packed into the coach. This time the coach would travel along the Vy, whilst Aleksander and the rest of your party took the hunting trails by horseback. He had decided this was the best course of action, after you had warned him that Drüskelle would be travelling in the area.

As people begin to climb up onto their horses, you wring your hands awkwardly. Aleksander won’t have requested a horse for you, because he knows you can’t ride, but he hadn’t told you who you would be riding with on the journey back to Os Alta. Perhaps you could ask Fedoyr to help you.

At the sound of your name being called, you turn. Aleksander has mounted his horse, a large black steed that he manoeuvres effortlessly closer to you. He extends a hand, and your eyes widen when you realise he’s intending for you to ride with him.

“I’m sure someone else could take me. Why don’t you take Miss Starkov?” You suggest with a pointed look, brows raised hopefully.

He breathes out a small laugh as his eyes lift to something behind you. Alina has lifted herself up onto a grey mare, and though she looks far from confident, she’s faring much better than you would.

Her horse seems reluctant to move at first, and you pray that isn’t some sort of omen for you.

“It appears Miss Starkov knows how to ride.” Aleksander remarks drily, the corner of his mouth quirking as you narrow your eyes at him.

“You’re hilarious.” You deadpan, before accepting his hand with a sigh.

He hears the sharp inhale that catches in your throat as you land in the saddle in front of him.

“It’s quite high.” You observe with panic lacing your tone as you stare down at the ground. Aleksander’s palm settles on your thigh, squeezing lightly in reassurance.

“You’re alright.” He says calmly, his lips brushing against your temple. “I won’t let you fall.” You nod. Of course he would keep you from falling, he needs you alive and not trampled by a horse. “Squeeze your legs together. Not too tight.” He directs you. “And hold on here.” His fingers tap against the front of the saddle, and you hold on tightly.

With how close he is, you can feel every breath he takes. It’s comforting, even if the proximity flusters you a little.

Ivan’s expression is unreadable as usual, and you flush a little, feeling like a child as you observe that you’re the only one not riding alone. Then Fedoyr grins at you, as he no doubt observes your rapidly beating heart, due to Aleksander’s hand still lingering on your thigh.

It’s just to keep you balanced. That’s all.

Aleksander secures the reins in one of his hands, and urges the horse into moving forwards.

Back to the Little Palace. Now the real work begins.

»»---------------------►

marvelmusing Tag List: @dreamlandcreations @blanchedelioncourt @idaofinfinity @slytherheign @ellooo0ooo

In Another Life Tag List: @parabatai-winchester @dangerousbluebirdpoetry @jambolska-grozdova @modern-m-a-g-i-c

BB Characters Tag List: @rachlovesactors @noortsshift

#in another life au #aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #the darkling #the darkling x reader #the darkling au #shadow and bone au #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone #in another life chapters

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writing-for-me-at-this-point · 1 year

Text

Okay angst idea I came up with.

Soap is such a loving man, he's so kind and caring, strong and stable, and even if he leaves for long periods of time, you always manage to make things work. It's always been you and him, ever since he lied about his age to get into the military, highschool sweethearts sticking it out.

You're everyone's dream couple, one of the stories everyone looks to and is amazed how it worked out for you both, and you two are even surprised by how well your relationship has worked for so long, especially considering the stereotypes around military men and their partners- especially once they got married.

Your sex life is something you both fond to be healthy and even a bit erratic, but what can you do when he's gone for months at a time? You make up lost time and practically cling to eachother. From his basic training all the way till he joined the 141.

Of course he's gonna grow close with the squad, spending time with them, fighting, saving eachothers asses. You hear all about them and they all sounded so interesting and were inspiring people. You were happy for Johnny. And he was happy.

But things slowly take a turn, and it's small, and you don't even notice it. How he mentions ghost evey once in a while when he's home. Attempting to find and contact him when they're both off duty. Trying to get drinks. Hang out. You thought nothing of it.

Because everything was perfect between you and him. Nothing changed between you and Johnny, so did it really matter?

He comes to you one day, fresh out of a shower amd you're laying in bed after a long night, scrolling through your phone absent-mindedly. And that's when he asked, almost shy and bashful, but as adorable as he looked- you felt a crack when he asked you.

How would you feel if Ghost joined you two?

It should've been an opportunity that would have anyone jumping. Two strong, beautiful, admirable men in your bed with you? Touching you intimately? Getting your needs met and moving on the next day, and then, it's just you and Johnny again.

But...you saw through it. Your mind wonders, and you think about it for a while, even as Soap unknowingly sulks at the thought of Ghost not being in his bed. You notice. And fuck- you'd do anything to make Johnny happy, so you bite thr bullet, and give him the go ahead.

Because it'll always be you and Johnny in the end.

And when Ghost- Simon, comes into your bed, you notice it even more. How Ghost os solely focused on your Johnny. How Johnny seems to forget your there at certain moments, the intimate touches that seemed to hold a lot of meaning, the breathless chuckles a d laughs that leave them, and the fact that for most of the night- you're pushed to the side. A margin note.

And even if you and Johnny loved eachother, together through years, stronger than anything...watching both of them together made your relationship crumble right before your eyes.

So you lay in bed, a deep sigh leaving you, a few silent tears betraying your blank face as you "sleep" facing away from the both of them, John in the middle, Ghost on the other, both cuddled up rather well with one another.

Insecurity plagues your mind, and you see the cracks in your relationship, even if they only seem to be coming from your end.

Days, weeks, a month passes. And John is worried. You're pulling from him. No longer walking around in your underwear after you shower and get ready, no more random kisses, no more hugs from behind, no more... intimacy. You touch him, and it's cold, its hollow, empty. He tries to talk, and you brush it off, as you notice how he contacts Ghost more and more, laughing behind a locked bedroom door and the frequency only seems to intensify.

He feels alone now. Your warmth is gone. Your stability is hollow, and your heart seems to be gone, and all that's left is a shell of his Bonnie...when was the last time you called him a name other John? Even Johnny?

But you smile at him, and tell him you're okay, you're just not feeling all to well at most... somethings going on with your family... you and a friend had a spat. But you ignore his advances and love. He's called up your family to check up and everything's alright. Your friend is too, because he's asked to see of everything's okay.

And when Soap puts the phone down after another text, he notices you, laying in bed turned to your side, deep asleep with no goodnight kiss, no cuddling, no jokes or nothing.

And Johnny realizes he's lost you, while Soap managed to get Ghost, and he can't help but let a few sobs out, even while you laid there, with tears falling silently once again.

[ Cheers, To Us | Part Two ]

#cod x reader #soap x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #mw2 soap x reader #mw2 x reader #call of duty x reader #reader insert #x reader #queen.writing #john mactavish x reader #modern warefare 2 x reader

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atom-writings · 11 months

Note

WAIT A SEC..... you'd do reqs for the batman 2022? if not, i understand, but if you do: can i get uhhh what dano!riddler would look for in a (gn) partner? and/or headcanons on what kind of boyfriend he would be?

(Edward Nashton X Reader) General Relationship Headcanons

(Gender Neutral) Headcanons ~ A/N YES YES YES ok sorry guys skipping ahead for this bcs i want to write it ok thank you. Everyone go listen to mook right now

Trigger Warning: Edward Is Not A Healthy Person Much Less a Healthy Boyfriend, possessiveness kind of? Swearing, also.

Edward is a simple if not unstable man. He’s always been uncontrollably attracted to those that can take care of him. Those that are more like housewives and mothers compared to hard workers. Of course, that’s not to say that he’s only into women. Not at all.

But what he really wants out of a partner is someone willing to focus all of their emotional energy on him. He wants to consume your thoughts, to become that voice in the back of your head. So no matter where you are, you’re caring about him more than anything else.

Because of that… he’d also prefer a S/O that isn’t too independent. There’s nothing more satisfying to him than coming home to you… sobbing because of his absence. Because god help whoever else makes you cry.

Someone weak and unassuming would be perfect too… it just feeds into his ego. Being able to tower over you, grab you and pull you in whichever way he likes… it makes him feel high. He’s always been seen as so sensitive and feeble, so being the strong one out of the two of you, god, he just absolutely loves it.

You’d think he would like someone who struggled as he has, but it’s actually the opposite. He would prefer someone stable and healthy, for one simple reason. If you were as tortured as he was, he wouldn’t be getting a lot of your attention and sympathy, would he? He wants you to fix him… he’ll get around to doing the same for you sometime later though, don’t worry.

However, he would despise having a successful partner. It feels like you’re… looking down on him, PITYING him, just like everyone else. No, no, he has to be the one holding position over you, not the other way around. That’s not to say he sees himself completely as superior to you, though.

As high as his standards may seem, he is an incredibly forgiving and loving boyfriend. You’ve brought him out of the darkness countless times, and he could never do enough to make up for that. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself.

He’s very, very, very clingy. Anytime that he can be, he’s with you. At home, he’s always holding you close by your hips. On the train to and from work, he insists you come with him so he can hold your hand. At work, he’s texting you constantly. That’s probably the main way his selfishness comes out… he just needs your constant attention and approval.

Anytime that he can, he shows you off. If you’re shy about PDA, that’ll hurt him a little bit. He wants to bring you around, his arm wrapped around your shoulder, just to prove to everyone that he can. Very much a… “You jackasses thought I couldn’t do it. But I did. I got a partner. And they’re incredible. You miserable bastards wish you had a partner like I do,” … complex.

Although he likes more house-wifey S/Os, when he gets home he loves to pamper you. You’ll have to beg him not to make you dinner after he gets out of work most nights. After all, isn’t that what he wanted you to do for him?

Maybe trade out “taking care of you,” for “taking care of his disgusting apartment.”

He’s put up with so much in his life that it’s hard for him to get truly angry with you. Like even if you slapped him across the face, he’d probably just tear up and ask why you did that, compared to screaming and throwing things. (Well, it’s a different story when he’s in his whole… Riddler mood.) He just can’t imagine hurting such an innocent being who has done so much for him. It makes him a little too forgiving.

But it just makes him even more of a teddy bear around you. And who doesn’t want that? Sure, sometimes he goes mad and brutally executes the corrupt elite, but more importantly he is doing it all to make a better world for the two of you to share! You deserve it, you know?

#edward tag #riddler x you #riddler x reader #riddler x y/n #edward nashton x reader #edward nashton x you

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dearmantis · 1 year

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The fruits of my labour

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/The Darkling x Durast!Reader

Summary: Haunted by shadows during the day and the words of your old teacher you don't expect two little boys to be the first sign of your upcoming downfall.

Warnings: drowning, manipulation, hints of psychological abuse, descriptions of anatomy, mentions of bone breaking (?), death of an animal

Word Count: 4k

Authors’ Note: This is the last chapter that is still kind of chill, just fyi. Things are going to start going down rather quickly after this part. Please pay attention to the warnings at the top of each chapter and on the series masterlist. This is also still not edited and English is still not my native language (and I technically accidentally posted this so if you see any mistakes please dm me)

Part 1 | Previous Part | Series Masterlist

Baghras words put you into a weird, almost distant state that you're unable to escape, stuck in an odd void between reality and your racing mind.

You start eating lunch and dinner with the other Grisha again, skipping breakfast entirely, but you don't use your free time to experiment anymore. You can't bring yourself to.

The bird, a beautiful little dove, is free since you came back to the Little Palace after that first dinner with your old teacher. You hope the time it spend locked in a cage in your tiny one person workshop in the basement of the Palace scared it so much that it flew far away from Os Alta.

Instead of experimenting you focus fully on the prototypes, finishing ten slightly differentiating grenades for the General to test and pick his favourite from. You haven't seen Kirigan once since you met up with Baghra, but you swear you can feel him lingering closer than before.

It's driving you slowly insane, how the shadows seem to follow you in odd ways, a bit too long and a bit too dark for your liking. You start to question if it has been like this since he first ran into you in that hallway. If he has been watching your every move since that fateful day and you were simply too caught up in your own obsession with the forbidden science to notice.

All that confidence that you built up over the last weeks is gone, the inner armour disappearing into thin air and leaving behind nothing but your rotten, ruined soul and the fear in your heart.

Baghra is annoyed by your distant state, convinced that you're wasting precious time you should spend hiding your tracks. She has advised you against running, at least for now, instructing you to finish the presentation of the grenades and then return to your previous team to make corecloth.

Disappear in mediocrity. That's what she had called it. You're terrified enough to agree with her plan without questioning it.

Despite your trust in her you lay awake at night, combing through memories of your interactions with the General to see if you can tell if and when he noticed anything off about you until the exhaustion drags you into restless sleep once again.

You're nothing short of miserable.

A part of you wonders why even bother with the prototypes, now that you're aware that he probably doesn't care about your idea in the slightest. Of course you know that you have to act like you think it matters, like you care so much about the validation and love from your dear General, no matter how ashamed you are of yourself.

You got tricked so easily by him. A few minutes of attention and some compliments and you were clay in his hands. Years of distaste and anger directed towards the man who never cared for anyone from your Order unless he wants something, gone after a few nice words and a glass of water. Pathetic.

You're a fabricator, child. He doesn't care about your kind.

Baghra's voice haunts you like the shadows do, following you even when you sleep. She has warned you of him. She has done so for years, hundreds of times, but you never understood how serious her warnings were until now.

It's hard to keep your schedule stable, to do everything the way you did before Baghra kindly alerted you that the General is watching you like a hawk watches a mouse, but your mind is clear enough to know that he will pounce if he notices anything unusual about your already odd behaviour.

You try to plan ahead for the meeting with the General, spending more time hanging around your old teammates. You speak more during meals, discussing your grenades animatedly with an Alkemi and another Durast, careful to mention how much you miss working together with others. To even out the scales you then complain on your way back to your room with another Durast about how boring the corecloth making can be.

It's all a balancing act. Every step is careful and meticulously thought through while you fight to hold onto the last strands of sanity you have left.

In the night before your scheduled presentation you watch as the shadows draw figures on the wall across your window. You're not sure if it's your own fear turning tree branches into people and figures vaguely reminiscent of volcra, if you're slowly going crazy on your own or if the General is intentionally driving you to insanity.

To watch you break, maybe in hopes of getting you to expose your secret in your panic?

You have to hold onto reality. If the only way of doing that is to surround yourself with darkness and other people until he finally loses interest, then so be it. He can't haunt you if others could see, can't draw shapes with shadows if everything in your vicinity is cloaked in blackness.

Standing up from your bed you step over to the window and pull the curtains closed tightly, promising yourself to steal some fabric from the workshops to thicken your curtains a bit more, in hopes of blocking the light more efficiently, before going back to bed.

When you finally manage to fall asleep you dream of drowning in that river again, but this time you feel how the water fills your lungs, how death takes over your muscles and bones and carries your soul into the shadows. This time you're not at peace. You scream silently, cursing the world and it's cruel nature while starring up towards the surface where the people of the village stand and watch you drown.

You don't pray for the making to show you mercy, you pray for death to come for those who killed you.

In the morning you drop the prototypes in a big, cushioned chest and place it next to the door of your workshop, before going up to eat breakfast with the other Grisha. Eating slowly you speak with the others, tightening your ties to the other Fabrikators even more. People who will miss you if something happens to you. People who will ask questions if you disappear.

People who are less susceptible to the Generals manipulation since they know, just as well as you do — hopefully better than you do — that nobody cares about the Materialki order.

Anja, the Durast woman next to you asks if you're scared of presenting as she watches your hands play with a fork, your hands humming with power as you move the metal around like clay.

"A bit" you admit, rolling the polished steel into the shape of a marble. "But I promised the General that I would present today, and I worked quite hard. I honestly can't wait to get a break, to just work on corecloth again for a while. A solo project is a lot of responsibility."

You can feel the eyes of a Heartrender on you as you speak, can feel the subtle, signature brush of her powers as she checks if you're lying. The eyes of the General are everywhere.

Heartrenders are luckily not perfect. Calm breathing, a clear mind and simple, easy lies can throw them off well enough, not that anyone cares. The Corporalki are the Generals favourite, so they can't do anything wrong, right? That's at least what everyone thinks. You're not gonna fall for the lies though. Baghra has taught you well.

"Ah, yeah. That makes sense. I would probably not finish my work at all if I had to make my own schedule. I can't take my own deadlines seriously at all. But with the General breathing down my neck, everything is suddenly serious, isn't it?" she says, her voice dropping to a whisper at the last sentence. You nod quickly, finishing your meal alongside her before you accompany her to your old workshop.

You do really miss your old work, despite the fact that your old team leader is arguably one of the most unpleasant people to be around. Being surrounded by other Fabrikators, people who understand your oddness, your greed for knowledge, your fascination with the unexplainable, is a comfort nothing can replicate.

"I hope the General summons you soon, and that the whole presentation goes well. And afterwards you're gonna come back, yes? Boris and I miss you a lot." Anja asks when you finally arrive at the workshop, quickly slipping in through the open door and walking over to her table. You watch her collect her materials for a bit before you turn around to walk over to your own workshop.

Your one-person workshop is technically a bigger storage closet down in the basement of the Little Palace, the only access to fresh air being a tiny window directly under the ceiling. It's easy to cover it with a few layers of thick parchment, blocking out the daylight entirely.

For the next three hours you make yourself familiar with your workshop while sitting in pure darkness, counting floorboards, then nails, then the bricks in the foundation of the building.

Lunchtime comes and goes and you don't get summoned, now using your powers to follow the skeletons in the palace around.

You try to see if you can tell the location of the General without paying attention to his rings, try to feel the Merzost Baghra claims sits deep in his bones, humming quietly in the compact tissue.

When your powers brush it you wonder for a second if he feels it, if he feels that something touched his secret, but then you remember what else Baghra has revealed to you. You can't draw from Merzost. You can summon, can weave it into things, can shape and change and evolve, but you cannot use it for yourself, cannot feel its power humming in your own body. All you have is your own talents as a Fabrikator.

You will never be more. You have turned yourself into a tool for others. You're here to make, not to use.

So you reach out for it, trying to understand how the forbidden science sits in his bones. You chose a bird for your first experiments with amplifiers due to their hollow bones, an empty space you could fill with something new — something forbidden — but human bones aren't hollow, they're filled with spongy bone tissue and marrow.

Feeling along the skeleton of your General without his knowledge feels odd, like a violation of privacy, and you wonder briefly if the Corporalki feel the same when they start learning to feel out hearts or if they're simply born with a disregard for other people's personal rights. You can feel it though, carefully woven through his bones in a way you hope you will be able to replicate one day.

Most of it sits deep in the cortical tissue, but some of it seems to weave through the soft tissue as well, thin strings almost building a net in between. It's harder for you to follow the soft tissue, the marrow too squishy for your Fabrikator powers to really hold onto and follow, but the Merzost makes it a bit easier.

A darker part of your mind, the same part that convinced you to figure out how to summon the forbidden science in the first place, briefly wonders what his broken bones would look like. There is so much Merzost in his skeleton, would you be able to see it? Would his bones shimmer in that iridescent way that you have come to associate with the forbidden science?

Shaking your head a bit you try to clear your head, a bit disturbed by your own thoughts. You stretch your hands for to loosen the muscles in them before finally deciding that you could probably go on a quick walk, as long as you stay around the Little Palace where the servants can find you when he finally decides to call for you.

You lock the door to your workshop behind you, quickly walking up the slim staircase and slipping out of the servant entrance of the Palace.

It's freezing outside, your breath clearly visible in front of you as you walk through the gardens of the palace. Above you heavy clouds hang in the sky and a sweet smell is in the air.

Snow. It's gonna snow soon.

Snow means the workshops are gonna be cold again, especially your solo workshop in the basement. You can only hope that your less than subtle conversations during meals in the past days are enough of a foundation to guarantee yourself a ticket back to the corecloth makers. Otherwise you might freeze to death before Kirigan even gets a chance to catch you messing around with Merzost.

A sudden scream rips your attention away from the sky and towards two small children. You can't see much from how far away you are, just that they're hitting each other quite aggressively. Without thinking you run to them, a loud "Hey!" falling from your lips as you get closer. "Stop that!"

As you get closer you start to realise how serious the situation truly is, not just for the kids but also for yourself. They're covered in blood, hands dripping as they rip on each other's hair. It's a nightmarish sight to see and you wonder where any of the teachers are. Kids aren't supposed to be outside on their own right now.

You can't see any big open wounds on either child, just scratches and bruises. Grabbing both of the children by their arms you try your hardest to pull them apart, pushing yourself between the two as soon as you create enough distance.

"What's going on?"

In the distance you can see a grey uniform slowly walking into your direction.

"I killed it first!" one of the boys yells, trying to get out of your grasp to hit the other.

"No! I killed it! I literally felt it!"

"Killed what?" You ask confused.

"The bird!"

Following the direction both of the boys are pointing at your eyes finally find the reason for all of the fighting and blood, and you can feel how your stomach drops.

The small, broken body of a dove lays in the frost coated grass just a few metres away from you, its neck hanging low as if someone broke it and its wings stretched and bend unnaturally. It's white feathers are covered in it's own blood.

They must've tried to rip it apart to kill it, you think, a heavy feeling of dread filling your chest. This is your fault. The death of this bird is your fault. You were the one to give it magic. It wasn't born with it.

"I was the one to figure out that it's an amplifier in the first place! It was my right to kill it!" the other boy wails, but you're not even paying attention anymore. Your thoughts are racing. How are you going to hide this? The way you worked the Magic into it's bones isn't now nature does it, not how it weaved it into the bones of the General.

Behind you the kids start fighting each other again. You can't bring yourself to care. Let them kill each other, that way there would be no witness to the crime against the Making you have committed.

Your eyes are glued to the small body. You can see its bones clearly, and even in the muted daylight, filtered by the thick clouds, you can see the way the insides shift unnaturally.

Merzost.

It's visible. It's clearly visible and you're sure if you look at it for much longer you will throw up.

"The General chooses who gets an Amplifier" you hear yourself saying, but it's not like the boys are paying any attention to you, too caught up in their own little battle. You can't even bring yourself to blink. There's nothing you want to do more than look away but you simply can't.

Far away you hear someone yelling out "Durast!".

You step closer to the dead animal and kneel down to observe it closer, fingers carefully moving the corpse to look at it from a different angle, desperate to understand how exactly they tried to rip it. Its a brutal sight, but you feel like you owe it to this bird, somehow, since you put it into this position in the first place. You changed it's destiny. It's blood is on you hands now.

The Oprichiki you saw coming towards you a minute ago finally reaches you, pulling the two children apart once again. He begins to scold them immediately, which is what finally pulls you out of your almost trance like state.

"I'm gonna get the General." you announce, standing up and smoothing down the material of your purple Kefta, smearing it with the blood that covers you fingertips in the process.

The guard tries to protest but you cut him off before he gets the chance to speak his mind. "They're fighting over an amplifier. I need to tell the General."

And that's that. No room for discussion.

You walk quickly back into the Little Palace, mind full with paranoid, broken thoughts that lead to nothing. If you were smarter you would probably go to Baghra with this. You would go to her hut as soon as you told the General what happened and explain that your dove has been murdered. She would tell you what to do, come up with some plan to save your pitiful, worthless soul once again.

But you're scared — you're fucking terrified — and you can't think when you're like this.

"There was an incident in the gardens. I need to talk to the General." you quickly say to the Oprichniki standing guard in front of Kirigans doors, pushing past him without waiting for his response and opening the doors. A part of you hopes the guard sees this as a threat, the start of an attack, an attempt on ending the Generals life, and rips your heart out. He doesn't.

Kirigan is bent over a mountain of documents laying on the table in the middle of the room when you step inside, eyes big as he looks at you, waiting for an explanation for your disrespectful behavior.

For a few seconds your fear of the man freezes you in place, eyes glued to his, darker than the night sky itself. His presence is dominant and it feels almost as if he's pressing down on your lungs somehow, trying to squish the words out of your body. The shadows crawling on the walls don't help you either, their odd, sharp shapes moving slowly into your direction like a predator towards it's mortified prey.

"I don't remember calling on you yet." the General finally speaks, his voice smooth and cold like satin, full of that awful authority you don't remember him pushing onto you when you last stood in these rooms.

The dread it sparks in you frees you out of your paralysis.

"Two children are in the gardens fighting over the bones of a dead bird. They claim it's an amplifier." You blurt out, almost stumbling over your words. You hate this, hate being so close to the man who might kill you if he finds out what you've done. Every word Baghra has ever said about him, every warning and cautionary tale, echos loudly in your mind while your fingernails press into the soft flesh of your palm.

The General proceeds to stare at you for a few more seconds, eyes piercing into yours as if he's trying to pull your thoughts out of your mind and read them, then he finally stands up and motions you to follow him.

You obey, almost jogging after him to catch up with his long, heavy steps. As you two walk through the Little Palace you notice how the shadows stretch, desperate to follow their summoner, and you begin to wonder when they slip back into their original shape. How far does the control of the Darkling truly go?

How far would you have to run to no longer be in danger?

Your own powers reach quite far, but things are probably different for summoners, and even you have to admit that your powers weaken greatly the further away something is. Feeling metals and bones and all that, that's simple, but the shaping? That's the part where distance begins to take a toll on you. It's probably similar for the Etheralki, right? Grisha aren't all that different from each other. Are we not all things?

"You said they think it's an Amplifier?"

Snapping out of your thoughts you look back at the General. His eyes are on you, watching carefully, and you have to swallow your anxiety down to answer him.

"That's what they said, yes. They're fighting over who killed it and gets to claim it, moi soverenyi. I tried to mention that you're the one who decides which Grisha gets to claim an Amplifier for themselves, but they refused to listen to me. A guard pulled them apart and I decided to get your help."

He nods, silently thanking you for your quick rundown of what had occurred, before his back begins to straighten, his shoulders stiffening in the process, and his chin lifts a bit, making it seem like he's looking down on everyone. His steps become louder but also smoother, and one of his hands combs though his ink black hair, ensuring that every strand is in perfect position.

He was already scary before, but now he really just looks like a proud, powerful hunter, ready to discipline whoever disobeyed the rules of the Little Palace. It almost feels like he's doing too much, but the dealings with amplifiers have always been quite serious to him so it makes sense why he would go all out to scare children back into good behavior. The rules regarding them are tight and unforgiving and breaking one of them by claiming an Amplifier without consent from him is a serious violation, even if the perpetrators are children.

You can easily see how this man terrifies all of Ravka, how he keeps the entire Second Army in line and makes sure that you all lack nothing. This is not just Kirigan. This is the Darkling, the descendant of the Black Heretic. The man who bends darkness itself to his will and carries pure magic in his bones.

Moving quickly to open the door for him, you let him step into the gardens while you desperately try to keep your body in motion. It's hard to remember how powerful you are when you have someone who's basically a mythical being walking two steps in front of you.

Sure, you could hold onto his bones, shatter them into splinters and dust with a few quick hand movements, perhaps even rip the magic out of his body, but how are you supposed to do that when his aura alone almost paralyzes your body? And who can say if you would even be quick enough to do all that before his famed cut slices you in half?

Your hands clench further at the thought, a piercing pain shooting though your hands and arms when your nails finally draw blood as your eyes gaze upon the two boys.

The guard is still holding them in place but someone else has joined the group to discipline them instead. A teacher.

"Baghra?"

She's in the middle of insulting the fire summoning of one of the boys, the dead dove carefully cradled in her hands, when she hears you call out, her tired, angry eyes looking first at you, then at the General who's still a few steps ahead of you. You doubt anyone else notices it, but you see a spark of worry in her stare before it all disappears back under her usual mask. You think it unsettles you more than anything else ever could.

"Durast" Kirigan says coldly, stopping a few metres away from the group, eyes clearly glued to the dead bird, before he turns back to you. It's still not your name, but this time you're more glad than anything. If he hasn't bothered to learn your name yet he might not be as suspicious as you thought. The only good thing that happened today. "Go back to your quarters. I will send someone for you after all of this is over."

You can't help but nod, sending another nervous look to Baghra before you disappear back into the Little Palace and hide away in your room.

It's after midnight when a loud knocking finally rings through your room, but it's not who you expect.

"He's going to find out soon." Baghra whispers as soon as you open the window she knocked at, her tone serious. "He noticed the unnatural Merzost in the bird and we already knew that he's suspicious of you. It's only a mater of a few more hours until he connects the dots. You have to leave."

Part 5 - I'm not the devil

Taglist: @shawty-writes-a-little @dreamlandcreations @watersquirtpewpewboomm @getawayfrommewerewolf @magicstrengthandcourage @blossomedfloweroflove

#aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan x reader #darkling x reader #the darkling x reader

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hypnotisedfireflies · 3 months

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Would I be an absolute LOC slut if ask for asked for a little prompt about Tess having to give birth to Ellie on her own and how she had to deal with it all, thinking that Joel abandoned her and their baby?

I just keep thinking about that period, especially after the short story in CN&OS with the Bandit Era of Joel and Tess and them working out of the brothel. Tess, knowing the Madam, made me wonder if she might have helped Tess during that time-period.

Hello, lovely! Legend of Charro questions are always welcome, and thank you for yours!

I’m going to answer this as more of a ramble. My brain is kind of out of Charro-mode in terms of being able to turn out decent prose (we can thank IO and it’s sticky plot for that) so I hope you don’t mind if I do it this way! It might be something I can write properly if I go back to these guys in the future.

The below story ramble refers to events from my western AU The Legend of Charro and the short story, Disreputable Means.

Tess was with Adelaide (the future madam) when she gave birth. The bordello wasn’t under Adelaide’s rule then and she and the other girls were in a bad situation with some pretty unpleasant guys running things. Adelaide met a heavily-pregnant Tess by chance outside the bordello, when Adelaide was being stalked by a patron who’d been kicked out for being drunk, disorderly and rough the previous night. Tess was dangerously low on cash (the money wire hadn’t yet come through) and sleeping rough. She intervened when things got dicey for Adelaide and they took care of the guy together. It was very messy and very dirty. He took a lot of killing.

They were both pretty terrified and in a lawless part of town. Adelaide, seeing Tess’s condition, took her back with her to the bordello. She and the other girls essentially hid Tess in the kitchen. In exchange for laundering and helping Cook, she had somewhere safe to stay, as long as she stayed out of sight.

Adelaide and Tess became fast friends while she was there. To keep her safe, Tess told Adelaide her name was Amy and she made up a story about where she was from and how she came to be by herself. The others probably bought it but Adelaide didn’t. She was used to keeping her own secrets and so never pried into Tess’s.

Tess gave birth in the bordello. Fortunately for them all, the labour came in the early morning when the patrons were gone and the proprietors and pimps drunk and dead to the world. But with Ellie in the house, the secret would get out sooner or later. They took a chance and concealed mother and child in the woodshed for a few days, and then Tess had to leave. The consequences would’ve been dire for everyone if they were found out.

(And where was Charro during all of this? Tess would never bring him into towns with her. He was too exceptional-looking and he wouldn’t suffer town stables. He would just be waiting for her in the wild. All Tess would have to do was walk out a ways and he’d find her again).

Tess went to the post office on the off-chance there might be word from Joel, and found the money wire and … well, we know what she thought of that.

The two women wrote to one another sometimes over the years. It was hard to keep track of Tess, but Adelaide knew where she could send letters and Tess would pick them up. It wasn’t long after Tess had gone that men bearing wanted posters with Tess’s likeness on them came to town. Adelaide now knew who she really was.

Tess had a pretty bad time of it during those early years. Ellie wasn’t a happy baby and Tess almost gave her up to be sent back to Black Creek to be raised by Joel’s family (which she ultimately could not do as in the story). Once the money ran out, Tess’s options were limited. She couldn’t stay anywhere long or she risked being found out, she couldn’t bring Ellie with her because it made her disreputable, so her options for making money legitimately were severely reduced because of these factors. She would stash Ellie with unknowing families, pay them to keep her while she “ran errands” – which essentially meant she was entering banditry to make money. Eventually, she found Henry and Sam and they were far enough away for Ellie to stay with them, permanently hidden.

Despite everything she and Ellie had a very, very close bond. Tess put all the love she still had for Joel directly into Ellie. The life of their daughter helped her to find a way to forgive Joel for what the thought he’d done (thanks, Isobel) and when she was into banditry, that was where she expelled her anger. Ellie never saw Tess angry, and she never had a bad word to say about her daddy. Tess was determined that she get Ellie “right” and that “bringin’ her up proper” was all that could redeem her. The only time Charro carried two people was when Ellie was small and he’d bear her and Tess together.

Adelaide and Tess met once again when Tess was passing through town. She did not have Ellie with her and was very vague with Adelaide about what had happened to the infant. Adelaide intimated that she knew who Tess was and warned her to stay away. Tess noticed that Adelaide had some pretty bad bruises, was too thin, looked like she hadn’t slept. She told her another vague story, something about knowing what to do with men like that, and if she ever wanted to change things, she had only to let her know.

Eventually, things got very bad at the bordello and Adelaide reached out to Tess for help. And did she ever repay the kindness shown to her. There was a big shoot-out between the whores and the men, but by sundown, the bordello belonged to Adelaide.

#asks #the legend of charro #tlou fic #tlou

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frazzledsoul · 8 months

Text

Kind of thinking about the parallels between the Gilmore Girls kids (Jess, Lane, Rory) were thrown out by their parents/guardians. Rory is the outlier, as she ran to her grandparents where she was not responsible for supporting herself in any way and only reconciled with Lorelai when she did exactly what Lorelai wanted her to do and then there's zero reflection on either of their parts as to why this happened in the first place. Jess and Lane have to struggle to survive and make their own way in the world and slowly reconcile with their parents when they come to accept Jess and Lane's need for independence. Luke goes to see Jess at the open house for the press and tells him he's proud of him. Mama Kim sets up a band tour for Lane and comes to accept Zach. They won't ever fully understand why Jess and Lane are the way that they are and there is some fumbling before the estrangement is ended, but they're willing to step outside of their comfort zones and meet them halfway. We fast forward to AYITL and Jess and Lane are mature, self-sufficient, content adults who maintain relationships with their parents where they're in a position to give back. They've taken some of the values their parents raised them with, rejected others, and found a way to have a balance between the two.

By contrast, Rory is...living the life that I think Lorelai probably wanted if she hadn't gotten pregnant, and sucking at it. Rory is nomadic, rootless, permanently unattached, with no job or boyfriend or community to tie her down. I think that a young Lorelai would have loved to live this way, but OS Rory was so type A, so dependent on routine and organization and positive affirmation from others that she would have hated it immediately. This is why AYITL Rory always seems a bit false to me, because she would never have been content to live so chaotic an existence for close to a decade.

I also think she would have wanted a traditional romantic relationship instead of whatever this thing is with Logan that's somewhere between an affair and the way things worked between them when they were stable, an arrangement where she reaps the benefits of his connections and his lifestyle but nothing else is asked of her, where he's a support system and a sounding board but not quite in the way she needs or wants, because he's always encouraging her to adapt to her situation, not change it. I don't see OS Rory being content with that type of arrangement, but she never seems to want more. I think Lorelai would have thrived with that type of arrangement and probably did.

So what is Rory's true rebellion, her attempt to finally break away from Lorelai? It's unfortunately that damned book. Up until then Rory's storyline is basically the same as it was in season 6: she's unhappy with her life, so she goes off the rails for a bit, enjoys the outward trappings of being with Logan but grows disenchanted with him, finds a new direction courtesy of Jess, and finally breaks away from the upper-class world to embrace her roots. However, in AYITL she does it in a way that pisses off Lorelai and we're led to believe....Rory is in the right because this is her only option, otherwise she might have to continue her education or get a job she doesn't want? (You know, like a normal person. Le horror!)

Lorelai isn't even that critical of the concept itself, but she doesn't want Rory to tell her story and share all of the mistakes that Lorelai made as a mother which is....uh, fair? Lorelai balks at Jess being involved and says she doesn't want to know what he thinks of her, which I do believe has less to do with her hating him and more to do with all the stuff he knows about her personal life at this point. Still, regardless of her reason's it's fair to request that Rory only write about her side of it (after Rory tries the cringe worthy tactic of pitching her mother her own life story which is....honey, she was there, and her memories probably aren't exactly the same as yours. Uh uh. That was gross) and Rory... doesn't seem to care. She even bitches to Lane (and attempts to bitch to Logan, before she remembers she broke up with him) that she's a writer and should get to write anything she wants. Uh....this is a rebellion we're supposed to support? I don't think so.

Still, Lorelai comes around on this subject and I suppose we're meant to believe this is Rory finally growing up and the next stage of her life will revolve around the baby she's carrying. Still, it falls flat for me, even if it's the kind of thing that happens in series finales...and much as I don't quite believe that Rory would evolve into this kind of rootless person in the first place, I'm also not sure this fallout over the book really reflects well on Rory or shows how she's becoming more mature. It just doesn't work the way it did with Jess and Lane in the OS.

It pays to be a side character sometimes, I guess.

#gilmore girls #rory gilmore #lane kim #jess mariano #lorelai gilmore

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frecklystars · 2 months

Note

💌 here’s a free gush pass for officer k!

OH 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 AHHH!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON you are so so sweet!!!!!!!!!!! This is just what I needed today!!! 🥺🥺💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

Officer K!!! OOGHH WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN????? I've been yearning for him just about every day!!! Definitely one of my top favorite RG F/Os, probably even within the top three!!!! ;u;

I'm gonna go OFF, thank you, sweet anon, for allowing me to explode:

I've been dying to gush about Officer K and how he's become synonymous with Elvis. to me.

I used to be a hardcore Elvis fan when I was ten years old -- you know, normal, like all ten year olds. How did anybody assume I was neurotypical when I had an Elvis themed birthday party and did absolutely nothing but live, eat, and breathe Elvis Presley for a full year? Elvis on my walls, my mugs, my backpacks, my lunchbox, my clothes, my mousepad, even my breath mint case was a guitar shape with Elvis' face on it. You know, like all ten year olds have?? ANYWAY. I fell out of liking Elvis as I grew up, then flash forward to a decade later, I'm watching all these Ryan movies and there's so many instances where he'll say a line and it'll have the same bit of drawl or click of the tongue the way Elvis did, the same push/control of breath that makes his voice curve "up", and I'd think "huh... that sounds... familiar"

Then I watched br2049 for the first time, and there is that scene where an Elvis hologram shows up, glitching, singing "suspicious minds" for a moment, and it got me all excited. K was looking at it curiously for that split, split, SPLIT blink-and-you-miss-it second, and "I can't help falling in love with you" played a minute later, and he looked at the hologram again for just one moment. I just... started associating him with Elvis from that point forward. I don't even know if he liked Elvis' songs while they were playing; he was kind of, uh, going through quite a lot at the time, haha. but if he knew I liked Elvis' music/voice quite a bit, he'd come to associate it with me, and maybe he'd like it too.

I really love daydreaming about him coming home from a long day, he's just exhausted and jaded and there's this ache in his chest, and I know exactly what to do to try to make him feel better, feel loved, wanted -- or maybe I wake up from a nightmare or something, and he knows exactly what to do, to make me feel safe, cared for, secure -- I don't go a single day without daydreaming about us holding hands during those moments when we need each other terribly, slow dancing a little bit in his living room while playing Elvis records. He could just easily play the songs instantaneously from another device that would fill the whole room, but there's something... different... about a record player that he's so dearly drawn to. It's all Barbie pink (I had to bring it to him from some other dimension after all!), and he likes the faint sound of the stylus scratching, the little bits of static electricity.

"Love Me Tender" makes me teary-eyed every single time I listen to it now, just because it makes me feel so comforted to think about him. I think he'd hum it softly in my ear while we're slow dancing. Or just laying on the couch and cuddling, his coat as a makeshift blanket for the both of us, him rubbing my back and my fingers in his hair. If I can't sleep, he'll tell me fairytales in a soothing voice. Most of them he makes up on the spot, something something there's a princess with stars glittering in her hair, something something there is a stable boy named Joe who falls in love with the princess, something something he works to become her knight to protect her at all costs... she makes him feel like a prince even though everyone else views him as a mindless, worthless thing; he makes her feel safe and loved and like she's almost herself again when they have late night talks in a garden full of yellow flowers. They make each other feel things they have been missing out on for so long. And they live happily ever after. He always makes sure to end it that way; always a happy ending.

"It's Now or Never" is one of my favorites to associate with him too... when I listen to that song, I often think about him looking out his apartment window, waiting to see a shooting star (for context, my self insert enters universes via falling star, then transforming into a human once reaching the ground). He can never see a star in the sky, not in that universe, not when there's smog and advertisements in your face all the time, not when there's so much pollution, that the only stars, the only sunlight he could ever dream of seeing is a picture or drawing in a textbook. But he sees one star so vividly every few nights twinkling above him and slowly drifting toward where he is, whether that's home or in his office or out in the field. And he drops everything and bolts outside toward it, catches it, then tucks the star away in his coat, protecting it from the cold as he walks back inside. If he's going into his apartment, he feels a surge of protectiveness overtaking him. All of these people yelling at him, spitting at him, shoving him, throwing slurs in his direction - none of that matters, he's got a star tucked away near his heart and he's gotta make sure nothing happens to it. If he's getting shoved, he turns his body so he only gets hit in the shoulder or the back, not the chest or whichever side where the star might be tucked away. When he goes inside his apartment, he locks the door, takes a breath -- and suddenly there she is, there's his girl, still a bit of stardust in her hair from her travels. And we hug!!! One of those big tight hugs where you close your eyes and your fingers curl in the fabric of the other person's clothes. Desperate. And he lets out this big SIGH of relief.

I think about him listening to "Rubberneckin'" and he pauses and says "hey sweetheart... what does that mean?" "what?" "rubberneckin', what is that?" 👀 cue a visual demonstration here. it really doesn't help that the song has girls moaning in the background that he asks about too lmao

You know that scene where he's walking through the ruins of Las Vegas? I always remember "Viva Las Vegas" when I watch it. One of these days I hope to make a (very roughly) sketched animatic for the first 40 seconds of that song with Officer K.

"Baby, Let's Play House" describes K very well, as he literally comes home every day and plays house with Joi lol. That's not one of my favorite songs but I listen to it on occasion and think of him. "Don't Be Cruel" is probably my favorite Elvis song to associate with him so far. I always think of dancing to it with him, and him laughing. Actually laughing. Feeling good. I want him to be so happy around me. "Bossa Nova" is a good dancing song for us too!

I think about AUs for Driver and K, like, what is it called... a greaser AU? 70's AU? I just want the excuse to draw them in a black jacket, me in a cute poodle skirt, us sharing a milkshake at a diner or dancing to a jukebox. I wanna draw things. I WANNA DRAW THINGS.

ANYWAY ANYWAY I've rambled enough. Thank you SO MUCH for giving me this free gush pass. Whoever you are, I am sending you the biggest hug and lots of love and chocolates and all of your favorite flowers. That was really nice of you to brighten up my inbox after such a hard day ;w; and it's so sweet of you to remember how much I love this guy. Ahhh. This means a lot to me. I hope when you get something from the vending machine, it gives you two snacks for the price of one. I hope you find money on the ground. I hope all of your favorite songs come on the radio when you go grocery shopping. I hope you have the most delicious meal in the world the next time you go out. Thank you for your kindness, it doesn't go unnoticed. Quite the opposite. Sending you so much joy and love and good vibes 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

#anonymous #asks #keepsake #self insert asks #love notes #💕♬♪ ♡ I can't help falling in love with you ☆- ̗̀💛 ̖́-☆

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the-lonewriter · 1 year

Text

The night like skylights

@sophierequests, this is for you <3

Later, Sergei thinks of it in fractures, like shattered glass. As if in a muddled flashback, he’d held Vasily in his arms, skin to skin in a warm embrace, a closeness unlike anything else in this world. It fades into the scene of his funeral, standing rigid as a statue while holding back the tears pouring into his eyes, cascading down his cheeks like a flash flood – sweeping away everything in its destructive path.

Goodbye my love. I will see you soon. On the other side. In the next life. Wherever you want us to meet.

This is how this story ends. In misery, heartbreak and grief.

Are you sure you want to hear about it?

In spite of the violent conclusion, it was a lifetime of love. Desire. Wanting and needing and getting. Planning a life together, far away from it all. Floating away from the crushing pressure that rested on their shoulders.

Tears of joy. Smiles. Vasily’s love was like sugar, candid and beautifully addictive.

So buckle up for the ride that's life. For the country that’s Ravka. Unforgiving and taking and never giving anything back. An adventure. A lesson in loving and being loved and never giving up despite every odds.

When all was said and done, Sergei had always keyed in to the things that mattered.

Vasily Alexandrovich Lantsov.

His best mistake.

Caryeva was not yet stifling with heat at this time of the year but Sergei could feel the warm air dragging on his tee shirt as he got out of his car. He shouldn't have come here. After Vasily's death things had blurred together. The estate was his now.

He'd rather have his fiancé in his arms than this fucking pompous mansion, he thought, over and over. It made no sense to dwell on loss, and yet Sergei found himself mulling over it at every opportunity. If he had known four years ago that falling for the elder Lantsov prince would lead up to this tragedy, would he have done it anyway? Would he have indulged in all the sweet kisses? In the touches and secret meetings? Would he have said yes when Vasily had asked for his hand in matrimony?

He took a tentative step forward; the gravel cracking underneath the soles of his sneakers. He'd been here once – before he'd known of his dead lover's grand plan to make this house their own. A horse farm. Far away from the dramas of Os Alta. The calm after the storm.

His legs carried him to the stables on their own. Muscle memory. It was flesh and blood now after half a decade of loving a horseman. There were nickers greeting him, twenty-four curious ears of Vasily's finest race horses turning their heads towards him with their muzzles stretched out from their stalls.

He only had eyes for one.

"Dag?"

He whispered. The stallion lifted his fine head immediately. For a moment, they just stared at each other, blues lost in brown, so much pain lingering in both their souls. Vasily had told him he had saved Dagrenner from abuse when he'd just been a colt. The horse had always been fierce but he'd discovered his love for racing, his gentle nature.

His hand worked mechanically as he pulled the bolt back to unlock the stall, treading on a mix of soft straw, hay and sawdust.

Only the best for my babies, Vasily's voice echoed in his ears.

Dagrenner scrutinized him as he stretched out his palm, canting his head before ever so carefully sniffing his hand with his velvety nostrils. The tears in his eyes stung the longer he thought about what that gesture meant. He was looking for traces of Vasily’s scent on him. His cologne – still on the bathroom sink at the Grand Palace. Neither he nor Nikolai had had the heart to clean out his room yet.

"I brought you something, Dag."

The horse licked at his fingers as if he understood and Sergei had to suppress a sob. Everything here reminded him of Vasily. He shouldn't have come here.

The urge to come to a closure had been stronger.

If he ever could.

"Why do you love me?"

Sergei stares at him as if he’s just questioned him about a particularly difficult aspect of rocket science and alternative fuels. He swallows, his throat parched, dry as a rose well past its prime.

“Because.”

Vasily's laughter, thick and sweet as honey. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he just ascended to heaven.

“Because?”

His fingers card through the prince's blonde locks, soft and still slightly wet from the shower. The king size bed in his room in the Grand Palace is big enough for both of them and yet Sergei hovers over his boyfriend, straddling him.

“Because you are you. And I wouldn’t want anything else but that.”

Vasily seems to ponder it for a moment but his thoughts are quickly discarded as his guard begins tracing kisses down his neck and he just…

Starts falling into unimaginable bliss.

You are my prince. My king. My forever.

Maybe if he could go back to the night he first met Vasily, he wouldn’t have gotten into his Mercedes. Maybe if he hadn’t driven like an idiot, if he had actually paid attention to the road, Marie would still be here. Maybe the tides would have turned and Vasily would be here, too.

Maybe if he could return to all those moments, maybe then he could tell himself what the hell he was supposed to do now.

He had lost the love of his life twice in the span of six years. For the past five he’d actually thought he’d found peace with the crown prince. The offer for the guard post had been too lucrative to turn down and he’d needed the money after his parents had kicked him out. They still blamed him for Marie’s death. The poor girl. Wherever she was now. Maybe even talking to Vasily about how stupid he was. Sharing stories. Sharing memories. Fleeting kisses. Gentle touches.

Dagrenner hadn't stirred once since Sergei had wrapped his arms around his muscular neck a while ago, breathing in the distinctive smell of Vasily's shampoo - someone must have washed his fur with it. Had he left a bottle here before he died?

Another breath. So slow. Dragging. How unfair it all was, to be still here after everything. Alone once more. All he had left of his love was his horse. His beloved, kindled horse.

Vasily must have known something horrible was about to happen to him, otherwise he wouldn't be standing here after reading his goodbye letter with a bank account fuller than it had ever been and an entire stable and house at his disposal. They’d never talked about the possibility of his death until he’d been in the ICU, deathly sick, barely clinging to life fighting the deadly sepsis cursing through his veins after having his lungs torn to pieces by an assassin’s bullet.

They’d talked about it then, or as much as Vasily had been able to and Sergei had cried. Day and night. Those weeks had been the worst of his life and the only thing that kept him going had been the small flicker of a chance his lover had had. All lost. Lost to a traffic jam and a missed dose of a drug.

A future sacrificed to an internal bleeding. 27. He’d been 27. Now he’d be 28.

An odd thought.

Sergei takes the keys. A black horse dangles from the chain. He doesn't look back once. This journey is over. He can’t stay here, not when everything reminds him of Vasily and he had kissed his forehead during his funeral on live television. His fiancé. Once and for all. Nikolai has offered him a commission somewhere outside the city, a quiet desk job. He declined.

This is over. It all ends here. With Vasily’s life.

He’d promised to take care of Dagrenner after Vasily had asked him to during a delirious episode in the hospital, with his fever so high they’d thought he’d break a record. They’d both been crying and Sergei would have agreed to anything in that very moment because Vasily has never been more vulnerable around him. It had seemed like he had dropped the mask of the arrogant crown prince for all and everything that remained was a scared boy, afraid to die at that very moment.

“Vasya would have wanted you to have it.”

Sergei fastened the emerald ring to his halter. It glinted in the lowlights of the sun. Somewhere he could hear the faint whinny of another horse.

He was home. He was lost.

Ketterdam is something else, Sergei thinks as he glances down at the glittering nightlights of the city in sheer wonder. A trip to Kerch has been his dream since he’s been but a little boy and nothing else had his boyfriend gifted him. Luxury and bottle after bottle of wine later, so much he would have never been able to afford, they shared the privacy of standing on top of one of the highest buildings hand in hand; bathing in the magic of the moment.

This is life. Just the two of them. Free from destiny.

"Do you want to marry me?"

Sergei gasps, taking a step back in shock as Vasily kneels in front of him, a tiny box in hands with a ring inside. An Emerald. The gemstone of the royal family. Tears break his vision.

"Yes. Yes, I want to marry you, Vasya."

Dagrenner had never been calmer under the saddle, walking through the blooming fields of poppy surrounding them. The vast landscape of Novyi Zem was a sight to behold but Sergei couldn't find it in him to focus on it. His thoughts were a mess of scrambled ideas, heartache, longing. Loving was a burden and a blessing all the same, he’d learned.

After all those years, he still found himself astray in the Ravka. He had left the country months ago, finally making good on the promise to travel the world and he somehow ended up at the other end of it. It was an escape. Fleeing from whatever there was to run from. It was lonely but not. Free but not. Nothing was ever enough to conquer the unyielding emptiness inside of him.

The sun was rising slowly, ascending from the carved curves of hills in the distance. A surreal view and yet he couldn’t help but feel mesmerized by the blur of purple and orange. A mess of colors, a vision of the future. Bright but hazy. Dark as the night sky with streaks of sunlight breaking through.

"In the next life, we'll do it all together."

He stroked the stallion’s silky black mane, longer now than Vasily would have ever let it grow but times changed. Seasons passed. He’s been dead for almost half a year now. His voice grew all soft, placid, quiet, recalling the funeral. His last kiss. His promise. In the next life. Not now. Ever?

Sergei’s gaze traced over the blossoms. Cherry red. Blood like. A sea of scarlet so far he was sure it could almost fit the valley of his tears he’d shed since it happened.

Hope is dangerous.

He’d hoped and begged and prayed and now that it was all over, what had it been for?

They’d done everything the doctors said, had tried every drug and miracle treatment and it hadn’t even mattered in the end. But it was okay. It got to be okay. He knew. He knew because-

Someday he would be with him. Forever. Nothing could part them again.

"You, me and Vasily."

Many thanks to @camilleisback and @udovaintomyheart for beta reading this angst fest <3

#sergei beznikov #serily #➳ —— ❝ in the next life 》 vasily x sergei #vasily lantsov #shadow and bone netflix #grishaverse #grishaverse fanfic #gv fanfic #shadow and bone fandom #sab fanfiction #grishaverse fanfiction #the grisha trilogy #➳ —— ❝ heavy is the head 》 modern ravka au #heavy is the head a modern ravka au #heavy is the head #modern grishaverse au #modern ravka #modern!grishaverse

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rthko · 2 years

Note

As a 30 yo in classes with 21-22 y/os, the behaviour I have seen in a lot of Gen Z young adults is that want to be babied when they are faced with anything that makes them feel uncomfortable as an individual (usually this is related to unpleasant emotions like sadness/anger, and/or to personal accountability) and they want to be seen as Strong and Very Capable (and Pure and Unproblematic) when they are addressing systemic issues (to balance out point 1?) I assume this is present to some degree in all generations, btw, but it does feel like Gen Z is a lot more vocal/binary about it

I would say, to generalize, gen z is very accustomed to expressing their victimhood. Not necessarily a bad thing! In a macro sense, yes, many came of age during a pandemic and forty+ years of unrelenting neoliberalism have made living conditions harder. But some think they’re alone in their victimhood, or that it excuses self absorbed behavior. That’s why the most annoying examples are the downwardly mobile white middle class zoomers (many of whom if I’m gunna be honest will briefly stumble in their twenties, which is normal, before going back to stable lives). They yell at everyone else, “you don’t know what it’s like to grow up in crisis!” But for a lot of families, they were never not in crisis. They overstate how easy prior generations had it, which if this is even true to begin with it still only applies to other white middle class people. If (some) boomers had it easy, why do we view this as a cause for resentment and not a glimpse into what was possible in a world before neoliberalism, and what will be possible after it? If we feel so hopeless why do we want to burn bridges with other generations (even millennials who grew up with most of the same issues) and face it alone? Many have called me bitter and cynical but I actually have lots of hope and love in my heart 😌

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snarkylinda · 2 years

Note

I want Gary team redemption. Literally everything he brought back or was new got ate by legendaries except Electivire, with only Blastoise getting to make up for it. (Fair. But you must admit, the idea of Gary being the supportive boyfri-- *ahem* CHILDHOOD friend having all kinds of emotions while watching Ash's biggest match ever live while trying to stay composed and cool as he usually does [when compared to Johto] is too good of a dream to pass up? Having the big proudest smirk if Ash wins?)

I just want his team to have some fleshing out tbh, or at least the 4 that are most known as stables. Like back in OS most of the pokemon didn't really had much to do outside of the occasional battle or race- SPECIALLY non-Ash's pokemon. In Johto this was a bit improves but again....Shigeru has 4 appareances on it before the league. So....yeah, not lots of time to develop an pokemon xD but things had changed since then, and non-Ash Pokemon can have their own character, so I think we all know who deserves it the most....

Definition Arcanine, he looks like a good boy :)

Ok jokes aside Blastoise is criminally underdeveloped being his starter and the one that ended his and Ash's battle, I would had loved to see more of that guy....and I will take the chance to put my hc here: Ash and Gary totally talked about who they starter would be when they were younger, constantly, and Ash didn't had an direct asnwer (he thought all three looked cool) but Gary already knew his pick would be Squirtle. Hence Ash picking Squirtle first when he got late, like an reminance of that little (er) boy that constantly followed Gary around....hey, Delia's words not mine.

Also the second part- ACSBAFSHACSHAVSHAVS- Anon, anon come here: I think about that.... literally everyday. Like every single day if my life. Like I still hold an grudge for robbing me of an Shigeru cameo watching the Sinnoh League- but I have Hope™ ok? Ok. If they can make PAUL actually smile at Ash TWICE and Gladion apparently stalked him online, they can make the less tsundere of the three act like an proud boyfri- guy best friend, guy BEAT FRIEND-

Nah, boyfriend, they just have an open relationship that is what the second scene under the moon was for.

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this-week-in-rust · 14 days

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This Week in Rust 542

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on Twitter or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub and archives can be viewed at this-week-in-rust.org. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Official

Announcing Rust 1.77.2

Security advisory for the standard library (CVE-2024-24576)

Changes to Rust's WASI targets

Rust Nation UK

Hannah Aubrey - A Web of Rust: The Future of the Internet Depends on Trust

JD Nose - Rust Infrastructure: What it takes to keep Rust running

Amanieu D'Antras - The path to a stable ABI for Rust

Luca Palmieri - Pavex: re-imaging API development in Rust

Lachezar Lechev - Typed for Safety

Marco Concetto Rudilosso - Building a profiler for web assembly

Jon Gjengset - Towards Impeccable Rust

Nicholas Yang - Porting Turborepo From Go To Rust

David Haig - What’s that behind your ear? An open source hearing aid in Rust.

Frédéric Ameye - Renault want to sell cars with rust!

Nikita Lapkov - Type-safe and fault-tolerant mesh services with Rust

Andre Bogus - Easy Mode Rust

Lars Bergstrom - Beyond Safety and Speed: How Rust Fuels Team Productivity

Tim McNamara - Unwrapping unsafe

Nicholas Matsakis - Rust 2024 and beyond

Project/Tooling Updates

Shipping Jco 1.0, WASI 0.2

This month in Pavex, #10

"Containerize" individual functions in Rust with extrasafe

rust-analyzer changelog #228

Rerun 0.15.0 - Blueprints from Python · rerun-io/rerun

Bevy 0.13.2, Curves, Gizmos, and Games

What's new in SeaORM 1.0-rc.x

Observations/Thoughts

Improve performance of you Rust functions by const currying

Ownership in Rust

Thoughts on the xz backdoor: an lzma-rs perspective

hyper HTTP/2 Continuation Flood

Leaky Abstractions and a Rusty Pin

[audio] Launching RustRover: JetBrains' Investment in Rust

[audio] Pavex with Luca Palmieri

[video] Decrusting the tokio crate

[video] Rust 1.77.0: 70 highlights in 30 minutes

[video] Simulate the three body problem in #rustlang

[video] Exploring Fiberplane's 3-Year Rust Journey - with Benno van den Berg

Rust Walkthroughs

Working with OpenAPI using Rust

Zed Decoded: Async Rust

Writing a Unix-like OS in Rust

Fivefold Slower Compared to Go? Optimizing Rust's Protobuf Decoding Performance

Write Cleaner, More Maintainable Rust Code with PhantomData

[video] Extreme Clippy for an existing Rust Crate

[video] developerlife.com - Build a color gradient animation for a spinner component, for CLI, in Rust

[video] developerlife.com - Build a spinner component, for CLI, in Rust

[video] developerlife.com - Build an async readline, and spinner in Rust, for interactive CLI

Research

"Against the Void": An Interview and Survey Study on How Rust Developers Use Unsafe Code

Sound Borrow-Checking for Rust via Symbolic Semantics

Miscellaneous

Rust indexed - Rust mdbooks search

March 2024 Rust Jobs Report

Rust Meetup and user groups (updated)

Embedding the Servo Web Engine in Qt

A memory model for Rust code in the kernel

Building Stock Market Engine from scratch in Rust (II)

Ratatui Received Funding: What's Next?

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is archspec-rs, a library to track system architecture aspects.

Thanks to Orhun Parmaksız for the suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No calls for testing were issued this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Call for Participation; projects and speakers

CFP - Projects

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

CFP - Speakers

Are you a new or experienced speaker looking for a place to share something cool? This section highlights events that are being planned and are accepting submissions to join their event as a speaker.

If you are an event organizer hoping to expand the reach of your event, please submit a link to the submission website through a PR to TWiR.

Updates from the Rust Project

431 pull requests were merged in the last week

CFI: change type transformation to use TypeFolder

CFI: fix ICE in KCFI non-associated function pointers

CFI: restore typeid_for_instance default behavior

CFI: support function pointers for trait methods

CFI: support non-general coroutines

MSVC targets should use COFF as their archive format

actually use the inferred ClosureKind from signature inference in coroutine-closures

add Ord::cmp for primitives as a BinOp in MIR

add a debug asserts call to match_projection_projections to ensure invariant

add aarch64-apple-visionos and aarch64-apple-visionos-sim tier 3 targets

add consistency with phrases "meantime" and "mean time"

assert FnDef kind

assert that args are actually compatible with their generics, rather than just their count

avoid ICEing without the pattern_types feature gate

avoid expanding to unstable internal method

avoid panicking unnecessarily on startup

better reporting on generic argument mismatchs

cleanup: rename HAS_PROJECTIONS to HAS_ALIASES etc

do not ICE in fn forced_ambiguity if we get an error

do not ICE on field access check on expr with ty::Error

do not ICE when calling incorrectly defined transmute intrinsic

fix ByMove coroutine-closure shim (for 2021 precise closure capturing behavior)

fix capture analysis for by-move closure bodies

fix diagnostic for qualifier in extern block

hir: use ItemLocalId::ZERO in a couple more places

impl get_mut_or_init and get_mut_or_try_init for OnceCell and OnceLock

implement T-types suggested logic for perfect non-local impl detection

implement minimal, internal-only pattern types in the type system

instantiate higher ranked goals outside of candidate selection

link against libc++abi and libunwind as well when building LLVM wrappers on AIX

make inductive cycles always ambiguous

make sure to insert Sized bound first into clauses list

match ergonomics: implement "&pat everywhere"

match lowering: make false edges more precise