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aquickstart · 4 months

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pls may i have some saltburn takes. i saw u liked my post abt oliver never having read the reading list and it made me giggle.

OH YES DUDE oh i Loved that post because it brings up actually something that for some reason i haven't seen discussed much. oliver's unreliable narration.

i have a brilliant, i think, genius four-question plan for making people understand saltburn, and it has worked before and i will maybe elaborate on it, but not right now. right now i'll talk about one of the questions.

who is oliver telling this story to, and why?

we've established that he's an unreliable narrator at least because it's the logical conclusion for a movie shot in a way that opens and closes with his narrative. but what does oliver being untruthful actually mean for what we know about anything and everything that happened. have you ever obsessed over this particular question. well. i have.

my hot take, first of all, is that oliver is not that smart. he's clever, but the point of the movie is that he's caught up in and driven by desire; desire, pointedly, in the moment, merging desire, adapting to circumstance and leading him on. his want is not concrete from the beginning. his want is insatiable hunger that grows.

so, okay, from the top. the whole meet-cute with felix? because of a punctured tire? eh. idk if that's true. the money thing at the bar, pretending to not have any while he actually did? eh, perhaps. chronologically he then lies to felix about his dad, and this is big, this is deliberate, this is what ties felix to him for good.

what if the first two instances were coincidences? like, felix genuinely in trouble then, oliver genuinely out of cash. makes sense to become attached and actually do something, something impulsive, drastic, when felix seems to be drifting away, and lie about his dad.

interjection: you might be saying, nadia, he lied about his family from the get-go. well of course. i didn't say he's not smart enough to clock what image of a damsel in distress felix would gobble up. i'm saying he didn't do it for the long game, because there was no long game to speak of, as narrator-oliver would have you believe. i think he wanted felix so badly in that moment of several months in oxford, i think he was so blinded that he would've said anything. and he did.

now, i've briefly talked about oliver's feelings about the invitation to saltburn, and i think this is very important here. in the moment, he couldn't possibly know what exactly this invitation could mean, in the long run, only that it is definitely the next step in progression of desire for felix. present-day oliver interjection, and i believed him, after felix said he could leave anytime, i read as a slip up, an admission that oliver didn't plan shit, or at least from the beginning he didn't. it lured him in as soon as he got there, gothic house driving mad-style. he held on to a dream of something elusive (felix as a friend? lover? forever-partner in whatever capacity? i want him so bad i don't care what he is as long as he's there? please? please?).

the other obvious hole to poke at is in the end. venetia very conveniently takes the razors he places for her, and while sure, it could be read as him just hinting at how he conveniently read her fragile state and took advantage of it, i don't buy it. (i'm honestly even tempted to suggest he met elspeth on accident, to then spin a pretty story for his own sake, but him keeping tabs on the surviving cattons all those years tracks with what we know about obsessive oliver; he's definitely known about her flat for a while.)

but those are all minor stuff. i get completely if you think i'm reading too much into it and this is all just a headcanon after all, to be fair. BUT. but.

my second big take is that oliver was/is madly in love with felix. i know, shocking. but you have probably seen people say he wasn't. i will elaborate.

i wasn't in love with him. i loved him. i hated him. what does this sound like. have you ever had a friend come to you after a breakup fuming and telling you how they'll never end up with this asshole for sure and then get back together with him and then break up and say the same thing again.

i loved him, but i wasn't in love with him. i know everyone thought i was, but i wasn't. have you never told anyone something of the sort, specifically the last part, to emphasize just how it's everyone around you that's kinda hung up on whatever it is, and you've moved way past it, actually. have you never told yourself that.

i have. i know many other people who have, too. so, who is oliver telling this story to, and why? there's no one but dead elspeth in front of him. there's no one but himself. fun fact: each time you recall an event, it distorts under the influence of the mix of past and present emotions. each time you recall, you mold memory (source, e.g., x). the way i personally see it, oliver, for whatever reason, retells the story in order to solidify his own memory of it in the way that he wants to remember it. whatever he says, this is his final word, and this is his final truth.

this is also why details slip through, like my beloved i believed him, like the emotional i hated him growing into self-convincing, misleadingly dismissive, definitely unsure i hated him by the end. those are the true emotions that he recalls, those are the times that are hard to rewrite, for whatever reason.

of course, he hated them all. but before that, he loved felix to the point of blindly following where felix's desire led oliver, at least the way oliver perceived felix's desire. it failed, crucially, when felix's desire brought them to the center of the labyrinth, where oliver could not be the desired anymore.

my third hot take in connection to this is that oliver did not know he would kill felix until the very night he did it. he didn't know it, i think, until the last hour, until felix refused to reconcile completely, until he made his blood run cold. i also briefly mention it here, specifically how farleigh is tragically connected to felix's death, in my opinion. this tracks with, again, my strong belief that oliver lies, lies and lies throughout this whole story about wanting to take everything from felix from the beginning; no, he fucking didn't. he wanted felix. he wanted felix to be his. that was number one priority. he wanted felix and whatever else came with it, undoubtedly, but not the other way around.

paradoxically, he also wanted to be felix; he wanted to be him and be with him just as us tumblr people can often relate and the tragedy is that you always have to choose. felix pushed him away, so there was no other choice but to take what was left of felix that oliver could take. hence the clothes wearing, the table scene talk, the refusal to leave.

felix chose not to choose oliver, so oliver became felix. it's his fault. felix promised oliver could leave. felix left instead. what was oliver to do.

but to your point about the books, i think it could be either way, actually. i think he could have lied about it because technically that's also in character for him, he was performing for an audience of his tutor. but i also think that he was, genuinely, a nerd before he came to oxford, and he didn't, and still doesn't, have any friends, and he hates his sisters and his mother and is miserable. he's the perfect profile of someone who'd read king james' bible over the summer, and then some, imma be honest.

so, yes. i think oliver lies about most things in saltburn and i think he's pathetic, lost, confused, grieving, angry, horny, down bad and in denial. and i fucking love him. i so fuckin do.

#saltburn #oliver quick #saltburn meta #thank u so much for ur ask. this was my excuse to finally vomit this up.#honestly i think asks are the only format in which i will actually write out all of my thoughts coherently esp the longer stuff #bc i feel obligated to answer #and when i dont i just abandon stuff. i know all my saltburn meta. vika does. finn knows ALL of it and more. i dont feel like sharing much #when unprompted. but if you ask me?? i'll never shut up. literally never #anyway. this is it. thank u again. fun.#ask #horrorsequel #saltburn journaling

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cosettepontmercys · 5 months

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Hi!!! I missed talking to you! I'm so sorry you're not feeling well. I am happy you had a nice trip though! I forgot to tell you that Boston makes me think of this one song from 5th or 6th grade with the lyric I think I'm going to Boston where no one knows my name..lol and I hadn't thought of that song in years. My brother's bday was good! We just made dinner for him but I got pretty drunk before I could eat cuz I had two drinks and 4 shots. At one point my sister was on the floor laughing so hard haha. I usually just like to have margaritas, or something in a can though. What about you? I'm guessing you don't have any siblings..do you? Your trip sounds fun. What musical and concert did you see? Hope you have more strength and get better soon. I hope I don't become sick during the winter months but I usually do.

Omg how were you 9 in 6th grade? Did you skip grades or is the school system just different internationally? I'm sorry..I really don't know so I'm genuinely asking haha. Was it also the Teardrops on my Guitar video!!! I remember finding it randomly in 5th grade and I never looked back haha. Ooh yes..so usually at the end of the year my sister and I pick out top 10 albums and songs of the year..so maybe I'll share a list when the time comes. I can recommend you a few of my favorites by them if you want just to see if you like it so just let me know..since that is not technically new music to me from this year. I think you recommended Del Water Gap to me once and I finally listened to his album last week and enjoyed it. This week, i am listening to new music from some of my favorite bands..Plain White Ts, Cannons and Bad Suns, which are kinda in a similar genre to Del Water Gap. Although his music almost sort of reminds me of the 1975 too. Tied Together with a Smile was probably really special cuz I think that was one of the only times she has performed it live. Ooh that's awesome! It would be a dream for me to go to the Europe tour to see her and Paramore but it sadly won't happen but I think that's so cool. It will be interesting if there will be any changes to the show by then.

It's literally one of my favorite movie musicals so I hope you can watch it soon. It's a little weird and crazy but also unique and interesting to me and I love it! Ya i think it's just different from the original movie cuz it felt more updated and modern. Idk how I feel about the cast..like Cady and Janis seem off to me but I like Renee so hopefully it's good but I don't have high expectations either. Idk if I will see it or not either. Oh wow cool! I'm not sure what immersive actually means but that's so far away haha. I can't imagine planning anything for then. Every concert I go to is usually so last minute but it seems cool.

I looked up the book and it seems pretty similar to conversations with friends actually so idk if I would like it. I've actually been reading Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes cuz the movie came out. I'm actually almost done and only have two chapters left. I was able to read it pretty fast but I basically speed read it and skim read some parts too. I think it was okay but I wasn't sure if I really liked it but I also don't usually read that genre either. It felt too long and was just okay to me. It definitely wasn't as interesting as Hunger Games. I think the movie will be better though and I might see it this weekend and can let you know how it is if I do. But I'm still proud of myself for mostly finishing it..since I never do that. But it has been on my shelf and I knew I wouldn't read it if I just saw the movie, but I also think you could just see the movie and don't have to read it. But you should definitely be familiar with hunger games if you do, but I hadn't read or couldn't remember much of Mockingjay and was fine so it's up to you.

It is pretty! I'm excited for the new Bleachers album and love the Japanese House album too. Sunshine Baby will probably be one of my fav songs of the year. I will listen to Sabrina's EP when it gets closer to Christmas. It seems like you have a lot of vinyls..I don't really play mine as much but just have a collection of old musicals cast recordings I can find and my absolute fav artists.

She sang Slut on the piano and I loved it so much! She also sang Suburban Legends and Stay Beautiful..which goes with my point about how those songs were pretty similar ideas. I always always connected Stay Beautiful and Dorothea since I first heard it and I think Suburban Legends is another layer of that. Also Maisie's song Truth is has a similar lyric to this song. I love the song a lot now and it has really grown on me. But in the song she says I always knew it and used the word ruin as well so I thought that was interesting, even if the songs are still pretty different. Then my sister pointed out that Taylor sings the lyrics truth is in one of the vault songs. I didn't believe her at first but she was right! She sings it in Now that we don't talk! Truth is I can't pretend it's platonic..its just ended, and it just felt like the craziest connection to me. She also sang Me and So it Goes as a pair! Haha well I would say the same for me and my sister..she is like dark and wears black and I'm more like Lover and love to wear pink. But I also love rep which also has a lot of love songs. I am also Red and Folklore haha but my aesthetic is definitely like Lover. So people seem very split on if new music or the other two rerecordings is coming first next year so I guess I'll ask your opinion on that. I kinda think she wants to finish out the rerecordings cuz of the eras tour but I can see an argument for her wanting new music out too I guess. As for rep..I think she will announce it at one of her next shows in February and sing IDSB to announce it since that's the only song left. I also think the karma video hinted at rep being announced around then. I also hope she is taking care of herself..especially after everything that happened this week. It made me so sad but also Taylor shows and music makes me feel better when I feel sad but I always hope she does what's best for her. Thank you. I didn't mean for it to come off that way really but I just wanted to let you know in case things get too busy for me. It was so nice to hear from you and I really hope you're taking care of yourself too!!!

hi hi friend !!! it is okay 🤍 i have laryngitis :( (and i'm still getting over the plague that i picked up in boston) so that's fun! it's funny because i texted my best friend that and she was like "who said that? webmd?" and i was like "no the urgent care doctor" 😭 but it's funny because i am very good at going down a webmd spiral </3

i don't have any siblings! i'm an only child! my drink of choice is usually white wine / rose — i really love trader joe's peach pie wine but that's seasonal (i stock up during the summer though)! i love my drinks sweet, and if i'm drinking something ✨ fun ✨ i'll usually get either a b-52, a lemon drop, strawberry daiquiri, peach bellini or a espresso martini. but not a very big drinker (especially in the last year, with all my health stuff). i hope you don't get sick in the winter either!! 🤍

you're totally fine! they start school earlier in hong kong, which is how i was 9 in 6th grade! it was indeed teardrops!! and then i went down a rabbit hole, found all her music — and her unreleased stuff — at that time, and then just fell in love! i would love to see your top 10 albums + songs of the year — i will do the same and we can chat about our favorites! and yes, i loveeee del water gap! i'm super bummed his seattle concert was when i was in boston, because otherwise i definitely would've gone. speaking of concerts, i had to sell my japanese house concert ticket which i'm really bummed about but ... given laryngitis and everything, it's definitely the right move. i've never heard of bad suns or cannons but i'll give them a listen soon 🤍 and yes, i loveee the 1975-esque sound, that's one of the things that first drew me to DWG!

i wonder if she'll sing castles crumbling instead of long live in europe, or if she'll do both, since hayley will be there? some of my friends are going and i'm really really excited for them — going to make them bracelets too!

i am very bad at doing things super last minute! i am incredibly type a which is something i'm working on! but i just really like knowing what i'll be doing next and all that!

i think i'm going to try to do a hunger games reread and then read TBOSAS in december!! i'm hoping to finish at least reading cleo & frank this month, and then work on night circus, les mis, and hunger games etc. in december? i'm trying to be a bit more realistic with goals and factor in plans and also ... sickness, since that just seems unavoidable at this point! let me know how you find the movie! it's taken over my entire tiktok fyp!

i have a lot of vinyls, yes! but i don't spin them as much as i should (oops)! i have some old musical cast recordings too (and some newer ones), but i actually very rarely listen to cast recordings on vinyl! i think once and sunday in the park with george are the only ones i've listened to? sitpwg was my first vinyl! very special to me 🤍

oh i love the truth is → parallel! and i was SO happy to hear her sing me! although i was manifesting it for my friend who is seeing her in tokyo! i just love how every surprise song pairing is so so so good. just like, a completely unmatched discography. and i also think she'll do reputation soon and then debut last! which would be great for ME! i want her to release debut close to the end of next year so i can bank on a debut vault song haha! i hope she's doing okay too :(

this is what i thought of when i read your message about you and your sister! my friend and i always joke this is us too:

hope you have a good thanksgiving if you celebrate! / long weekend!! 🤍

#post: answered #🩷 anon

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imgoingtocrash · 1 year

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weird vibes for the dash tonight but I'm rewatching the Hunger Games movies because I read a really good Hunger Games AU (yes it's from my continued post-Andor trek back down the rebelcaptain tag on ao3)/because they put them all on Netflix and I just had this moment of intensely missing my grandmother and I need to write it out i guess???

I have this vivid memory of getting into my grandmother's car after high school bc she drove me until I started driving, and I had The Hunger Games in hand and she asked what it was about and I said something to the gist of "it's about a bunch of kids killing each other"

now I THINK i was just trying being funny, but i was also anxious/depressed and a smartass, so i also definitely could have purposefully put it plainly like that because I knew it would make her React and all teenagers live for that crap.

but she was SO upset by the idea, like, it stuck with me because I remember how genuinely disgusted she was! "that's HORRIBLE why are you reading something like that why would someone write something like that" etc. and she wasn't a super conservative person either? Just like a Pure Soul who wasn't the type to read those kind of stories.

(Now smutty romance novels? I found the box of those when we sold her house and was absolutely DELIGHTED to find out that the women in my family were reading romance trash alllll the way back. We have taste!)

Now this was 2012-2013, the height of the movie's popularity and as a result the time adults started shoving it into school curriculums. Or maybe just my school?? Being an honors english kid, I actually was assigned to read it TWICE--once for summer homework and once for regular classwork--and this was on my second readthrough, hence why I'd brought it to school. And then after reading the first one I obviously devoured the rest.

ANYWAY, the point of the story is a Classic Grief Moment...I really, really wish I could talk to her about it now, as an adult.

Because the movies hold up! The books were a good read! They had so much to say behind the YA genre labelling and the media press that got obsessed with the love triangle of it all! (Feels like SUCH a 2016 Tumblr-era post to say that, but like...yeah! That did happen!)

Like she would NEVER have watched them with me, ever, but it's a conversation we can never have, and it sucks. I miss talking to her a lot in general, but one of my biggest regrets is how much time I spent with her after school, in the car on the way home or doing errands or whatever and I was a teenager, so of course I didn't value it at all! I thought she'd always be there. Now I'd give anything to tell her all about my day and what's upsetting me and have her fuss at me for cursing so much, you know?

She's been gone for like 3 years now but since she got Alzheimers/Dementia it's FELT more like 6 and I just miss having her around for even the small stuff as much as the big stuff.

Vent over, back to screaming about TLOU all the time because apparently I'm just REALLY in an angst-heavy genre mood or something...sorry not sorry lol.

#personal #every time i have a moment like this i get so sad because i didn't get an adult relationship with her #for her it was better because some things only got worse in the family/drama/money and i'm glad she didn't have to deal with it #but also a lot of stuff fell on my mom and we both miss her so much it's hard #we're going through a rough time so ig i'm just getting wistful or whatever SIGH

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astaroth1357 · 3 years

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Brothers Accidentally Make the MC Cry

Hello, this is the obligatory italics blurb that I have to put under my titles or else things look weird and it bothers me. Don’t mind the blurb. The blurb is a friend. (Though I could start writing pieces of a little story up here just to see if anyone even reads them… Hm…. Ideas, ideas...)

Warning: Angsty

Lucifer

If he were being honest, he’d say that a part of him had always feared this would happen...

Lucifer likes to tell himself that he’s invincible, but everyday stresses can get to him just like anybody else. And like other people, he may not always act his best when he’s dealing with a full plate…

The MC hadn’t meant to make his day harder when they told him that they accidentally broke a lamp. It was a genuine accident! But Lucifer was still dealing with the fallout from another one of Mammon’s failed schemes, Satan had cursed all of his ties again, and Beel had eaten every scrap of food in the House… for the second time that week...

In comparison to everything else, a broken lamp was quite minor, but for Lucifer it was just the last straw and, for just a moment, he lost control…

His palm slamming against his desk hard enough to snap its legs and send it crashing to the ground. He scarcely knew what kind of look he had on his face, but whatever it was, he had made his human jump back in shock...

Really, it was silly for them to assume that he had gotten that upset over a lamp, but he saw tears starting to gather in their eyes all the same as they stammered out a quiet apology…

It felt like an ice spike to the heart. Damn his temper… He really ought to have been more careful with them after… well, everything he’d done before…

He was quick to go over to them, catching their face with his hand and giving them the most sincere apology he could muster while wiping away their tears… Overreactions aren’t becoming of him and he hated to cause them pain…

He, of course, took care of the lamp himself as penance and on the surface that seemed to be it (but to anyone paying attention, he had softened up on the MC considerably for at least a week. They probably could have sworn in front of Diavolo and he’d let it slide, he felt that bad about it...)

“I’m sorry, MC, I shouldn't have reacted like that… You haven’t done anything wrong, I promise… Please, there’s no need to cry…”

Mammon

Oh? What's that? His heart is now in a million pieces now...? Well, that seems fair…

He and the MC were out on one of his gambling nights and he was actually on a killer winning streak for once! Jackpots around every corner, he was rolling in it!

The MC had tried to convince him to just throw in the towel early, take his winnings while he had them and bail, but he wasn’t hearing any of it.

In hindsight, their insistence must have really shown how much the MC cared about him and wanted him to keep his earnings... but in the heat of the moment all he saw was someone trying to spoil his one night of fun.

To be fair to Mammon, it’s rather rare for him to lose control of his anger like he did. But when they tried to pull him away from the roulette table, he genuinely snarled at them and told them to get lost...!

Fortunately, he regretted his actions immediately after he saw the hurt in their eyes…

If their goal had been to get him to step away from the table, they achieved it. But only because he got up to pull them into a hug while stammering out apologies… Watching them actually shed tears hurt worse than any rope Lucifer had ever tied around him...

He spent the rest of the night away from the casino and trying to cheer up his human like his life depended on it... Seeing them in pain just tore him up that much.

"Ah, come on MC… I'm sorry, honest…! Please don't look at me like that, I'll do whatever ya want okay...? Just no more cryin…"

Leviathan

Now thinks he's the worst, literally the worst. Lower than lesser demon spit. Lower than Cerberus' shit. Lower than… well, you get the idea…

Levi can get very… intense when things involving his passions are brought up. This can be a fairly endearing quality… but it also means he gets disproportionately impassioned about seemingly minor things.

Levi ended up snapping at the MC when they let him over-sleep one day. This wasn’t unusual for them to do as Levi’s sleep schedule was notoriously shitty, but they shouldn't have done it that particular day…

An item he wanted on Akuzon was going to go live that morning and he had to be awake to participate in the bidding. He had mentioned it to the MC the day before, but he blew past it so quickly they didn’t actually remember…

He found out that he missed the bidding after he woke up and he was pissed. Genuinely enraged that they didn’t remember to wake him up to the point that he was shouting and baring his fangs!

… Really it was not a good look and he should have known better.

The look of fear and the tears gathering in the MC’s eyes snapped him out of it like a hard slap to the face, and somehow, it stung even more than that would’ve... It wasn’t long before he was crying along with them, practically begging for forgiveness...

He made it up to them by having a private showing of their favorite movie using a projector in the Planetarium, cuddling with them under a blanket while still, occasionally, muttering apologies under his breath.

“M-MC…? MC don’t cry…!! Please don’t cry, I- I’m sorry!! I… MC… I’m so sorry…”

Satan

Like Lucifer, he always worried this would happen and he hated when it finally came to pass…

He’d spent all his life learning how to restrain his temper, but it’s not a perfect science. There are the occasional times where the heat of the moment gets the better of him and he does something he regrets…

The MC had walked in on him one morning while he was fuming about Beel leaving the fridge empty again. It hadn’t been the first time they’d seen him like this, but this time he was absolutely furious.

He had told Beel again and again and again to get his snacking under control or to, you know, get up early and get more food so the whole family wouldn’t spend the morning starving but noooo! Mr. I’m Hungry never thinks about anything but his own stomach and then leaves whoever’s on kitchen duty to pick up the slack like some dimwitted muscle-bound meathead and THEN-!!

When the MC tried to take his arm to calm him down, he jerked their hand away from him and roared right in their face. He may not be a lion, but the full sound of a pissed off demon could make humans have breakdowns all on its own…

Which was more or less what the MC began to do as he gripped their wrist, panicking while taking shallow, stuttered breaths…

Satan's anger left him swiftly and he let them go, only reaching out to touch them again when he tried to wipe the tears from their cheeks… He had to coo and beg for them to calm down, which was only so successful because he was fighting back tears himself…

On a scale of 1-10 of the worse things his temper has ever done, he'd rank this a firm 200... He refused to touch them for about a week afterwards and it took a long time for him to trust himself again… He just didn't want to hurt them...

"MC?? MC…? M… Oh no… MC, I'm so sorry, I would never hurt you! I… I wouldn't dare… please believe me..."

Asmodeus

Oh baby! Sweetheart! Love of his life!! No, please no… don't subject him to this…

MC and Asmo were out dancing and some witch came by to try and flatter him.

Now, Asmo is a flirt normally, but get a few drinks in him and well… Let's just say his love of attention overrides his better judgment far more often than it should and friends don't let friends go home with creepy witches.

When the MC told the witch to scram, Asmo was confused and, frankly, quite irritated. That lovely lady had been stroking his ego in all the right ways and his human just scared her off so rudely!

Under most situations, Asmo would have kept his cool better but the haze of Demonus made his tongue loose... which let the venom fly…

He couldn’t quite remember what he said. The words left his mouth so quickly that they slurred together on his clumsy tongue, but it must have been enough because the MC flinched away from him.

That hurt all on its own, but as he started to process the pain in their eyes… he had never sobered up so fast...

He had their cheeks cupped in his hands and were kissing away their tears within the instant. Though the loud music at the club should have drowned out his apologies, the MC could see it written all over his equally tearful face…

He pulled them into his arms and then out of the club shortly after, the fog of Demonus that plagued him just moments before had long left him and all he knew was that the MC needed to be brought home and cuddled… stat.

“M-MC…? I’m sorry was it something… did I…? I’m so sorry… Please don’t cry…!”

Beelzebub

He really didn't mean to shout so loud… honest...

Beel becomes a completely different person when he’s hungry. He’s not entirely to blame, as his hunger can get so intense, but he still can snap from time to time when he really doesn’t mean to…

It was right after one of his practices and Beel hadn’t gotten a chance to eat in a few hours by the time the MC came to grab him from RAD. That already had him in a bad mood, but practice hadn’t gone too well for him either…

He honestly didn’t realize how sharply he snapped at the MC when they asked him how he was. The irritation and frustration of the day all hit him at once and he became much harsher towards them than he ever intended…

It must have been the shock of seeing ever-sweet Beel suddenly get so aggressive with them that startled them so. He saw a couple tears gathering in their eyes before they could hide them and his heart just sank…

The MC was picked up in a crushing bear hug before they even let out their first sniffle. Beel didn’t even have to say how sorry he was, they could feel it in every squeeze he gave them. All while he completely ignored the growling of his stomach...

Beel wouldn’t let them go until he was certain they’d forgiven him which, honestly, took a while. Mammon was the one to ask why he had carried them all the way back to the House like a baby but… well, he didn’t need to know, now did he?

“MC, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have shouted… Are you alright...?”

Belphegor

Stubborn boi is stubborn and trying really, really hard not to crack right now...

That's not going to last long.

Belphie can be a bit of a brat and since he's the baby of the family so he's used to getting his way. He and the MC don't argue a ton, but when they do, he always digs his heels in and refuses to budge an inch on anything.

So what started out as a simple disagreement on how often Belphie would flake out on his chores turned into a kick-the-door-down argument over how much his laziness left the MC to pick up the slack...

It ended as all their barn burning arguments do, with demon-form Belphie sitting cross-legged on his bed refusing to look at them and the MC angrily pacing about the room until he cools off…

And then he heard it.

First a sniffle… and then a hiccup. Another sniffle then muffled whine…

Oh no… not this… Why are they crying…? They don't normally cry…

To his credit (or perhaps discredit), he managed to hold out for about two minutes before he finally glanced back at them. Seeing the MC wiping their tears all alone on the floor crumbled his resolve real quick.

The MC found themselves enveloped by Belphie's arms before they even noticed he got up. Naturally, he was pouting and trying to make it seem like "not a big deal or anything" but they could tell by the nervous twitch of his tail that he was hurting too…

Needless to say. Belphie started remembering his chores a lot more after that.

"Humans are so fragile… I didn't mean to make you cry, you know? I'll get things done just… Don't cry… please…"

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios #obey me imagines

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believinghurts · 3 years

Text

Their Daughter

Chapter 5

Author’s note: I use Grammarly to fix my mistakes, but there could still be some so sorry for that. Also, I am getting back into writing and am hoping to have a few more works out soon! Please reblog, like, or comment feedback is appreciated.

Word Count: 4,400

Warnings: None? Sirius being a d*ck? Maybe language, but I don’t think so.

Regulus wasn’t sure how much time had passed as he stroked his niece's hair. He was mad at his brother for basically throwing away the only good thing that had ever come from the Black family. Sirius was too blinded by the past to see what was right in front of him. As children, Sirius often told Regulus that he was their family's favorite and that it bothered him, but if he knew what it was like to be less loved then how can he love Harry more than Ali? He understood that Harry was Sirius's Godson, but couldn’t he love Ali and Harry equally? If Sirius made the effort maybe Ali and the other children could even be friends. His heart ached from the emotional battle that Ali was going through right now. Even if Sirius didn’t see it, he and Remus did. Ali’s light was dimmer than before and when she was lighting up again after finding out Sirius never came for her, Sirius just had to go and snuffed it out.

Carefully sliding out from under Ali and placing a pillow under her head Regulus left the room. He shut the door behind him casting a locking spell so she wouldn’t be bothered. He needed to speak with Remus first before doing anything. They needed to decide what to do about Ali. As much as Regulus wanted to spend time with her before she went back to school he didn’t want her to be this upset anymore. He walked into the study to find Remus and Nymphadora sitting near the fireplace.

“How is she?” Nymphadora blurted the question as soon as she saw her cousin. Remus had owled her after Ali had gone to her room. The older sister in her wanted to go up to Sirius and give him a piece of her mind, but she knew that it wouldn’t do any good.

“She’s asleep for now. All the fighting has exhausted her. I honestly don’t know what to do. I want her here, this is her home, but if Sirius doesn’t stop acting like the brut that he is it is going to hurt her more. Speaking of Sirius, where is he? It’s quiet.” Regulus flopped down on the chair across from Remus and Nymphadora raking a hand through his hair. His worry for Ali was causing him a headache. On one hand, he wanted to send Ali to stay at the Malfoy Manor for the remainder of summer, but on the other, he wanted to hold her close and have her stay in her home where she belonged.

“Sirius left with Harry after you went upstairs. He hasn’t been home since. The Weasleys stepped out to Diagon Alley to get the kids stuff for school.” Remus replied. He was secretly thankful that the house was mainly empty. This way at least Ali could come down if she felt like it without the chance of someone bothering her. Remus was having the same thoughts as Regulus about keeping Ali at home virus's sending her to the Manor. He just wanted his niece to be happy. The hope that he had of Sirius and Ali having the father/daughter relationship was gone. If only Remus could get Sirius to open his eyes to the pain he was causing to the girl, but Sirius was nothing if not stubborn.

“I think I am going to write to Cissa and see if she can keep Ali for the rest of summer. If that’s what it takes for her to be happy then so be it. We can see her off at the -“

“I don’t want to leave,” Ali’s voice interrupted. “I want to stay here with you. Please don’t make me leave. I can handle it, I promise.”

Ali knew that she and Regulus were going to have to talk about the fact that she called him dad, but that was a private conversation. Right now she needed to convince the adults in the room that she didn’t need to leave. She could take Sirius. Yes the words that he had said hurt her and the actions he did tonight furthered that hurt in her heart, but she was done. She didn’t owe him anything, and it was clear she knew that he didn’t want to be her father. She had meant what she said to Regulus. He was her father in all the ways that counted. He loved her unconditionally, was always there for her, and protected her.

She went and sat on the couch in between Nymphadora and Remus who wrapped an arm around her pulling her close to his chest. “It might be best if you went and stayed for the rest of the summer at the Manor, Al. This isn’t good for you mentally. We all can see how drained you are.”

“No, this is my home. I can handle it. I have you all plus the older Weasleys and Fleur. You'll protect me and if I need to get away for a little bit I’ll owl Blaise or Draco to go to Diagon Alley or something. I want to spend time with you. Times are hard right now and you never know when you are going to lose someone and I would like to have as much time with each of you just in case.”

Regulus leaned forward taking Ali’s hand in his, “Nothing, and I mean nothing is going to happen to us. I love you more than you could ever imagine and if you want to stay here you can.” Ali smiles brightly at that before Regulus cut her off, “but you have to tell me, Remus, or Severus, if anything happens. And you have to come out of your room. I am not having you locking yourself away again. Got it?”

Ali pounced on Regulus, hugging his neck tight. She was excited to spend some more time with her family. She had meant what she said about never knowing when something was going to happen. Wizards had been disappearing all over London and she was genuinely scared something was going to happen to her loved ones. She was going to make it a point to take plenty of photos and make enough memories to last a lifetime the next couple of weeks.

Regulus held his niece tight, fighting back the tears when she whispered, “Thanks, Dad,” into his ear. He had been called a lot of things in his life, but this was one title he was going to wear proudly.

Remus’s voice interrupted the moment, “wait for a second, why are you going to owl Blaise? We have an agreement, young lady, no boys till you're thirty!”

Ali’s giggle was music to those in the room with her, and for the first time that summer they all saw Ali smile at home the brightest she had since everyone arrived.

————

The rest of the day was eventful which was something that everyone was thankful for. Nymphadora left shortly after spending some time with Ali since she had something to attend to with Moody, so that left Regulus, Ali, and Remus to watch the Star Wars movies in Ali’s room. Kreacher brought them snacks while they made a fort on the floor. Ali was incredibly content laying on the mounds of pillows in between her Uncles. When she was younger they would have movie nights like this once a month until she started Hogwarts. Even then she and her friends carried on the tradition in the boy's dorm since Draco was often present at the ones hosted at home. She wished that she could have Draco over now, but knew that if she brought him here then everyone in the house would throw a fit about it, maybe it was something to bring up to Regulus later.

Molly called them all down for dinner shortly after the second film ended. Leaving the mess on the floor the trio made their way downstairs with Ali trailing behind her Uncles. She could feel her nerves spike the closer she got to the dining room. She thought about excusing herself stating she wasn’t hungry, but the loud growl in her stomach gave her hunger away. Everyone had already sat down beside Harry and Sirius when they got into the room. Regulus pulled the seat out next to him for his niece. Fleur shot her a smile when she sat down by her uncle with Charlie on her other side. At least she was sitting near someone who didn’t hate her.

Chatter and the sounds of forks on plates filled the room as everyone got their fill of Molly’s meatballs and onion sauce. Everyone broke off into separate conversations. Remus, Regulus, and Arthur talking about the Ministry, the younger Weasleys, and Hermione talking about Quidditch, Bill and Fleur about their upcoming wedding, and Charlie and Ali talking about his work in Romania. “What are you planning on doing after you leave Hogwarts?”

Ali shot a glance over at Remus who was doing a terrible job of disguising his eavesdropping on the duo. “I am thinking about becoming a professor. I like creatures obviously so I was thinking something along those lines, but I also like Herbology. So maybe that. I just know I want to teach.”

Charlie shot her a grin. “Have you thought about where? I know Hogwarts has Sprout for Herbology and Hagrid was doing Care of Magical Creatures, but you still have three more years of school so maybe they’ll need someone by the time you're done.”

Ali shrugged her shoulders. In all honesty, she wanted to leave England and travel for a bit but knew that if she brought it up now it would be a fight or something so she bit her tongue. “Maybe.”

The noise came to a halt when the door slammed open in the living room. Everyone hopped to their feet, wands at the ready. It felt like hours had passed before the intruder walked through the door. “Sirius! Harry! Merlin, you scared us all.”

“Sorry, it’s raining hard and we were in a rush to get back home.” Sirius shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. Everyone retook their seats beside Milly who served Harry and Sirius. Ali tried her hardest to keep from looking at the latest duo that entered, not wanting to cause any more trouble or to give Sirius a reason to lash out at her.

Dinner passed rather quickly, conversations flowed in their small groups. Charlie had gone with Fleur and Bill on a scouting mission shortly after eating, while Fred and George worked on new products for their shop. Ali was in her head thinking about asking to go to meet Pansy in the coming days to look at a new book shop. Pansy wasn’t much of a reader but was always looking for an excuse to get out of her house. She was startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up Molly was smiling softly at her while handing her a letter in a dark blue envelope. She instantly knew who the letter was from since only one person used that kind of envelope when writing her.

“This came for you, dear, when you were with your uncles. I didn't want to bother you then I almost forgot just now.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.” Ali smiled at the kind woman. Despite her feelings towards most of the Weasley children, their parents were quite nice.

Molly patted her cheek before walking off. Ali started to rip the top off when she got Regulus’s eye and he winked at her. He knew who the letter was from having met the boy a few times already. Her cheeks flushed and continued to do so while reading it.

Dear Supernova,

I hope you are surviving the dreadfulness that is upon you right now with all the people in your house. Yes, Draco told me what was going on yesterday when I finally threatened to out his crush if he didn’t explain why we hadn’t been seeing you a lot this summer. I have to say I am quite hurt that you didn’t tell me yourself. Best friends I thought. Just joking, but seriously you could have told me about him and I wouldn't have said a word to anyone.

I miss you, Supernova. We’ve only got to see each other once this summer and we both know when school starts you will have a book shoved in front of your face in the first three minutes. Could we get together sometime this week? It has been awful at home and if I have to hear Draco's voice one more time without you there to tell him off for being annoying I may throw myself off the astronomy tower.

Your uncle may not agree, but you could come to stay at mine for a night. Mother agreed to it as long as Regulus does and we have separate rooms. If you can't, maybe I can come to you? I don’t really care what the redheads have to say about me being there so don’t worry about that. We have much to catch up on; like the fact that you got Headgirl and also didn’t write and tell me. I had to find that little tidbit out from Parkinson's. Don’t worry we’ll catch up whether that's soon or on the train.

love,

Zabini

Ali felt a pang of guilt hit her square in the chest. She hadn’t meant to forget to fill Blaise in on her life but it had been so crazy recently she hadn’t got to write anyone much. In all the truth no one knew that she had gotten Headgirl. She had gotten the letter from Flitwich a few days after the Weasley’s arrived and completely forgot. Although she told her Uncles she didn’t want to go anywhere spending some time with Blaise sounded nice. Deciding to just rip the bandaid off she looked up to find Regulus and Remus looking at her with amused smiles on their faces.

“What’s you got there, Ali?” Remus asked, causing her cheeks to flame red. She wasn’t scared to say that she wanted to hang out with a boy. She did it all the time whether it was Blaise, Theo, or Draco; it was more to do with the fact that she was about to ask to spend the night at a boys' house. Even if they were going to be in separate rooms and they had fallen asleep cuddled together weeks prior at the Malfoys, something none of her Uncles knew, it was going to be a little fight to get Remus to agree as he made the ‘no dating till you’re thirty’ rule when she was five and asked for a boyfriend for Christmas.

Looking around she noticed all attention was on her even if the other adults in the room were making it seem like they weren’t listening while the children openly gawked. “Uhm,” she was cut off by Severus stepping into the room. Great, now she had to face all three Uncles. Where were Dora and Cissa when she needed them?

Severus hugged her quickly before taking a place by Regulus. “Who's the letter from Ali?” He asked her letting her know there was no getting out of it and that she was going to have to spill the beans.

“It’s from Blaise,” A look of amusement passed Regulus’s face, making her think that he knew what was in the letter already while Remus looked like he was going to snatch the letter out of her hands and read it himself if she didn’t hurry up.

“And what possibly could it say to have your cheeks looking like the inside of Gryffindor common room?” Regulus teased further.

She coughed trying to get her nerves resealed. “He was saying that we need to catch up before school starts, and invited me to come and stay with him and Mrs. Zabini for a night this week.”

Remus grunted while Regulus smiled. Ali had to hide a giggle as she noticed all the other mouths in the room had dropped to the floor. Ali knew that except for Hermione and Harry the Weasley’s never stayed or had anyone else with them.

“Can I, please? His mother said we would have separate rooms and she will be there as well as the house-elves. We only got to see one another once this summer. He said if I can’t he could come here, but honestly, I think the first option is better. Please?” She pulled out her best puppy eyes and pouty lip. She was not above begging for it but didn’t want to do so with everyone staring at her.

Regulus looked over at Remus. Ali could see the silent conversation going on between them. Regulus’s head inclined slightly toward Ali which she hoped to Merlin was a good thing. Remus looked back at his niece with a look in his eye she couldn’t read. “Rosalynn said you’ll have separate rooms?” Ali nodded her head so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. “And you’ll stay in them?” Once again she nodded, although she knew that they more than likely would be in the family room till late hours in the night. He looked back at Regulus, “you have no problems with her going?”

“No, I already knew about it. Rosalynn wrote about two days ago. If she wants to go, that's fine. You know Rosalynn will look after her as she does Blaise. And the Heavens know that boy would jump in front of the Knight Bus for Ali.” Regulus chuckled at Ali's shocked expression.

“Y-you knew? Why didn’t you say anything?” Ali struggled to get the words out.

“Rosalynn said Blaise wanted to ask you. She was just giving me a heads up, knowing how Remus is with boys and you. You know we talked quite often, Als.” Regulus winked at her.

“You may go,” Remus stated. She was shocked she didn’t have to put up more of a fight.

“WHAT?” Sirius shrieked. He knew that Regulus would let her go to the Death Eaters house, but Remus? He thought he could count on his ‘friend’ to at least say no. “You’re letting her go to the Death Eaters house? AGAIN? Who's also a boy and staying the night? Are you mad?”

Remus looked at Sirius with disdain, “No I am not. She is a good girl and Blaise has been her friend for years. Rosalynn loves her as much as we do and would never let anything happen. And for God's sake quit calling everyone a Death Eater.”

“Outrageous.”

“Sirius, you have no say in what she does. You gave that up last night. Ali is a good girl who makes good choices. Not only that but she also deserves a little something since she got Headgirl this year, don’t you think?” Regulus smirked as he saw the Granger girl's face fall.

“You got Headgirl?” Hermione whispered to Ali with disbelief lacing her voice.

“Yeah, I did. Draco got Headboy I believe, but it may be Theo. I haven’t asked yet.”

“Why do you and Draco get Head of Houses? Why not Hermione and -“ Ali cut her dear Godbrother off.

“And who? You? Ron? Why would any of you get Head of Houses with all the trouble you bring in? Sneaking out, stealing things, picking fights. We do have the highest marks in most classes as well as treat others equally unlike the likes of you.”

If looks could kill Ali would be dead three times over. In all honesty, she kinda felt bad for the younger Weasley boy seeing as all of his older brothers, bar Fred and George had been Headboy. But then she thought about the trouble he and his friends had caused her and her friends as well as others over the years. Harry preached about equality among the houses but she had witnessed many times when younger Slytherins were picked on by Gryiffndors. Hufflepuffs generally didn't have any problems with the other houses so long as everyone was being just. Ravenclaws tended to keep to themselves unless it really involved them. Whereas Slytherins preferred to stand up to those picking on other Slytherins especially the younger ones. Slytherins were always made out to be the bullies when in general if you got to know them people would notice that they are a lot more than what their parents used to be.

Ally had heard the stories of how mean James and Sirius were to those in Slytherin even if they never did anything to them. She believed in harmless fun could be had pulling pranks, but tricking someone into going to a place where a werewolf was was downright cruel. She had no doubts in her mind that James and Sirius were once good people like her Uncle Remus is now, but seeing as Sirius still acts like a child those doubts were becoming known.

“I just think that Slytherins shouldn’t be Head of House when all you will do is favor your own, and treat everyone else like dirt,” Ron stated.

“Ronald Weasley! How dare you say such a thing?!” Molly exclaimed.

“It’s alright Mrs. Weasey. I am used to hearing such things come from them and others in their house,” Ali looked Ron in the eyes, “You seem to forget that I’m a Ravenclaw, not a Slytherin. I do not favor anyone and will not when I start Head Girl duties but know this. I will give you as many detentions as you deserve if you are caught bullying, harassing, belittling, any of the other houses. You may think that Gryiffndors are the bravest of the houses and maybe you are in some ways, but you are cowardly in others. Maybe some Slytherins are as bad as you make them seem, but Harry,” she turned her head slightly to the side, “you seem to forget just which house Peter Pettigrew was in when he was the one who betrayed your parents. And Regulus was in Slytherin but seems to be more loyal to his friends and family than that rat was.”

“It seems that Alianova has given you all something to think about as you're getting ready for bed,” Molly stated looking at all the children present in the room. Her face grew red when she saw that none of them had moved a muscle. “Now.”

Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny, jumped from their seats and booked it to the stairs scared of Mrs. Weasley’s wrath. At some point, Charlie, Fluer, and Bill came back from scouting. Charlie ruffled Ali’s hair causing her to grin. “Good job, kid. You’ll make a great Head Girl.” Bill and Fleur nodded in agreement. “Nothing happened while we were out. We’ll give a full debrief tomorrow, but we will be heading to bed as well. Good night everyone.”

Molly walked to Ali and pulled her up out of her chair before placing both hands on Ali’s pale cheeks. “Don’t you worry, dear, I will be talking with all of them in the morning. You made a lot of valid points, and I for one am proud that you are Head Girl.”

She kissed her forehead before taking her husband to go to bed after waving her wand to get the kitchen clean once again. Arthur offered Ali a small smile before disappearing behind his wife. Sirius scoffed at the behavior which everyone heard but chose to ignore.

Ali turned to her three Uncles, waiting for the answer about going to her friends, and the scene that just played out in the kitchen.

“I am proud of you as well, Alianova. You have done excellent, and I know it is Remus and Regulus' decision about going to Blaises’, but I see no problem with it. I will stay in the guest room. Come get me if you need me. Good night, Ali.” He hugged her tightly, making Ali tear up slightly at the thought of Servus being proud of her. It also made her giddy at the thought of rubbing it in Draco’s face since Severus is his Godfather and never said such a thing to him.

Remus followed after Servus, wrapping his niece in a bear hug around her shoulders. The height difference amusing Regulus to no end seeing as Ali only came about midway in Remus’s chest. “You may go as long as it’s okay with Reg, and you stay in separate rooms. I am a little mad though that you didn’t tell me yourself about getting Head Girl, but I am still incredibly proud of you. No one deserves this more than you do, not even Harry.” The last part was whispered in her ear. He kissed her forehead, before heading to his room.

With the three Blacks being the only ones left in the room. “I don’t think you should go.” Sirius’s voice was venomous as he thought about his only child, his legacy, spending time with Death Eaters.

“It’s a good thing it doesn’t matter what you think isn’t it?” Regulus smirked at his older brother. He was not going to take this away from his child. “Ali, you may go so long as you stay in your separate rooms whenever the two of you decide to go to sleep because I know from having all your mates over it will be late.” He walked to Ali cradling her freckled face in his hands. “I am so proud to call you my daughter. Even after all that you have been through in your life you have still managed to form your own beliefs and thoughts as well as stand up for them. You deserve Head Girl over anyone else, and hopefully, you get to share it with one of your friends.”

Ali dove into her Uncle's chest. Tears welling up into her eyes at the thought that he really did think of her as his own even if she already knew it. It was nice to hear out loud. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I love you, dad.” She kissed his cheek before heading to her room to write Blaise.

Sirius felt his anger sore to new heights when he heard Ali call Regulus dad. He had enough courtesy to wait till she was out of earshot before grounding out, “We need to talk, Regulus.”

#harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #remus lupin #sirius black #regulus black x niece!reader #remus lupin x niece!reader #harry potter oc #severus snape x niece!reader #sirius black x daughter!reader #draco malfoy x platonic!reader #blaise zabini x reader

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carriagelamp · 3 years

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Art of Aardman

I found myself a cheap copy of the Shaun the Sheep movie, so I was rewatching a bunch of Aardman films earlier this month and decided to hunt down some books too. For anyone that doesn’t know, Aardman is a British stop-motion studio that does fantastic work like Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, Early Man… tons of cool stuff. They’re always quirky and funny and warm-hearted. This was just a very nice art book for anyone that’s a fan of Aardman stop motion and wants to see a bit extra; it shows some cool concept art and blows up the neat details in Aardman work, especially in their intricate stuff like The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

Asterix and the Picts (Asterix and the Chariot Race, and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion)

I decided to try a couple of the new Asterix comics that were done by the new team, just to see if they stand up to the old ones (that and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion cause I’d never read that one before). They were pretty decent! Asterix and the Picts was my favourite of the two though I wouldn’t say either are going to contest for my favourite Asterix comic... but still! The art looks good and the stories felt like what I would expect, they made for a pleasant couple evenings of reading especially since it’s been so long since I’ve read a new Asterix comic. If you’ve never read Asterix it’s one of the biggest name French comic series in North America, as far as I know and very worth the read. It’s about a single Gaulish village that’s holding out against the invading Romans through sheer force of will, slapstick hijinks, and a magical super-strength potion brewed by their druid. Lots of fantastic visuals and cute wordplay, even in the English translations.

Bear

I found out about this bastion of Canadian literature via tumblr post that was losing its collective mind over the fact that some bizarre bear-based erotica novella somehow won the most prestigious literary prize available in Canada. Since I too found this hilarious and unspeakably bizarre I had to give it a read, obviously. And yes, the flat surface level summary is... a librarian moves out into rural Ontario and falls in love with a literal for-real not-supernatural-not-a-joke bear. And I have to say… it is actually worthy of an award, which I was not expecting given that I was there for a laugh. It has beautiful writing, and the subtextual story is pretty interesting… it kind of makes me think of The Haunting of Hill House actually in terms of themes. (Womanhood, personhood, independence, autonomy partially achieved through escaping the male gaze by claiming non-human lovers... listen if I were still in university I would right a paper comparing the two novels).

I dunno man, it’s fucking weird. Actually a well-written book, but sure is about a woman falling in love with a literal bear. Give it a read if you want something bonkers but like… high-brow bonkers.

Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites

Best book I have read in like… a while. A long while. I am not a fast reader, and I consumed 90% of this book over a weekend. It’s not at all like Terry Pratchett, but at the same time it scratched an itch for me that I haven’t had satisfied since Pratchett’s death. A very clever, hilariously funny poly romance between a disabled werewolf, an anxious vampire lord, and an incredibly powerful woman, with heaps of social satire, political commentary, and sinister undertones. The whole thing reads a bit like fanfiction and I say that in the most flattering way possible -- it is so easy to jump right in and be immediately taken over by the characters and the world and the plot, you never feel like you’re fighting to engage even though the world-building is fascinating and expansive. It welcomes you in right away, it was the book equivalent of a quilt and a hug which is something I sorely needed with all this pandemic bullshit. If you read any of the books on this list, go read that one while I sit here in pain waiting for the sequel.

Kid Paddle

I watched the cartoon of Kid Paddle as a kid and was thinking about it recently, so I decided to hunt down some of the original comics online. They’re fun and weird, with a cute art style and fantastic monsters designs. (My favourites are always about Kid either daydreaming or playing games that involve Midam’s weird warty troll creatures. It’s like a cross between Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot with the fun sort of quirks that I love in Belgian comics. Unfortunately, unlike Asterix, I’ve only come across these ones in French, but if you can read French it’s totally worth popping over to The Internet Archive and reading the ones they have available.

The Last Firehawk: The Golden Temple

The lastest Firehawk book. Despite being written for quite young readers, I did enjoy the early books in this series quite a bit. They’re about a young owl and squirrel who found an egg for a magical species that was believed to be extinct. With the newly hatched firehawk, the three of them head off on a mission to find an ancient firehawk magic that could save the entire forest. Very basic adventure story but a good intro to the tropes for children. Unfortunately the quality really feels like it drops with each subsequent book; this will probably be the last one I bother reading.

Lumberjanes: The Moon Is Up

I honestly think I enjoy these Lumberjanes novels even more than the comics just because it really gives time to delve into each story and examine how the camper are really thinking and feeling about everything. (Also I’m always weak for novelizations of anything.) The Moon Is Up is a book that focuses more on Jo, and takes place during the camp’s much anticipated Galaxy Wars, a competition between cabins that goes over several days. While the campers prepare for these challenges though, they also run into a strange little creature with a penchant for cheese and theft. Roanoke cabin needs to keep ahead in Galaxy Wars and somehow deal with the fearsome Moon Pirates that a closing in...

Lumberjanes v4 (Out Of Time)

One of the Lumberjanes comics, a cool, girl-focused, queer comic series. Honestly, this is just a fun series that I never got as into as I should have. My advice is honestly to skip book one because it gets better as it continues, and I’ve really been enjoying the later books now that I’ve given it another go. It follows five campers at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types (Jo, April, Molly, Mal, and Ripley) as they handle all sorts of challenges, from friendship to crushes, camp activities to supernatural horrors, getting badges to not being brutally killed. Great if you liked the vibe of Gravity Falls but want it to be queer-er.

Mooncakes

Another queer graphic novel, but unfortunately not a very good one. It really looked appealing and I had high hopes, but the book itself really didn’t hold up… I actually couldn’t even finish it, the plot was just too… non-existent. The art is fairly mediocre once you actually look at it, especially backgrounds, and it feels very… placid. Not much conflict or excitement or even a very compelling reason to keep reading. If you just want a soft queer supernatural you may get more mileage out of it than me, but it didn’t really do it for me. There’s better queer graphic novels out there.

New Boy In Town

One of the worst books I have ever read. My girlfriend had ordered a very different book online but through a frankly stupendous error was sent this 1980s pulp romance instead. Absolutely nauseating on levels I couldn’t even begin to enumerate here. Naturally we read the whole thing out loud. Probably took us 10 times longer to finish than it warranted because I had to stop every two sentences to lose my mind. If you like bad decisions, baffling hetero courting rituals, built-in cultural Christianity without actually calling it that, and gold panning then boy howdy is this the book for you.

(seriously, you better have patience for gold-panning if you attempt this one, because I sure learn that I don’t)

Piggies

This was a picture book I enjoyed as a kid and had a reason to reread recently. Honestly it’s just very cute and simple, and the art is completely mesmerizing. Wonderful if you know a young child that would enjoy a simple goofy boardbook.

Shaun the Sheep: Tales From Mossy Bottom

Related to my Aardman fascination earlier this month. I tried reading a varieties of Shaun the Sheep books — most of which are mediocre at best — but the Tales From Mossy Bottom Farm series is genuinely good. Just chapter books, of course, but the illustrations match the series’ concept art and each story feels like it could have jumped directly out of an episode. They’re just cute and feel-good! Kinda like Footrot Flats but more for kids, and from the sheep’s perspective moreso than the dog’s.

#aardman animation #shaun the sheep #lumberjanes #kid paddle #asterix #the last firehawk #hunger pangs: true love bites #marian engel #bear #canadian literature #canlit #queer lit #book review #book reviews #chatter

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ri-ahhh · 3 years

Text

good taste

Grayson puts his money where his mouth is — or maybe the other way around — after their last encounter; pt 2 to good vibes

warnings: smut, pretty much unedited sorry

***

“Are you asking me to eat you out? Because that sounds like a challenge you know I can’t refuse...”

“Maybe when I find out what your mouth can do, I’ll consider you competition for the vibrator. You need to be knocked down a peg or two, Dolan.”

It’s been three weeks since the incident on your couch between you and Grayson. Three weeks of things almost being normal, maybe with some added flairs.

Like the one day when he came over right after you had finished your Pilates workout; instead of throwing the shirt on you had discarded in the first ten minutes of the video to answer the door, you had decided opening it wearing only some tiny Nike pro shorts and a matching sports bra was perfectly acceptable. His eyes lingered knowingly, his signature smirk that oozed confidence — and subsequently made you ooze in your panties — playing at his lips.

Or that one night where all of your friends gathered at the twins’ house to have a good old movie night. You and Grayson somehow ended up together on the loveseat section of the giant cloud couch, and he convinced you to sit on the elongated cushion between his bent knees so he could try and braid your hair. It felt nice, and you didn’t really care your hair was in knots by the time his fingers started scratching up and down your back to lull you even further into bliss. You ended up reclined against his chest, slouched down with a blanket thrown over both of your legs and a giant bowl of popcorn plopped in your lap that he would reach over your shoulder to dig his hand into and playfully shove a handful of kernels into your mouth.

You remember ethan eyeing the two of you peculiarly from the opposite end of the couch, but you ignore him, because he undoubtedly knows what happened between you and his brother. You can admit that the scene of that night was more domestic and comfortable than what one would expect from two close friends who had just hooked up, but you can’t be bothered to care what other people might think about what’s going on between you and Grayson.

And then there was earlier today at the beach, where you both simply couldn’t take your eyes off each other, especially under the inconspicuous camouflage of dark sunglasses. But in a moment where you caught him with said glasses perched on his head, blatantly admiring the tiny black triangle covering you between your legs while you tan, you felt bold and confident enough to call him out on it.

“You know, you’re being a lil pervy.”

“Says the girl who’s been eye fucking me all day.”

You blushed. “Shut up.”

Grayson grinned and crawled from his towel to your own, stretching out next to you with his head propped up on his elbow. His fingers reached over and toyed with one of the ties on your bikini bottom teasingly; you bit your lip and trailed your hand up his tanned arm until you were squeezing that massive bicep appreciatively.

“It’s hard, knowing what’s underneath there now,” he said quietly, fingertips trailing then across the top of your bikini, along your lower belly.

You smiled. “It’s hard or it’s hard?”

Grayson threw his head back with his loud, signature laugh, then groaned and rolled onto his back next to you. “Both, baby. Both.”

Now, later that night, you’re at the boys’ house again, chilling on the couch watching old episodes of Parks and Rec that you’ve seen a million times already. You feel nice and relaxed, your body tired from being in sun and saltwater all day, but your mind content with how good of a day it had been.

Ethan and Kristina have already gone to bed, and Gray is in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner. You should be in there helping him, but you tell yourself you’re too comfy to get up right now.

And maybe you’re still a little on edge — vibrating, if you will — from the unresolved energy of your and Grayson’s moment on the beach.

The light shuts off behind you, and you hear his heavy footsteps make their way towards the living room.

“You look comfy,” he remarks with a grin, plopping down on the couch right next to your feet. He lifts them up and shifts over so they’re resting in his lap.

“I mean, it is a big comfy couch.”

Grayson sighs and drops his head to the back of the couch, pressing his thumb into the sole of your socked foot. “You look really pretty right now, too.”

Your heart stutters a bit, completely caught off guard. It’s a chaste and surprisingly sincere statement given the romanticism between you two so far has been purely sexual.

You should say ‘thank you’ — that’s all you have to say. But you’re an idiot, and your brain short circuits, and your first instinct is to deflect. “I’m pretty sure my nose got burned. And not in a cute way.”

“It is cute.”

You deadpan him. “And I can feel my hair frizzing by the minute because you don’t have conditioner.”

“Adorable.”

“You’re impossible.”

Grayson pretends to be offended, but the facade is broken by the smile he can’t hold back. “I’m just being honest!”

You shake your head, the corners of your lips twitching. “If you were being honest, you’d admit you’re just saying that cuz you wanna see me cum again.”

He shrugs. “Two things can be true at once, sweetheart.” His big hand starts dragging up your bare shin, and your eyes follow his touch. “I can think you’re absolutely stunning with a sunburn and smelling like my shampoo, and want to see you cum.”

He pauses, and you’re silent, until you look up at him with your lower lip caught between your teeth to find him already staring at you. The heat in his gaze makes your pussy flutter, and your eyes almost threaten to shut at the feeling... especially with his next confession.

“I want to make you cum. Me.”

A tinkling, disbelieving giggle escapes you before you can stop it. He’s unreal. “Still think you can outdo my vibrator, huh?”

Grayson winks at you — you hate how much the simple, cocky little action turns you on so much instantly. “I’ll never know until I try.”

He’s right. Desire clouds your rational reasoning, and you’re also justifiably curious. And horny. And maybe your heart is warming to him more than it should.

“Okay.” Grayson looks surprised for a fleeting second, then he’s grinning and starting to crawl over your body, but you stop him by placing the foot he had just released from his hand on his shoulder firmly. “In your room. No interruptions.”

His eyes darken, and he nods in agreement. He doesn’t get up right away, though; he watches your face intently as his hand continues it’s way up your leg, making circles on the sensitive inside of your knee. You don’t know what your expression says, but it must convey your approval, because his fingers go higher until the tips of them light upon your covered center.

The barely-there touch makes you gasp, and before you can stop yourself, your hips are hiking upwards to make the contact more direct.

As expected, Grayson smirks smugly. “You want more?”

You nod, and gasp again when he bypasses your shorts altogether now in favor of slipping his hand into your panties. You both let out tiny little groans when he touches your wet folds, his middle finger trailing up and down your slit to test out the moisture leaking from you.

“There’s one question answered,” he says lowly, grinning when he finds your clit and starts rubbing slow circles into it with the pad of his finger. “I can get you wet no problem.”

“Mmm,” you can’t help but moan, both at his touch and his words, despite the ones you speak yourself. “Stop — stop being such a... such a douchebag.”

Grayson just chuckles lowly, because he somehow knows you love it. You indulge in his touch for a few more seconds, before reach a hand down quickly to grasp his bracelet-clad wrist. “Your room, now.”

He doesn’t need telling twice. Grayson plants his feet on the ground and pulls you to stand with him, leading you by the hand down the hall to his bedroom.

You flop back on the bed and scoot up to rest your head on the pillows as you watch him lock the door before joining you in the cloud of white sheets and blankets.

He crawls to you, stopping on his knees in front of you and batting your hands away from where they’ve just gripped the waistband of your shorts to tug them down.

“I didn’t get to do it last time,” he explains roughly, his demeanor changed some now that he’s so close to getting what he wants. He’s less cool, calm, and collected and more hurried and desperate. “I wanna do it now.”

You can only lift your hips in response, nodding once he’s tossed them to the side and takes hold of your panties now. When those are gone, he groans louder than before and settles on his belly as he pushes your thighs open wider to both get a better look, and to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders.

“Fuck,” he exhales harshly, breathing in deeply in the next moment to take in the heady smell of your arousal.

He looks up at you with dark hazel eyes, and you bite your lip nervously as you wait for him to make another move.

You don’t have to wait long at all, because not even a second later he’s sucking two fingertips into his mouth, then placing them directly on your clit to pick up where he left off just a minute ago.

“You have a pretty pussy,” he says, like it’s a normal compliment to give. You flush anyways, unsure of what to say to that.

“Are you implying there are ugly pussies?”

He shrugs. “Some are just nicer to look at. And yours is just... wow.”

You blush harder, moaning when he presses a little firmer into your clit. “Thank you.”

Grayson smiles up at you. He moves away from your clit, exploring the rest of your pussy with a genuine curiosity and hunger on his face that makes you clench with every little touch and glance he gives it.

“Yeah,” he sighs, trailing the fleshy outside lightly. “Smooth.” His fingers part your lips. “Pink.” Hisnother hand squeezes one of your thighs, pushing it back and out a bit so you’re more open, allowing his middle fingertip to brush over your hole. “Fuck. And so wet.”

“Grayson, please,” you whimper, reaching out to brush your hand against his cheek and coax him to your pussy, unable to wait for him to get his mouth on you any longer.

He’s just as impatient, because he’s already halfway there by the time your hand makes contact with his stubble. You’re crying out with his rough moan at the first swipe of his tongue up your slit, your hand instantly sliding up to find purchase in his hair.

“Fuck,” he growls, pulling back to stare hard at your pussy as he spreads around the fresh rush of srousal that had just graced his tongue with his fingers once again. He dives back in, delving his tongue deep inside you before dragging it all the way up to your clit. He circles it, flicks it, suckles it a few times. “Oh fuck.”

There’s no gentleness, no sweetness, no innocent exploration in how Grayson eats your pussy for the first time — very unlike any other guy you’ve been with when they did it initially. There was always some level of hesitance or fear that they were doing something wrong, or trying too hard to figure out what you liked.

Not Grayson. Like most other aspects of his life, he’s fully confident in his abilities, and seems to just be enjoying the experience of eating you out with a voracity you’ve never been on the receiving end of before. It’s infectious, makes you want him that much more, makes you throw a leg over his shoulder and press your heel into his back while you drag him closer by the hair.

Happy to have his face completely buried in you, Grayson moans, really moans, into your center. He sucks on your clit, relishing in the curses and whines it elicits from you. He looks up at you through hooded kids while he sneaks his hands under the oversized hoodie you’re still wearing — he must feel the throb of your clit against his mouth when you simultaneously meet his eyes and he squeezes your breasts firmly, because he grins into your pussy.

“You taste so good,” he hums, more of a whisper than anything else, but with enough vibrations to make you shudder.

You cover one of his hands with your own squeezing harder and grinding into his mouth with steady, insistent thrusts against him. “Please!”

Grayson likes that. He sighs again and pinched your nipples before making sure you keep your hand there as he brings his down to wrap around your thighs. He shakes his head deeper into your folds, dipping down just enough so his lips are exploring every crevice of your pussy and leaving his nose to brush against your clit teasingly every now and then.

The noises of his mouth are almost too much. Loud and sloppy and wet as he quite literally slurps you down with every lick, suck and swallow, spitting back onto your swollen pussy a mixture of your cum and his saliva.

When he suctions his lips around your clit again and starts making those quick flicks of his tongue over it, too, you just about lose it. Your mind is in another dimension, so far gone you barely register you’re giggling because it feels so good.

“Oh my god! Holy shit!”

You’re writhing against him, unsure if you’re trying to escape or get even closer. Grayson looks up and watches your face contort and fall apart because of him, and he can’t stop grinding his own hips into the mattress for some form of relief. He’s always enjoyed this to some extent, but he can’t believe just how close he is to getting off without so much as a touch from either you or his own hand.

He grunts and moves his hands to lay firmly across your tummy, holding you down so he can get you there exactly how he wants.

And he does get you there, the pitch of your moans getting higher and higher until you’re forced into silence by the overwhelming pleasure that explodes inside of you. Your thighs tremble uncontrollably, even clenched around his head, your fists gripping wads of the sheets as you gasp out his name like a stream of consciousness.

Grayson pries your legs from around his ears and brings you down with gentle licks and touches to your skin — over your legs, your abdomen, even clutching your hand in his to help anchor you some.

It’s that strange bit of intimacy that helps ground you the most, and you’re barely coherent by the time he sits up and shifts onto his knees. You open your eyes, taking in the huge bulge in his shorts and reaching out to it without even thinking.

He mumbles your name, but you’re on a mission; even in your post-nut haze you reason it’s the least you can do after that... orgasm is too bland of a word. You want him to feel even an ounce of the pleasure he just gave you.

You fish his dick out easily, and it’s definitely not the best handjob you’ve ever given by any means, but he doesn’t seem to need much, anyways. He moves closer to you, taking your hand off him long enough to lubricate it in the slick coating your pussy. He puts you hand back on his dick for you and holds up his shirt while you work him over, until he’s grunting and moaning out, “I’m gonna cum...”

There isn’t a less messy option, but you wouldn’t mind even if there were, so you stick your tongue out and jack him off into your mouth. Grayson grips the back of your mussed hair to keep you there, groaning harshly with each spurt of his cum that lands on your proffered tongue.

You stare up at him as you squeeze out the last of what he has to give, lick your lips to catch any stray drops, then you collapse together back into the pillows. Both of your chests heave, and you stare at the ceiling together as reality starts to set in of what the two of you just did.

Like the last time, it doesn’t feel wrong. But you’re not ready to face the changes it means just yet. For now, you’re happy to snuggle into his side, and pretend things are even a little normal. Whatever that means, anyways.

“So. Was it good?”

You hum and chuckle. Your body is so heavy now, you can’t even move your head to look at him. But there’s the normalcy you wanted — Grayson looking for praise of his obvious talents.

You decide to not even try and tease him. Or bullshit him, because how could you? You think back with a clearer head to how you writhed and moaned for him, blushing at how easily he made you lose control of your inhibitions.

“Yeah, Gray, it was good. Really good.”

“Better than the vibrator?”

You yawn and smack his chest weakly. “All I’ll say is, as long as you’re around to do that, she won’t be seeing the outside of my underwear drawer.”

“Good.” You can hear the smile in his voice. “I will be. Around to do that, I mean. I loved tasting you.”

If you had any capacity to be turned on again, that might have done it, but for now it just makes your chest warm. He’s also making you think too much again.

“Can I sleep here? I can’t move.”

Whether he understands your inability to reply or not, he chuckles and kisses the top of your head. “Of course.”

You sigh gratefully. “Night, Gray.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

#this took me forever but here it is #dolan twins #grayson dolan #blurb #g blurb #if it flops im done posting i swear lol

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respect-the-fae · 4 years

Text

Things that remind me of: Ares

Sorry it's been a few days, life has been kind of a bitch, but I'm back with a post for my patron, Ares! I love him so much! This is gonna be a long one, I'll warn you now.

Weaponry. All weaponry. Whether it be a sword, a bo staff, escrima sticks or even sharp words falling off a tongue and destroying what they are aimed at. All weapons of every nature are this and remind me of him.

Boxing. I box alot, it reminds me of him and helps me feel close to him. How warm I feel, the ache in my arms, the bruises that form across my hands, the sweat dripping down my forehead. It all feels like he's there guiding me, reminding me to keep my guard up, and to keep my thumb out of my fist so I don't shatter it.

Red candles.

Bloodied hands and bruises. The type you get when your sibling gets beat up by the bigger kids and you go to sort them out because as annoying as your little sibling is, no one (NO ONE) messes with them.

Pink gin. Trust me, pink gin might seem like a weird one, but I have seen my mate single handedly knock out 2 guys who were threatening a trans girl while on pink gin. Pink gin is the Elixir Of Protective Rage and no one can tell me otherwise. (Dw, the girl is safe and we walked her home. We got takeout on the way and i cried bc she gave me a chicken nugget. We're friends now.)

Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner. All about destroying their awful governing systems and rising up. Very Ares.

Using dumbass as a term of affection. With the same amount of love that people usually use when calling someone sweetheart or darling.

BIG HERO 6.

The concept of egging someone's house.

Snakes.

Having long baths/showers to avoid dealing with your emotional issues. Idk, just screams him.

Loving your crush/lover/spouse so fucking much, genuinely wouldn't hesitate to kill for them if someone hurt them.

Courage, all types of courage. Speaking out about racism in a protest, leading a protest, telling your boss about the coworker that scares you and harassed you. Telling a teacher about your parents if they're abusive. Standing in front of a crowd and giving a speech. Attending rallies, going to Pride, telling your bigoted family to suck a dick when they're being rude about trans/coloured/gay people, posting that post you were debating to do or not, sending your script/novel/anthology/biography to your agent, selling your art. Loads more that my brain refuses to give me right now. They are all brave, courageous acts that Ares loves and is so proud of you for. He watches you swallow down the fear and he rewards you with that glow of good adrenaline afterwards. That's his way of sort of kissing you on the forehead and telling you he's proud.

Rescuing animals from shelters. Ares is definitely very passionate about Adopt Don't Shop.

The Enemies to Lovers trope in fanfic.

Comfort items. Items that make you feel put together and braver. Mine is my Angel (from Lilo and Stitch, the pink experiment, teddy bear I got to match the Stitch one my friend has), I barely ever let it go if I'm in the house.

Poppies.

Baseball bats. The game too, but mainly the bats.

Petty 'wars' with siblings or coworkers. Snatching lunches and snacks, leaving passive aggressive post it notes.

War. Conflict. Rage. Obviously. But also bravery. Courage. A thirst for justice.

Protection. Of all kinds.

Weighted blankets.

Podcasts. True crime, and fictional horror ones. The Magnus Archives reminds me of him, idk why. (FOR REAL THO, ITS SO FUCKING GOOD, GO LISTEN TO IT. I WOULD DIE FOR JON, ITS ON SPOTIFY.) (And YouTube too.)

Learning about your friend's special interests because they mentioned they don't feel able to talk about it for fear of annoying people. And damn if you're gonna let that happen, so you're up till 5am reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory so you can talk to them about it, and give them a safe space to info dump and share their thoughts and feelings.

Geese. Yes they are bastards. But they are feathery, beautiful bastards.

Saying "because fuck you, that's why."

The "WHAT THE FUCK IS UP KYLE" vine.

"Thanks for checking in, I'm still a piece of g a r b a g e."

Self esteem issues. Bad mental health. PTSD, anxiety, depression, BPD, eating disorders. They're all battles, and he is with you through all of them. By your side, holding your hand, rubbing your back. He feels your pain and he is helping you move past it. He is there to remind you that spite is a perfectly fucking good reason to get better, because people suck and you will show all the people who hurt you that you will not break. That you will get up, every single fucking time. And he is with you for every single step. If you believe nothing else, believe that Ares loves you.

Getting back up. Never backing down.

Teenage rebellion. Wild hair. Hair dye. Breaking into parks at night, exploring abandoned buildings.

Bumps in people's noses where it's been broken and not set properly.

Donald Duck. That duck is ready to fight all the time and I love him.

The movie 'Red'. Its so amazing. (Also watch that, it's on Netflix, at least on the UK one).

WWE.

That's it, my Ares one. I think I rambled a bit but I am very tired so forgive me. Lemme know what you think!!

I love Ares so much, I probably wouldn't have made it to this point if I didn't have him. He is my patron and he protected me when I felt alone.

Next I'm doing Aphrodite!

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ssson-of-sparda · 3 years

Text

Strawberry Sundae

Summary: It's story time! Have you ever wondered why Dante affectionate strawberry sundaes so much? Well Patty has and luckily for her, he is about to tell her. It will just cost her a small favour. A man got to pay his debts remember.

Tags: ANGST (but with some very cute moments) / Dante’s childhood / childhood trauma

Author’s note: This is my take on Dante’s origins and also my first time writing for the Devil May Cry fandom. I hope I did it right and that you will love it. Set whenever you want but definitely after the DMC Anime. I made the reader female (in case I write a sequel. I have ideas for one, just tell me if you want one), but it can definitely be read as Gen!Reader if you make some small changes.

To most people Patty Lowell looked so cute and angelic with her girly lacy dresses and her silk ribbons in her baby blond hair they’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But to Dante, she was the most annoying brat that ever walked this earth and, even though he would never admit it, also one of his dearest friends. And like all his friends, he owed her big. “I’ll erase that from your tab.” She said as she swallowed a spoonful of vanilla ice cream. “Oh c’mon! You keeping counts now?” Dante harrumphed and watched the kid wipe her mouth like a very distinguished lady. “You spend too much time with Lady.” “Not too much. Just enough to know you owe me a trip to the beach, two dresses, a dozen ice cream cones and six strawberries sundaes” She counted on her fingers and Dante sighed as he slouched in the fake-leather seat of Freddy’s diner. “Well, you can’t have it all now, can you?” “You’ve been saying this for months. And for months you’ve been eating hundreds of sundaes and bought none for me.” She grumbled, staring at him with a pout as he nonchalantly took the strawberry on top of his sundae to eat it, eyes closed to savour the sweetness of the fruit in his mouth. “What’s with your obsession with strawberry sundaes anyway?” She asked, genuinely curious. After all, even after spending so much time with Dante, watching him evolve in his natural habitat (meaning the Devil May Cry) and coming to the conclusion that Dante was a very unique species of man, one that whose diet was only based on pizzas and strawberry sundaes and that knew nothing of women, Patty still hadn’t figured why he was the way he was. Dante opened an eye to see her impatiently waiting for an answer. “If I tell you, would you consider erasing … let’s say six sundaes of my tab?” He smirked, knowing Patty would not resist the curiosity to know more about him. “That could be arranged. But your story better be good!”

STRAWBERRY SUNDAE

One more step and this would be the furthest Dante had ever been from his house. Of course, he had dared follow Vergil down to that weird old man’s house to secretly spy on his brother, wondering what was so interesting and fun in keeping a wrinkly company but he had never stepped a foot in the city. Never could. The only time he had tried and had somehow managed to go down the hill of his red home without tumbling down the steep rocky stairs and lay even just a toe on the urban pavement he was now standing on, his father and his sharp demonic earring had found him and brought him back home with a firm grip around the collar of his white shirt. Sparda had scolded him so much that day that even Vergil hadn’t dared smirking. But here he was. Wet, trembling and cold, under a pouring rain, wondering where to go, what to do, both feet on the pavement, his tiny arms holding on tight to his father’s sword which was way bigger than he was. He had never been so terrified, so alert, his blue eyes widened and scanning all his surroundings in every direction possible like a poor defenceless animal fearing for its life, wondering if a deadly predator was secretly watching him crouched in the thickest shadow, the same kind of predator that took his mother and brother away from him. He wanted to call for help, ask someone, anyone for guidance but he didn’t know whom to trust or if he could trust anyone. All he knew was that he had to be strong, that he had to be a big boy, a man. That’s what his mother had told him before leaving, before … A tear streamed down his childish face. Not the first one tonight. He wiped it with his sooty knuckle but a new one appeared, bigger and more painful. It stung his eye and he cried harder. A devil should not cry but he was so tired. And he wanted his mama. And he wanted his big brother. But they were gone and behind him, his house up the hill was just a pile of smoking ash and burnt bricks.

“Why are you crying?” Dante jumped and his small yet strong grip grabbed a hold of Rebellion’s hilt. It took his eyes a short second to fall upon the face of a little girl holding a green frog-shaped umbrella above both their heads. “Are you lost?” She said as she tried to catch a glimpse of Dante’s face hidden behind layers of soot and wet hair. “Is it a real sword?” “Don’t touch it!” Dante growled, pressing his father’s sword tighter against his chest, shielding it from the curious child as she tried to put her fingers on the legendary weapon. It had seen Vergil do that countless of times. And though it never worked with him, it formidably worked with the child in front of him. “It’s my dad’s.” “Is your dad a knight?” She questioned with amazed (colour) eyes, imagining heroes in shining armours resembling the ones in the stories her mother would read her before bed. “My dad is the Legendary Dark Knight.” Dante spat, scowling behind his silver hair falling over his eyes, a pitiful and vain attempt at sending the little girl packing. After all, to her eyes, he didn’t look impressive at all, more like a wet small kitten that someone had abandoned in the street. She shrugged “My dad doesn’t have a sword and he is not a legendary dark prince or whatever but he has a mighty spatula and his strawberry sundaes are the best in the whole kingdom!” She exclaimed with an over-the-top enthusiasm that made Dante’s weary frown even more pronounced. “That’s the name of my father’s diner.” She pointed at the pinkish red neon sign across the street. Kingdom’s diner. “You’re hungry?” Dante thought he wasn’t until he heard a rumbling in his tummy. Yes, maybe he was even though his heart was preoccupied by other things than hunger. “Come on. Follow me.” He hesitated for a few seconds, watching the girl cross the crowded street in her way-too-large yellow oilskin - which was probably not hers now that he thought about it – and feeling the rain pouring on his shivering body again. “Well? What are you waiting for?” With one last look at his destroyed home up on the hill, Dante finally took a step towards the girl waiting for him by the warm neon lights of the diner. And he took another step, and another, feeling a weird weight forming in his stomach. A mix of apprehension and hope. Apprehension of what’s waiting in this unknown land and hope that his father would suddenly appear and bring him back home. But once more, Sparda never showed up and the child was left alone. Dante had never ventured that far away from home but he had no home anymore, right?

The diner was warm and cosy, with red plastic booth seats and speckled grey linoleum-covered tables that were incredibly clean and shiny. On the walls there were vintage-like pictures of old cars, old advertisements and old Hollywood stars who were almost all complete strangers to Dante apart from a glamorous blond woman with a weird mole and another one with a tiara and a cigarette holder. Pretty sure he had seen them both in some boring movies he had seen – or slept through - with his mother and Vergil. Mama. Vergil. He missed them already. Terribly.

A new tear fell along his cold cheek and Dante looked down, devastated that he would never see them again; guilty that he could not save them, angry that his father had not been there to protect them. And with his wet sorrow came scorching flashes and piercing screams. But soon they were covered by the sound of weird music sizzling in a machine that looked like from another time. “I always listen to music when I feel bad. I like music. Do you like music?” She was impossibly chatty but deep down Dante knew it was only to take his mind off whatever she thought he was thinking about. After all, he would use the same trick on his brother. “There are a hundred of songs in this jukebox.” So that was this hellish machine was. A jukebox. “Pick one. I’ll make some strawberry sundae” She smiled and disappeared behind the counter which was way too high for Dante to see what she was doing. “Oh but don’t play the music too loud. My parents are sleeping upstairs.”

He didn’t know how it worked but he thought that pushing a button would do the trick. And so he did. And he almost fell on his butt when the jukebox started shaking and doing weird sizzling noises. Had he just broken it? “I… I” He mumbled pointing at the machine and the girl’s childish head popped up from behind the counter a bit like a funny rabbit leaves his hole. “Kick it!” She said and Dante looked at her, harrumphed and unsure he had heard right. His mother never allowed him to kick anything … especially not Vergil … and he kicked Vergil a lot … because he deserved it. “There!” The girl approached and gave the dying machine a small yet firm kick that made it come back to life. “It does that sometimes.”

“What’s with all the racket?” A loud voice growled and a man with tousled and sparse black hair appeared from upstairs. Only wearing an old navy blue robe over a white t-shirt and a pair of checked slippers, he looked asleep and yet angry. “Y/N what are you doing … up?” His somewhat aggressiveness turned into confusion when he saw Dante standing next to his beloved daughter. He blinked a couple times and shook his head to make sure he was perfectly awake and not dreaming. What was this boy doing in his restaurant? All wet and covered in soot? “Who are you?” He managed to voice. Dante opened his mouth though unsure what to answer. “He’s my friend.” The girl replied. “Your friend?” She nodded vigorously. “I was making him a strawberry sundae.”

If there was two things Mister Y/LN had a soft spot for, it was food – sugary and greasy food – and his precious daughter Y/N. She was his little princess, his only daughter, the apple of his eye (even when there was sleep crust in its corner like right now). He could not refuse her anything and could not stay mad at her for more than a couple of minutes to the great disappointment of his wife. And even though he knew it was wrong, he couldn’t help it. “Y/N” He sighed and went to kneel in front of his daughter. “You cannot invite a little boy that late at night. I’m sure his parents must be very worried.” He glanced at Dante who looked down his brown boots hiding his eyes yet again behind his silver hair. What curious hair. “But since he is here, let’s eat those strawberry sundaes.” The little girl grinned and ran back to finish her creamy dessert with an enthusiasm that made the man smile for a small second.

Even though Mister Y/LN was weak for his daughter he was still a man of reason. Something deep in his guts was telling him something was wrong with that kid and the last thing he wanted was trouble. Who was he? Where did he come from? What happened to him? Where were his parents? Was he some kind of street kid? A child of drug dealers from the rough areas of Red Grave? Should he call the police? Maybe so. Certainly so. They would certainly know what to do. It was their job after all. He was just a cook, a sleepy cook. What could he do, except offering that scrawny kid a strawberry sundae? “Why don’t you sit, boy?” He waved at the stool and Dante climbed on it without saying a word. “I’ll be right back.”

“So what’s your name?” The little girl said as she placed two coupe glasses filled with cream, ice cream and strawberries right before Dante’s eyes that immediately ogled at the dessert with greediness. So much sugar, so much cream, so many strawberries. He loved chocolate, but this, this looked like even better than chocolate and his stomach seemed to agree. Excited to taste it, he went to grab the spoon that was placed by the couple but was immediately stopped. “Wait. I’m not done.” Y/N shouted and, with a frown and the tip of her pink tongue out, cautiously topped both sundaes with a cherry and two pink wafers. “There. Now you can eat it.” She barely had time to finish the sentence that Dante quickly stuffed a generous spoonful in his tiny mouth. OH GOD! If his mother saw him right now eating so much sugar in the middle of the night she would be furious. But this was the most delicious thing in the world. After pizza of course. He ate another spoonful, and another, humming after each, as he was slowly reaching a comforting sugary paradise. “I’m guessing you like it.” The little girl giggled, laughing at his mouth as round as a balloon and the cream running from the corner of his lips. Dante froze at the laugh and stare at her with a blush creeping up his inflated cheeks until he swallowed with a big gulp. “Yeah.” He confessed and Y/N smiled at the small amount of joy she caught in his childish voice. “You still haven’t told me your name. I’m Y/N by the way.” She reached out to shake his hand and Dante stared at it for a few seconds, remembering what his mother had told him as she hid him a wardrobe.

You must change your name. Forget your past and start a new life as someone else. But who could he be? And could he be someone else? After all, he had always been Dante, the restless daredevil son of Sparda and Eva and annoying little brother to Vergil who always picked a fight for fun and found ways to be involved in new kinds of mischiefs. There was a silence, heavy and pregnant, as the boy tried to answer the questions in his confused little head and as the girl patiently waited for him to talk. And only the lively music from the jukebox could be heard in the room. And it sang to Dante ‘Hey there Anthony boy. Why are you in such a rush (go!). The girl, she wanna talk to you. Look at him, how he blush (go!)’ giving birth to his new identity. A new beginning. “I’m Anthony.” He finally grabbed her hand and she shook it with a smile that he tried to mimic. An effort he thought he would have never done tonight but that he did for her. Calm down, Tony me boy. “Tony for short.” “Well nice to meet you, Tony. I’m sure we’re going to be good friends.”

And with a new spoonful of strawberry sundae he said goodbye to Dante. Hey there, Anthony boy!

***

“That was a lovely story, Dante. Sad but lovely.” Patty finally declared after being incredibly silent during Dante’s childhood story. A first. “Glad you liked it.” Dante said with a small smile that was barely concealing the sadness that this memory had brought back. “So does that mean those six sundaes are off my tab?” “I guess so.” She shrugged as she drank the ice cream in her coupe. “Great.” He winked and stood up, throwing a bill on the table before putting his long red coat on. “So … you love strawberry sundaes because they were the first things that gave you comfort after you lost your mom?” “No, I love strawberry sundaes because they remind me why humans are sometimes worth fighting for.”

But mostly, he liked them because they reminded him of someone who had helped him build a new life, someone who had given him kindness, generosity and love when he thought that all he could expect from life was sorrow and pain. They reminded him of you. Yes, that’s why he loved strawberry sundaes.

#devil may cry #dante #devil may cry fanfiction #dmc fanfiction #dante fanfiction #dante x reader #strawberry sundae

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captainseaweedbrains · 3 years

Text

The Hunger Games: Ch. 5

I am finally getting around to writing up thoughts. Life am I right? So I’m not only behind, but starting a bit later on my chapter thoughts.

Here are my rambling thoughts and emotions on chapter 5:

"Good news, though. This is the last one. Ready?" I get a grip on the edges of the table I'm seated on and nod. The final swathe of my leg hair is uprooted in a painful jerk.// Girl, I feel you. We’ve all been there. #Noshaveforever

This has included scrubbing down my body with a gritty loam that has removed not only dirt but at least three layers of skin// It’s called exfoliating, Katniss, and I promise, it is good for your skin. If they can do one thing for you, it is this.

Okay. Like Katniss, I have a soft spot for her prep team. I can’t help it. They feel like they mean well and I’m a sucker for it. Even if they are prepping her for death. 💀

He gives his orange corkscrew locks a shake and applies a fresh coat of purple lipstick to his mouth.// I wonder if SC thought of the most gaudiest looks and just rolled with it. Probably. But some of these outfit choices just seem so out there that I have such a hard time picturing it. Am I alone on this? My fashion sense is that of a bygone era. So maybe that’s why. What is high fashion? Not me. That’s what.

Octavia, a plump woman whose entire body has been dyed a pale shade of pea green // Why would you want to look like a Sim? Why is that in style here?

"Excellent! You almost look like a human being now!" says Flavius, and they all laugh.

I force my lips up into a smile to show how grateful I am. "Thank you," I say sweetly. "We don't have much cause to look nice in District Twelve."

This wins them over completely. // Katniss!! I love you. Never change. I do love how other worldly each party sees the other. Maybe it’s a comment on colonialism in that sense shut up Terri Your English degree is showing BUT how Katniss views them as strange birds rightly so because one legit probably looks like a Sim and them viewing her as NOT HUMAN even though she definitely looks the more normal in the room and I stand by that Where was I going with this? It just feels a bit Two Worlds colliding. Okay. Moving on.

Just how filthy was Katniss? Like she definitely bathed before coming. Twice in one day. So what is their standard here? I don’t want it because it’s probably too much effort. #lazy

It's hard to hate my prep team. They're such total idiots.// My thoughts exactly.

I cannot stress how much I love how blunt SC makes Katniss’ thoughts. It feels so human to me and I don’t always see that in writing. It’s nice.

Am I alone on wondering if Cinna has that eyeliner tattooed on? I don’t know why that’s always my first thought with the second being “ouch.”

I do love how Katniss is always thrown when her pre-perceptions of the Capitol are challenged by *the few* people like Cinna.

I saw someone point out how Katniss remembers a lot of details like the stylists and past years winners and their strategies and I’m wondering if it’s more like how I know stuff on like the Kardashians that I don’t really want to know or care about knowing. Just facts living in her head rent free. But she remembers a lot of details on the Games.

He presses a button on the side of the table. The top splits and from below rises a second tabletop that holds our lunch.// The future 1950s ads promised and Disney Channel’s Smart House made those in my generation fear. That or a super fancy automat.

Unpopular opinion, but I absolutely hate when Katniss goes on about the food and how to make dishes. I think it’s so boring to read. Even one sentence about what everyone is eating dulls me.

What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button?//Okay, I know we kind of already have this luxury to an extent, but I too want to press a button and my food is magically there, in my home, already made. #queenlazy

My heart saddens when Katniss wonders what people do in their free time. She is a CHILD. *cries*

Okay. So I know Katniss has boasted about concealing her thoughts, but is she REALLY good at it? She gets called out a lot by practical strangers. I will cling to my headcanon that she is truly an open book and just believes she’s sneaky like that and Peeta pretends she’s succeeding at later in life. Is this canon? Maybe? Don’t @ me

SC’s commentary of sexualizing young teens and kiddos is amazing and yes, please keep coming at us like this, Suzanne.

Also those poor, naked children. Not only were they going to their deaths, but they literally were paraded around on national television buck naked.

I'll be naked for sure, I think...Naked and covered in black dust, I think.//An example of why I just love her narration. I crack up every time at the clear doom in her “voice”

He sees my expression and grins.//A true madman because I can only assume her face is that of horror.

I am still mad at the scaly-looking outfits the movie gave us and how they made her hair look

It crosses my mind that Cinna's calm and normal demeanor masks a complete madman.//He is a madman. We accept it and move on from here

*Peeta enters* *Cue my glee*

*He is my favorite and that favoritism will show*

*Listen I am here for the messages on war and our consumer culture SC is providing*

*But I will not hide why I’m really here rereading these books*

*WEEPS* SHE IS RELIEVED TO SEE PEETA

"What do you think?" I whisper to Peeta. "About the fire?"

"I'll rip off your cape if you'll rip off mine," he says through gritted teeth.//Don’t touch me. The teamwork they already share.

Haha I just imagine Peeta has that big smile on his face all “Haha I want to die right now”

THEY’RE LAUGHING. Precious beans.

I guess we're both so nervous about the Games and more pressingly, petrified of being turned into human torches, we're not acting sensibly.// That or you both are talking to your crushes and are feeling giddy about it. Don’t deny it Katniss. We see you

Lmao Katniss’ enthusiasm for D1 cracks me up

Cinna over here just lighting people on fire and relieved it worked properly. This man, I swear

She calls him dazzling. Be still my heart.

Also I still don’t understand the true purpose of Cinna presenting them as united. Maybe I’ll get a refresher later on. Is it just to make them stand out more because they’re united? I don’t understand this angle at all. So #SameKatnissSame

Lmao or maybe Peeta’s the one who is all “Idk, but *sings* I wanna hold your hand...”

Or not. But you bet Peeta is pumped. He’s not naked on national television and he’s holding his crush’s hand. Peak day for Peeta Bram Mellark, with all things given.

I do hope they are waving correctly.

I'm glad now I have Peeta to clutch for balance, he is so steady, solid as a rock.//I’m FINE. Totally FINE that this will be how she views him for the rest of the series. FINE.

Narrator: She was not fine.

How absolutely sad that she mentions how the Capitolites took the effort to look in the program for their names. How they waste CHILDREN’S LIVES.

But I shall focus on her gaining confidence and Katniss Everdeen legit getting caught up in the moment where she is blowing kisses at them. The power of a great outfit, amirite?

Someone throws me a red rose. I catch it, give it a delicate sniff, and blow a kiss back in the general direction of the giver. A hundred hands reach up to catch my kiss, as if it were a real and tangible thing.//Oh my god. So Extra

Everyone wants my kisses.//Peeta wants those kisses

"No, don't let go of me," he says. The firelight flickers off his blue eyes. "Please.// I am crying as I think about their interaction in the same square in Mockingjay, when she tries to take the nightlock pill and he stops her. “I’ll never let go, Jack”

SC can describe Snow however she wants, I will forever see Donald Sutherland and only that. Even when Snow is a teenager I picture Donald. The power of Donald Sutherland.

I love that she doesn’t realize she’s still holding his hand. If Portia had enough time to spray them down, she’s been holding on for awhile. Katniss, explanation? 👀 👀 👀 👀 👀

"I'm sure they didn't notice anything but you. You should wear flames more often," he says. "They suit you." And then he gives me a smile that seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me. // AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHE FEELS WARMTH RUSH THROUGH HER

THE SHY FLIRTING

PEETA, YOU SHY SLY BEAN OF A FOX

The more likable he is, the more deadly he is.//Yeah, for catching a dangerous thing called FEELINGS.

Katniss, how does *kissing* him help matters here? You clearly caught wind he was flirting and your first thought was *le kiss* ???????

These two, I swear

And Katniss is just so smol having to stand on her *tiptoes* to kiss his cheek. #teamsmol

Onward to the next chapter!

#The Hunger Games #thgagain #My thoughts #Terri reads The Hunger Games #Books

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nautilusopus · 3 years

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do you have any favorite books?

Coraline by Neil Gaiman is the obvious answer lol. Still my favourite book to this day, obviously hugely influential in my own bullshit. Seriously check it out if you can find a copy, it’s pretty short and absolutely worth your time.

The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt and its sequel (The Devil’s Other Storybook) are more of an anthology of short stories starring the Devil, who occupies every role from vague background presence to put-upon protagonist that are funny and thought-provoking and genuinely clever and that pissed enough people off that it was a banned book for a while. “The Imp in the Basket” is the kind of short story I wish more people knew about and wanted to sincerely discuss what actually happened at the end.

ugh i haven’t read a book i actually enjoyed in over ten years at this point uhhhhhh

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I think potentially the only classic I had to read in school that I genuinely liked and actually finished in one sitting on my own time. And I think the first time any themes a book had for me actually clicked and I was able to do any kind of meta analysis of it completely unprompted. Baby’s first literary comprehension. Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical piece set during the bombing of Dresden in WWII, and also some period in the “future” (the 80s lol), and ALSO on an alien planet as the protagonist is abducted and taken to a human zoo. The story is told achronologically, and I feel is hugely influential to my own shit where it skips around, building a narrative almost entirely by juxtaposing specific moments in time against one another. It's surreal and thought-provoking, and if you only ever make yourself read one classic, it should be this one. *

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. Bear in mind this thing has fuck-all to do with the movie, and while in retrospect I now am able to enjoy the Don Bluth movie as its own thing, I remember being fucking furious when they busted out a goddamn magical amulet. It’s a different kind of story, but is more magic realism than outright fantasy, and the titular rats get a lot more backstory, as does the late Mr. Frisby iirc.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. God that book fucked me up. It is about a snotty porcelain toy rabbit that gets dropped overboard a ship into the ocean one day, and the various owners he has over the years as he changes hands, and the impacts they have on him, and it makes me fucking cry every time and is to date the only book to ever do so so fairly warned be ye. Fucking shit I wish I could dish out gut-punches half as good as that book could.

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, which in and of itself is an angry rebuttal against everything the Chronicles of Narnia has to say, as well as Christianity in general. You’ve probably seen shit floating around about the HBO series, which I have not watched. Lyra is a horrible gremlin child running wild around a parallel universe Oxford until she accidentally stumbles onto a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Church which unofficially runs the government and eventually starts an interdimensional war against God. The first two books I think are better than the last one, which really drags in spots (and in a twist of irony had Lyra’s sexual awakening censored from the North American release which like... come on man). Absolutely worth checking out though, especially if you’re an angry pedant like I am.

Tales from the House of Bunnicula, by James Howe. Honestly the entire "Bunnicula Expanded Universe"(???) is great, but in particular I'm mentioning this sub-series because I think it actually kind of taught me to write. The framing device used is that they're being written by Howe's pet dog and sent in to him to publish by proxy. On top of having just a lot of good storytelling tips for beginners (how to create a plot! how to create character motivations! how to write female characters like actual people!), they're also fun little satire pieces of various kinds of genre fiction. Like, the third book is a riff on Harry Potter and making fun of all of JKR's worst writing tendencies, like her compulsion to phonetically write out everyone's fucking accent.

these days i'm just too picky to enjoy books anymore idfk. you have no idea how fucking disheartening it was growing up with actual taste (snooty snooty snoot) and watching everyone go nuts over stuff like divergent and eragon and maximum ride and fuckmothering twilight and shit. like, yeah misogyny absolutely played into why people shat on it because teenage girls aren't allowed to like anything, but lest we forget they were still shitty books guys. that never stopped being true or anything. and you were a social pariah if you didn't like them and that sucked. and then a couple ostensibly good series, like harry potter and artemis fowl and hunger games just dropped the fucking ball for one reason or another as they went on and never picked it back up. i think the mid 2000s almost singlehandedly just killed any real enthusiasm i had for reading altogether (this is not even getting into the fact a lot of really fucking bad "grown-up" novels came out around that period too. whole era was a baaaad time for books). so here i am writing, i guess, because i've decided you fuckers can't be trusted to make anything good yourselves. if you want something done right...

(*I like to think if Cloud wrote a book he’d write something like Slaughterhouse-Five. I think at one point I was even working on a fic along those lines -- a fictional story vaguely based off the burning of Nibelheim and the fall of Shinra that was written, in-universe, by Cloud several years later. Abandoned it just because of how fucking complicated it would be to do. Might come back to it one day.)

#asks #Anonymous

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years

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Hi! As someone who’s literary opinion I really trust, I was surprised that you’re a twilight fan? I know almost nothing except commen knowledge things about that series, and I always assumed it was actually bad/un-feminist. What is it that you like so much that others seem to miss? I’m just genuinely curious about your take on the hate it always seems to get vs. it’s actual quality. I’m not gonna judge bc animorphs is also one of those books where you see it and assume it’s bad.

In over 14 years of loving this series, I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me why I enjoy it instead of simply trying to convince me that I’m wrong to do so. So thank you for that.

First and foremost, I love the Twilight saga because of the vivid detail in Stephenie Meyer’s writing style. The descriptions are so lush and dense with sensory information that you can practically bite down on them as you read. Bella and Jacob aren’t just sitting on the beach; they’re sitting on a gnarled log of driftwood, worn smooth at the top from where so many Quileute teens have sat upon it during bonfires but still uneven enough to rock on its branches when Bella suddenly stands to rage at her own mortality. Meyer describes that log in Twilight, so tangibly and with such economy of detail, that we recognize it immediately when Bella and Jacob return to that spot in Eclipse. I’ve always disliked the movies, because I’ve always felt that the best part of Meyer’s writing simply did not translate well to the screen.

Secondly, I love the feminism.

Okay, let’s take a quick pause to let everyone gasp and clutch their pearls over me calling Twilight a feminist work. I will address the criticisms later. For now, please just hear me out.

Twilight strikes me as a premier example of what Hélène Cixous means when she calls for “women’s writing,” or writing for women, about women, by women, with a strong focus on the concerns and strengths and desires of womanhood. This is a series about building and maintaining close relationships, both romantic and platonic. It celebrates beauty, and love, and care. Bella moves to Forks because she recognizes that her dad is lonely while her mom is quite the opposite, torn between family priorities. She doesn’t simply subsume her interests to those of other people, but instead actively chooses how and when and where to express her love for her birth family and her found families. Most of the other major decisions throughout the story — Alice “adopting” Bella, Carlisle moving the family to Alaska, Jacob becoming werewolf beta, the Cullens going up against the Volturi, etc. — are motivated by care and devotion for one’s family and friends. Even the selfish or morally ambiguous character choices are shown to be motivated by love. Rosalie tells Edward that Bella died because she genuinely thinks it’ll help him move on. Victoria creates an army that nearly destroys Forks because she’s avenging James. Alice abandons Bella and the others before the final battle because if she can’t save her entire family, then she’ll settle for saving her lover before letting him die in vain.

Not only is there a striking concern with love and care, but there’s also a strong commitment to avoiding violence. Bella’s eventual vamp-superpower proves to be preventing violence and protecting others, an awesome character decision that I’d argue gets set up as early as the first book. She lives in a violent world — this is a YA SF story, after all — but she has the power to suppress violence and create peace, both in herself and others. I was already sick of “power = ability to inflict damage” in YA stories well before I knew the word “patriarchy.” Twilight was one of the first books to convey to me that power could be refusing to do harm in spite of hunger or anger, that power could be shielding ones’ family, that power could be about building enough friendships and alliances to have an army at one’s back when facing an enemy too strong to take on alone.

Closely connected to all of that love and care, I love how much Twilight is about navigating teenage girlhood. Is it empowering, intersectional, or all-inclusive? Hell no. Does it still dare to suggest that a completely ordinary teenage girl could have valid concerns about the world? Yep. The main conflict of the story, as Stephen King so derisively explained, is about the romantic entanglements of a teenage girl, and the book therefore has no literary merit. (To quote my dad’s response: “Bold words from the guy who inflicted Firestarter on the world.”)

There is, indeed, a lot of romance in Twilight. There are a lot of clothes. Alice and Rosalie especially spend a lot of time on makeup, and hair, and choosing the prettiest cars and houses. Twilight embraces all the stereotypically “girly” concerns of adolescence, and makes no effort to apologize for or condemn them. Bella isn’t particularly good at performing them — she likes but doesn’t excel at shopping, fiercely defends her ugly car as ugly, hobbles through prom on crutches — but she can still enjoy the feeling of being pretty in a sparkly dress while dancing with her sparkly boyfriend. And Twilight, like Animorphs with Cassie, takes the daring step of treating that feeling as valid.

Speaking of sparkles, I love the commitment to the fantasy concept in Twilight, including the myriad mundanities that Meyer brings with that commitment. If you have super-speed, why not use it to play extreme baseball? If you’re a mindreader with a clairvoyant sister, why wouldn’t you two play mental chess games? I couldn’t tell you, after seven seasons of Buffy or eight of Vampire Diaries, what Spike or Damien or Angel or Stefan does all day when not brooding or lurking in the bushes to creep on human women. I can tell you what the Cullens get up to. Emmett and Rosalie work on their cars, usually by holding them overhead one-handed. Carlisle and Alice read plays, and sometimes talk the whole family into home Shakespeare productions. Edward and Carlisle debate theology, Emmett and Jasper have dumb athletic competitions, Edward and Esme play music, Alice manipulates stock markets, the twins go shopping online, etcetera. The Cullens feel real, feel like the vampires next door, in a way that Louis and Lestat simply do not.

To get to the elephant in the room — I just described Twilight as a feminist text! — let’s talk about the other thing the Cullens do for fun: they have sex. Weird sex. Kinky furniture-breaking sex. Sex that Emmett (who would know) compares to bear-wrestling. These books suck with regards to queer representation, but they are sex-positive. They feature an old-school Anglican protagonist offering his daughter-in-law a medical abortion. They treat Edward’s desire for sex only within marriage and Alice’s desire for sex outside of marriage as both being valid. Like I said, not groundbreaking, even by the standards of 2005, but still more than most teen novels do even today.

There’s a passage from Breaking Dawn that people love to pull out of context as “everything wrong with Twilight in two paragraphs” because it describes Bella waking up the morning after sex with bruises on her arms. That moment is shocking out of context, to be sure — but in context, it’s the end result of an in-depth consent negotiation that lasts four books. Bella says that she’d like to become a vampire. Edward says okay, but only if she spends a few more years living as a human and considering that choice. Bella says okay, but only if Edward, not Carlisle, becomes the one to turn her. Edward says they can use his venom, but that Carlisle, who’s an MD, really needs to supervise the process. Bella doesn’t love the idea of Edward’s stepdad cockblocking what’s supposed to be an intimate moment, and so agrees only on the grounds that she gets to have sex with Edward as a human first. Edward’s hella Catholic, so he requests that they get married first. Bella’s super horny, so she demands that the wedding happen within six months. Edward says that he might hurt her during sex, and Bella says that she wants a little hurt during sex. They marry. They bang. During the banging, Edward makes every effort to be controlled and courteous and gentile, while Bella goes wild and crazy. The next morning, she has bruises and he does not. Edward apologizes, but Bella’s actually really into it. She spends a while admiring her sexy vamp-marked self in the mirror, touches the bruises many times, and reminds us yet again that Bella Swan’s whole M.O. is being a monsterfucker. Her kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.

To be clear, I think there are other aspects of the romance that get criticized for good reason. Edward does not negotiate with Bella before sneaking into her room to watch her sleep, and he does make unacceptable use of their power differences when he thinks she’s in danger of being mauled by werewolves. The text condemns Jacob’s “don’t wanna die a virgin” ploy to manipulate a kiss out of Bella, but not the wider conceit of all the male characters as possessing uncontrollable urges. Bella’s struggles to adjust to a new town feel very feminine and realistic; her amused tolerance of Jacob’s and Mike’s sexual harassment as the price for their friendship does not. Werewolf imprinting might be mostly platonic, but that doesn’t make it okay for Meyer to depict it as a form of soulmate bonding that happens with child characters. Those are good points, all around. I just wish that most of them didn’t come up in the context of post-hoc rationalizations for loathing the femininity of a feminine text.

I’m not calling Twilight an unproblematic series. I’m saying that it gets (rightly!) criticized for appropriating Quileute culture, while Buffy’s total absence of main characters of color and blatant anti-Romani racism are (wrongly!) not remarked upon. I'm saying that I’ve been told I’m a misogynist for liking Twilight but not for liking James Bond. I’m saying that there’s a reason people tend to go “oh, that makes so much sense!” when I let them in on the fact that reactive hatred for “Twitards” started and spread on 4Chan, later home of Gamergate and incel culture. I’m saying that Twilight depicts problematic relationship dynamics as sexy — but then so do Vampire Academy, Blue Bloods, Supernatural, Vladimir Tod, and Vampire Diaries. All of which take the time to stop and thumb their noses at Twilight, smug in the superiority of having vampires that fly rather than vampires that sparkle, and for thoroughly condemning teenage girls for being girly while continuing to show men inflicting violence on them.

After all, as Erin May Kelly puts it: “we live in a world taught to hate everything to do with little girls. We hate the books they read and the bands they like. Is there anything the world makes fun of more than One Direction and Twilight?” No one has ever called me a misogynist for liking the MCU, in spite of less than a third of its movies even managing to clear the low-low bar of the Bechdel test. Because people are still allowed to like Harry Potter in spite of its racism, or Lord of the Rings despite its imperialism. Because hatred for Twilight was never about its very real sexism, or the genuinely silly sparkle-vampires, until it had to justify itself as something other than hate for everything that teenage girls have ever dared openly love.

I enjoy the novels, and I enjoy the fan fiction that tries to fix some of the problems with the novels. I appreciate the extent to which Meyer has elevated fan culture, and made an effort to acknowledge her own past mistakes. I would love to be able to talk about my love for the series as a flawed but beautiful work of literature, but for now I’ll settle for asking that the world just let me enjoy it in peace.

#twilight #the twilight saga #breaking dawn #eclipse #new moon #stephenie meyer #fandom #nothing to do with animorphs #misogyny #ableist language #sexist language #long post #sexism #romance #anonymous #asks

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h4nsoluvr · 3 years

Text

got7 reactions: confessing↠ hyung line

jaebeom

“y/n what do you think of me?” jaebeom suddenly blurts out as he helps you tidy your apartment once the rest of your friends had left.

you paused before bending over to pick up the takeaway boxes that were scattered across your floor.

“what do you mean jaebeom?”

“i mean, what do you think of me?” he repeats, “genuinely.”

“well...you’re nice, passionate at what you do and you never fail to make me laugh. i think there are a lot of things i could say about you. why do you ask?” you give him a quizzing look.

“what about my dazzling good looks?” jaebeom teases, dramatically doing his best model pose.

“yeah that too.” you nod in agreement. jaebeom stops in his tracks.

“w-wait, you think i am handsome?” he stammers.

“of course jaebeom, i am not blind. but apparently you are as you haven’t picked up on the hints i’ve given that i have liked you ever since we first became friends” you stated.

“oh...” he drifts off as he sheepishly picks up the last of the rubbish.

“yeah. the others even said i was being painfully obvious”

“oh.” jaebeom echoes as he internally facepalms.

“so are you free for a date this saturday?” jaebeom, gains the confidence to speak up after a moment of silence, “just to clarify i am not asking you out just because of what you just said you now...i’m saying it because i’ve liked you a lot too...” he says, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck as a pink flush creeps up his cheeks. “not that i didn’t like what you said! i mean, you’re very pretty also!”

you find yourself being amused at this flustered side of jaebeom that you haven’t seen before.

“yes jaebeom, i thought you would never ask.”

“cool,” he says shyly, trying to ignore the feeling of his heat practically beating out his chest. “i’m gonna go now y/n.”

“okay, goodnight and get home safe.” you give him one last smile before closing your front door.

on the other side of the door what you didn’t see is jaebeom with his head in his hands, “oh you are such an idiot jaebeom.” he says to himself as he walks away whilst smiling from ear to ear.

mark

you gently knock on the door to mark’s room before entering, upon hearing a noise from inside you peered your head around the corner to see mark slumped over in his chair, engrossed in a video game.

“cover me, cover me, cover me! ahhh!” he yells, pushing away from his desk in half frustration and half laughter as his team loses the game. taking off his headphones he glances behind him to see you standing at his door.

“oh hey y/n!” he greets and you give a nod back.

“hey, i cooked too much food earlier so i thought i might bring the leftovers for you.” you say, gesturing to the food in your hand.

“oh my god is that sweet and sour pork?! y/n you’re the best i swear.” mark licks his lips in hunger as he stares down at the food you had brought him.

before you could open your mouth to respond you are abruptly interrupted by a voice from his computer.

“hey mark are you joining the next game? or are you with that cute girl you’re always talking about?” the voice says as mark’s eyes grow wide.

“errr...i thought i muted this...” mark says, totally mortified as he clumsily rushes to turn off his computer.

“oh my god y/n, i am so sorry, i can’t believe-” he plucks up the courage to finally turn back to look at you, in his state of panic not realising that you had been laughing this whole time.

“you really think i’m cute?” you ask.

“i-well-err...yeah. yeah i do. but if you want to be just friends i am more than happy with that.” mark states, with embarrassment still evident on his face.

“mark, i would like to give being more than friends with you a go if you are okay with that.” you reply, sitting comfortably on his bed and grabbing the tv remote. “do you want to watch a movie?”

in shock, all mark can manage is a nod as he moves to sit next to you.

“you’re cute when you’re embarrassed.” you giggle, teasingly poking at his cheeks.

“shut up.” mark pouts, a smile playfully tugging at his lips.

jackson

“okay guys, smile!” you friend declared as you and jackson smile for the photo. you and a few other friends had gone on a short trip as a break from city life whilst the weather was still warm. at the last second before the picture jackson sneakily put up a peace sign behind your head as you grinned cluelessly.

“cute!” your friend says as she gives you back your phone and skips away to the rest of the group who were further ahead. you playfully shove jackson to the side as you notice his hand in the picture.

“hey! you’re stronger than you look you know y/n.” jackson winces, rubbing his arm exaggeratingly.

“no, you ruined the picture jacks!” you exclaim.

“nuh-uh, i made it better,” he says, looking over your shoulder to peep at the picture, “i like it. send it to me so i can make it my lock-screen y/n.”

“why would you want to make it your lock-screen?” you look at him curiously.

he shrugs, “it’s cute. plus we look like a couple don’t you think?” jackson smiles as he sends the picture to himself from your phone. “see?” he says as he finally shows you the picture now displayed on his phone.

“and that’s a good thing?” you ask, mentally telling your heart to calm down a bit.

“of course it is” jackson declares, “then if anyone see’s the picture and asks me who the pretty girl in it is i get to say ‘oh that’s y/n, she’s pretty cool’.”

you were sure that by this point you were blushing, “yeah i guess i am pretty cool...”

jackson laughs in response, “so does that mean that you like me too?”

“yes, jackson.” you say coyly as you link arms with him.

jackson leaps up in joy, fist bumping the air whilst still holding you tightly with his other arm. “she likes me too guys! wait up, she likes me as well!” he shouts to your friends in the distance who had now stopped to turn around to see what all the fuss was about. jackson winks at you before dragging you towards the others in order to celebrate.

jinyoung

“thanks for picking me up jinyoung.” you mumble as you trudge solemnly alongside your best friend. in order to take your mind off of your crush on jinyoung, you had agreed to go on a date with this guy on the same course as you at university. but alas, you had been stood up. tears threatened to spill from your eyes as you both walk down the street heading towards your house. you pause to take off the heels you had on, cursing under your breath at the realisation they were making your feet sore.

“ugh jinyoung i feel like a total idiot, he told me we were going to some fancy restaurant to i made such an effort and for nothing.” you groan.

“if anyone is the idiot here it’s that jerk, you look great y/n.” he says, patting you on the shoulder.

if it were anyone else you would feel awkward with such a gesture, but as jinyoung gently touched your skin you immediately felt reassured.

“yeah i guess you’re right jinyoung.”

“of course i’m right y/n, i am never wrong.” he pointed out with a smirk, you roll your eyes back with a chuckle, wiping the tears away which had formed in your eyes.

“you don’t deserve to cry over any man you know that right?” jinyoung says and you nod. deep down you knew he was right but you couldn’t help but feel annoyed at your failure to move on from your feelings for him.

“i also went on a date tonight,” he announces and your heart instantly sinks.

“and how was it?” you ask, feigning a smile.

“it was good,” jinyoung continues as he runs a hand through his hair, “but as i was on the date i couldn’t help but wish it were someone else to be honest.”

“hm i see, that must’ve been one uncomfortable date.” you say, your eyes drifting to the elderly couple walking sweetly hand in hand across the road. you look back away as soon as you feel a slight pang of envy.

“not really actually, as soon as i realised this i explained it to the girl and she was very understanding about it all. and then i upped and left and decided to go to the girl i actually like.”

“and how was that?”

“i don’t know, she actually just got stood up by an absolute asshole who didn’t even deserve her to begin with and i am starting to realise how much better i could treat her...” jinyoung turns to you with a smile and you abruptly stop walking.

“huh?” you blurt out and jinyoung chuckles at your surprised expression.

“i like you a lot y/n, i am sorry it took me so long to realise.” he confesses.

“i...i like you too jinyoung.” you say as jinyoung laces his fingers with yours.

#got7 #got7 drabbles #got7 imagines #got7 scenarios #got7 jaebeom #got7 mark #got7 jackson #got7 jinyoung #got7 youngjae #got7 bambam #got7 yugyeom #got7forever #ahgase

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realityhelixcreates · 3 years

Text

Lasabrjotr Chapter 80: The Littlest Seidkona

Chapters: 80/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: pg

Relationships: Loki x Reader

Characters: Loki (Marvel),Thor(Marvel)

Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Party Time

Summary: It's the final ceremony of Buridag-the Seidkona initiation-and all eyes are on you.

You woke up in Loki's arms, right where you had collapsed, Ulfrun, the junior healer looking over you.

“There.” she said. “It is as I told you, she was simply overwhelmed. There was a great deal of power moving during the ceremony, and she is still but mortal...”

“Yeah, that's me.” you grumbled. “Reaching above my station again.”

Ulfrun jerked back like she'd been burned. Loki chuckled.

“Yes, I think she will be all right. The Princess in Courtesy is in the habit of getting back up after she falls, never fear.”

Princess in Courtesy. That was what you were now. A princess without a kingdom, or people of your own, but you had the title...and for your purposes, that was all you needed.

“Will you have her come by for a checkup this evening? I'm certain Bjarkhilde will want to look her over.”

“I think I can do that.” You said, and she jerked back again. “I know, it's pretty weird, isn't it? But this'll make things easier in the long run, won't it? Except for the people who like talking trash at me, it's gonna suck for them, but I don't really feel bad for them.”

“I think we will be fine Ulfrun, thank you for your help.” Loki said.

“So. The ritual has brought you an inheritance.” Loki said, after the junior healer had hurried away. He kissed your cheeks and forehead, mumbling in affection. “So you will understand me now when I say that when I am drowning, you are my air, that I wish to wash my hair in your perfume, that when you look at me, an arrow pierces my heart, fixes it within my breast, pins it to my soul. Like a hapless bird, your gaze knocks me from the sky, to fall into your gentle, blossoming hands.”

Warmth flowed all the way to the tips of your ears.

“Stop, you're gonna make me faint again.” you murmured.

“Later then,” he said, amused. “When you are already laying down, perhaps.”

Thor poked his head around the back of the dais.

“The smoke is clearing.” he announced. “Is she all right?”

“Yeah, I'm good.” you said, Loki helping you to your feet. You had completed the ritual, now it was time to be presented to the people.

Out of the thinning smoke, and into the courtyard the three of you appeared, Heimdall keeping his vigil from atop the high dais. No one would dare make a move against you while he watched.

“The ceremony is complete!” Thor announced in his booming voice. “The paths of fate have been cleared for the Princess in Courtesy. May she pass down them in peace, for as long as her life has been interwoven with ours!”

The cheering was loud and enthusiastic, and seemed genuine. Your finger didn't hurt at all anymore, likely due to lying in Loki's arms for those few minutes while Ulfrun looked over you.

You stood and let them cheer as much as they wanted, then followed the princes back out of sight behind the dais when the crowds enthusiasm began to wane. You unwound the bandage from your finger to show a very pleased Loki that the tiny cut had nearly disappeared. It was nice to see how happy that made him, to remember how willing-even eager-he had been from the start to share that healing bond with you. You had never found out if that had cost him in pain or energy, just that it was very clear that he was more than ready to give.

“So you have gained something.” Thor mentioned on their way to drop you off with the other Seidkonas. “That will come in very handy. Save you decades of study.”

“So you didn't know it was going to happen either?” you asked. He shook his golden head.

“I've never actually seen one of these ceremonies performed. The last one I know of was for my mother, and that, of course, was before I was even born.”

“They must have had one for me,” Loki mused. “In secret. Hidden away in shame from prying eyes.”

Thor's warm smile withdrew into contemplation, as all three of you tried to envision it: A tiny, possibly blue infant, held over the bowl and crying, like a human baby getting their first check in with a doctor, a blade held against one minuscule hand or squirming foot...

It was an uncomfortable image, but it made sense to get it done as early as possible, if they were to pass Loki off as their son.

“So this is probably normal. Just another way to pass on the magic of Allspeak. We'll just see how well it works out for me.”

******

The second part of your day was to be taken up by another, much longer and more complex ritual, that had to be done partially in secret. Thor and Loki escorted you, followed by many people, to one of the popup apartment complexes that now housed to majority of Asgard, until more permanent housing could be built. This one housed the thirteen remaining Seidkonas of Asgard, and had been transformed by them into a ritual house. With some small pomp, the princes transferred you into their care, but beyond their doors, it became a strict 'no boys allowed' club.

This was because, as soon as the door closed, you were led into the next room and stripped down, a bundle of incense being wafted around your body. Once naked, you were plunked down into a metal tub filled with a redolent herbal tea, which the others scooped up in bathing bowls and poured over your head, as if making a kind of Seidkona soup.

The entire dwelling was dimly lit with only candles, and the other Seidkonas were mostly silent in their work, speaking only to give you quiet instructions, or chant ceremonial blessings from the Norns.

Newly cleansed, you entered a different room, this time converted into a kind of sauna. In the pitch dark you sat and sweated, swaddled in thick clouds of suffocating steam from more herbal tea, ladled constantly over the hot stones.

Whether from the heat, the herbs, or the incense, you didn't know, but you began to feel odd. The magic within you felt as though it was swelling, throbbing with a heartbeat different than your own. The passage of time became meaningless, but eventually you began to see a light. Soft, blue, and ephemeral, you couldn't focus on it's source, as it dimmed down into nothing every time you tried to concentrate on it. But it pulsed like the heartbeat of your magic.

The Seidkonas who had joined you in the sauna began singing one word, one tone over and over. Your heart and your magic began to attune to it, thumping along in time, like your little Seidkona drum. The word felt natural, it slotted into your mind, filling a tiny, empty hole. The last syllable of the chant you had been practicing for weeks now. The very last piece of the magical puzzle, that you were not yet meant to utter.

You heard the beating of drums outside, muffled by the door, which cracked open and let in a blast of air. You knew it was warm, but it felt cool on your heated skin, disintegrated the clouds of herbal vapor, and sharpened your heat-fuzzed mind to a razor point. You exited the sauna like an infant; brand new and surrounded by sensation. The air was cool, the candles were bright, and the tub of pure water they dumped over you was like shards of ice.

While some of the women dried and helped you dress yourself, others continued the drum beat that had started while you were in the sauna. Seidkona drums were made of wood now, but their drumstick was shaped like a bone, and the little drums were rounded like skulls, and they may have been these things, long, long ago.

You sat among them, and were given a chunk of bread to eat, and a light, sweet fruit juice to drink. The flavor and texture was more clear than ever before, the sensation of relieving hunger and thirst practically palpable. The drumming continued while your hair dried and and you devoured the snack.

It wasn't just the steam or the heat-whatever herbal concoction you had bathed in and breathed in was effecting you. Your senses felt wider, like you were experiencing sensations on a deeper level. Maybe you always felt things this much, but simply hadn't noticed before.

Somehow you knew when to stand up. You and all the other Seidkonas got to your feet at the same time, some kind of unknown but compelling signal alerting you. As one, you all filed to the door.

Your instructor, the eldest of the Seidkonas stepped up beside you, as the others gathered their cloaks and drums.

“You are different than us.” she said. “The magic runs through you just the same, so you should know in advance: at the initiation, something new is always revealed. Some power, some knowledge previously unknown or lost. I know you've read about it with Saga, and you must understand that there is the probability that it will also happen to you. But you must also know that it's possible that it will not happen. Because you are different than us, and though the magic flows through you just the same, the rest of you might not be able to handle such a revelation. Never have the Norns allowed one of us to be harmed by this initiatory experience. They care about those who act in their stead, and will not force you through something you cannot handle. However, if they decide that you can handle it, human or not, they will push you to your very limit. Be ready for either outcome, for once it is started, there is no going back.”

The ancient Seidkona provided you your little rounded drum, and the parade began; a double line of esteemed sorceresses, wrapped in dark blue cloaks. You followed behind, cloakless, beating your drum in time with the others, a call to the masses that the initiate was coming, the ritual was beginning.

You followed your escort into the same courtyard from earlier in the day. In the time you had been squirreled away for cleansing, the whole area had been transformed. The tall dais was gone, another set of seating had taken its place. There were special seats for the most important guests, and new fencing had been erected, leading to clearly defined separation of Asgardian and human spectators. The entire courtyard had been swept clean of all snow and slush, all debris had been removed and sapphire blue decorations depicting your mark in silver had been put up. New torches had been planted and lit, and large braziers had been placed within the circle-one for each Seidkona, and an extra one in the center for you. They were each filled with a bundle to burn, a little tuft of incense herbs poking out of the top.

The drum beat continued as people filled the seats, as Thor and Loki took their special places, mere spectators in your grand show. The Seidkonas fanned out from their lines and each stood in front of a brazier. The drums only stopped once you had reached the brazier in the center. Each sorceress lit their own fire in their own way. Some were able to use magic, others used burning rods, lit from the torches. You had decided some weeks ago not to use a rod, but to use your magic to teleport burning material into your brazier.

And it worked! You were able to teleport fire! Your bundle burned...for all of a few moments, before the flames shrunk and went out.

Damn. You tried it again. Once more, the fire popped into being within your brazier. And once again, dwindled and disappeared. And again, with the same results. Why wasn't it working?

You heard muttering in the crowd, and you could pick out a few conspicuous questions being asked.

“Is that supposed to happen?”

“Is this a bad omen?”

“Does this mean she's not supposed to be doing this?”

“Did she fail?”

Frustrated, you stalked over to a torch, uprooted it, and used it to light your brazier. This time, the damn thing stayed lit. You scoured the gathered people with a glare, as if daring them to say anything more.

To your eternal annoyance, you spotted Todd among the human seating, his eyes narrowed in the expression he always got when you'd done something he hadn't expected or given you permission to do. Thankfully, you were much too far away to hear the veiled insults and negging that always followed that expression, but your memory helpfully provided several old examples, and they echoed around in your head until you forced them to cease. You swore, if he ever brought this up to you, you were going to teleport him into the middle of the river. If he was properly apologetic, you might even pull him out of the mud before he sank in forever.

Maybe.

“Practical.” Loki said in a stage whisper that carried out over the crowd. “Even mages must know how to solve problems without resorting to magic.” The crowd fell silent once again. Positioned right in front of you, the old Seidkona's wrinkled lips twisted into a wry smirk. She then lifted her drumstick into the air, and the dance began. The dance was supposedly simple: three steps and a quarter turn, four times, ending in a full spin, and then starting again, all in a circle around the burning brazier. Simultaneously, the drum beat, and the chant song kept time. You thumped your little drum, chanting along as you'd practiced. It would only get more challenging, you knew, and as soon as the chant had reached its end, it started over, this time faster. Your performance, how long and fast you could go before declaring the secret last word and bringing it all to an end, was supposed to determine how powerful a Seidkona you would be. In reality, your status was already confirmed, and everyone knew that expectations had to be different for a human, but you were still determined to give the best showing that you were physically capable of. And so you sped up. And sped up. And sped up, continuing until the world became a blur, and dizziness threatened to overtake you. Blue light sparkled at the edges of your vision, having escaped your dreams, now following you into trance states, when you were between awake and asleep. And faster. And faster. Though you were breathless, the chant song filled your ears, the drum beat mimicking your racing heart, until finally, lest you fall over into the fire, you stopped, threw your drumstick hand into the air, and shouted the last word at the top of your voice. Something appeared in your hands, forcing you to drop the drum and stick. You flung it high into the air. Both Loki and Thor cried out in surprise.

You felt the mark on your hand spark into life, runes searing up your arm, neck, and face. The power buzzed through you, like a swarm of bees in your blood, and for the first time, you could make out words in the thrum of magic. You finally knew what it wanted from you.

You were meant to break the lock. Learn us Learn us Learn us.

“Show me.” you commanded. And then the universe opened up before you.

#lasabrjotr #loki x reader #loki (marvel)

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valkyriesryde · 4 years

Text

I Trust You

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: Steve doesn’t trust many people. Lest of all you. At least that’s the message you’ve gotten from him, it might not be the message he’s trying to give you.

Warnings: NSFW CONTENT 18+ ONLY PLZ, swearing (Let Steve Rogers Swear 2020), slight nod to some violence and a little bit of angst if you squint but mainly fluff

Word Count: 4000ish

A/N: Yo so I don’t like writing smut but I TRIED it’s not overly graphic if at all and it’s not been beta read but FUCK IT shout out to @flowerymoonlight @cleocc and @captain-kelli for telling to fix the drabble lmao the first part in italics is the drabble I did a wee while ago, this is a continuation from what happens next.

Masterlist

~~~

Steve doesn’t trust easily. It could be argued he only trusts a total of five people fully, Bucky, Sam, Natasha, Wanda, and Tony (and even that can be argued against). Not even Fury makes the list. Everyone knows who his go to’s are as well. It’s not some top-secret thing that nobody knows. Everybody knows if Steve doesn’t trust someone. Heck, everyone knows when he just doesn’t like someone.

You’re not quite sure where you stand, surely somewhere in the middle. Sometimes he acts like you’re on team alpha. Other times he acts like nothing he does concerns you. He doesn’t take your suggestions or opinions in meetings unless one of his top five agrees with you. You’re pretty sure he just thinks you’re a child in way over your head at this point.

Until you’re stuck together. On a mission. In a very creepy forest. In the dead of night. With no comms or cell service.

He doesn’t say it’s your fault but you’re positive he’s thinking it. Steve hasn’t said anything for a good half hour as you’re trudging through the leaves and mud watching the stars to keep track of your location.

“You’re going the wrong way,” your voice is quiet and you don’t really want to tell him off but he’s going in literally the opposite direction of where you should be going. He spins around and looks at you as if he’s about to tell you off as you just point halfheartedly in the right direction. “You’re going northeast...we need to be going southwest.”

“How do you know that?” He still doesn’t move and he’s trying to get the GPS working but that thing broke about two hours ago when a flipping BULLET hit it. Of course, once again, he doesn’t trust you.

“Stars provide you with more than just something pretty to look at,” you’re looking up at the sky again, double-checking that you’re right...that’d be awkward, but you are.

“How do you-”

“Because I fucking do goddammit Steve,” you start walking in the right direction and Steve follows a few steps behind. “I grew up around sailors, I was fascinated with astronomy and stars when I was a kid. It was how they supported that interest, the thing we had in common. Want me to prove it to you? I doubt my word is enough for you to trust me.” Your words hurt him, it was obvious you were getting out the frustration that had been building up for some time and Steve had never noticed. How could he have never noticed?

“I trust you,” he mumbles it out behind you but you’re too many steps ahead of him now to hear. Steve reaches out and pulls you to a stop by your arm, you face him waiting to know what’s so important because ten minutes ago it was vitally important you got to the safe house before midnight and now you’ve stopped? “I trust you.”

“No, you don’t, not fully. It’s okay I understand, not many people have shown you that you can trust them and so many of the ones who did have broken the trust you gave them.” You shrug your shoulders and Steve’s grip on your wrist tightens as he swallows.

“I’m sorry if I made it seem that I don’t. I didn’t mean to, I just - I trust you, of co-”

“Don’t Steve, let’s just get to the safe house.” You turn away and yank your arm from his grip. The rest of the trip Steve follows closely behind you as you guide him to safety. He realizes in his attempt to not show his favour towards you he’d done the complete opposite. Now you don’t trust him.

~~~

"How long did Tony say they'd be?" Your jacket was slung over the couch as you sat down and curled up on the end of it. Steve sat at the other end, finally able to use his phone to call for an extraction.

"Nat is on her way. Two hours he said." He mumbled out as he twirled the phone in his fingers.

You nodded and hummed before turning to your phone. Great. Two hours in awkward silence with Steve awesomeeeeeee.

An hour in and you've moved around had food and are both settled back on the couch. Steve's head is thrown back and his eyes closed. He's trying to figure out where he fucked up and he's locked it down to taking Sam's advice about playing hard to get and that time he froze up and walked away when you suggested a night out three weeks ago.

His eyes open at the sound of tires pulling up to the cabin and he looks at you with your eyes staring at the door already.

"Tony said two hours right?" You both move slowly from the couch and gather your things, weapons back in their holders, jackets back on.

"He did."

"So who's that?"

"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say they're not welcome guests." Steve holds the shield in front of him and pushes you towards the stairs. "Two points of entrance right?" You nod. "Go up the stairs." He stands at the base of the stairs with you halfway up.

"You're coming with me right?" You ask but Steve doesn't move from his spot.

"I'll be there in a second."

"Steve get up the stairs." You pull at the straps of his suit and he reluctantly allows you until the front door bursts open and shots are being fired in your direction.

Steve holds his shield up to protect both of you as you run further the stairs, down the hall and into the bedroom.

"How'd they find us?"

"I think that's a question for later. Right now we need to get out of here," he peers around the corner as you're both pressed against the wall and see someone climbing up the side of the building through a window. "These guys don't quit."

"I might have a plan…" you pull the gun from his holster and Steve's eyes widen. Rolling across the floor you crouch below a window and look towards the man climbing, "when I move you jump out that window into the tree okay?"

"And what are you going to do?" He looks towards the open window across from him and back to you.

"Ready?"

"No!" But he's too late and you jump up and shoot down the assailant climbing up the side of the building. Steve moves as quickly as you do and leaps out the window and into the adjacent tree.

You follow as soon as you can, leaping through the air you almost miss the branch but Steve reaches out and catches your arm and pulls you up. "You good?"

"Fine. Thank you.”

“We need to keep moving." You looked at Steve who looked out in the opposite direction of the cabin, he stood from his perch, peered down and then back to you before you grabbed his arm.

“We have to stay in the trees…”

“The trees? You want to jump between the trees?”

“...yes”

~~~

“I’m genuinely curious how you knew hiding in the trees would work…” Steve was hesitant in his query but he had to know. He never knew you had such survival skills he wanted to know where they came from.

The two of you had moved up the mountain as according to Steve “Nat will always go high.”

“Are you saying she always has the high ground?” you replied with a smirk and he groaned at your Star Wars reference. By now you had lost the assholes that were following you but still sat perched in the trees, just in case...and also so Natasha could see you.

“Have you read The Hunger Games yet?”

“I watched the movie a couple months ago actually,” he gave you a small smile as you twirled your fingers through the leaves. God, you were so cute.

“Most kids got really into archery when it came out,”

“But not you?” he interrupted. You shook your head and clicked your tongue at him.

“Do you remember the character Rue? She hid in the trees to survive. I don’t know why but I got really into survival techniques after reading the books.”

“Even the painting yourself one,” Steve laughed slightly until he saw your smile drop a little at his laughter. She’s not fond of you he reminded himself.

“Yupp, it won me capture the flag in the academy,” you told him, quite proud of yourself for that one. The humming of the jet passes over you as it covers the sun for a moment and moves past the pair of you.

“That’ll be Nat,” Steve says before jumping down like you’re not 10ft up. “You coming?” He looks up at you but you’re shaking your head, there’s no way you’re jumping. You’re not going to break a leg after getting this far. You’d much rather climb. “Darling you better hurry, it’s much easier to jump.”

“I will NOT be jumping thank you very much, Steve.” Steve shakes his head, he lets out a chuckle and watches you try and climb further but your foot is beginning to slip.

“I’ll catch you!”

“I’m sorry? You’ll catch me?!”

“Yea,” he’s beaming now because good god you’re so CUTE. His arms are held out for you, he’ll catch you. “I promise.”

You hold onto to trunk for dear life and take three deep breaths before nodding your head “alright okay! You promise?”

“I promise! Trust me,” trust me. She really does not trust him. Was he really that cruel to her?

You nod again and jump from the tree into Steve’s arms. He catches you with grace and lowers you so your feet touch the ground, his arms still holding you tight. “I told you I’d catch you.”

His breath was hot on your face. You looked up at him, your mouth agape and he licked his lips.

“You did,” you nod and your eyes watch his lips open and close. Steve took a gulp, he’d never been this close to you before. Sure he’d dreamt about it, not exactly in this scenario, his dreams usually took place indoors and with much fewer layers, oh no, now he was blushing. “We should maybe go and find Natasha?” Your hands on his chest and as much as you like being in his arms you had to leave quick to get to the jet on time. Steve nods his head but makes no point to loosen his arms from around your waist.

“Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting,” he whispers, his fingers spread across your back as you shake your head back at him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mhmm?” He gulps again, his hands slowly move up your back and you feel his fingers dig into your shoulder blades slightly. All Steve can hear is his heart in his ears, he’s not totally sure what he wants to ask you. Do you trust me yet? Do you know I love you? Can I kiss you?

“Steve? Y/N? You there?” Natasha’s voice rang out through the comms in your ears and the two of you jumped away from each other.

“Send your location Romanoff. We’re not far away,” he replied avoiding your eye and taking off towards the jet with you hot on his tail.

~~~

“So a good trip then?” Natasha pursed her lips and wiggled her eyebrows at Steve. She’d kept quiet the whole way, kept an eye on the awkward glances between you. You jump out of your seat and try to get out of the jet as soon as it lands as Steve takes as much time as possible.

“You’re all shit at advice you know that?” he says slinging his bag over his shoulder and walking through the garage with her.

“What? You didn’t fuck? Damn I had money on that,” Natasha continues to tease him relentlessly, Bucky joins in as soon as he can, as well as Sam and Clint.

“Did you stare longingly into her eyes?”

“Tell her how much you love her?”

“Definitely why you asked Tony to give ya two hours, you little punk! You just wanted to sleep with her.”

“WOULD YOU ALL SHUT UP! I HAVE HAD A LONG FUCKING DAY AND I DON’T NEED YOU ALL UP MY ASS RIGHT NOW!” Steve storms off down the hall leaving the group open mouthed with Bucky running after him.

“Hey come on Steve what the hell happened? You know we’re just teasing,” Bucky leans against the wall as Steve paces across the hall.

“Look a lot happened but the main thing is YOU’RE ALL WRONG!” Steve’s hands are dragged through his hair which is in shambles now.

“Wrong about what?” Bucky catches movement at the end of the hall but Steve is too busy pacing to realise anyone else is around, he’s too caught up in what you’d said.

“She doesn’t like me like that okay?! She doesn’t even trust me! I’m pretty sure she thinks I hate her for god’s sake! THIS IS ALL YOU AND SAM’S FAULT!” Steve yells at Bucky and leans his head on the wall. “I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought by not giving her attention it wouldn’t make it obvious!”

“Make what obvious?” Bucky asks, staring directly at the end of the hall where you stand ready to speak but his finger over his lips shush you.

“What do you make what obvious?” Steve throws up his arms and he steps back from the wall. “That I have the biggest fucking crush on Y/N?! That I’m practically in love with her? God, I’ve been such an idiot pretending not to pay attention to her so she doesn’t see that ALL I WANT TO DO IS PAY ATTENTION TO HER!” Bucky claps his hands together and starts walking back away from Steve sending him a finger gun.

“Glad you finally said that out loud man. Proud of you. Finally told her how you feel,” he rushes out before running out before Steve can register what he’s said.

“Finally what?!” Steve’s head whips around but there’s no one to be seen. He smacks his forehead and makes a beeline for your room to explain. “I swear I’ll kill him” he mumbles knocking on the door.

“Steve?” the door opens slowly but wide as you invite him in and he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“Um...uh I just wanted to see if you were..you know...okay after today’s mission?” He rubs the back of his neck while you close the door and lean against it.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Yea yea I’m good,” he’s nodding his head, trying to be cool and calm while in his head he’s screaming. As calm as he thinks he looks his hair is still a mess, the straps of his suit undone and hanging off his chest and back. His eyes are wide, his pupils dilated. Is he having a panic attack? BE CALM.

“That’s good.” You swing your arms and walk towards him, straight to the point. Just ask him straight out. Just DO IT. I mean it’s not like you ever didn’t like him. It’s not like he’s not a hunk. It’s not like he’s not a caring, passionate and incredible man. It’s not like you haven’t pictured what it would be like to at least be his friend...or more. Now he’s in your room. He’s standing there looking nervous and you just want to hug him. “Was there anything else?”

Steve held his breath as you walked past him and sat at the end of your bed. He pushes his palms into his eyes and spins around, joining you on the bed.

“It’s okay Steve, I think it kind of makes sense to me now,” you watch him in the corner of your eye. Steve shifts in his seat, his cheeks are tinted pink and he looks embarrassed and even more nervous than before.

“I really am sorry for how I’ve treated you.”

“I know,” you pull your knee onto the bed and turn your body to face him. It brushes against his thigh as you give him a smirk. “It’s because you suck at talking to women you find attractive,” you say matter of factly.

Steve chuckles and nods his head, “I can’t deny that.” You lean in further to him, he’s warm, he’s inviting.

“I won’t bite Steve...not unless you ask me to.” Testing the waters, see what his reaction is. Steve’s breath catches in his throat but quickly, he composes himself, is this a sign you feel something for him too?

“I’m not opposed to biting,” he bites his bottom lip and looks at you, leaning in closer as well. “Kind of like the idea of you biting me,” he whispers and you feel his breath on your lips, your hand cups his jaw gently.

“Just say the word Cap,” your lips brush over his as you speak and his hand mirrors yours on your own jaw. His lips are soft when he presses into you and kisses you. His hands move to your waist, your lower back and then he’s pulling at your thigh and onto his lap for you to straddle him. You let out a gasp as he grips your thighs and Steve’s all of a sudden feeling much more confident than he was a couple minutes ago when he bites your lip and you let out a moan.

Flipping you onto the bed Steve situates himself so he has one thigh between your legs, his thigh slowly putting more and more pressure against you until your hips lift up to meet it halfway and he moves his lips to your neck as you whimper his name. His hands are frantic as they try and touch every inch of you, pushing your shit up to your waist, moving up your arms and holding your hands above your head.

He pauses just below your jaw, his movements halted and his body stiffens when the events of the past 24 hours cross his mind. Steve sighs and buries his head into your neck. He feels your hands slip from his fingers but he can’t bring it in himself to look you in the eye.

“Steve?” He’s holding his weight off of you with his arms as you brush your fingers through his hair to try and get him to look at you. But Steve’s eyes are screwed shut even when you coax him enough to rest his forehead against yours.

You run your fingers over his cheek, bring your leg up so your foot brushes against his knee. Steve takes it all in, every movement you make against him. Is it real? He asks himself. I thought she hated me? She didn’t trust me...but then…

“You need to get out of your head pretty boy. Tell me what’s going on? Did I do something?” His eyes dart open when he hears your whispers and he thinks maybe you can read minds for a second. You bring him closer and kiss him softly but Steve breaks it quickly.

“Do you trust me?” He mutters out and his voice is laced with insecurity. You notice it immediately because it’s exactly the same feeling you used to get with him. The umming and ahhing of mixed signals and emotions.

The uncertainty in his eyes pleads you for the truth but words aren’t enough anymore. Words have gotten you nowhere special with Steve. So you kiss him. Softly but fully. You nip at his bottom and Steve tries to bite back a whimper but your name leaves him like a prayer.

“Please,” he pleads as he kisses down over your collarbone and pulls your shirt over your head before continuing down. “I need to hear you, sweetheart.”

“You caught me,” you whisper, hands in his hair, “of course I trust you.” he nips at your hip just to hear you moan and he’s not disappointed when his name slips out. That’s all he needs to hear.

Clothes are carefully pulled off. Each layer of his suit gently pulled from him, bruises still evident from earlier. He tries not to think about the fact that he hasn’t showered since getting back compared to you in your pajamas, well, were in your pajamas and smelling like your body wash which he loves so much.

Steve pulls you onto him, he sits you on his lap and takes a moment to admire how powerful and beautiful you look above him. Muttering it under his breath as he smiles up at you, you can’t help but feel shy hiding your face slightly against your shoulder, your hands pressed to his chest as you grind against him to try and distract him. Your plan works as he grips your thighs and growls, pulling you down so you’re chest to chest.

“You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he whispers in your hair, hands moving up your back and back down to your hips. Sneaky his fingers to brush against your core you bite his shoulder as he presses down and Steve positions himself, needing you now before he chickens out again. “Darling-”

“Please, Steve.”

Slowly you lower yourself onto him, Steve moans your name as you sit up and start to move, filling yourself with him. Movements are slow as Steve sits up and holds you flush against him. They’re calculated as he bites into the crook of your neck, his fingertips digging into your waist.

Pants fill the room, both lost in each other to say anything further that “oh” and “yes”. When he flips you over onto your back and pulls your legs to wrap around his waist you can’t help but moan out his name and Steve almost loses himself right then and there, if it weren’t for you begging for more he would have.

He moans out your name and you feel like you’re on fire with the way feels inside you, around you, on top of you. Steve makes sure to touch every part of you that he can as if he’s trying to memorize what you feel like under his fingers because that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.

He locks his arms around you, his head buried in your neck and his leg pressing up to separate yours just that little bit further when you start to feel the familiar feeling of butterflies in your stomach. Steve can feel you clench around him and he pushes deeper into you, his movements becoming frantic and you pull at his hair and whimper under him. His hands grabbing at you rapidly as he pushes you over your edge, calling his name into the room and moaning it in his ear. He follows shortly after, “darling I - oh god I -” and your name sounds like a melody in your ear when he lets loose before peppering your shoulder in kisses and slowly pulling himself out as both your breathing relaxes.

~~~

“Steve?” you’re curled up facing each other, his eyes are closed and he’s on the cusp of sleep as he hums back at you. Your legs are tangled together and fingers playing with each other as he lazily opens his eyes. “Never go to Sam or Bucky for girl advice again,” you say with a small smile and he can’t help but laugh, pulling you closer to him.

“I definitely won’t be doing that,” he smiles back at you before pecking your lips quickly.

“Now what?” You stare straight at his chest, Steve draws circles on your back as you trace your finger down the middle of his chest.

“Will you go on a date with me?” he blurts it out as soon as you finish your sentence. He’s wanted to ask you for how many months now, he’s almost kicking himself for going about it in such a roundabout way but at least he’s made it. You laugh and nod into him and he breathes out a sigh of relief, one he didn’t realise he was holding as he brings you in closer and kisses your hairline. “Thank god for that.”

~~~

THANK YOU FOR READING AND I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT!

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