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youremyheaven · 2 months

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The Ugliness of Venus

every planet is associated with certain key themes but being under that planetary influence means to experience its very opposite. the extremes of anything is a meeting point for its opposite.

venus is the planet associated with love, beauty, harmony etc therefore it is unsurprising that venusian influence also subjects one to cruelty, ugliness, disharmony, violence and malevolence.

TW: this post will contain mentions of sexual harassment, rape, violence, murder, massacre, genocide, death, suicide among other things so please beware!!!

in my observations I have often found that Venusian natives are often cruel, callous, ugly (i mean this to refer to their actions/behaviour and not just unconventional appearance because "beauty" is a sum of appearance and traits- what we call Venusian refinement) hurtful, jealous and utterly lacking the charisma and hospitality for which Venus is known.

it is disturbing to think of how soooo many well known and notorious sex offenders have HEAVY Venusian influence in their charts. think of any celebrity who has had a sex scandal and they usually have Venusian placements. it's intriguing that no other planet shows up as much (in my personal observations).

Why is Venus so brutal, cruel and embracing of the darkness/ugliness of humanity?

All 3 Venus nakshatras, Bharani, Purvaphalguni & Purvashada are Ugra (meaning cruel or brutal, this is a 7 category classification in vedic astrology) nakshatras.

Ugra naks are known to be action-oriented go-getters and people who are very self-motivated and determined. Any quality can manifest in good or bad ways, so the shadow aspect of this determination and motivation is often ruthlessness, callousness, selfishness and arrogance.

This is also the reason why Venusian naks suffer. Venus seeks refinement, so an individual who does not filter out their own darkness but instead indulges in it, is inviting wrath. More than any other planet, Venus punishes its natives quite harshly and publicly. So many people who have been known to be horrible people, have been exposed, shamed and punished publicly have Venus influence.

Venus energy must be handled with care. Since Venus is love, it has a quality where it loves blindly, completely and without judgement but discretion and judgement are necessary in life. It is not good to be absolutely consumed by someone or something without considering the good and evil inherent in it. This makes Venus natives prone to evil simply because they don't see it as such. They think of it as the depths of their understanding of love, beauty and harmony. Beauty in its extreme however is grotesque, its ugliness, its frightening. Think of all those IG models who have the same face, there is a blandness to their cartoonish perfection to their proportions, it fails to evoke feeling, it fails to be memorable because true beauty is distinct and flawed, its intensity, depth and exaggerated proportions because Venus is not mild or lukewarm, it like to go overboard. Think of Angelina Jolie, her big forehead, large cheekbones, strong jaw, big protruding eyes, its a face that calls attention to itself, its not simple or readily accessible, its the opposite of the IG face where beauty is reduced to ordinary everyday blandness. True beauty is individuality.

Venusian natives are often preoccupied with good and evil, the holy and demonic, heaven and hell, this emanates from a deep understanding of contradictions and the need for their existence. Opposites are an illusion, everything is one. Goodness in its extreme is evil and the extremes of evil touches upon goodness.

So now I'll discuss certain specific examples:

Mao Zedong- Purvashada Rising

He was responsible for the deaths of close to 40 million people who died due to starvation, forced labour and others executed by the state due to their opposition of its policies.

Saddam Hussein- Bharani Sun, Venus in Revati (exalted)

Him and his party used violence, killing, torture, execution, arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, and various forms of repression to control the population. Kurdish people were systematically persecuted and massacred using tear gas.

Hussein was publicly executed for committing crimes against humanity.

Hitler- Purvashada stellium (Moon, Jupiter and Ketu), Mercury and Venus in Bharani

I need not elaborate on who Hitler was and what he did bc we're all very familiar with him but yeah he was a Venusian. He died by suicide.

Stalin- Purvashada Mercury Amatyakaraka

I do not wish to elaborate on Soviet war crimes but Stalin had millions of people die, from starvation, torture, indentured labour etc

R Kelly- Purvashada Sun & Mercury

He is a pedophile and convicted sex offender

Marilyn Manson- Purvashada Sun

He's been accused of assault and rape on more than one occasion.

Idi Amin- Purvashada Sun

Idi Amin was popularly known as "The Butcher of Uganda." Amin overthrew an elected government in Uganda with a military coup, using lessons from the British colonial army. He declared himself president and ruled ruthlessly from 1971-1979. Once in power, Amin started mass executions of the Acholi and Lango tribes. In 1972 Amin forced 80,000 Asians to leave the country, which caused the economic collapse of the country since many were business owners. It’s estimated that through his rule, Amin killed at least 300,000 civilians.

Elon Musk- Purvaphalguni Moon

Sexual misconduct charges, labour law violations, treating his employees like trash and being an insufferable asshole on Twitter among other things. Nobody makes $100 billion without exploiting 100s of millions of people.

Jimmy Saville- Purvaphalguni Moon, Mars in Bharani amatyakaraka and Ketu in Purvashada

He was a pedophile who abused numerous children over the span of 50yrs

Peter Townshend- Purvaphalguni Jupiter & Rising, Ketu in Purvashada

He was found trying to access child porn sites

Chris Brown- Bharani Sun & Moon

He's abused several women, most famously, Rihanna

Here's some examples of people who have risen to prominence by playing ruthless people.

Kathy Bates- Mars in Purvaphalguni amatyakaraka

She is best remembered for playing the psychotic nurse in Misery

Anthony Hopkins- Purvashada Sun

He is best known for playing serial killer Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs

I know this is a very polarising topic and to any Venusians reading this, I sincerely do not wish to spread hate or cause harm, I am only trying to point out some of the things I have noticed. Does this mean every other Venusian you encounter is a serial killer in disguise? No Are all Venusians bad people? Also no. I thought it would be interesting to shed some light on the darker side of Venus which is seldom addressed if at all. Please do not take any of these observations too seriously and do not use astrology as a tool to propagate hatred towards yourself or others.

#venus #vedic astro notes #astrology observations #astrology notes #vedic astrology #astro notes #nakshatras #sidereal astrology #astro observations #astrology #astroblr

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avocado-writing · 3 months

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Ohhhh my lord I would DIE for some sort of AU where Astarion had a lover/partner before he was turned by Cazador???

And maybe he finds you visiting his grave after being freed from the tadpole or something and mentally debating whether to go to you or stay hidden bc he’s insecure about being a vampire?

Idk I’ve just been thinking about this randomly and the angst would be so goooood

Love Love Love your work Avo 💚💚💚

notes: sorry for this I swear I’ll write something happy next.

pairing: astarion x reader.

warnings: hurt, no comfort

rating: T

He dies and leaves you broken.

At least, you think he does. There is no way for him to come to you through those first few years, when Cazador keeps him imprisoned alone and half-crazed with starvation, sucking the innards out of rats until their desiccated husks are his only company. Eventually he manages to endear himself to his master enough that he is allowed out of the palace, though that is only to bring food back in the form of the unsuspecting nobles of Baldur’s Gate.

It is a miserable existence. He hates his body, hates himself, and as Cazador forces him to seduce people back, using his own beauty as bait, the soft nights he spent with you are all that keeps him sane.

Your memory is a light in the darkness of his new life.

On the fifth anniversary of his death, the first chance he has since he was turned, he cannot help but go and visit his grave. Call him maudlin, but he wonders if it has yet fallen into disrepair. As a magistrate he was hardly the most popular man in the city, and now everyone thinks he’s long gone…

He does not find it empty. He finds a sobbing figure next to the headstone.

You are just as lovely as he remembers, though your face is stained with tears. You grieve as if he died yesterday and not several years past. Your fingers carefully caress the engraving of his name, the way you used to trace them over his cheekbones, his lips.

It is a punch to the gut.

“Why did you have to leave me…” you choke, gripping the grass so hard you tear it from the ground.

He wants to hold you in his arms. To tell you that he is here, that death didn’t take him. He wants to remember what it feels like to touch you, really touch you, not just live by an echo of it in his memory.

But he can’t, because he is a monster. A creature which belongs to the night. You would not want him now, would you? You’re a thing of beating blood and soft flesh and breathed air and life. He simply cannot anchor you to this thing which he has become and drag you down too.

That would just kill him all over again.

Wordlessly, he leaves you to mourn.

He comes back every year, to that little corner of the graveyard. You still cry but as time moves on, it is less, and eventually you make it through a whole visit without shedding a tear. You wax poetic about your favourite memories of him: quiet meals spent together, days when you never left bed, private in-jokes he thinks you would have forgotten by now. He listens to you talk from the shadows.

It is the one thing he has to look forward to all year.

Then you start bringing company.

Your partner holds your hand tightly, and Astarion seethes from the darkness as you tell them about all him, about the pale elf you used to love. They listen as you fondly recount stories of your time together, and Astarion is torn: you no longer sound hurt like you once did, like the grief is a constant companion as you stumble on through life; but he is bitter. You were his. And now your hand easily links through the fingers of another.

He considers attacking you both. Biting you, trying to turn you. Killing your new paramour and having their bastard blood quench his unholy thirst.

But then you laugh, really laugh, tipping your head back in mirth at something they said, and leaning up against them. The way you used to with him.

How can a dead heart break?

He leaves.

The next year, when the two of you visit, you have matching rings on your fingers.

The year after that, you do not come to his grave at all. He wonders if you have finally forgotten about him. He tries to swallow this fact and move on, but what does he have to move on to? More misery. More loneliness. More Cazador.

The year after he finds you there, once again, and he feels the first twinge of joy in gods know how long –

“We had a baby, Astarion,” you say to the cold stone in front of you, carefully clearing off the moss which has attempted to take it over. “A little boy. He’s so precious… I know you never really liked children, but I hope you’d be pleased for me. I miss you, my darling, but I’m finally happy.”

He never visits his grave again.

taglist: @ghosti02art @sadandanxiouswtf @yeethaw13 @trappedinlimbo15 @infinitely-kate@dhampling

#astarion x you #astarion x reader #astarion fic #astarion imagine #astarion ancunin x reader #My writing #Request

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theredofoctober · 8 months

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MANNA— CHAPTER FOUR: TOAST

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, mild Daddy kink (it'll all make sense). Cannot stress the ED/anorexia warnings more strongly for this chapter guys!

This is chronologically the fourth chapter in the series

You sit with your back to Dr Lecter as he readies himself to leave for his morning appointments, feeling like an ancient sacrifice to some forest beast, blindfolded and anointed, its snail-fed bride; the dread of unseeing, of not knowing what he does as you stare at the wall is so clever a punishment that you comprehend entirely why more brutal forms were inflicted before it.

He is ingenious in his malice, this man. The fear of the worst of things is the stick that will make you the supplicant to his merest whim.

In cyclical paths you think of Hannibal’s attack at the breakfast table, how he had intuited your intent to cut his throat before you had finalised the thought. The gymnast's grace with which he’d caught you, the psychic recognition of revolt— he has held others captive, before you, surely.

Likely he has killed.

There are many like Dr Lecter, in the medical field, rapists and murderers in their masses, scything the weak, and allowing their names to fall through the cracks in the system, where few care to retrieve them. Already you feel yourself staggering into that hopeless black, soundless as your gaoler guides you back into the en suite by a hand at your nape.

“You may take a bath, if you wish,” he says— how had he known you’d only stood at the sink that morning? “I have provided toiletries for you. No razors, I’m afraid. If you desire to shave, then Will or I must be present, which I doubt you would prefer, at this time. Besides, I have to leave for my first appointment in a few minutes. I trust that you will enjoy the solitude.”

You keep your back to him, half-swooning under your dread of those pitiless eyes.

“I hope that you will not do anything unwise, while I’m away,” says Hannibal, into the frigidity of your silence. “There is no mention of active suicidal ideation in your records. I would be surprised if you drowned yourself; of all the poetic figures you resemble, Ophelia, in her madness, is not of their number.”

“Why?” you whisper. “After what’s happened, I should want to die.”

Hannibal’s arm glides past you, twisting the faucets of the bath until water beats a war drum rhythm against the porcelain.

“But you do not,” he says, his voice so close to your ear that you jump. “Death, to you, would be an unfortunate symptom of the habits you keep. You are ambivalent about life, at the best of times, yet your goal is not to leave it. Your inherent belief is that you can maintain starvation at such a balance that you defy both those who have hurt you and God Himself.”

You watch hot water spin the air into steam, and a tear condenses on your left cheek, quite as warm.

“Does God even exist?” you ask. “If He did, He’d get me out of this.”

Dr Lecter unscrews the top of an expensive soap bottle and pours it into the bath, smoking the room with the scent of dusky vanilla; of course, his perfume for you would be gourmand.

“God kills and aids with equal relish. Who is to say that it is not your suffering that he would prefer?”

“That’s what you want?” you ask, in a whisper like a fragment of snow. “For me to suffer?”

“No, little one,” says Hannibal, touching your quivering lower lip with a gentle thumb. “If that was so, I would have left you to die in your parents care. What I want is for you to eat, and gain trust in those that yearn to help you.”

He straightens, smoothing down an imaginary crease in his suit.

“I have prepared lunch for you to eat while I am at work. I expect to see that you have eaten it.”

Your stomach, hard with breakfast, is nevertheless hollow enough to moan.

“All of it?” you ask.

“Yes,” says Hannibal, though not unkindly. “It is only a light portion. Will is joining us for dinner tonight.”

You sit down on the edge of the bath, your voice rising to a petulant note, as though Will were an unsavoury family friend, and not a man driven to rape by a whisper in his ear.

“I don’t want to see him.”

“Nevertheless, you will,” says Hannibal. “Like hunger, he is the spectre you must face, regardless of your fear of him.”

Hannibal switches off the taps and smiles down at you, undeterred by your unchanged, fearful disgust.

“Goodbye, little one,” he says. “And be good.”

You don’t reply, refusing to turn as he pats your shoulder and quietly retreats from the room. His leaving should be a relief, but his presence drenches the house like blood through a shroud. He scarcely seems to leave it at all.

You bathe rapidly, loathing to be at one with your nakedness, seeing it through your captors’ eyes.

Another set of clean clothes has been set out for you, a perfume of further vanilla, a clear bag of cosmetics, a weighty tome by Dostoevsky, and lunch in a pristine Tupperware box, which you avoid as you would a sleeping asp.

The bedroom door is locked, the sole, small window barred— new additions, you note from the shine on the steel. Hannibal has made definite your inability to escape; the only hope left bare to you is to draw attention from passers-by.

Desperate, you write a haphazard ‘HELP ME’ message in lipstick upon the window, hoping that the letters are large enough to be glimpsed from below.

That done, you sit in a convent-goer’s silence, cowed by the enormity of danger that has found you. The only thing that protects you from the engulfing depths of your abjection is anger, defiance that Dr Lecter thinks himself dictator of what may enter your body, food or flesh.

With a reedy surge of courage you vow to challenge his every attempt on your autonomy, even if you must do so quietly.

You begin with lunch. With a percussive gusto you throw the Tupperware into bathroom bin, thinking you’ve done well to avoid another round of narcotics, and to deny yourself what you do not think you deserve, after failing to abstain at breakfast.

The pasta smells delicious, of cloves and some ingeniously mixed sauce you know would break across your tongue in a tide of exceptional flavour. You pace from the bedroom to the en suite, close to retrieving the plastic tub from the clean trash bag and eating from it, unashamed of such a low; you’ve done worse, in your time, giving in to an animal urge to forage.

You lean against the wall, breathing in and out with trembling difficulty. Then you prise the Tupperware from the trash can and empty it out into the toilet bowl, flushing again and again until every remnant of food is washed down where even you cannot salvage it.

You are exuberant in your resolve, barely weakened under the burden of your captivity.

You shouldn’t be hungry, so soon after breakfast, yet you are— not in the way other people feel hunger, the ordinary cues having been lost to illness, long ago. Your desire for food is like that of a man-eating animal, driven more by a taste for flesh than necessity to eat.

That Will and Hannibal have given you a secondary conflict to wage war against your obsession is almost a gift— there is no longer much room amidst your crowding fears to pine over the food in your stomach.

Yet, there is enough. Purging has never been your particular habit—you’ve found it too difficult, requiring water you are too afraid to drink more than a glass of for fear of the added weight on the scale.

The French toast lies upon you like a sleep paralysis apparition in its density. Hanging over the toilet bowl, you choke on acid spittle, and promptly abandon the venture. Had there been laxatives, they would have been a fair alternative, but Hannibal has kept you as simply and functionally contained as a vivisectionist’s subject, which, to him, it seems, you are.

You bow to your defeat, on this count, allowing yourself another indulgence of tears. Only the fear of the calories you must burn thrusts you back on your feet, striding laps of the room until your vision swims with sparks.

Light-headed, you sprawl on the bed—the same that you were raped in, you think, and move to lie on the floor instead, comforted by the changed perspective of the room.

As a child you used to lie on your back like this, imagining that you could walk upon the ceiling. You’d lived years in such imagined lands, and would have remained in them, still, had they not grown dark, and overgrown by infiltrating matter. As you stare at the ceiling now it seems to blacken at the edges as though with a quickening mould, or else the fingers of some unseen thing, folding over your eyes until they shut.

You start from unsettled sleep to the gentle purr of an expensive car drawing in at the front of the house. Recalling your lip-sticked message, you blunder in a drowsy panic to the window and rub at the glass with your dress sleeve, spitting on the hem when the cosmetic merely smudges obstinately under your ministrations.

You cannot tell if the monster in the sleek Bentley below can see the window clearly, but you work rapidly, your breath sawing a panicked melody through your throat.

Though your dress is black, the cosmetic shows tellingly on the fabric. You wrestle the garment over your head and hide it at the back of a drawer, shoving on an almost identical item as movement stirs in the house below.

You sit down on the bed, picking the skin at your fingers as Hannibal approaches. When his key clicks in the lock you start, tearing a hangnail up to the cuticle. You suck your thumb like a child to soothe the wound, aware how infantile you must look.

“Hello, little one,” says Hannibal, politely, as he enters the room.

“I ate it all,” you say, in an all too eager rush. “The food. You don’t have to punish me.”

Your jailer looks at you levelly. His eyes are crow’s eyes, clever, and gelid.

“Let me see.”

He picks up the Tupperware, examining the box. Abruptly he circles the room, then the en suite, his slow tread an axe-man’s gait.

“You have lied to me,” he says, suddenly. “Lunch was disposed of. The toilet, I presume? Please do not insult me by claiming to have eaten it.”

You stare at him, nonplussed.

“I... how did you know?” you falter.

“I have a keen sense of smell. The scent of herbs is very clear in the air. An unusual aroma, for this particular room.”

There is a humour in his voice, but of a sinister kind you know well to fear.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I couldn’t. I already ate so much, and you said I have to have dinner, so I...”

Hannibal shakes his head gravely.

“You must never waste food, if you can help it, little one.”

On a whim, you reach out to sieze one of his hands in yours.

“I didn’t mean it. Please don’t hurt me, Dr Lecter.”

He shakes his head regretfully.

“That is not for me to decide.”

You squeeze his hand as tightly as you are able, aware of how cold your fingers are in comparison to his hale warmth.

“Please, I’ll stay in solitary, or... or forfeit stuff, like they do at regular hospitals. Just don’t... touch me again. I can’t take it.”

“You discredit your endurance,” says Hannibal, smoothly. “It has presented itself as your greatest strength. It would be startling to see it fragment so early into your induction.”

You snap your hand back from him, cradling it as you would a broken bone.

“What’s wrong with you?” you hiss, and Dr Lecter releases a little grunt of amusement.

“I can only echo the interrogative. You have never opened up to any therapist about the most crucial traumas in your past. I am intrigued by their mysteries.”

You glance away, lips tightened. You will give him nothing of your secrets, not even the sheerest slip. He will use them against you, this you know.

“I must prepare for dinner,” says Hannibal. "Come along, little one. You will assist me. It will do you good to be in the presence of food through its preparation.”

As anticipated, your presence in the kitchen is fraught with excruciating temptation. As you grate vegetables and slice meat you often clear your throat to mask the thunder of starvation in your abdomen, which Dr Lecter politely ignores.

Though he maintains a flow of light, one-sided conversation, you know how narrowly he watches you, analysing every twitch and attempt to mentally detach from the scents and sumptuous plenty spread out on the countertops before you.

At last, he relents, an unexpected mercy.

“That’s enough. You may wash your hands and sit at the dinner table.”

You linger, gawking at him, not quite believing in your release.

“Go on,” says Dr Lecter, chuckling slightly. “I will join you presently. Our guest will be arriving, soon.”

Blinking, you say, “I’m... allowed to sit in there alone?”

With an almost fond glance, Dr Lecter says, “Certainly. You will not run, for you know that I will follow.”

Will arrives half an hour later, smelling of night rain and cologne. His expression is sullen and furtive as he greets you, his eyes floorwards, lashes fluttering behind his glasses.

You clutch the sides of your chair, silent, sickened, resentful; the man behaves as if it is he who was injured by the assault, as though the shame gnaws down to the core of him, leaving him raw and naked before you.

He sits in the chair closest to the door, whether to guard the exit or to forge the path to a quick egress you cannot say.

Hannibal sets a glass of wine before him; you he only gives water, as though you are not old enough to drink.

“The first course will be served presently,” he comments, surveying the tension at his table. “I hope that you will both enjoy it. You must be hungry, little one.”

You shake your head, afraid that if you open your mouth to speak you will only scream. This meal isn’t meant to tantalise the senses, but to torture: you know it from the unwilling reunion of his guests, of the punishment that leers from a narrow future upon you.

A quivering shrew, you stare at your untouched glass as Will clears his throat, pressed by the pains of your silence to speak.

He invokes your name, making it as foul as a curse.

“I don’t claim to be a master at first impressions, but the other night...”

“Please don’t talk to me,” you whisper, and Will flinches, pushing his glasses up his nose with bumbling fingers.

You’ve upset him, you realise, with a cold start of revulsion. Him, the violator, bruised by his own brutality, as though he’d no choice in the matter. Had he expected you to be his friend, to care for his sensitivities?

There is something wrong with Will Graham, you think, like a flaw in some creaking ship apt to annihilate the vessel, under pressure. That, or bleed all around him in his shrapnel, while he tends to their many pieces with all the moroseness of Beauty’s beast.

It strikes you that you should make him your ally, this hopeless Caliban, if you can stand it. You will need his favour, against Dr Lecter, to convince him to set you free.

Still, you cannot yet bring yourself to earn it. When Hannibal returns to set the first of many plates upon the table you are wordless in your terror, your fork as slippery as a salmon in your grip.

Will and Hannibal make conversation about a murder case in the area— both seem intricately involved in the psychology of the killer, discussing at length his motives in the poetic lexis you are becoming accustomed to, in this prison.

Still, their eyes and words wind back to you with a potent eventuality, displayed before them in your borrowed dress like a goldfinch chained to an elaborate perch.

Your food remains on your plate, flattened beneath your knife, a childish attempt to conceal your inability to eat it. There is too much weight in these scarce morsels, calories that would swell you into some fantastic horror, or so your thoughts inform you.

If you could eat, you would do so; even to save yourself it is beyond you.

Only water do you swallow, the bottom of the glass thick with a bitter sediment.

“We should talk about her, shouldn’t we?” asks Will, reluctantly, his gaze darting to your plate.

"Indeed we should," says Hannibal, his hand tracing the stem of his wine glass as he would the length of your throat. “Specifically, your response to her residence here, and to her treatment. You feel guilt for having carried out a punishment you feel was not entirely deserved.”

Will swallows, the click of saliva in his throat like the folding of a leaf underfoot.

"That's the problem," he says. "It did feel deserved. Violence for violence. There was a righteousness in defending you. I've felt it before, with GarretJacob Hobbs."

The name holds significance you cannot grasp. Who was this man, and what does he mean to your wardens?

"And like that day, protecting Abigail," Will continues, "I'm left looking at my own hands, repulsed by my own readiness to engage in a taboo and... enjoy it. But she isn’t like either Hobbs."

This, directed at you with a glance of murky guilt.

"She's unwell. Confused. And, as far as your patient was concerned, she was as in her right to protect herself as I was in correcting her."

"Stop,” you say, quietly.

Both men turn to you, startled by your sudden interjection.

"You disagree with Will's analysis of last night's events?" asks Hannibal, with interest. "By all means, tell us what you see. There is no sole analysis of any art; what picture do you glimpse from within the canvas?"

"I'm not yours," you say. "You can't correct me, like I'm something you own, that you made."

Dr Lecter examines your face with a dangerous patience.

"But we are making you. Or remaking, it you prefer. That is why you are here: a construction of what we two will define from mortar and broken glass."

You cannot respond to such unhinged logic without lowering yourself to entertain it, an undeniably clever tactic.

Hannibal brings another course to the table, another, another; Roman emperors could not have gorged like this, yet the two men—both lean, and Will particularly small—clear their plates as though swallowing mere air.

You pretend to eat, chewing food and spitting it into napkins or an empty glass when the other diners look away. It is only when Will barks at you suddenly that you realise he's been watching you, all along.

"What are you doing?" he asks, sharply.

"Nothing,” you mumble.

Will scoffs.

"Nothing? Nothing is not why you're here. You’re starving yourself. Why?"

Disgust pours from him like a vapour, tainting the air you breathe with his unearned judgement.

"Because... it's just what I do,” you say, limply. “It... helps. It's taken over everything.'

“Then stop letting it,” snaps Will; you don’t understand why he’s so affronted, why he has suddenly taken up the reigns of the game. “You're giving into this, letting it cut holes into you. You'll die trying to achieve some abstract state of being that you will never reach. Do you want that?"

Strange, the echo of your conversation with Dr Lecter by the bath.

"I— don't know,” you say, after a strained pause. “Sometimes I'm not sure if I care what happens to me. And sometimes, I get scared."

Will speaks through gritted teeth.

"So let go of it."

You could laugh at so preposterous a command, but instead you say, "I can't."

The atmosphere at the table has subtly changed, all players on the board at last.

"Why not?” asks Will, softly.

You perceive something like care in his voice, an impossibility.

"Because it makes me feel better," you say. "Stronger. I don't want it to go away."

Hannibal sits back, listening in purposeful silence.

Will removes his glasses, placing them into his pocket.

"Today, at this meal, you’ll try,” he says. “Appreciate the effort that was made for you."

At this you do laugh, a soft, broken sound.

"Go to hell. You're a monster. You did what he told you to, and— and you jumped like a dog to do it. Aren't you ashamed?"

Dr Lecter’s posture tightens slightly, and Will flounders, losing a little of his confidence.

"I know it's probably not what I should have done,” he admits. “It’s a radical treatment. And dangerous. But I— we can't take it back. And if I can contribute to you evolving from this then I'll do whatever it takes."

There is honesty in this confession, somewhere, even empathy.

"Don't act like you care about me,” you mumble, and shove your plate away from you, across the table, knocking over your glass in the process.

The effects of whatever drug was in the water are taking hold, making you feel loosely unstable, your inhibitions cast down, and forgotten.

Hannibal’s smile has fallen.

"Will,” he says, curtly. “I think you have tolerated quite enough from our obnoxious guest. I suggest that you consider discipline. She has already broken the rules in place for her today. A meal discarded, a message for help written on her window— It is fortunate that no one came close enough to the house in my absence to see it."

You stand up from your seat, swaying slightly, your heart shuttering like cards on a bicycle wheel to find yourself caught you in your efforts to escape.

"I hate you,” you say. “I want to leave. Let me go."

"Hannibal,” Will cuts in; his face is white, and greasy with anxiety. “I'm not ready to handle this again."

Dr Lecter’s expression shifts darkly.

"Then I will fulfil that responsibility on your behalf."

He rises from his seat and is behind you for the second time this day before you've the sense to run. Shunting you forward onto the table top, he tears your dress methodically up your back, his free hand holding you down with the same carelessness with which he’d handle unsatisfactory meat.

"You are sure that you do not wish to participate?" he says, over your shrieks of protest.

Will shakes his head. His eyes are rolling like a bull’s in his distress.

"No. I— can't."

Hannibal stills; you feel his hand between his belt and your behind, on the precipice of setting loose his sick lust.

"Then should I choose another punishment? There are many at our disposal."

"Don't leave it up to me to decide,” croaks Will. “I feel... precarious."

"I forgive you your uncertainty,” says Dr Lecter. “I, however, have none."

A drugged swell flows through you, looping a weird ecstasy about your abdomen as Hannibal leans down to speak to you directly.

"You are a very disobedient girl. You know the consequences, and yet you do not abandon your misdeeds."

"I'm not playing your stupid game,” you whine, dimly away of how foolish you sound. “I'm not playing.”

“Of course you are,” says Hannibal, coldly. “In time you'll forget that it was ever a game, to begin with.”

He forces himself within your cunt in a smooth and gliding viciousness, sending another brocade of sensation through your loins. The drug you’ve ingested makes the pain a most succulent wonder, playing your nerves with all the sinister beauty of the Theremin.

You sob as he fucks you, slow, and sure, and deep. It should not possibly be pleasurable, is intended only to exert power, and to humiliate— but he cannot help but create art, casting you on the stage of his design.

As Hannibal hurts you, he is looking at Will, whose face bears a quickening darkness. It strikes you quite suddenly that Dr Lecter wants the other man’s approval, perhaps even his jealousy; you understand that you are a disposable object that holds the temporary interest of these two.

It may not last.

Should they tire of you, what then? Thrown back to your parents, perhaps, more broken than you arrived. Surely not, for you may spill their secrets to the world, and ruin their lives.

Something worse, then.

You circle back to that earlier thought, and terror flies back in all its night glory.

Suddenly you twitch and shake in horrified spasms, and though Hannibal continues to fuck you something alters almost imperceptibly in his pace.

"Stop," says Will, suddenly. "That's enough."

"You cannot leave a deer half-killed, Will,” says Hannibal; glancing back over your shoulder, you are horrified by how calm he appears, even now. “Maimed, it will stumble, weakened, until another predator picks it from the herd. I must hunt her to the end, Will. It is all that can be done."

You see your tears soddening the tablecloth, mucus pooling beneath your cheek.

"Don't kill me," you whimper. "I don't want to die."

Hannibal stills a moment, pulling your head back to look into your eyes.

“We do not intend to kill you, little one," he says. "Only for you to accept what you are. You will humour what we ask of you?"

"Yes!” you cry, with a delirious bray in your voice. “I— I’ll try!"

Blue eyes, black eyes, both pairs so equally bright.

"Good girl,” says Hannibal, and resumes his use of your flesh, his cock making a gauntlet of you, every thrust grinding you against the elaborate tablecloth with such intelligent pressure you groan beneath him, juddering with the effort it takes not to come.

Will's gaze has changed, and there is colour in his cheeks. He grips the edge of the table as though to prevent himself from falling, or else rising to join his companion in your debasement.

"Please stop," you stutter out, wanting to bite your own tongue off for the embarrassment of the utterance. “I won’t be bad anymore.”

Hannibal slows deliberately, his cock withdrawing to the point it almost slips from your cunt before he sinks it in the lake of your arousal again.

"Come, then," he says, simply. "And you may go to bed."

In a wailing convulsion you climax at once, scrabbling at the floor on steepled toes as the pleasure rolls from your cunt through your thighs. Hannibal waits for your last twitch to cease before he finishes within you, utterly soundless as he leans down, kissing the back of your neck in a gesture that is curiously gentle.

He steps away from the table and helps you stand, holding you to his chest as you whimper in the after bursts of sensation.

"Are you still troubled, Will?" he asks, over the top of your head.

The other man looks shell-shocked, his pallor an almost grey.

"I'm... undecided."

You pull away from Hannibal, remembering with a flare of insane joy that you are released from the table, that you need not eat, after all.

"Then I am mistaken in perceiving another response in you," says Dr Lecter.

Will looks hurriedly away, and it is only as you push past him to flee for your room that you understand Dr Lecter's meaning. The younger man adjusts himself, flushing, sitting as close to the table as space will allow.

He is hard, having watched his friend fucking you.

Will Graham is not so repentant as he'd taken such pains to seem.

#manna fic #hannibal fanfiction #dark fic #tw eating disorders #tw anorexia #tw noncon #dark!fic #hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader #yandere will graham #yandere hannibal lecter

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entomjinx · 10 months

Text

Strawhat polycule (+Vivi and Law) HCs

I was asked for some on twitter and I popped off there, so here they are! I have a ton more but this is what I'm posting now. Feel free to add more in the replies/reblogs!

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-at first it was completely unspoken! No one called it a relationship or really talked about it, they just existed together

-(also Chopper is like. Collectively everyone's kid/little brother like figure so he is not a part of the poly, but he's definitely a part of the cuddle piles!)

-Zoro Luffy and Nami got together first. They were in that dinghy together for so long and they knew so much random bullshit about one another by the end of it. It's part of what absolutely crushed Nami when she left to go back to cocoyashi, because even though it'd never been said out loud, she'd come to care so much for those two, and she was starting to care so much for Usopp too.

-Usopp was pulled into a cuddle session on the deck of the Merry within two days of joining, and he'd never felt so safe and cared for. He's hesitant to join in without being directly invited each time until post water 7, but Luffy has no problem just dragging him in every time.

-Sanji was the second hardest to get to join the cuddle piles. It took at least a month, and Nami dragging him in herself. She stuck him right between her and Zoro, and well. While Sanji won't say it to his face, Zoro is very very comfy to lay on, and waking up being held by him and Nami made him feel so cared for.

-Robin takes the place of most difficult strawhat to snuggle- until post Enies Lobby. After all they went through, after realizing that's it's okay to want to to live again and to want things for herself? She will just go and sit against whoever is still at the moment to read.

-Jmbei and Franky are always down for the cuddles piles too. Franky will wrap blankets around his metal parts to make them more comfortable, and Jimbei is big a huggable always!

-Brook loves the cuddle pile tradition and any and all physical affection. He was alone for so long that he was dealing with touch starvation... he cried during that first crew cuddle pile... or he would have if he had eyes! Yohohohoho skull joke!

-Vivi! Vivi sits with Nami while she draws her maps! Nami helps do her hair in the morning!

-Vivi likes to sit in the kitchen with Sanji and tell him about dishes from Alabasta! He makes them as similar as possible without the needed ingredients, and when they get to Alabasta, those are some of the first things he buys.

-Zoro teaches Vivi knife tricks to use with her peacock slashers, and how to properly use weights to train with. She chews him out for pushing himself too much when he does things he told her never to do. She's one of the few people who can actually get him to rest.

-Usopp and Vivi share stories! Vivi tells him all about Alabastan myths so he can use them in the tall-tales and he tells her the stories of East blue, both exaggerated and non-exaggerated!

-Luffy teaches her how to throw a proper punch after watching her hurt her hand practicing. What she was doing was working, but it wasn't super sustainable.

-One Time she and Luffy have a conversation about ruling. She will be the queen of Alabasta, and he the pirate king, so it felt fitting to talk about it. Goa gets brought up, and Luffy tells her she'll be a much better queen than Goa's ruling family because her people will be free under her. Because she cares about them.

-leaving Vivi behind in Alabasta hurt them all so much. They sneak letters and denden calls back to her as often as possible.

-Zoro and Sanji still bicker like an old married couple and have their rivalry but they tend to sleep closer together than most. Zoro's a walking heater and Sanji gets cold in his sleep so.

-Sanji pays very close attention to everyone's favorite foods so he can make them as often as possible, but he also pays attention to their comfort foods so he can make them when they're feeling down.

-Zoro pretends he doesn't like sweets. He does, but if he eats them he HAS to brush his teeth after because the thought of his teeth weakening too much to hold a blade concerns him greatly.

-When Sanji notices, he starts making some dishes that taste sweet but have less sugar in them for Zoro.

-Makino used to buy Mikans all the way from cocoyashi, and when Luffy realized that Nami's Mikan Juice recipe is the one that Makino got from the person she bought mikans from, he got so excited. He gets so excited when Nami makes it.

-Nami and Zoro go out drinking with one another in ports all the time. Zoro watches her back while she cheats at cards, and he helps keep creepy guys away. Nami flirts with all the women who try to flirt with Zoro. He's bisexual as all hell, but sometimes women can be creepy too. They will challenge people to try and out drink them, and people loose that bet all the time.

-Once Nami realized just how into Fashiom Sanji was? Endgame. She drags him shopping with her all the time, and once she made him understand that he could be honest with her when it came to clothing instead of just complimenting her, it's phenomenal. He knows so much about different brands, how to spot fakes, and he's just as good at bargaining as she is.

-Robin steals maps from libraries for Nami to compare hers to, and then make better versions of. She returns them after, of course, but not without a copy Nami's notes neatly placed with them. Robin's also really good at finding places for Nami to sell her maps.

-Everyone finds out Zoro can sew pretty early on. He's constantly fixing tears in his clothing, and he eventually starts offering it to the others too. And if he can't fix it nearly, he'll embroider something over it to make it look like it's part of the design. He claims he learned because needles are just "tiny swords."

-Luffy and Zoro take naps together all the time. They're not allowed to go all out with sparing unless their on an uninhabited island though. They don't want to hurt the Merry or the Sunny too much.

-Luffy has taught Nami a couple bo staff tricks he learned from Ace and Sabo as a kid.

-Luffy LOVES to listen to all of them talk about things their passionate about. He may not understand it all, but he doesn't mind listening to the same things more than once or different explanations either.

-if someone talks about a problem near Franky and Usopp, it's solved within a day. They'll build something to fix it or help at the drop of a hat.

-once Nami learned that Zoro was good at math, she asked him to help keep track of all the finances.

-Luffy nuzzles them a bit like a feral animal sometimes. He grew up in the jungle, and you can take the boy out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the boy.

-Luffy will sit in Usopp's lap while he tells stories if it's just the two of them. They fish together a lot too!

-Brook can play anything he's ever heard, so he collects everyone's favorite songs like pokemon.

-they have a board full of little things they've said to one another that they don't want to forget in the library. It has everything from compliments to cursed things to the completely random and mind blowing things their captain says once in a blue moon.

-Luffy kisses people's foreheads and cheeks to tell them good night. It's one of the best parts of everyone's nights.

-Sanji likes to kiss people's hands, especially if they have to be bandaged for any reason. He only did this with Nami, Robin, Vivi, and Chopper at first, but it quickly spread to Luffy and Usopp. He even does it for Franky, who can't feel his hands and will just remake them instead of bandaging them up.

-the first time someone did this back to Sanji (it was nothing more than a papercut), and it was Zoro. It flusters him so bad that everyone started grabbing his hands to kiss them just because they feel like it.

-there are very few occasions where Zoro sleeps in a way where his back isn't covered. It's almost always when one of them is injured and he's guarding them.

-Luffy loves to talk about bugs to Robin and Usopp, but the second Nami or Sanji come into the room he immediately stops because he knows they're afraid of bugs. Nami eventually tells him that hearing about them doesn't really spook her, and that there are some bugs she likes. The pollinators for her mikan trees, for example. The bees and the butterflies. So Luffy talks about those with her instead. Sanji's infinitely grateful that his captain doesn't mention the creepy crawlies to him.

-Franky and Usopp like to make little trinkets for people, and when they work together, the trinkets come out beautifully.

-Franky and Brook got into a pun war once. It lasted for days. They decided they were equals in tomfoolery because if they didn't they may have driven Nami mad.

-Robin and Sanji are the most verbal about complimenting the others. They work together to pull the others out of bad headspace's when necessary.

-Zoro convinces Usopp and Nami to do some exercises with him. They thought he'd push them the way he did himself at first, but he could never.

-Zoro is one of the biggest softies of the whole group. He just pretends he isn't. They all know this.

-After they all trauma dump at some point, Usopp makes sketches of the people they've lost, so that if they don't have any photographs, they can have this. They have all sobbed to Usopp after receiving one of these sketches.

-Usopp's room is full of drawings of the strawhats doing different things. Some of his favorites are of Nami picking mikans, Sanji teaching Chopper the steps to a dance in the kitchen, Brook playing violin in the moonlight, and Luffy asleep on the Sunny's figurehead.

-Franky had never considered letting anyone help fix and tamper with his insides until the Strawhats. But he feels so safe with them that he has no problem explaining how he works and what to do to upgrade the slots he has trouble reaching.

-Brook and Zoro spar against each other often. they start interweaving parts of one other's styles into their own as they learn them.

-They started acknowledging it all more post TS.

-one of the first things Luffy did was tell them all he loved them. One of the few things he regrets is not telling Ace that enough, and he's not gonna make that mistake again. It starts a chain reaction, and they all start say it out loud, some more than others.

-all the Strawhats knew Luffy had nightmares even before the skip. He never said anything about it, but he'd sneak to sleep with one of them even on non-cuddle pile nights. It's more noticeable post time skip. They don't ask.

-Sanji comes back with long hair and wearing heels, and no one questions it. Good for him. His kicks hurt more and they missed his food dearly. Nami and Robin now get to help him with his hair too!

-Brook adds most his earnings as Soul King to the treasury for the crew. He also came back with gifts from all over for all of them.

-Zoro learned even more stuff about sewing from Perona, and when he finally gets to fix something for Nami and Robin with an intricate design he learned, he looks so excited to be doing it. One of them snuck a photo and it's the first photo on the photo board they added beside the quote board.

-everyone loves to sit in the Galley and talk with Sanji while he cooks. Sometimes he'll sing if they're all quiet.

-Robin likes to play with people's hair when she's reading, and she likes to read aloud just as much.

-Sanji and Usopp cut and style everyone's hair.

-Jimbei is overwhelmed by how welcoming the Strawhats are before he's even officially joined them. He knows what to expect by the time he makes it to Wano though, and he's so excited.

-Luffy saw right through Law in Punk Hazard. He saw the same look in his eyes as he's seen in Robin and Ace and a lit of his crew. He felt in his gut that if he didn't help Law he wouldn't live past whatever he was planning.

-he knew that telling his crew that Law saved his life would mean them learning that he almost died, but it doesn't stop him from doing it.

-even with that information they're hesitant to trust Law at first, but they fold pretty quickly as they start to see the same thing Luffy did in his eyes.

-Chopper asks Law what happened after Marineford because he's Luffy doctor and feels like he should know... and Law tells him. Everyone else listens from around the corner, heartbroken to hear that after the canera's cut, Luffy's brother died taking a hit for him. That Luffy was so exhausted and full of poison that Law knew he had to have been tortured in some way. That the surgery to save him took everything he had. That Jimbei was the one to bring him back to his senses while he was upset.

-Law tells him about what he needs to know so bluntly... but he leaves out how Luffy's scream for his brother never left his mind, reminding him of the way he lost Corazon. He doesn't tell Chopper that Luffy tore some of his wounds back open as soon as he was awake, desperate to try and find his brother.

-they all keep very close eyes on Law to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid after that. If nothing else, they won't let the man who saved their captain's life die.

-Sanji sneaks more food onto Law's plate whenever he's not looking because there's no way he's eating enough.

-Zoro starts spars with him to keep him out of his head.

-Robin shares knowledge back and forth with him, debating on simple things to pass the time. She accidentally picks up on all the signs that he too, survived a genocide. A tiny mistake in covering his accent while he was mostly asleep is what gave her the final clue to which one.

-even though he tries to hide it, Law is fascinated by how Franky kept himself alive.

-Nami asks about how they navigate under the ocean, but Law doesn't have all the answers for her. He tells her she should ask Bepo when they all meet up, and Nami is the first to get him talking about his crew. He doesn't even notice everyone else listening at first, but his clear love for them is what chases away that last little bit of suspicion.

-when they realize Law is just a dork underneath the fake moody attitude, they ask as many questions as they can to get that side of him to come out.

-Law has to bite the inside of his cheeks to not laugh at Brook's puns when they catch him off guard

-Nami trades him rare coins for regular ones when she sees him looking, but if he already has it in his collection, he'll tell her how much it's worth to sell.

-Usopp and Franky build him little models of the Germa 66 comic characters. They sit on display in the Tang.

-Law finds some old music from Flevance, and he trusts Brook to copy it down when he can't.

-Luffy manages to pull the childishness that he thought died more than a decade ago right back out of him. He finds himself in so much ridiculous bs, but it feels so nice to just let go.

-Robin explains how weapons from different cultures work so Usopp can rebuild them with Franky!

-Robin absolutely lies about it sprinkling rain lightly to cover up the fact that Law sheds a few tears when Doflamingo goes down.

#strawhat pirates #monkey d luffy #trafalgar d water law #strawhat poly #roanoa zoro #black leg sanji #nami one piece #usopp one piece #nico robin #franky one piece #soul king brook #first son of the sea jinbe #nefertari vivi #fluff

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 days

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Five Fics Friday: April 26/24

Happy Friday everyone!!!! Hopefully we can start off the weekend right with these fantastic fics!! Hope y'all enjoy!!

RECENT MFLs

Hyperballad by PlantsAreNeat (G, 893 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, Feels, Drugs, POV Sherlock) – Sherlock has bought cocaine after his doubts and fears about his and John's new relationship prey on his mind. Not exactly a danger night, but not not one either.

Smoke by lifeonmars (T, 4,827 w., 1 Ch. || Marijuana, Recreational Drug Use, Fluff, Humour, Rock and Roll) – Sometimes time and space collide to show you something you've been missing. Sherlock's pipe helps.

A Thing With Peas by khorazir (M, 25,508+ w., 2/3 Ch. || Post-S3/Post-TLD/TFP Doesn't Exist, Fluff and Angst, Communication, Demisexual Sherlock, Asexuality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Idiots in Love, Friends to Lovers, Developing Relationship, Implied / Referenced Drug Use, Parentlock, First Kiss) – Sherlock does the laundry. John cooks a thing with peas. They talk. Finally.

There I Saw You, Night by esplanade (T, 54,073 w., 12 Ch. || Writer AU || Poet Sherlock, Writer John, True Love, Sherlock's A Mess, Conversations, John's Family) – "It wasn't as if he had stopped writing entirely. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was just that most of what he wrote ended up thrown into the fireplace at home. What was the sense in keeping something that was sub-par?"

RECENTLY BOOKMARKED LOKIUS FIC

like a flood spills away as a world stains by RunnyYolk (T, 34,055 w., 4 Ch. || LOKI SERIES || S0103 Divergence, Alternating POV, Developing Friendship, Developing Relationship, Mutual Pining, Denial of Feelings, Feelings Realization, Trust Issues, Angst, Introspection, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, Flashbacks, Recovered Memories, Psychological Torture/Abuse, Touch-Starvation, Affection, Tenderness, Hand Holding, Emotional Friendship, Hair Pulling, Touching, Softness) – Loki groans and his elbows slide forward as he slumps over the side of the desk. "Do not tell me you left all the signature fields blank again." "It makes it easier when I check." "It adds a ridiculous amount of time! Do you actually enjoy this part, is that it? Are you a masochist?" Mobius smirks, shaking his head, and stands up. "Just go to bed, scamp." Part 3 of where the edge began

#johnlock fic recs #lokius fic recs #my fic recs #five fics friday

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thedgeoftheuniverse · 1 year

Text

Spring Breeze

joel miller x reader

word count: >1k

a/n: to whoever requested this i am SOOO sorry i lost ur request pls pls find this i am so sorry also tumblr stop fucking up my formatting

He is hesitant, you can feel it in the stiffness of the joints—he does not want to accept the comfort of being cared for, he does not know how; he has spent a lifetime as a protector, never accepting that he deserves to be treated with the same devotion.

He has been gone for what seemed to be ages. Time passes relentlessly, each second gone reminding you that he was not beside you, each minute taunting you with a very plausible reality that he never will be again. Patrol should not take so long. It never takes this long and you cannot smother the worry erupting from your chest. You did not know how to occupy your time.

You have been a long-time resident of Jackson, having been rescued by Maria from borderline starvation. You were welcomed to the commune with open arms, shown luxuries you thought would never again exist, and given opportunities to taste a semblance of life from before—what little you could remember of it. You became reacquainted with your love of baking as well as members of the community who craved the loaves of bread you sat out every morning. It was how you met him—he came to you with wringing hands and an empty stomach, he could not withstand the temptation of the warm dough in front of him. He came nearly every day, giving you shy smiles and kind words, but rarely left with your offerings. He seemed to only want the sweetness of your voice and the smell of the pastries.

It is in this moment, in the space between your bodies, that you realize the comfort of Jackson is nothing in comparison to Joel Miller.

It is not until dusk that he returns. His feet carry him to your home (he cannot understand why, but he knows you smell like a spring breeze and summer has been brutal) and his heart seeks solace in the embrace of your arms.

“What happened?” You ask him as you take in the sight of his mangled body—blood covers his clothes, his knuckles bruised and busted, hair matted and body trembling, You have never seen him in such a state—you did not believe he had the ability to feel fear, but he wears it brazenly.

“People.” He did not need to say anymore for you to understand.

“Come on, cowboy. Let’s get you cleaned up.” You lead him into your kitchen, where you pull a chair up to the sink and instruct him to sit.

“You don’t ha—” “I know. Just let someone take care of you.” You interrupt as you fill one side of the sink with lukewarm water and retrieve a rag from the drawer below.

You start with his hands. He is hesitant, you can feel it in the stiffness of the joints—he does not want to accept the comfort of being cared for, he does not know how; he has spent a lifetime as a protector, never accepting that he deserves to be treated with the same devotion. You take special care at his split knuckles, applying a featherlight pressure as you begin rinsing the blood. He will never show it to you, but you know that he is in pain.

It is when you move to his arms that you notice the slowness of his blinks—his eyes are staying closed just a moment longer than necessary—and the stiffness fading from his body. His breath, one jagged and heavy, slows down to a steady rhythm. You are humming a song that you cannot remember the name of as you wash away the physical evidence of the violence that lays inside of him, allowing the softness you are familiar with to shine through once again. And it is when you gently lean his head back into the sink, running warm water and your nimble fingers through the grayed strands that he begins leaning into your touch. You are gentle and warm and the embodiment of everything he feels he no longer deserves, but you give it so willingly that he is unable to refuse. Sighs and hums of content leave his lips as his entire being is consumed by you—a spring breeze that he will never stop longing for.

You are turning the water off when he bashfully whispers: “Can you do that just a little longer?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” You reply. You towel dry his hair with the same kindness you used to wash it before you lead him to your couch. As you sit, he goes to position himself upwards beside you—you can feel the disappointment radiating from his skin (or maybe he is always this warm and you have never noticed) and you realize he does not understand your intentions: “Lay down.” You instruct.

He is unsure at first; he has not been in such an innocently intimate position in many years, but the softness in your expression tells him your intentions are true. He does not need to try to relax when your nails begin to scratch at his scalp and your free hand rubs up and down his bicep. He thinks this form of intimacy is the most terrifying thing he has experienced—he is still learning how to accept being cared for but when you whisper, “You’re okay,” he is wrapped in a silk blanket by your words and transported to a time where he was whole. His hair is softer than you had thought it to be; this is just as therapeutic for you as it is for him.

There is no longer empty space between you. There is only silent air and nimble fingers as Joel sleeps in your lap, arms curled into his chest and his shoes still on. It was the first night he fell asleep in peace.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller imagine #tlou #tlou hbo #the last of us hbo #the last of us #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader

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ystrike1 · 1 year

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Spring Amidst My Wintertide - By Jusang (7.5/10)

I've decided to give this author another chance. I'm sure you can see why. When the art is good it's great. Here we get a prime example of a puppy yandere with actual animal characteristics. It's an edgy Beauty and the Beast, complete with confinement, if you want a really short summary.

Perfect princesses only exist in the spring. When the land is fruitful and the citizens are happy that is when the royal family flourishes. The allure and beauty of royal blood dies with withering prosperity.

Serun Greenwood was a beautiful, wealthy princess. She had a loving and large family. Her family wasn't too corrupt. They had a treasury. An army. Loyal servants, but in the end men are dogs. Dogs must eat. Winter makes beasts of us all.

War. Starvation. Both hit the nation at once. Everything drained away during those seven years. Serun Greenwood watched her family die. They were torn apart for sport by soldiers, inside the castle she once called home.

She is suffering from terrible survivors guilt.

Her life is over.

She is a weak princess.

She has been captured, and she is going to be sacrificed to the wolves of the black mountain. The people are mad for spring. They clamor for food, but every harvest keeps getting harder. She was going to be executed....but using a royal princess as a spring sacrifice will please the gods more. So she gets transported through the freezing hail, all the way up.

She is known as the fairest maiden by the way.

Now, her soldiers see her as a piece of meat.

They leave her in the cage, to freeze to death and be eaten later. She won't last long. All she has is a towel. She looks back, and she is conflicted.

She hates surviving hardship, and life without her princess title, but she doesn’t want to die.

The wolves come, and her depression snaps away. The fog clears. She wants to live. She wants to start anew. She doesn't care about being a princess. Not now. Not when she knows what people are like.

She just wants to live.

She locks eyes with a huge, white wolf. This is a short story. It feels like it should be much longer, but it is enjoyable for these reasons.

The love interest is a supernatural creature. Not just some guy with animal ears. He's not all powerful either. He has a human form, but it's not like he's the absolute king of beasts. The other wolves try to eat her, while he tries to woo her. He convinces her to let him kiss and touch her, so she can have his scent and be protected from the other wolves. The white wolf has loved the princess for a long time. He saw her once when she was younger, and he's an obsessive sort of animal humanoid...thing.

It works.

I don't know the whole story, but the short length is disappointing. "Monster" yanderes usually get watered down, but in this case the princess does have to live in the wilderness. Not a generic fantasy country. The beast prince is just a beast, and there's no country to return to. The princess is also mentally unstable, which makes her budding relationship even muddier.

It's dark.

#yandere #male yandere #yandere male #yandere boy #recommendations #recs #rec #recommended #webtoon #monster guy #monster boy #Spring Amidst My Wintertide

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theexodvs · 1 month

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To anyone who believes in the existence of touch starvation: Would you give a full, frontal hug to a boorish coworker, whose hair was oily enough for their scalp to be offered membership by OPEC, who thought Attack on Titan was a work of art, and stared at coworkers constantly, if you were told they were "touch starved?"

#Touch starvation #Touch starvation isn't real #Touch starvation is not real #Touch starvation doesn't exist #Touch starvation does not exist #No you can't turn this back on me #I have never touched any coworker (man or woman) in ways more intimate than a handshake or hi-5 or demanded more intimate touch.

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ms-scarletwings · 9 months

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New (Cursed AF) Invader Zim Headcanon:

Barring the potential for major acute blood loss, Irkens can actually survive a full decapitation.

And I brought substance to make the case with.

Cockroaches, one of the most infamously durable of real life animals, can live for several days, sometimes even weeks without their head. And for the most part, they still even act like normal roaches- crawling about, reacting to touch, standing around, etc. it seems the only reason this eventually catches up to the critter is because no mouth = no way to keep bringing necessary food and water into the body. If that were bypassed, however, it stands to reason the little zombie could thrive just as much as a headed roach.

Almost disturbingly, the head itself can actually last a surprising amount of time solo as well. Experiments with decapitated roaches show that after body separation, roach heads can still move their antennae for hours before succumbing- much longer even if kept refrigerated and supplied with nutrients.

One of the neat things about roach bodies that makes such a feat possible is how their nervous system is set up- simplified ref against what yours looks like below

Now, anyone who has ever said a roach can survive for a while without its brain is not being entirely accurate. Functionally, they actually have two sort-of brains: the main point of nerve centralization is contained in the head, which for the most part is a primary brain responsible for movement coordination, certain technical functions, interpreting stimuli that comes in from the antennae, and more. The second main point of interest in this system is a series of nerve clusters running down the insect’s abdomen known as ganglia (singular: ganglion). These bundles of neurons are not exactly brains in their own right, but they do function as an extended CNS that handles the control over the digestive tract, reacting to stimuli, leg movement, and other more basic bodily functions. These can operate the body on a primitive level after the loss of the main brain, up until thirst/starvation begins to run the wind out of the sails.

You know what sort of creature actually DOES have two entire complete brains? One up top, and an auxiliary backup a little further down?

If you were nodding along and saying “irkens!” Then you would be correct! One peanut and five more days in the bunker for you 🥜 ~

As is obvious to anyone familiar with the show, the PAK is an essential cybernetic addition to Irken biology, holding their gear as well as an entire digital backup of their personality and memories. While it serves many functions to the user, the first and foremost priority of one is to protect the existence of the meaty entity it needs in to carry itself around.

To that end we’ve seen some autonomous acts from time to time with Zim’s close calls. If you recall “Plague of Babies”, he… kind of died for a moment there, caught up in a wave of GIR’s lethally amplified stupidity. In response, his PAK appears to resuscitate him with a quick jolt. The would-be events of “10 Minutes to Doom” emphasize the necessity of the PAK for any Irken’s survival beyond several minutes, which directly implies PAKs facilitate a major biological process their natural bodies are no longer capable of alone. Personally, I think it might be something either neurological or related to respiration, on a hunch.

Well, whatever it is, they are toast without it in swift manner, and the PAK doesn’t prefer to be without its other piece anymore than the body does. Dib’s revelation about the technology described their relationship with its body like that of driver and car, but I think he’s missing something. The PAK is actually more than capable of carrying itself around without the body… at least for a time.

When I think about those things, a little dilemma pops up in my head concerning how they.. well, how they’re powered. It is never explained or demonstrated that they are given time off of the body in order to charge; however, irkens are probably advanced enough to have some smaller and sci-fi wildly potent and small energy source up their sleeves, but actually, that wouldn’t quite make sense here. Because Irken bodies still produce their energy the same way every other lifeform in the known galaxy does, with food. Lots of food, actually. They can mow through snacks at about the same rate as Augustus Gloop. PAKs don’t need to produce their own independent energy source, they just need to efficiently make use of what this organism is already evolutionarily fine tuned to do naturally. Now that’s smart engineering.

And so, like any respectable auxiliary life support feature, they hold some of that energy in a reserve for those crisis moments like in “Plague of Babies”, and also in a deleted scene made for “Abduction”!

Fun trivia fact, but originally that episode was supposed to feature a sequence where Zim nearly game overs again. He takes a gnarly hit and a literal plunge through open flames that knocks him out in a free fall.

Despite his incapacitated state, the PAK extends its spider legs in order to catch a walkway railing, both saving his life and proceeding to keep carrying his limp body to a safer location, until of of course, he comes to about a moment later and carries on.

And neither of these are the only times it’s sprung into action the moment it detects something has gone horribly wrong. When accidentally detached from its own host, an emergency response will be triggered within the PAK in an attempt to reattach with its body. Failing that, it attaches instead to… well, whatever it can find.

In “10 minutes to Doom”, this was unfortunately Dib, an incompatible match (or maybe it just picked an improper attachment site), and in the comics… things got interesting at a point or two.

So, I already know what happens when you separate an Irken from their spinal brain, but what about the cranial one?

Because, they actually don’t seem on the same level of urgent necessity? Now that I think about it?

The time machine kerfuffle and the brain eating parasite escape were both events this guy evidently survived, albeit not comfortably or ideally until the problem was fixed (I have to assume in part with GIR’s or the Computer’s help). Now that I think about it Zim’s incredibly fortunate that most of these more serious mishaps happened inside of his base. But it’s theory time.

So, we do this, to a hypothetical green bug bastard

For fun let’s say, hypothetically again, like the hardy earth roach, he blood clots quickly.

Well, first and foremost, that higher up nervous system blackout is probably going to cue the PAK in to begin the following protocol:

1. Activate an emergency response to quickly access the situation.

2. Immediately scurry the body the hell away from whatever manner of threat just shaved a little too much off the top, engaging in all possible defensive measures if necessary.

3. Devote the entirety of its remaining backup power (of which it would have much more stored within the headless body than if it were itself detached) into making a beeline for the coordinates of the nearest Irken source of assistance. On the homeworld, or any fully colonized planet, this would be a cut and dry matter of finding the nearest theoretical space clinic or whatever those freaks have (maybe those dbz regeneration tanks? Idk that would be cool wouldn’t it?). For the lone invader… home base is the next best alternative, being a secured location with plenty of resources and advanced technology at the ready. I would bet my own head that situations like this are a huge highlight to the prime value of a personal SIR companion.

Now, best case scenario for what this help looks like depends on whether we can save and bring the head along too. Reattachment and repair at that point should be a pretty simple matter at the tech level we are working with, afterall. But that’s again, the ideal case scenario. Could they just… regrow the head eventually? We don’t really have a clear answer on what the limits and capabilities of what the Irken healing factor is, but I want to at least guess that having a personal lab and assistant on hand is going to help. Bare minimum, a solution can get worked out to supply the body with needed blood sugars again to buy more time.

The PAK itself retains a pretty much perfect digital backup of its body’s memories, experiences, and identity, so it’s not like information has been permanently been lost with primary brain damage. Replacing the primary brain entirely might be as easy as backing up your iPhone and downloading everything into some shiny new hardware. Hell, it may not even need be Irken hardware!

Do you know the real disturbing things from “Dark Harvest” NOBODY brings up are???

Why the fuck was an instantaneous organ-swapping device already just something Zim was carrying around in his toolset?

And

Zim’s morphology was horrifically receptive to those dozens of xenographs.

Those human organs were actually beating, pulsing, absolutely redundant and unnecessary in his body, but completely still functional and healthy in the name of selling his act to the school nurse. He didn’t just clumsily cram a bunch of offal into himself, he competently integrated them into his biology and somehow wasn’t suffering like… the tons of complications you’d expect from trying a stunt like that.

And in the comics, there’s this other fella I just adore for how skrangly he looks, and believe it or not, his actual fucking name is Skrang.

He’s a smart guy, though. Don’t be fooled. And I mean like, a smart guy. And it’s all thanks to a little help from a little upgrade he’s been fitted with :)

So, I hope you take all the implications I’ve been building here and make what you will of them. I genuinely think an Irken has a decent chance of making it out of a beheading alive to seek sadistic vengeance another day. Do I think ZIM could do such a thing? Tbh, I think he’d have to rely on GIR to come in clutch, and we may know that’s a complete roll of the dice in any case.

Wow, this got morbid, but, par for the course really.

#invader zim #iz headcanons #iz analysis #irkens #cool bug facts #cockroaches #iz skrang #scarlet talks about things #long post #anyway now I just want the hypothetical where dib reacts to this scenario #cause that would mess me up for a long time #like just picture a fight with your nemesis gone HORRIBLY wrong from some accident #and then dude just shows up the next day in class like… fine but pretty pissed off about the whole thing #and then he jumps over the desk and strangles you when you make bad puns about the whole ordeal #comedy/horror GOLD #HELP ME THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SHORT POST BTW #NOT ANOTHER GD ESSAY #oh boy here i go hyperfixating again

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nonsensicalramblings79 · 7 months

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Dead Seagull: Do Not Eat – Albatrosses, Seagulls, and Guilt in Our Flag Means Death

(for future reference: written 10/6/2023, ~36-48 hours after the first 3 episodes of S2 were released)

Hi, all! I, like many of you scrolling the #ofmd meta tag, have a head filled with nothing but the Gay Pirates. This has been the case since 12am PST on 10/5/2023 and will remain the case for several months to come. On my 3rd watch-through of the first 3 episodes of season 2 of OFMD, I started paying closer attention to potential symbolism so that I could maybe predict how the rest of the series is going to play out and get a better idea of what’s going on in these little guys’ brains. This post is the introduction to a short series of long posts wherein I rant about symbolism that may or may not be in the show. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I haven’t written anything even close to a literary analysis since high school, and I generally don’t know wtf I’m talking about. I’m just having a lot of very normal thoughts about The Pirate Show and I need to put them somewhere; if anyone has more ideas relating to this please add to it!! And to the best of my knowledge, the thoughts I express here are my own – please let me know if there are other analyses that say similar things that I should link to.

TWs: animal death, blood, eating animals, starvation, emotional abuse, physical abuse, gunshot injuries, suicidal ideation, canon-typical mental health problems

MAJOR OFMD SPOILERS THROUGH S2E03!!!

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What originally prompted this whole rabbit-hole exploration was the conversation that Ed has with Frenchie at the end of s2e01.

…

You know there's a bird that never touches ground?

It's born in the air. Never once lands. Spends its entire existence in the sky. …

As Frenchie astutely notes, this seems…kind of impossible. How could a bird be born in the air? I could see potentially never landing, but surely every bird has to come down at some point to lay eggs (or to hatch from them), right? So I did a quick Google search for birds that spend their whole lives in the air, and the first result that came up was the common swift, which apparently spends up to 10 months out of the year in the air, never once landing (or only landing very occasionally) during that time. They catch food in the air, sleep while drifting on air currents, mate in the sky, and only land to nest and lay their eggs.

So that seemed…promising? I guess? But not exactly what Ed was talking about. After all, these birds aren’t “born in the air,” and they certainly don’t spend their entire life without landing. And this still could be what Ed was talking about; it matches fairly closely, and it’s possible that whatever Ed heard was either mis-told, misheard, or intentionally exaggerated. But I think there’s a more elegant answer to what bird Ed is referencing here, and it has much more potential for analysis than the common swift: the albatross.

This is the second thing that I found while searching, and this piqued my interest much more than the last result, since - as many of you probably know, spending time reading tumblr metas – the albatross is an extremely pervasive metaphor in literature. It usually represents a psychological burden that one has taken on, most often as a result of having made a mistake that resulted in others getting hurt. I’ll go into more detail about the source of this symbol in a little bit, but the basic gist is that a dead albatross gets hung around one’s neck until whatever guilt they have is resolved – albatrosses are huge birds, so this represents an enormous weight.

Before I go on, I’ll add that, at first glance, the albatross actually seems to fit Ed’s description less well than the common swift does – albatrosses are known for being able to glide for a long, long time, but they do land…on the water. One of the first things that comes up when you search for “birds that never land” is that albatrosses spend years and years never landing on shore. There’s a similar problem here to the common swift in that no bird actually hatches from an egg while in the air like Ed is implying here. But I would argue that the albatross is indeed what Ed is talking about. Whether he misheard, someone misspoke, or a tale got distorted from it being verbally passed down, Ed is referencing the image of an albatross that spends its entire life above (or on) the sea, never once going to land.

And this fits. In the context of the conversation that Ed is having with Frenchie, Ed is lamenting the fact that he can only exist in one place, fulfilling one role – on the sea, performing the role of Blackbeard. He imagines the life of this fictional albatross as quite lonely, I think, never once leaving the place it has spent its entire life (again, this isn’t exactly how the birds behave, but I believe Ed views them this way based on how he’s interpreted whatever he heard about albatrosses). He’s resigning himself to never leaving his habitat, and quite literally never going back to shore.

“…We’re gonna sail…rob…raise hell forever…and ever…without end.”

Right. So, if I am to be believed, we’ve established that Ed is actually diegetically referencing albatrosses. So what?

Well, as another disclaimer, I’m not 100% sold on these ideas myself. Especially only having the first 3 episodes of S2 to go off of, there’s plenty of time for these ideas to be proven wrong in as few as – checks watch – 6 days. There are lots of different, potentially overlapping, potentially conflicting ways to interpret this information. I’m probably going to split this up into parts, for ease of access and reading. Because all this so far has just been the introduction :))

In one part, I’m going to talk about what is probably the most intentional reference: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the original poem that the albatross metaphor is pulled from. Beyond just the link to the “Impossible Birds” conversation, there are some other elements in OFMD that seem like pretty clear references to this poem. Based on references to this poem in popular culture, I suspect that parallels here would be non-diegetic – meant to be apparent to the audience, not to the in-universe characters. Link Here!

Next, I’m going to talk about another poem, simply titled “The Albatross” (French: L’albatros). This particular poem is maybe less likely to have inspired references in OFMD, but if there is an intentional link, this poem reflects a lot of how Ed sees himself and his life thus far. I’ll admit that I’m a bit biased toward this poem since I had to memorize it in French class in high school and it’s stuck with me – but it was also one of the first things on Wikipedia that was linked on the page of the metaphor of the Albatross. Parallels in this poem are what I would suspect to be diegetic – despite it being an anachronism, I think Ed has at some point read this poem, and he relates to the albatross/poet. [Link Here!]

Lastly, there are some loose ends that I’d like to pick up that may not tie into anything, but I feel like they’re worth mentioning, especially as they relate to the albatross metaphors and parallels. This section is going to talk more generally about birds and bird imagery in OFMD, and how these instances can support or refute my albatross theories. [Link will go here: haven't written yet :)]

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2 meta #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd season 2 meta #ofmd blackbeard #stede bonnet #albatross #the rime of the ancient mariner #literary analysis #media analysis #frenchie ofmd #izzy hands #lucius spriggs

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 8 months

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Starved

*materializes into existence*

Hey :D

[beware, this is long]

Idk if you're doing prompts rn (if not, that's okay; remember to take care of yourself). But if you are, may I request some Creativitwins h/c? – oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat [i'm not putting the whole req here just cause she LONG]

Read on Ao3

Warnings: starvation, intrusive thoughts, panic attacks, body horror (sort of), nightmares

Pairings: none

Word Count: 4250

For Remus, tending to the nightmare realm is just another chore. Eldritch monstrosities, terrifying landscapes, that's just how it is.

But when a new destination appears one night as he's going about his rounds, well, he has to stop in to investigate. What he finds is a horrifying town that has an almost cult-like relationship with hunger. One of the Sides, clearly, suffers from a particularly terrible strain of intrusive thoughts, but who?

"I mean, it just makes sense, really."

Roman snarls, throwing himself against the invisible barrier, but it shimmers mockingly as he's forced to claw and screech in vain, soundless behind its impassable force. On the other side, close enough that he could reach out and touch him—so close, so fucking close—Remus smiles.

"Of course," Logan says softly, reaching out to cup Remus's face as though he's precious, "the Creativity unbound by the shackles of expectation, what else could we hope for?"

"And the passion!" Patton claps his hands, each one making the barrier thunder against Roman's palms. "Where else are we going to find someone with this much drive and motivation?"

"I know, maybe we'll actually see finished products once in a while," Virgil snickers, playfully elbowing Remus in the ribs as a dagger lodges itself in Roman's side.

He howls in pain, still scrabbling at the wall, but it's no use; Remus isn't even looking at him anymore, no one is, they're all too focused on each other, on how perfect Remus fits in now that they're stopping to look at it, and that's what he wants, that's good, he missed his brother so much, he wants him back, he wants him back, he just wants—he wants—

But he's a fool, and he didn't specify that he's selfish enough to want to keep both things.

And now, as he watches Remus pulled into Patton's arms, as he watches Logan smile gently and ruffle his hair, as he watches Virgil grin and rub his hands together gleefully, as he watches Janus turn to look at him—

Janus stares at him through the barrier, a smirk playing on his lips. But it's not a cruel smirk, not a malicious smile, it's the crooked smile every hero has just as they deliver the last quip of the movie.

"Oh, Roman," he whispers, even as his words ring in Roman's ears, "thank god you don't have a mustache."

Roman wakes up.

He's shaking. He's burning under the sheet. He's panting like he's run for his life. He's frozen. He can't move. Why should he move? The barrier will stop him. Wait, no, that's when he's asleep. He's not asleep anymore. He's not, is he? He's so cold. He's so hot. He's so scared.

God, he's so scared.

But why is he so scared? Is it the fact that Remus was accepted? How awful is he, to be scared of that? To be scared that if they find out how wonderful Remus truly is—and he is, Remus is so, so, so wonderful, he is and Roman loves him—that they'll want to keep Remus and get rid of him? That's awful of him! He's not supposed to be scared of his brother being accepted, he's supposed to look forward to it! He's not—he's not—

He's crying, isn't he? That's why he's still shaking. He's scared. He's scared and he's awful and he's crying, why is he crying? What right does he have to cry? Crying is for people who are hurting and deserve comfort. What comfort does he deserve? Because his Imagination conjured up some horrifying reality for him, so horrifying that he got to watch his brother finally get the love and acceptance he deserves and the natural consequences of it? What right does he have to demand comfort after that? He doesn't. He should stop crying. He should stop. Right now.

Oh, god, he can't stop crying.

He's still hurting. His chest is still burning. Why can't he breathe properly? This is stupid; if he's going to be as selfish and needy as he is, he should at least be breathing properly. He can't pretend to be anything other than helpless, can he, that he would steal the air from others' lungs and then not have the decency to breathe it properly? How cruel of him. How unjust of him. How awful he must be.

He should be locked behind a barrier. He should be pushed far away from everyone else. Then he couldn't hurt them. Then his hurt would only hurt him. Then he could be as messy and needy and selfish as he had to be and he would only cause himself pain. That was right. That was better. He should—he should have—should he have realized this years ago? How awful he is, how much he deserves to be put behind a barrier?

The room is closing in. The walls are getting closer. His bed is shrinking. The blankets are pressing him down into the floor, he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't breathe—

He can't hear anything. Oh, god, has it happened already? No, no, he wasn't ready—he was just thinking about it, that didn't mean he wanted to go right now—no, he wants one last chance to say goodbye, he's sorry, he's sorry, he's so sorry—

It's so cold.

***

Remus whistles under his breath as he steers the little rudder on the wooden dinghy, around the desecrated shell of some great eldritch beast. He gives the scale an absentminded pat as he drifts by, resolving to come back and check on it later. Perusing his nightmare gallery never did get old, but as far as dreams went, there were certainly better ones to be had. After all, hardly anyone wants to go to work as soon as they fall asleep.

"Win some, lose some," he remarks to the bear cub sitting in the bottom of the boat next to him. The bear cub growls low in its throat and gnaws on a spare bone. "Atta boy."

As he turns to go back towards the mainland, he catches sight of something rising up out of the water to his left. Looking over, he blinks in surprise to see a skeletal forest framing a new mouth of the river, long and jagged shadows reaching out over the water's surface. Frowning, he steers the boat over there, watching as the trees coalesce to form the silhouette of a starving bear. His bear cub lets out a low snuffling noise and shifts closer to his leg. He rubs its head and frowns as they drift under the bear's snarling mouth.

"Do you know what this is?" The bear cub huffs. "Huh. Me neither."

Surprisingly enough, the river ends at a seemingly normal dock. Well, normal for everyone else, in here, that's a little strange. Crowds mill about, each talking gruffly to their immediate neighbor, and someone throws Remus a small rope to tie off his dinghy. He does, the bear cub lingering close to his heels as he starts to walk into the town. Thankfully, he's not in his costume, but a set of plainclothes that he quickly shuffles around to hide the eldritch goo.

The air swirls with a strange miasma, not quite visible enough to put his finger on, but—there's something here. A feeling, almost, a terrible energy that permeates everything he can see. Most wear some sort of face covering, a scarf pulled up over their mouths, or hats worn so low he can only see glimpses of their chin. Those that don't are haggard, bone-weary, with eyes sunken and pulsating deep within their sockets. He can see what should be market stalls hanging their striped banners, but nothing looks to be on sale.

"Good thinking," he hears a raspy voice to his side, and he turns to see a crew of urchins smirking and huffing at him, "having a cub for you, or you for the cub."

His cub—he looks down to see where the cub should've been only to see it's wandered off, sniffing at something, and now whining and growling as a group of long-fingered strangers inch towards it, their mouths open. He whistles sharply and the cub turns tail and runs back to him, gnawing gently on his pants leg.

"Stay close," he bids under his breath as they keep walking, "I don't know what's going on here."

He keeps walking. The bustling streets fade quickly into tiny alleyways, each blocked off by a different makeshift wall that looks like it's designed to be lifted back and forth, a strange gate of sorts. Big, bulky things, the kind that would take at least two strong people to lift. He glances around at the twig-thin limbs and skeletal muscles he can see of the few people that aren't wearing big coats and proper clothes. As he nears one, he frowns. It's made of what looks to be old hide, bound and lashed together with something, but what could possibly be—

A low moaning and the murmur of a crowd.

He turns again, his cub at his side, looking for the source of the commotion. Down the main street a ways, at the mouth of presumably another alley, he sees a group of people peering at something. With one hand tangled in the fur at the cub's neck, he walks over and shoulders his way in to see what's so fascinating.

His eyes widen.

An old man, an old man, who looks barely alive save for the hysterical zeal in his eyes, is hobbling after something rolling along the ground. Every time he's about to pick it up, one of the men in some sort of uniform comes up and kicks it further away from him. The thing rolls through all manner of filth and still the old man hobbles after it. A sick sort of fascination takes hold of Remus's stomach—he should put a stop to this, shouldn't he?—but he finds himself paralyzed, only able to hold his bear cub close.

As the man continues to hobble, he lets go of his cloak. His ribs stand out starkly, each vertebra of his spine clearly visible, and someone in the crowd quickly snatches it up, hoarding it to their chest as a few squabble for it until the uniformed man barks at them to settle down. The man hobbles on, undeterred.

Another shadow lengthens on the ground.

Remus is one of the few that turn to look.

Another man, tall and whip-thin, with an ashen-gray face and monstrous dignity, walks slowly after the pair. His coat, fasted together with large gold buttons down the length of him, flutters in the breeze as though he would blow away at any moment. His hands, the same ashen color as his face, clasp in front of him. A gold signet ring gleams from his finger.

Who, Remus thinks as he clutches the bear cub, who has the sense to be utterly silent, the fuck do you think you are?

"Do you see," the man whispers, his voice picking through the crowd as a centipede picks through the undergrowth on the forest floor, "how desperate we become if we are slaves to our hunger?"

The man in uniform kicks the thing through a puddle that Remus is going to believe is water. The older man still hobbles after it.

"How low our standards become, how quickly we become nothing but beasts, savage and primitive? And how unhappy we are…" The gold signet ring catches another flash of light. "And we are never sated once we give into the need to feed."

The old man finally catches the thing. It drips and cracks with who knows what and still he shoves it in his mouth as though it were the finest feast in all the land. As the crumbs and sludge drip down his face, Remus realizes that it once might have passed for bread.

"And look," says the man as the old figure lets out a howl of despair, "it is never worth the price it takes to feed it."

For even that short hobble seems to have sapped the last of the life force from the old man's wheezing lungs and he keels over right there, still moaning and twitching as the bread rolls limply away from his hands. The uniformed man stands over the corpse and raises a whistle to his lips.

"We are the masters of our own hunger," drones that fucking whisper as many-limbed shadows materialize from the other end of the alley, "until it becomes master of us."

The crowd turns away in shocked horror as the spider-shadow-demon beasts fall upon the corpse. Remus watches the man impassively observing it, idly toying with that fucking golden ring. Then, as if Remus were invisible, he turns and walks back into the crowd, the beasts scuttling after him.

"So," Remus murmurs to the bear cub who was thankfully too short to see any of that, "that was fucking weird."

This isn't one of his. Obviously, because then he would've known what the fuck to expect. As it stands, he can only drift to a somewhat abandoned corner and stare around, trying to discern who this might belong to.

Hunger, that was clearly a theme here. Starvation, almost, given how little food there seems to be and how everyone keeps looking at his bear cub. But a culturally enforced starvation, given by the weird cult vibes of the creepy dude with the ring—a religious figure, maybe? And some nonsense about being masters of hunger, so clearly there was prestige given to being hungry but not giving into it. Those who outwardly expressed their hunger being shamed—well, shamed and humiliated and executed for it.

The bear cub whimpers and Remus crouches down, letting it snuffle into his neck as he strokes its shoulder. A cart drives by with a fancy-looking crest on one side and he squints to make out 'By the Grace of N. Schaumburg' as it passes.

"That must be creepy dude," he murmurs as the bear cub growls, "yeah? What do we think, who's hungry?"

He looks around again. Despite the fact that it's pretty mild weather, everyone's bundled up as though it were the dead of winter. Those that don't wear thick heavy coats huddle together, shivering, mindless mumbling coming from the groups. If he listens closely enough, he can just make out the words, but they don't make any sense.

The bear cub whuffs and tugs on his sleeve.

"What?"

The cub sniffs at a piece of paper blown closer to them. Remus picks it up. It's a pamphlet of some sort with the same crest, announcing an earlier enforced curfew. On the back is a short verse.

Selfishly feed and forever go hungry.

Free and unshackled by hunger are we.

Feeding the beast is an endless task.

Embrace the hunger and be free at last.

"Free from what," Remus whispers to the cub as he finishes reading, "having a body with needs?"

The cub just whines. Remus rubs its head and pockets the pamphlet, standing up slowly and looking around. Okay, so definitely shame associated with needing to feed, something about trying and failing to sate the hunger only leading to it growing, okay…definitely more guilt flying around here than he'd like but they were raised Catholic, so that's not completely unbelievable…

"You there." The uniformed man from before jerks his head at the cub. "What's with the animal?"

"'S my emotional support bear."

The man frowns. "Your what?"

"Nasty business," Remus says instead, nodding toward where the corpse used to be, "does that happen often in this part of town?"

"Not as often as it used to, population's getting better. Since Schaumburg came out with the pills instead of the rations it's been easier to keep the worst of them down." The man glances behind him. "Still. There'll always be a few of them."

"Is that why the new curfew's been enacted?"

"Well, it always gets worse at night, you know. That's when all the rational thought leaves these people and they start scrabbling about for something to feed on. Makes it easier to manage if they're all already indoors, you see."

Okay, so something about not being around others at night, okay, who do we know that's been skipping out of things lately?

"And I've never seen him around either," Remus says, lowering his voice a bit as he nods toward the direction that creepy dude went off in, "is that normal around here too?"

"Oh, Schaumburg doesn't normally come out—" bingo— "but with all the panic about that cold front last night, well…I guess he thought it was necessary."

Cold front last night, cold front last night…what happened last night?

It was movie night last night. Did someone get freaked out by the movie? But it was The Sea Beast, it had cleared everyone's trigger list, everyone had enjoyed it, was that the problem? Or was it something else?

"Now, you seem like a nice enough man—" Remus tries not to take offense, this seems like a good thing in this case— "so I'll just let you off with a word to the wise: get that bear of yours registered with an approved tag or someone's liable to tear it apart, you hear?"

Remus just nods as the official turns away. He looks down at his cub, who's all but cuddling his leg, and glances around.

Several people hug their cloaks or bags close to their chests. A few more stand so close their arms are near around each other as the carts and wagons drive by. A parent tucks their child into a fold of their coat. He remembers the feeling of being snuggled on the couch and how cold it had been when he got up to get a drink. He pulls out the pamphlet and looks closely at the crest, fingers tracing an upside-down crown with teeth mangling the metal.

As if on cue, he hears Roman scream.

***

Virgil huffs, turning over in bed. Remus must be busy tonight; his mouth's been filled with bitter-tasting grossness all evening. Every now and again he gets this awful roaring emptiness in his stomach and he just wants to sleep. He's almost ready to storm down there and tell him to knock whatever he's doing off, it can wait until tomorrow, when he suddenly hears someone scream.

That's…not what Remus's screams sound like.

***

Remus shakes himself awake, grabs his trusty teddy bear, and sinks right into Roman's room. Immediately he's prying Roman's hands away from his face, letting out these soothing little noises and trying to get his attention.

"Hey, hey, Roro, shh, shh, it's okay, c'mere." Roman gasps and shakes and Remus leans in to kiss his forehead. "Hey, hey, c'mon, Ro-Bro, it's just me. It's just me, hey, can you look at me?"

"Re?"

"Yeah, Roro, it's just me, it's just me. Hey, you're doing so good, can you listen to my voice? Just listen to me, I'm right here, we're in your room, we're safe, you're safe, we're all okay." He nudges the teddy bear into Roman's lap and nuzzles it under Roman's chin. "See? All good."

Roman's hands are shaking and in the distance, Remus hears the echo of Schaumburg's voice. He growls and reaches out, taking Roman's hands and looping them around his neck, pulling his brother into a cuddle.

"Hey, Roro, you stay right here with me. Can you do that? Can you hold onto me?"

"It's so cold, Re—it's so—so cold—"

"Shh, it's okay, you can be warm now. I'm warm, right?"

"You're so warm—how are you so warm—"

"Come steal all my warmth, okay? Come steal all of it, it's all for you, I'm gonna give it to you." Remus tucks Roman's head under his chin and rocks him slightly back and forth. "There, there you go, shh, shh, it's okay, Roro."

"I'm sorry," Roman gasps out and Remus's chest aches, "I'm sorry, I'm awful, I'm so sorry!"

"You're not awful, Roro. Nope, no disagreeing," he says softly as Roman opens his mouth to protest, "you're not awful. You had a really fucked up nightmare and your intrusive thoughts are way too loud but you're not awful."

Roman freezes. "You—you saw it?"

"I didn't see your nightmare, no, but I—your intrusive thoughts made a place in my nightmare realm and I saw that."

"I'm so sorry—"

"Hey," Remus murmurs, pulling him back enough to cup his face and make him look at his eyes, "don't apologize for the shit your brain does, okay? You're safe here with me. I'm gonna be right here, okay? I got you."

To his dismay, Roman's lower lip trembles and big tears bubble at the corners of his eyes again. "B-but I—"

"Roman?" That's Virgil's voice, why the fuck is he—oh, right, panic. "Princey?"

"Hey, shh," Remus soothes as Roman tries to hide in the lea of him, "hey, it's okay. I won't let him hurt you."

"Remus? Is that you?"

"Yeah. What do you want?"

"I heard the scream, I've been feeling his panic—look, I don't wanna shout through the door, can I come in?"

"Can he?" Roman takes a little too long to nod but he does. "Yeah, Virgil, get in here."

Virgil slips through the door and takes one look at Remus hovering protectively over his brother and immediately changes into the softest hoodie and sweatpants he has. He crouches down so it's easier for Roman to look at him and his voice drops to a low rumble.

"Hey, Princey," he says gently as Roman turns to look at him, "seems like you're having a real rough time right now, can I come help?"

"S-sorry."

"It's okay, bud, I'm not mad. You're gonna be okay. I just wanna help."

"I won't let him hurt you," Remus whispers, rubbing his back, "you're safe here."

It takes another long moment, but Roman slowly reaches out a hand and Virgil takes it, letting Roman draw him onto the bed. He joins Remus in rubbing up and down Roman's back, gently carding his fingers through his hair.

"Hey, Princey," he murmurs, still speaking softly, "you have a bad dream? Yeah? You wanna talk about it?"

Roman shakes his head.

"Can I ask Remus what's going on? Yeah? Thanks, bud."

Remus sighs, letting Roman cuddle into him. "He's not been having a good time recently, what with…everything going on. I think Patton and Janus blowing up about selfish stuff got into his head and Logan's whole…deal about rising above what he calls 'base' needs isn't helping."

"…yeah, shit, that sounds—that's not great."

"And, you know, being insulted and belittled every time he opens his mouth isn't helping either," Remus adds, glaring at Virgil as he winces.

"I know. I—fuck."

"Yeah. So be really fucking careful right now."

"Hey, Roman," Virgil calls softly, giving Roman the gentlest shake to get his attention, "hey, Princey, can you look at me for a second?"

Roman's head peeks out and Virgil smiles, reaching out to wipe a tear from his cheek.

"Hey, there, bud. You're okay. Was what Remus said right, are you—is shit a little too much right now?" Roman nods. "You want some reassurance, or do you just want us to be here?"

"'M sorry," Roman mumbles, "'m not—'m not trying to be needy."

"You're not being needy, Princey, you're upset and you want to be comforted. That's not needy."

"Or selfish either," Remus says when fucking Schaumburg starts whispering again, "you're allowed to want things and have them. That's not something to be ashamed of or feel guilty for."

"Shit," he hears Virgil mutter under his breath before there's another set of arms around Roman, "no, Princey, you're not bad for wanting things. Is this—I'm sorry I didn't realize it sooner. I shouldn't have left you alone for movie night last night either."

Right. Right, everyone else had cuddled up on the couch and Roman had arrived later when there was no room—fuck, Roro, I'm so sorry.

"It's okay, bud, you're okay. You're okay, you're safe, we're not going anywhere."

"I'm sorry," Roman cries out, hiding his face in the teddy bear, "I'm not—I'm trying, I'm trying, but it's so cold, I'm sorry—"

"Don't be sorry for wanting," Remus scolds lightly, glancing at Virgil who nods and starts gathering the blankets, "you're allowed to want things. And you just had a nightmare, that's an automatic you-get-cuddles-now. We can figure everything else out tomorrow, okay?"

Finally, finally Roman sniffles and looks up at both of them. "You guys really don't mind?"

"Nope!"

"Nah," Virgil says, ruffling his hair, "come cuddle, Princey."

As they all start to get ready to fall back asleep, Remus makes eye contact with Virgil. Virgil nods as Roman starts to doze—poor Roro, he must be so tired—and they close their eyes together.

***

Remus's bear cub growls lightly at Virgil as they reappear in the abandoned corner, but he pats its head. "He's a friend, it's okay."

"Yeesh," Virgil mutters, looking around, "this whole place feels like panic attack, is it always like this?"

"Roman's just really not having a good time right now. Just be glad you weren't here earlier."

"You know what, I'm not even gonna ask." Virgil takes a deep breath and tugs a little on his jacket, glancing around. "So! What's the plan?"

"I'm feeling like some anti-government arson and a side of political assassination, how about you?"

"Let's go start a riot."

The bear cub growls, swelling and growing until it's the size of a nearby wagon and Remus grins.

We gotcha, Roro. Sweet dreams.

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance@whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti@ultrageekygirl

#sanders sides #roman sanders #roman angst #virgil sanders #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #dragonbabbles #fic

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broodwolf221 · 2 days

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meta that's mostly about vivienne and her pro-circle views, but also touches on both sera and anders. I love them all and that shows, none of this is character hate, but I'm trying to explore the nuance at play here

adding character hate on this post will get you blocked

cws: mentions of the following: abuse; starvation; murder

obviously sera and vivienne are very, very different from each other... but I think one important commonality between them is a desire to avoid anarchy as a solution

sera doesn't want the red jennies to become a new political power - she wants to keep the current batch of nobles on edge, knowing that the "red jenny" may come for them if they fuck up too much. she also doesn't want to take out all the current nobles bc she knows that new ones will rise to take their place. she hates the nobles, but she also sees how an anarchist revolution would harm the very people she cares about, those she's trying to help as a red jenny

vivienne doesn't want to abolish the circles, but she also doesn't want to permit the abuses within them... but she, quite realistically, views the destruction of the chantry/subsequent vote for the dissolution of the circles as an inciting factor in the mage-templar war

anders' actions gave people new and immediate reason to fear mages. whether he was right to do it or not - and I tend to think he was - does not preclude it having consequences, even those that directly harm the very group he was trying to liberate

further, the function of the circles as a place for mages to train is necessary, and is also why I personally tend to feel a little uncomfortable with direct parallels being made to rl groups. no minority or oppressed group in rl can accidentally burn down the family barn because they get upset. I'm all for ppl making these connections if that works for them, but I always look at things first and foremost as existing within their canon context, not referencing reality outside of it

with that in mind... training mages is necessary. they need to be able to avoid possession, to learn to control their abilities, etc. does it need to be in a circle tower? no! ofc not! but there does need to be a form of training

vivienne sees the circles as fulfilling that role. the dissolution of them plunged mages into uncertainty - the anarchy she is so opposed to. who will train new mages now? how will they even be discovered?

in banter with dorian, sera once mentions a mage who got picked up by the templars, so he's "better now." dorian reacted with shock, asking if she knew what the southern circles are like, and she replied that he got three square meals a day, a cot. and he wouldn't starve or be killed in the street, both of which she'd seen

this isn't saying circles are the ideal, because they have abuses occurring within them too. the one in kirkwall seemed to be the worst, but we can't know the extent of it in every circle throughout time. it is, however, a place with a severe power imbalance and stark controls placed upon people as a matter of course

it is also the current and only solution within a large part of thedas. without it, what will happen to those kids who get mad and burn a building down? will the non-mages around them be kind, or will they be brutal? will they be able to turn them over to rogue apostates?

this is the problem with anarchy imo - some systems absolutely deserve to be destroyed, but there are a LOT of people who are going to fall through the cracks in an anarchist revolution

so, tl;dr: anders was right. and vivienne is right. circles are bad, but they are also the only system in place rn. and sera and vivienne have an anti-anarchy pov that they share, which is very interesting to me.

#broodmeta

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gabessquishytum · 1 year

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I'm obsessed with both dometic control au and chubby muscle hob so. Combine the two. Hob never outright starves himself because hes experienced starvation and he Does Not want to revisit it but. Between teacher multiple classes, running a pretty successful business, writing research papers and going out with Dream he doesn't always remember to eat until hes absolutely starving. Once Dream takes over his care he starts eating more regularly and gains some of his chub from the 1500's back. At first hes worried that Dream won't like his body changing (since he ditched poor Hob back then) but Dream goes Insane seeing his care and love for Hob having a physical effect.

💳 anon

Oh GOD you've combined my favourite things...... I feel like this deserves its own fic (I might be making domestic control au a series coughcough). But lemme just. Sjsbsb.

I feel like Hob (as I write him) DEFINITELY has the ole neurodivergent tendency to forget that food exists until he's alerted to the fact by hunger pangs or someone telling him to eat.

But once (thanks to Dream regulating his meals for him) he gets back in the proper regular routine of meals and snacks, he obviously gains a bit of weight! Which he is very in favour of personally, he likes being a bit more filled out and he feels healthier, happier etc. Having a partner just complicates things a bit, because he very clearly remembers the 1589 rejection and how Dream went off with the (skinny) twink.

BUT! He doesn't even get time to overthink or worry about it properly. Dream is so obviously thrilled to see him gaining a bit of weight. He's excited about it, he won't stop touching and rucking up Hob’s shirt to make sure that he wasn't imagining his belly.

Hob manages to be the adult in the room and have a proper conversation with Dream about how he's a tiny bit insecure about the weight gain but also very much in favour of it.... and Dream is like well OBVIOUSLY I just have to tell you and show you how much I love every single inch of your body. Starting immediately.

Hob's praise kink plus his genuine enjoyment of food/being cared for means that he ends up with a much softer body he feels so much more comfy in. A body that Dream obviously adores. They're both very happy <3

#💳 anon #the sandman #dreamling #cw food #cw feederism #ish

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fluentmoviequoter · 4 months

Text

Close Enough

Requested Here by @astroherogirl !! (20 Surprise Parties✨ info)

Prompts Used: "Your eyes are really pretty up close" AND "when the other holds onto their waist briefly as they're passing by and it just sends chills down their spine"

Warnings: depictions of touch starvation (from my experience, so apologies if it's inaccurate), Victor's traumatic childhood, teasing, fluff

Word Count: 1.2k+ words

Victor Vale hates it when other people touch him, so he avoids it whenever possible. The occasional brushing of shoulders with Mitch or Sydney's hand shoving him aside when he gets lost in his mind is enough to bring burning pain to the surface of his skin, which takes far longer than it should to disappear. He knows he's touch-starved, but years without touch and the ill-willed touch of Eli and others led him to believe that regardless of how he feels about (or craves) touch, touch doesn't like him.

"Where on earth did you find that?" you ask, causing Victor to glance up from his book. "We're in the middle of nowhere and you managed to find your parents' newest book."

Victor shrugs, dragging a new marker across his parents' name on the title page. You step behind Victor, looking for something in the cabinet behind him, and your warmth presses against his back.

"I tried to read one before you fixed it," you begin, and Victor shakes his head to focus. "It was... preachy."

Victor stifles a laugh as he agrees, "Story of my life. Except they only acknowledge my existence to explain what a terrible child I was."

"Was?" you tease, stepping back to stand beside Victor. "They're missing out. You know that."

Victor sets his marker down, looking up at you as you smile at him. He's never paid much attention to your eyes, but he's drawn to them now.

Sydney yells your name, and you whisper an apology before leaving Victor with his racing thoughts, book editing, and the ghost of your presence.

✯✯✯✯✯

"You'll never believe what I saw," Sydney says, closing the bedroom door behind you. "Victor was petting Dol and, like, gave him a hug. Then he was talking about how good Dol was. It was so weird."

You shrug. "Why is that weird? Vic likes Dol, loves him more than us."

"See, that's the thing. He does, I know that, but he isn't usually that... soft? loveable?"

"Things are changing, Syd. Vic probably won't change much, but if he's willing to show Dol some love, that's good." You don't say it, but you think the idea of Victor engaging in touch that has no intent to cause pain or kill is a good thing, too.

"He never lets me hug him," Sydney pouts.

"Do you want to?" you ask, laughing as you sit on the bed beside Sydney. Dol stands and moves between you and Sydney, setting his head on your lap and blinking at you until you lay your hand on his head.

"I don't know," Sydney admits quietly, stroking Dol's back.

"My hugs aren't good enough for you?"

Sydney laughs at your exaggerated pout, silencing when Dol grunts softly. "Your hugs are perfect, I just think Victor might need one."

"Right. Because Victor Vale would absolutely let me hug him."

You and Sydney laugh together while Victor edits a chapter on parenting, to tell the truth: that he raised himself with no attention or love. He wants to know how you open yourself up to Sydney, but he knows he can't do it, no matter what it is. He'll keep you and Sydney safe, but that doesn't require being a good person.

✯✯✯✯✯

You wake up with one arm hanging off the bed and Dol's snout pushed against your collarbone. It isn't the first time you fell asleep in Sydney's room while talking, but you always forget how uncomfortable you are when you wake up. Like every other time, you tell yourself you'll make it to your own bed next time.

As you stand, pulling away from Dol carefully as he rolls against Sydney, you stretch your arms over your head before dropping them. Sneaking out, you press your hand against Sydney's door as you close it. The kitchen light is on, which you assume is Mitch getting a midnight snack (or glass of chocolate milk). You wipe your eyes as you follow the light down the hall.

Stepping into the kitchen, you don't expect to see Victor standing before the island, looking at a map. He glances up quickly as you approach but doesn't move out of your way.

Unthinking and tired, you place a hand on his waist as you step beside him, muttering an apology.

Victor's skin alights under your touch, and a shiver runs down his spine. The pins and needles he's grown to expect when someone touches him shift quickly into a growing warmth. Though your hand is relatively small against his side, you encompass all of him with one touch. And, worse, he thinks he could get used to it.

Victor turns slightly, raising his arm so you can't pass him. You stop, your hand still firm on his side, resting just below his rib cage, as you look up at him. His unusual action wakes you up, and you search his face for clues as to why he's acting differently.

"Your eyes are really pretty up close," Victor says, his voice low in the late hours.

You press your lips together before smiling at him, pressing your palm firmly against his shirt. "What happened?" you ask.

Victor's brows furrow and you take the opportunity to step closer.

"What did you do to Victor Vale?" you tease.

Victor rolls his eyes, unconsciously leaning into your touch.

"I think you're sleep deprived."

"I think your eyes are pretty," Victor repeats, ignoring your continued teasing.

You sigh when Victor's outstretched arm falls, resting against your side. Sydney might have been on to something, but you'd never hug Victor unexpectedly.

"Your eyes are pretty too," you say, determined to let him choose what touch occurs.

Victor leans back against the counter, pulling you with him. He raises his other hand to your hip, rubbing his thumb against the hem of your shirt.

"You know I'm here, right? For anything," you whisper.

Victor nods, looking directly into your eyes. Victor thinks there's a map hidden in them, and maybe you can see the real him with that map.

"Even hugs," you add, hiding your laugh with a close-lipped smile.

"I'll remember that."

Victor is as sarcastic as always, but the look in his eyes and his hands on you make you think he will remember. And, maybe, someday, he'll take you up on it.

You look down when you feel Dol brush against your legs, situating himself between you and Victor.

"Really, you'll hug him but not me?" you ask.

"I knew someone was back there," Victor mumbles.

"Sydney," you tell him, dropping your hand toward Dol.

Victor takes his opportunity sooner than you expected, using your hand already on him to pull you in. His hands meet between your shoulder blades; one arm looped over your shoulder as the other raises from your hip. He squeezes tightly, and you let him control your placement as you rest your forehead against his shoulder. The hug is quick but warms you all over before Victor straightens, and you step back.

"Anytime," you remind Victor quietly.

"I knew it!" Sydney cheers in the doorway.

Dol returns to her side and leads her back to the bedroom while Victor's eyes stay on you.

"You alright?" you ask, but Victor doesn't answer, his eyes on yours.

"Why haven't I noticed them before?" he mutters.

You lean in, and Victor seems open for another hug, but you stop with a few inches between you, smiling as you answer, "You didn't get close enough."

#20 surprise parties #hanna's 20 celebration #victor vale x reader #victor vale #vicious #vicious ve schwab #requests

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