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4ngel-inc · 4 months

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⁎⁺˳✧༚ 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐖/ 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌 ᡴꪫ

notes — i'm not much into valentine's day but i had to make this (probably v cliche, lol) post for my valentine's-loving babies !! also this is my first time writing for jouno, tecchou+ like 3 others so bear w / me pls :')) i just wanted to write something special for everyone's favs !!

warnings — fluff, suggestive, some dirty talk.

𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐖𝐀 has never spent valentine's day with anyone, he isn't even aware of the holiday until you ask him to pick up your favorite snack on the way home from work one night and he notices there's a pink and red theme to the aisles—a quick google search tells him it's a "love" holiday, coming up quite soon actually, so he asks you what you'd like to do for it. you insist on brushing it off, saying it's a stupid holiday and a waste of money, but money certainly isn't an issue for him, and he was actually finding himself getting quite excited at the idea of doing something romantic for you, so he pulls through on the day of anyways and you come home to an apartment full of white roses. "umm, aku? what's this?" "hm?" he's sitting on the couch, surrounded by literally hundreds of roses as if it's just another tuesday, his head barely peeking over them, "oh, i thought you'd like them, is it alright? i can throw them away. . ." he nervously moves to grab some of the roses before you stop him, "no- no! i love them, actually." your voice softens, fingers tracing over one of the petals, "no one's ever done anything like this for me." he smiles at that, "so, you're pleased?" you pull him in for a kiss by his shirt lapel, and he blushes, "actually, i have little present for you, as well, why don't you relax on the couch and i'll show you?" as soon as your delicate fingers pop open the button of his pants, pulling them down around his ankles, aku realizes he definitely made the right choice in color—white roses symbolize purity, and there's nothing more pure than his love for you.

𝐃𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐈 has gone on plenty of dates, had plenty of casual relationships—but being in a serious one makes him realize it's a privilege to make someone else happy, and he now jumps at the chance whenever he can. he's always been a romantic, but he goes all out on holidays, relishing the excuse to buy you pretty things and dote on you even more than usual. he's so silly, he always frowns when he realizes you aren't surprised he got you something—even though he always spoils you on holidays. "aww, you got me something, too? you didn't have to, princess, i thought we weren't celebrating this year!" he whines upon seeing the little gift bag hooked under your arm when you walk into your apartment, meanwhile there's a frilly pink apron tied around his waist, a spatula raised in his hand that's dripping red cake batter. "uh, you're one to talk, 'samu?" he looks around, "hm? this? i just wanted to do something nice for you, angel- i only decided this morning!" dazai knew he'd break the promise you two made to not celebrate, he was just excited to surprise you! but now you've gone and bought him a present too, and you don't even look surprised, he's so sad! "so, you're telling me the balloons, candy, roses, heart-shaped cake . . . weren't pre-planned?" you pull him in for a kiss, "it does smell good, though." he whines again, bringing a hand to his forehead for dramatic effect, "you know i'd never betray you like that, my darling angel! but is it really wrong to want to spoil my favorite person?" he's fake crying now, and you pepper kisses on his face until he stops, "mwah, no, not at all, 'samu- i can't wait to show you what i got for you!"

𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐔𝐘𝐀 defaults to buying you expensive things, like flowers and jewelry—it's your first valentine's day together, and he wants nothing more than to make you feel special, to convey how much light you've brought into his life. all throughout the day, he's surprising you with gifts. you wake up to a shiny diamond necklace hidden under your pillow, "y'like it, doll? almost as pretty as you, my sweet girl." you exit the bathroom after brushing your teeth to a bouquet of red roses on your vanity table. he makes you dinner (ranked 6 out of 10 but he tried so hard), breaks out an expensive bottle of red wine to have with dessert (your favorite gourmet chocolate cake that he practically tries to hand feed to you), he rubs your feet, gives you kisses all throughout the day. after a while, you practically have to push him off of you, "chu, don't you think this is all a little, much?" he looks confused at that, "huh? i just wanted to make you feel special, you don't like it?" you frown before taking his hand, "it's just, i'd rather spend time with you just talking, or cuddling. . . i want to hear about your week and catch up like we always do. i don't need all the bells and whistles, i like our normal life." something clicks in his mind, and chuuya thinks he finally gets the whole valentine's day thing—it's a chance to spend time with the person he loves most in the world, it isn't about the material things. however, that doesn't stop you two from enjoying the countless boxes of chocolates he bought you that night, your feet kicked up on the coffee table as you two laugh and rant about work and whatever else comes to mind—it's the perfect way to end the night.

𝐅𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐙𝐀𝐖𝐀 isn't really into the frills or outward displays of affection that often come with valentine's day—he's a very private person, so he prefers something intimate just between you two. even though you assure him he doesn't have to do anything special, he finds a reason to celebrate anyways—because, as he puts it, "each day with you is a blessing, i'll take any opportunity to celebrate that, my love." he decides to take you on a walk that night as the sun is setting, and it's truly perfect the way you two just stroll along in a peaceful silence, eventually revisiting the place he'd first told you he loved you. "do you remember this place, dear?" "of course, yukichi, how could i forget?" you turn to him with tears in your eyes, and he smiles, pulling you close as he wraps his arms around you and buries his face in your hair—it's the first physical display of affection he's ever shown in public, but he's so overwhelmed by his emotions at that moment, he simply can't bear to not have his hands on you. "every day since then has been so wonderful, i'm lucky to wander through this journey of life with you." fukuzawa knows life with him isn't always easy, he's often busy, and you've told him sometimes you feel a little left out from that part of his life, but he tries his best to reassure you in moments like this—"i apologize for being distant at times, for being consumed with work, but please understand, i could never express how much you've changed my life for the better." fukuzawa isn't always the best with words, but there are times when his feelings just flow from his heart naturally, and almost always, those times are when he's with you.

𝐅𝐘𝐎𝐃𝐎𝐑 has so much on his mind, he forgets about valentine's day completely—it just isn't even on his radar. he doesn't go out in public much, so naturally, he doesn't have anything to remind him, otherwise he would've done something for you, really! fyodor doesn't understand the significance of such holidays, or why people would celebrate something trivial and made-up, but he always tries to make you feel special, nonetheless. he knows holidays mean a lot to you, and though he can be distant, he truly cares about your happiness. however, this year, he simply had other things to focus on, and it slipped his mind entirely. he's usually quiet when working, and you didn't expect him to take the whole day off for you, but you're hurt when he hardly steps away from his desk at all that day, only visiting the kitchen to fetch his tea a few times and place a quick kiss to your forehead, "i'll be done soon, is that alright, my love?" "um, sure," you realize as the day goes on he isn't going to celebrate with you, so you decide to go out and have a nice dinner for yourself—a solo date. when you return, he looks a little confused, "where did you go, darling? i wanted to spend time together before bed." you roll your eyes, "it's valentine's, fyo, i took myself out to dinner." you feel bad for the attitude, but you can't deny you feel forgotten. his eyes widen before quickly softening again, "come here, please?" he kisses you, stroking your hair afterward as he gazes into your eyes apologetically, "it is my fault, i was focused on other things. but we can still make the night special, yes? let's go out, you look so beautiful, my one and only."

𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐔 values honesty, so he counts on you to tell him what you want, rather than guessing. he doesn't have time for games, and one thing he loves about you is how direct you are. however, the first year you're together, you make the unfortunate mistake of brushing it off when he asks you about valentine's day—you'd told him it was a stupid holiday, that you didn't want anything, but you were only being polite, you didn't want him to think he had to get you something, but you'd been eyeing the balloons and boxes of chocolates wrapped up with pretty velvet bows. you really wanted tecchou to do something for you, even if it was just something little, but when the day comes, hours go by and nothing happens. you wait all day for him to pull out a bouquet of roses or a box of chocolates, pretending that he'd forgotten just to trick you, but he never does. when he kisses you that night and falls asleep only minutes later, you slip quietly out of bed, sneaking out to the couch and burying your head in your hands—you feel lonely and unwanted, and you aren't even sure why. it's a stupid holiday, but you at least wanted something. "babe?" tecchou sounds sleepy and confused as he flicks the light on, "why are you out here?" "ah! sorry-" you quickly wipe the tears from your eyes, "it's nothing, i'm just being silly." he comes closer, sitting next to you and stroking your hair, "what is it? tell me, please." his eyes show nothing but kindness, and you exhale. "i was just hoping you'd do something for me for valentine's day, i know it's stupid, i told you i didn't want anything, it's just-" he interrupts you, "no- no, i should've known, it's my fault." it isn't, but you appreciate his apology—he's always been so patient with you. "tomorrow, babe, i'll make it up to you, k?" you smile at that, and he kisses you. "come back to bed, i miss you."

𝐉𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐎 was intent on buying you something expensive, but you'd insisted you didn't want that—after everything he does for you, the way he protects you and cares for you, you wanted to be the one to show him how valuable he is. you decide to stay in and make him a fancy dinner, instead of wasting money on a crowded restaurant where you'd probably get slow service anyways. you know everything jouno loves to eat, and you've worked so hard to perfect the recipes over the past few weeks, but after trying everything at least a few times, nothing is turning out right. "my love," he slides a hand around your waist, kissing your neck, "hmm, why don't we just order in? we're running out of time, i wanted to spend the night with you." you sigh, "ugh, 'm sorry, babe, i guess i'm not a good cook, after all. nothing is coming out right." he smiles, and you can't understand why he would be happy about this, but you soon understand when he places a hand on your chest, "i know you're anxious, dear, your heart is telling me so, but you don't need to do all of this for me, i just want you-" his last word is punctuated by a hand gently squeezing your hip. you know him well, and you can feel the way his body calls to you, "ha- is that all you want for valentine's day, babe?" he moves his hand further down, slender fingers toying with the waistband of your jeans. he nods before placing a gentle kiss on your skin, "let's order in, love- i'm sure we can make something happen before the pizza guy gets here, yeah?" you laugh and push him away playfully, "jouno! stop it, you're so silly."

𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐌𝐀 is so sad when you walk into his office with a little heart-printed gift bag tucked under your arm. "huh? o-oh," he practically jumps from his desk and rushes over to you, "u-um, i was gonna get you something, sweetheart, i just haven't had time yet, i thought- m-maybe i'd give it to you tonight at dinner? it'll be bigger than that one, too, much bigger!" he's frantic, and you look a little confused, though he doesn't understand why. "wait, what?" sigma hates the feeling settling in his stomach, he hates the thought of losing you—it's unbearable, even. "it's just-" he responds, "someone gave you that present . . i'm a little disappointed, i wanted to give you something, but now you've already received a gift." his voice lowers in volume, gaze dropping to his hands, "i should've given you something sooner, i'm truly sorry." you're probably going to break up with him since he utterly failed at his first valentine's day with you, someone else has gone and swept you off your feet before he could! he braces himself for the words he's always dreaded most, the moment you tell him you're no longer interested in a relationship with him, but they never come. "babe, no-" your thumb brushes his cheek, soothing the burning heat on them, "i got this for you! for our first holiday together." your smile is so bright as you hand him the bag, but sigma can't even think of opening it as he places it on his desk wordlessly, grabbing your face and pulling you into a deep, messy kiss, "i-i thought i'd lost you, you're still mine?" you nod, wrapping your arms around his neck as his hands roam your body now, "i'm yours, sigma, and 'm so lucky that you're mine."

𝐀𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈 pulls out all the stops—he does all of the cliché stuff he's seen in romance movies, plus asks a few of the ADA members what he should do for you. you're the first person he's ever dated—the first person he's even opened up to since starting his new life away from the orphanage, and he just wants everything to be absolutely perfect for you. after receiving so much advice from dazai, yosano, and even ranpo, he decides he can't make up his mind—so he does a little of everything! he buys you flowers, tons of chocolates, balloons, stuffed animals (one of them so big he can barely fit it through the door of your apartment), and even tries to make you dinner. he burns the steaks and the "baked" potatoes come out of the oven still raw, but even so—the fact he tried so hard makes you melt into a puddle, though you're not sure where you're going to put all of this. "atsushi?! this is all for me?" you look bewildered, and he scratches the back of his head, "ah- is it that bad? i wasn't sure what to do, so i kiiiinda went a little overboard. maybe i missed the mark, though." you stop him before he can continue, "no! i love it, really. i just wasn't expecting. . so much." he's starting to feel a little self-conscious, but your lips on his soothe his doubts. "i really love it, babe. you didn't have to do all of this. i would've been happy just to fall asleep next to you. how was your day?" you brush your fingers against his cheek, and he relaxes a little, "ugh- stressful, honestly. i could hardly get that one through the door," he points to the massive stuffed bear towering over you two, and you both laugh.

𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐏𝐎 loves candy and sweets, so naturally, he loves valentine's day. you were expecting him to completely ignore your first valentine's day together, saying something like, "meh- i can eat chocolate any time i want, why's it have to be out of a heart-shaped box today?" however, he surprises you with an apartment full of sweets and baked goods on the day of. "ta da!" he pops up from behind the kitchen island when you stroll out of your bedroom that morning, rubbing your eyes as you realize what's before you. "ranpo? what's all this?" there are trays of pink, red, and white cookies and candy and pastries laid out on the marble countertops. "huh?" he pouts, "did you actually forget it's valentine's day today?" he laughs a little, "ah- it's no problem. i've got us covered!" as the day goes on, you start to wonder if ranpo is celebrating your love today, or just celebrating for himself. "uh- honey?" "yeah?" he looks away from the bowl of popcorn in front of him to glance over at you, and you smile a little—though you were hoping for a little more affection today, you can't deny how handsome he looks when he's enjoying one of his favorite treats. "hmm- nothing, d'you like the movie so far?" "eh- it's a little boring, i already figured out who the villain is, of course." you giggle, "of course, should we watch something else then?" he grabs the remote and flicks the tv off, putting the bowl down and turning to you, "actually, i wanted to tell you something." you aren't sure what to expect, but he continues before your mind wanders too far. "you know i'm not good at things like this, but. . ." he takes your hands in his, "i've very grateful to spend today with you, i hope it's made you happy as well."

𝐍𝐈𝐊𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐈 never thought he'd feel enlightened from a relationship, rather than feeling tied down by it. as someone who values nothing more than freedom, he was quite wary of getting into a relationship—most he'd seen didn't seem all that fulfilling at all, nothing but arguments and tears and maybe a few sporadic moments of happiness here and there. however, you quickly teach him that that isn't the case at all—we're designed to love, and he gets that now, as his arms are wrapped tightly around you, the two of you lying on a blanket on the soft grass and looking up at the twinkling stars. "are you sure this is all you want to do today, my dear? it's valentine's day, after all." "mhmm," you snuggle into him, "this is where we had our f-" he cuts you off, "our first date, i remember it well, though it was daytime then." you laugh, "yes, it was summer and hot as hell—and you had me running all around this park trying to figure out your stupid scavenger hunt, i almost died!" he pouts at that, "aww, you never did figure out what was waiting for you at the end." you glance at him, finally tearing your eyes away from the beautiful night sky above you, "i love you, nikolai." he looks a little taken aback at the change in subject, but there's nothing he'd rather hear more than that coming from your lips. he sits up, and tugs on your arm for you to follow. you sit facing each other with your legs crossed, your face cradled in his hands, "i love you, too, my shining star. you're my love, my angel, my everything. thank you for showing me that love can be freeing." you start to cry, but he wipes your tears away quickly before jumping to his feet, "now then! shall we finish that scavenger hunt? i'm sure your prize is still out here somewhere!"

#— love notes: [bsd] ୧ ‧₊#bsd x reader #dazai x reader #chuuya x reader #fyodor x reader #atsushi x reader #ranpo x reader #tecchou x reader #akutagawa x reader #fukuzawa x reader #nikolai x reader #jouno x reader #sigma x reader #bsd fluff #bsd x you #bsd x y/n #bsd headcanons

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elliesbelle · 9 months

Note

hiii love idk if you’re taking requests but if you are, would you be able to do something elliexreader based off of the song wish you were sober or heather by conan gray <3

while i die

chapter 1

pairing: best friend!ellie x reader

synopsis: only if ellie knew how much you loved her. but she likes someone better.

content warnings: modern au, cursing, angst, unrequited love, no comfort

word count: 4.3k

chapters: 1) while i die, 2) rained on with you, 3) eviscerated

series masterlist

my masterlist

i have a ko-fi if you like my work so much that you feel compelled to tip me ♡︎

the heartbreak trilogy spotify playlist

based on the conan gray song "heather"

a lot of y’all have asked for a part 2 to this one-shot, so i made a promise that if y’all get my friend’s band “equal creatures” to 350 followers on spotify, you will get a part 2 ♥︎

You roll over in bed towards your nightstand after a restless night of sleep. The first thing you reach for is your phone, which had been blaring for a while to wake you for work. You hit the seductive “snooze” button, not having any actual intentions to fall back asleep but knowing that you’ll stay lying in bed for two more hours if you’re not reminded to get up every eight minutes a few times.

Unlocking your phone, you check your messages first. Two texts: one from your best friend Beth and another from your close coworker Lina. As you read their respective messages, you feel a black hole beginning to open up in your stomach.

She still hasn’t texted me back…

After responding blandly to your friends, you reluctantly open up Instagram and scan the stories of the people you follow. You ignore all that of your friends and instead tap on the one with the picture of a face you’ve memorized like the back of your hand. When it opens, your stomach lurches and your eyes go glassy.

The first story was posted the night before and is of a tattooed hand holding a bouquet of flowers with a caption that reads, “her faves.” You notice that the flowers are pink camellias. Her new girlfriend’s favourite flowers. Your favourite flowers.

The next story was that of two hands woven together with a caption that read, “she loved the flowers” right next to them with several heart emojis. One of the interlaced hands was adorned with several silver rings, one of which you recognized very well. You were the one who picked it out and gifted it to her.

“Dude, what! This looks fucking amazing!” Ellie cried out.

In her hands, she held a small, velvet blue box with a silver ribbon falling around it, unwrapped. Inside the box, safely cushioned, was a shiny, silver ring.

“Wait, wait, wait,” You said, excitedly. “Check this out.”

You picked the ring up from the box, lifting it up to her eye level. Delicately, you twisted what looked like a tiny hinge on the side to reveal that the ring actually contained multiple bands. The outer, exposed brim was decorated with ornate spirals. The next one had Latin engravings that you vaguely recognized as astronomical terms. The innermost hoops were inscribed with the symbols of the Western zodiac. You twisted the hinge back the other way to once more conceal the inner bands and give it the appearance of a singular ring again.

“Holy fucking shit!” Ellie cussed loudly, dropping the box to clutch at your hands still holding the ring. “How the fuck?!”

She snatched the ring out of your fingers, twisting the ring open and closed over and over. You giggled at her childlike enthusiasm.

“So… You like it?” You asked, chuckling.

“Fuck, yeah! Of course I love it!” She exclaimed. “It looks like a fucking armillary sphere!”

“I genuinely have no idea what that is or what that means,” You admitted truthfully. “But as long as it makes you happy—”

“Dude, of course it does!” She said excitedly. “You are the greatest best friend ever. Oh man, I’m never taking this shit off.”

Ellie tried it out on several fingers and found that it fit best on her left ring finger. You desperately pushed away any and all implications of the positioning.

“You really know me so well, man,” She sighed, admiring the ring on her hand. “You didn’t have to get this for me! It’s not even my birthday or anything!”

You shrugged nonchalantly, even if the intentions behind your generosity were anything but nonchalant.

“I just saw it and thought that you might like it.”

“Well, you were wrong because I love it.”

Ellie gave you a huge grin that ignited a wildfire in your stomach.

“Oh! It’s made of sterling silver too, none of that cheap shit. So it won’t leave you with those gross, green stains or anything.”

Ellie looked at you completely dumbfounded.

“I really don’t know what I did to deserve you in my life.”

You tap uneasily to view Ellie’s following story. The fingers holding your phone grow cold and begin to tremble as your eyes warily take in the face of Ellie’s new girlfriend.

She was incredibly beautiful, undeniably so. Her eyes sparkled, mirroring the gentleness of a clear, blue sky on a bright, sunny day. She had the face of an angel, the ones you’d see in Renaissance paintings: pure, gentle, exquisite. The genuine, trustworthy look on her face makes it impossible for any sane person to hate her.

Some part of you still did. But being desperately in love with your best friend meant you weren’t fully sane in the first place.

You realize that she’s wearing a familiar sweater: Ellie’s favourite grey, polyester hoodie. You of all people knew how incredibly attached to that sweater she was, almost like it was a safety blanket. You couldn’t blame her; it was soft, warm, comforting. She took better care of it than she usually did the rest of her clothes. And it always smelled like Ellie.

The caption for this picture was, “someone stole my favourite hoodie.” She’d tagged another Instagram account, sunny-heather, and it took everything in you not to click on it.

Ellie’s girlfriend posed shyly with a bashful smile, throwing up a peace sign. It appeared as if Ellie had caught her mid-giggle. She had a perfect manicure, straight white teeth, dimples on each side of her face. She looked so sweet, nauseatingly so.

She looked so beautiful wearing that sweater.

December had just begun and the weather was finally catching up with the season. After a mostly and uncommonly warm month of November, you hadn’t bothered wrapping up earlier that morning before leaving the house. It was to your detriment when around midday, you were hit with gusts of brisk air that brought goosebumps to your bare, uncovered arms.

Later that afternoon, you and Ellie visited your local Starbucks for both situational and liquid heat. Ellie had taken pity on your shivering form all day and lent you her hoodie, having already been wearing a warm, long-sleeved shirt underneath. You’d initially declined it, but when your body began to reach hypothermic levels, you quickly pulled it over your head and accepted its polyester warmth.

As you got in line to order, Ellie was teasing you for your poor choice of winter attire.

“This is why you check the weather before you leave your house, dummy.”

“It was 62 degrees over the weekend! I didn’t know it was going to be this cold all of a sudden!”

“Dude, it’s already the third of December. You should have expected it to get cold as shit at some point.”

“At some point! But not yet, I’m not ready!”

Ellie playfully rolled her eyes at your sheer stubbornness as the cashier called you forward. You both ordered large hot chocolates, neither of you a huge fan of coffee. You and Ellie played a brief dance of who was going to pay for your drinks. Ellie eventually and quickly won, as she usually did. You conceded and consented to be the one to leave some cash in the tip jar before you both scooted over to the side towards the pick-up counter. You bickered affectionately back and forth until your drinks were eventually placed in front of you.

You visited this particular Starbucks regularly, partly because of its convenience in distance to both your apartment and your job. But mostly, it was larger than a usual café and spacious enough for several quiet, peaceful corners for patrons to occupy. Ellie’s and your favourite spot was a table on the loft-like second floor where you could look down at other customers and make up stories or pass off harmless, though sometimes needless, judgment.

As you carefully sipped your hot chocolate, you and Ellie made your way upstairs to your usual, unoccupied table. You made yourself comfortable, sitting across from her. She rolled up her sleeves instinctively, showing off her arm tattoos, including the one of a moth perched on top of several ferns. Of all her tattoos, that one had always been your favourite.

“So are you planning on wearing my sweater all day or—?” She inquired.

“What do you mean ‘your’ sweater? This is mine now.” You proclaimed.

“Hey!” She protested. “Don’t you dare think of stealing my favourite hoodie!”

“It’s just so comfy!” You giggled. “And it’s so soft and cozy, and you know how much I love polyester.”

“Thief.” Ellie chuckled.

You made a show of burrowing into the hoodie in order to claim your clothed territory. Ellie laughed at your goofiness.

“See, this sweater was made just for me!” You insisted, returning to a regular position.

“I mean, I will admit that it does look better on you than it does on me.”

You blinked.

“Really?” You asked.

“For sure, dude,” Ellie insisted. “I just look like some boring, basic white dude when I wear it. But I don’t know, you kind of pull it off.”

“I pull off a plain, grey sweater?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man! You just look cute in it!”

Your cheeks grew so warm that their heat rivaled that of your hot chocolate.

Before you could properly respond to Ellie’s casual, off-handed compliment, she spoke up once more.

“We should really come here more often.” She said.

“Oh, umm,” You began, still reeling from the moment. “Yeah, we should. We don’t go as often as we did back in high school.”

“Yeah, we really wasted our allowance on so many shitty, dry cake pops.” Ellie recalled. You laughed at the fond memory.

“Why the sudden interest though?” You asked curiously.

“I mean, this used to be our ritual, you know? Getting drinks and just hanging out here for hours.”

“You know, we do that everywhere else already, El.” You smiled, shaking your head.

“Okay, true, true,” Ellie relented. “Buuuut, did you happen to see the barista that took our orders earlier?”

Your eyebrows furrowed before looking down towards the ground floor and scanning the front counter. You weren’t quite sure which one of the several baristas had served you, not having paid much attention when you were putting your orders in.

“Uhh, I guess? I mean, not really.” You admitted. “Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?” Ellie playfully scoffed in surprise. “You didn’t see that she was hot as fuck?”

Your stomach dropped at her words.

“O-oh.” You murmured. “I guess I didn’t notice.”

“Come on, dude, you have eyes! She was gorgeous!”

You gulped as you felt your heart plummet towards the floor.

“Do you think I should ask for her number?” Ellie questioned, completely oblivious to your shift in demeanour as she tried to sneak a peek at the front counter below.

“Oh, umm, sure, I guess so.”

“I mean, I don’t wanna come off as a creep. Plus, she might not even be gay.”

Your fingertips grew colder and colder with each second that passed, despite the way you were grasping your warm cup tightly. You would have been more worried about your drink exploding in your hand if you were much more present in the moment.

“What am I talking about, she works here. Of course she’s gay.” Ellie chuckled at her own joke.

You could barely muster enough of your trembling voice to reply, settling for a seemingly agreeable hum.

“What do you think, dude?” Ellie asked, finally turning back towards you.

You feigned a smile, succeeding only in giving her a weak, partial one.

“Go ahead, El. Why not?”

Ellie’s last Instagram story was what sent a jagged knife through your heart.

It was a video this time: she had her arm wrapped around her girlfriend, who was still wearing her hoodie. Both wearing wide smiles, they were both snickering about something for a moment or two.

Then Ellie planted a kiss on her lips. And again. And again.

As the video ends with their lovey-dovey giggling, your lips let out an involuntary sob. You press your fists onto your eyes in an attempt to stop the tears from falling. Head throbbing and gut nauseated, your body trembles from the waves of anguish crashing down on you.

You stare at the ceiling and consider staying home from work. Nobody would benefit from being around your zombie-like presence. But feeling pathetic about missing work as a consequence to your broken heart, you chastise yourself for the mere thought of it.

You spend a few minutes composing yourself, pushing every emotion to the back of your brain as forcefully as you can. It seems to last for a lifetime, but you’re able to eventually soothe your tears and take several deep breaths.

Forcing your lifeless body out of bed, you begin your pre-work morning routine. The streaks on your cheeks from the unfaithful tears previously falling were scrubbed away when you washed your face. Tremoring fingers prepare your breakfast, which you end up mostly throwing out as a result of a queasy stomach. It feels completely futile to continue your day, but Ellie’s world continues to turn. Why shouldn’t yours?

You’re at work, spacing out as you’d been doing so often recently. Coworkers continue to ask throughout the day if you’re alright, but you merely smile every time and assure them that you’re just tired. That same smile fades once you turn away, a vacant expression taking its place once more.

Before you came to work, you made the resolve not to check your phone every twenty minutes to see if your previously unread texts were responded to. But as each hour passes, fighting the urge becomes more of a struggle.

On your lunch break, you relent and finally check your messages. You only have one unread text from your best friend Beth, checking on you. None from Ellie.

You begin to chew nervously on your lip before switching to your nails when your friend and coworker Lina finds you. She pulls up a chair to sit next to you before tugging your fingers away from your lips.

“I thought you stopped biting your nails,” She says, frowning. “You were doing so well.”

“Sorry, Li-Li,” You reply, gingerly pulling your hand back. “I just—”

“What happened now?” Lina asks knowingly.

“Nothing,” You sigh. “That’s literally it. Nothing. She hasn’t texted me or called me or anything. She hasn’t even read my messages or even seen my Instagram stories.”

“Babe…” Lina says sympathetically.

Your friends have been lovingly chastising you lately for obsessively checking if Ellie had viewed your Instagram or Snapchat stories. You’d unintentionally trained your eyes to scan through your stories’ viewers to spot Ellie’s picture and username. Whenever you wouldn’t spot a picture of the auburn-haired girl among the list, you’d fight the instinctive urge not to break down every time.

“You can’t be doing that anymore,” Lina continues. “You’re driving yourself crazy.”

“What am I supposed to do, Lina?” You ask desperately. “It’s the only thing I get from her nowadays, and it’s barely anything.”

“Exactly, it’s barely anything,” Lina repeats. “I know you love her, but…”

“I know, Li-Li.”

“She’s not even being a good friend right now. You deserve better than that.”

“I really don’t.”

“Stop that. Yes, you do.”

“I just want her, Li.”

“She’s obviously not good for you, honey.”

Your phone buzzes from your alarm alerting you that your break has ended. You stand up from your chair.

“I’ll talk to you later, Li-Li.”

You hadn’t replied to Ellie all day, ignoring her texts asking if you wanted to come over and hang out.

Ever since that day when Ellie asked out the girl from the coffee shop, she’d been spending immense amounts of her free time with her. The rest was spent with you, talking about her. Ellie hadn’t been much of a talker ever since you were both kids, but now she was endlessly babbling to you about her new girlfriend.

You’d learned that her name was Heather Sonnen. She was in her final year of college and was attending a university nearby. She was studying to become a veterinarian and had a golden retriever named Sunny. Her favourite colour is purple. She likes to go hiking and kayaking on the weekends when she’s not working. She was very good at kissing and even better in bed.

Every little detail you learned about her felt like yet another crack on your already broken heart. You spent many sleepless nights bawling alone in your bed, screaming and crying over a pathetic love you could never do anything about.

It felt so sick, so pitiful that a girl who would never kiss you or touch you or love you took up every corner of your mind. You knew you could never be pretty enough, never amount to Ellie’s idea of a dream girl. And this new beautiful, angelic girl she’d fallen for continued to prove that.

You would watch the way Ellie’s eyes lit up any time she spoke about her, the goofy grin on her face every time she said her name. You’d seen Ellie through several other relationships, each one treating your heart like a Hans Moretti box. But this time, her glow was brighter and her smiles were wider. You could tell just how far and how hard she’s fallen.

As you were laying on your bed, your phone buzzed as you received another text from Ellie. You ignored it and closed your eyes, having no desire to hear more about her perfect saint of a girlfriend. After several more minutes passed, your phone began buzzing in succession. You sighed, waited a few moments, and eventually relented to answer it.

“Hey, Els,” You greeted her. “Sorry, I was napping just now.”

“Oh, my bad, dude. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Have you not seen my messages though? I’ve been texting you all day.” Ellie demanded.

“Oh, sorry, I just haven’t really been on my phone today.” You lied.

“Bullshit, man, you’re always on that thing.”

“It’s the truth, Els, I promise.” You lied once more.

After a second or two as Ellie considered your words, she responded.

“Alright, well, I was trying to see if you wanted to hang out today.”

You stopped yourself from audibly sighing.

“Sorry, I can’t today. Got a lot of shit to catch up on and take care of.”

“Come on, dude, blow it off. I haven’t seen you all week.”

“I really can’t, Els, not today.”

You heard Ellie exhale in frustration on the other end of the line.

“What’s been with you lately? We’ve barely hung out this month and you take forever to text or call me back nowadays.”

You began to chew the inside of your cheek.

“I’ve just… been going through a lot lately. That’s all.”

“What, and you can’t tell me about it?”

“N-not really.”

“Why not? I thought we’re best friends. And don’t say that Beth is your best friend; I 100% had you first.”

“We are, we are, but—“

“If something’s going on with you, I seriously wanna know.”

“It’s nothing important or specific. Just been struggling mentally and all. Not been having the best time.”

A moment or two passed where you held your 1breath, hoping she’d buy yet another lie.

“Okay. I’m sorry you’re going through that right now. Can I do anything for you?”

“No, it’s okay.” You replied, sighing in relief. “I’ll be okay.”

“Alright, well, if you change your mind, just let me know.”

“I will.” You said, knowing you never would. You couldn’t do that to her.

“I—“ You began nervously. “I’m really sorry about today, Els.”

“It’s okay, dude.”

“Maybe tomorrow, if you—“

“Ahh, can’t tomorrow, I have plans with my pretty girl.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Actually, I’ll text Heather in a bit and see if she can hang out right now so we can get a head start on our all-day date tomorrow. I planned out all this romantic ass shit to do.”

“Ahh.” You replied, voice constrained in pain. Ellie didn’t notice.

“Oh dude, I didn’t even tell you about this new strap I got for her—“

“Hey, Els,” You interrupted, not wishing to hear the rest of her sentence. “I think I hear someone at my door. I’ll call you back in a little bit, okay?”

“Oh, okay, that’s fine. I’ll be right here.”

“Right. Bye, Els.”

“Talk to you soon—“ She was saying as you quickly hung up the phone, unable to further control the sobs that had been threatening to emerge ever since Ellie had said her name.

You rolled to your side and hugged your legs to your chest, attempting to calm your hyperventilations. There was a ringing in your ears accompanied by Ellie’s words.

“…my pretty girl.”

“…planned out all this romantic ass shit…”

“…this new strap I got for her—“

You’d been trying desperately to be a good friend to Ellie for the past month, despite everything. You’d listened and planned and supported, all the things a best friend should do. But the more mesmerized Ellie grew, the more everything within you died.

You never bothered calling Ellie back that day.

The drive home from work was mundane and uneventful. An old song sung by Ray Charles about being in love with your best friend plays on the radio. The second bridge is cut off when you turn the key in the ignition and exit your car.

The steps you take to reach your apartment feel heavy, and it takes everything in you not to collapse where you are. You don’t even bother to take off your shoes when you cross the threshold into the dark entryway. The cushions of your living room couch wheeze sadly as you collapse into them.

You drop your work bag onto the floor next to you before turning on the TV. Eventually, you choose to put on some basic early 2000s sitcom as easy background noise. It’s something you’ve seen several times before and your mind doesn’t fully process what the plot is or who the characters are or what episode you’re on.

Your eyes gaze away from the television screen and to a blank space on one of the walls. There’s a spot where the wall’s off-white paint was accidentally streaked off the first week you moved in. Ellie had been helping you hang a picture up, and you were fooling around too much that the ladder you’d been using almost slid down and left a mark. You never bothered covering it up.

You stare at the mark as if it’d transport you back to that day, back to the mostly carefree moments when pining after your best friend was a mere minor inconvenience. But her love for another and ignorance of your struggle turned that inconvenience into an anguish you were not prepared for.

That day you fully accepted the feelings you had for Ellie, there was something within that knew instinctively that you could never have her. She was an impossible dream that the universe cruelly created to be untouchable. Deep inside, you knew a long time ago that your plain, boring friendship was just a placeholder for something bigger and more meaningful in her life. And she seems to have finally found that.

Blinking yourself out of your stupor, you eventually tear your eyes away from the wall. You take your phone out of a pants pocket and open up Instagram. Accepting the feelings of miserable self-pity, you once again scan your stories’ viewers for Ellie’s name. You finally spot it. You let out a sad sigh.

I guess she at least remembers I exist.

Orange and purple dance around Ellie’s profile picture before you tap on it. She’d posted a story from a local band she liked and another about a new video game release she was excited about. The last was a selfie of her posing in her bathroom mirror.

It was an inconsequential picture, just another Ellie thirst trap. She looked handsome in it as she always did. But something catches your eye, and you wish it didn’t.

On her left ring finger, she was wearing a silver ring. But it wasn’t one you recognized. It wasn’t the silver ring you’d gotten for her. The one she always wore on that finger.

Maybe the ring accidentally broke. Maybe it got dirty and she has yet to clean it. Maybe she just felt like switching it out for a day.

Each excuse you come up with seems more and more pathetic. You know there was no point in justifying it, no point in finding reason. You know that Ellie wasn’t overanalyzing it. Not like you are now.

Your heartbeats are heavy and you suppress the reflex to throw up. You open up your messages and tap on Ellie’s contact, knowing the most rational thing was to simply move on and continue being her friend. But what you find abruptly breaks your heavy heartbeats.

The text messages you had sent still remained unanswered. But there was a slight change.

She read my texts… five hours ago…

Ellie wasn’t always a big texter, always preferring old-school face-to-face interaction. But with you, she had always been the kind of friend to respond right away. Even if just to say she was busy and would respond when she was free, she never left you hanging.

Your jaw tenses and your vision momentarily becomes blurry. Your bottom lip trembles and you find that you can’t stop hastily bouncing your right knee. Tears form behind your eyes and your cheeks grow feverish, but you’re unable to process or feel anything except the movement in your hands.

Your shaky fingers lead you to Ellie’s contact in your phone without a second thought. You click “Edit” and delete every piece of information, from her picture to her birthday to her nickname. You save your changes and scroll downwards. You stop sharing your location with her before glancing at those conclusive three words in red right at the bottom.

Block this caller.

Without hesitation, you definitively tap the button.

author's notes:

this was very therapeutic. did this describe something i’ve been going through lately? no why would you think that what gave you that crazy impression ahahaha (shut up no i'm not thinking and pining over my ex, shut up!)

pink camellias because pink camellias represent longing lmaooo, i love symbolism and etc.

the ring reader gave ellie is based on a couple ring i gave to my my ex-girlfriend (the one i live with, not the one i’m in love with)! it’s super cool, i felt like it would be something ellie would wear!

is the part about reader obsessively checking if ellie has viewed their insta stories based on real life? no, why the fuck would you say that

the whole starbucks and hot chocolate thing is a little reference to something in my personal life but i refuse to elaborate further

me once again inserting myself in reader with them always saying they’re tired when someone asks if they’re okay cause news flash, i’m always tired 🙂

reader’s friends’ names beth and lina are inspired by my irl best friend and work bestie’s names :)

ellie’s gf’s last name is purposeful but i again refuse to elaborate further

the ray charles song mentioned is “you don’t know me” but my fave rendition is actually by jann arden from the “my best friend’s wedding” soundtrack (my family’s obsessed with the score of that movie, we had the tape and then the CD of it and played it nonstop growing up)

sorry this took forever to write cause LOL it may have been a little hard cause it was a little TOO autobiographical... hope y'all enjoy anyway lmao

taglist: @elliessknife, @mina-2812, @bellasfavepansexual, @slaysksmska, @theganymedes, @sno-leopards, @cosmikoo, @elliesnumber1gf, @eleactric, @thatgiraffefromtlou, @bellswlw, @kissesforells, @ratdungeon, @elliewilliams8fingers, @wex--12

419 notes · View notes

tinycozycomfort · 10 months

Text

rest in the cup of my palms (part two)

pairing: no outbreak!joel miller x art student f!reader

chapter two: do you feel it, too?

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

series summary: you went back to school to find out who you are—to make another leap in the hope of self discovery. when you finally find that first glimpse of yourself, it’s in someone else. what happens when the mirror tries to pull you in? or you’re everything joel could’ve hoped to find. he doesn’t let go easily.

chapter summary: you fight hard to keep old habits at bay. joel falls into his head first.

warnings/tags: no outbreak, no use of y/n, (for everything) -> mutual pining!, possessive behavior, smut (w individual tags to come), ellie is joel's daughter, ellie and reader attend the same university but reader is in post-grad, age gap (joel is late 40s, reader is not), alternating pov, slow-ish burn / (for this chapter) -> semi-public dry humping, kissing, mentions/fantasies of p in v sex, possessive thoughts, no one is drunk but everyone blames the wine, joel miller loves his kid!

word count: 5.3k

rating: explicit (18+ only! mdni)

A/N: i'm in shambles over the response to the first chapter, this series is my baby and it means so much that you guys liked it. thank you a million times for reading!

read on ao3 / main masterlist

“The wait begins as soon as I wake up. There is never any “after”. Life stops from the moment he rings the doorbell and enters.”

Annie Ernaux - Getting Lost

───────

Joel hasn’t touched the plastic tube since he brought it home last week.

It’s become something he has to hide from, a nagging thought that pulls at his pant-leg like a child, clawing for his attention—open me, open me. Over and over he hears it, while in the office or cooking dinner or folding the wash, a whisper that begs him to reach in and claim his prize. When he’s really tired, brain damp from the days he has to work, the voice pours into something smoother, and suddenly it's that pretty girl—the one who’d made the thing—asking for the same; to be peeled back and stretched wide for him, cunt and heart and all.

He finds himself losing a lot of very real time in the fantasy, chunks of his life spooned out to make room.

The compulsion isn’t unfamiliar; it’s one that Joel thinks has something to do with his protective nature—or maybe that he’s seen enough living through the filters of hurt and mistrust—that makes him cling to the things he finds precious.

It traces back as far as the girls in grade school, when they would bring him little home-made valentines and wave him kisses first stamped onto open palms. He grew enamored with them, picking them flowers and scribbling symbols of promise in their note-books—the very beginnings of his acts of service. His heart would swell with it, a cartoonish thing, growing and pumping until he could keel over to one side from the size. He chased it in those early years, back somewhere between the brothering and fathering, moving through many someones he could fawn over, easing his need to possess.

He can feel the need rising now, for the first time in too long, his body hurtling itself towards the ledge of something scarier, and he welcomes it. His hands itch for it, for the kind of love with teeth, that bites and tears into the edges of a substance much meatier, providing a place for the points to pierce and hold. He won’t call it what it really is, prefering to stomp out the whisper that warns him of its arrival—obsession. He likes to use less severe terms: thoughtful, involved, fascinated.

Knowing better in his age, he tries at least to be realistic during waking hours, and around Ellie, reminding himself that he has a hard time stepping down when he builds his hope high enough. He moves instead to just dreaming about you—in little tidbits and at guest-star capacity—to tide himself over until the week rolls back around.

Now, on a new Monday, he lets his daughter head off to class before he allows himself the privilege of unwrapping his reward.

He fishes around in the back of the hallway closet where he hid the case, retreating to his room to finally have his time alone with the creature he’d made of the object, letting it free from its cage.

He pops off the cardboard top of the roll, pulling the drawing out with the very tips of his fingers to not smudge something on accident. The sound of it sliding out sets his skin alight—this gift is one he asked for, but it feels like it was given to him all the same. Sharing a piece of you with him so freely, he feels special.

He’s gotten used to seeing himself around the house, Ellie’s ever-growing library of renditions of him are fixed to the fridge by mis-matched magnets and framed in little glass panels in her room. It leans on the side of betrayal to have someone else’s version of him up, but he just wants to see it—if it’s as intense as he remembers it. As different.

His knuckle follows the curl of the paper to flatten the image, tacking it up to the wall with painter’s tape to avoid damaging the surface, like his daughter taught him. Joel sits on the corner of his bed and feels a hot wave of emotion fill his chest.

He looks hopeful. It’s a garment he’s never seen himself wear. He’s soft and shy and child-like, face penciled in with detail that reads like a well-worn novel, bending and twisting to the curve of his expression. It’s a finely crafted summary. It’s guide-lines. It’s instructions, the very important parts of him spelled out in bold, black charcoal, with the gray shades of his complexion filling in the gaps.

Was he that easy to pick apart?

He’d seen some of the other drawings, the way everyone else had chosen to capture solely his pose, perfectly articulating the crook of his elbow or the network of muscle under the skin of his calf.

But you’d chosen to show him.

Something about it looks so familiar, enough to bring forward a memory of the conversation that had him feeling the briefest pass of deja vu—of you glancing down at the ground, quieted maybe by his proximity or his compliments; bashful.

He walks out into the living room where Ellie keeps her sketchbook, the one with all the references. He thumbs through it—she’s given him permission to see this one—and flips to the page he remembers watching her use last week. And when he sees it, he feels like he’s going to faint.

It was you.

That was your face his daughter had been so beautifully replicating. Upon examining the fragmented portrait, he sees a striking resemblance to the one you’d made of him. They’re the same. Not the likeness, of course, but the visage. You knew what he felt like—had felt it yourself.

He already knew you, before you’d even spoken a word to each other. He admits that Ellie was only capable of piecing together so much of you, and even with the extra bits he’d caught in your brief meeting, he feels like he’s missing out. He wants to see the whole picture. You, in totality.

When he arrives at the school building, he’s overtaken with a wash of what he thinks might be stage-fright. It makes him feel sick, stomach rolling with an embarrassment that scorches like youth—fight low and flight high—and his body starts to feel sore with the effort it takes to keep himself from fidgeting.

Ellie’s teacher meets him in the hallway and passes him his slip, and he hums his way down to the bathroom to undress, admittedly working up the courage to confront you.

As he enters the classroom, his excitement bottoms out. You’re not there. He keeps sweeping the room with his eyes, hoping you somehow had been hidden amongst the other bodies. He tries to sell himself the idea that you’re just in the bathroom, or on a break or late, but the wooden bench you’d sat in last week is obviously untouched.

He clambers onto the stool, trying to replicate his pose from the previous lesson, much more uncomfortable now that he has nothing to distract him. The two hours are painful, and he finds himself counting seconds to fill the minutes in increments of ten until he can leave.

His back hurts when he stands.

On his way out, the blonde woman hands him a little flier, two pieces of neon copy paper glued together to make a double-sided image, advertising the group show this coming Friday. Ellie has already reminded him more times than he can count, but he takes it from the woman with the best smile he can muster, slipping out the door in a stride he’s hoping doesn’t come across as wounded.

───────

The on-campus gallery is what someone a lot kinder than Joel would call cozy—a tight, short chamber with no windows and a single entrance, like a trap.

He’s too keyed-up to be kind. He feels like nitpicking.

The metal door at the head must have been an afterthought, kicking back into the frame loudly every time someone walks through, nothing implemented to catch it. A continuous beam of fluorescent lighting wraps around the room in an all-encompassing spotlight, cooking the smell of fresh paint off the wall. It reminds him of picture day, or apartment hunting or something else equally unpleasant.

He was always going to come to this, because he can’t imagine a version of himself who wouldn’t support his daughter, but he’s not happy about it, and he’s starting to feel dizzy from the too-fast swirl of anxiety in his stomach.

Ellie had removed herself from his side the moment they made it into the building in search of her friends, with just a squeeze of his forearm and an ‘I’ll introduce you later’ left in her wake. He’s clung tightly to the wall ever since, making his way around the room to look at all the drawings, again and again and again until he feels like he’s on a track.

Discomfort is a factor, but most of his indignation has to do with not seeing you in class—pointed at himself for the absurdity of his expectations—the voice in his head taking a bitter turn. Were you avoiding him? Would you not attend this, either? Did he do something wrong? His mind rambles on as he fiddles with his imitation cocktail glass, the shiny slip of plastic sticking to his fingers. There’s still a generous portion of what has to be five-dollar wine pooled at the bottom, bitter and opaque enough to stain. The woman who poured it for him did so nearly to the top, maybe sympathetically, disregarding that there was money obviously trying to be saved—deeming his cause a worthy one. He doesn’t even want it, really, nauseous at the idea of actually finishing it, but not having something in his hand was winding him even tighter. So he nurses it—even as it goes warm between his grasp, more unappetizing now than it had been twenty minutes ago—sip after sip to try and appear engaged.

Eventually Joel grows tired of waiting, for Ellie to come back or for you to come at all or for this night to just be over, and picks a drawing to pause in front of. It’s a portrait of someone he’ll never meet, another graceful stranger coming together in an amalgamation of grays. He can hear people walking behind him, talking quietly and occasionally stopping to look over his shoulder at it in passing.

“Hm. Quite the fan of my work, are you?” He almost ignores the comment, thinking it's for someone else, as it usually is, until there’s a figure taking up too much of his periphery.

He’s a little dazed when he looks over, the hot, sour wine settled now in the pit of his belly, buzzing with a flare of something not-missed. He’s prepared to see more than one person beside him, perhaps a couple that had been talking near him rather than to him, but when he swivels his neck, it’s you. You’re just as pretty as he remembers, the face that he looks for in his sleep, but this time you’re not as shy, staring at him straight on—maybe similarly loosened by the pale yellow liquid in your own cup.

Heat gathers at the rim of his jaw—his neck is red by now, he’s sure of it. Already exposed and driven by the faint whisper in his mind, he opens his mouth to speak without thinking, “You weren’t there this week.”

You make quick quotes with just your pointers half-heartedly, “‘Sick,'” and breathe a laugh, “Had a few academic duties to fulfill. Gotta keep the scholarship intact.”

There’s a thick moment of silence, but he can’t look away, eyes weighty and cheeks stinging. It’s awkward but he finds comfort in it, embracing the adjustment like it's a step towards better connection.

Someone brushes his arm as they walk by and Joel uses it to his advantage, “Do you want to step outside? It’s a little hot in here.”

There’s a flash of something like surprise across your eyes, but you shrug, “Sure.”

He crowds behind you as you walk step-in-step out the unarmed emergency exit, just to feel the closeness of your body, much better than the distance he’d felt in your absence on Monday.

The night is worse than cold but it feels good against the heat in Joel’s chest. He can smell your perfume wafting back as he follows your movements, and it makes him pant. He’s ill, has to be—that or the wine was stronger than he thought, because the weird tie he feels is one he can’t explain as being healthy or normal or not fucking scary. But when you turn on your heel to face him, taking a seat on a hip-high planter in a secluded outer corner of the building, it feels right. Natural.

He shuffles so that he’s far enough for you to be safe from his touch, and he shoves a hand in his pocket for good measure, “Thank you again for the drawing. It’s really beautiful.”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you for saying that.”

He wants to say something more, like you’ve captured me in a way that makes me hopeful about myself, but settles instead for, “My daughter liked it a lot, too.” It’s a bold-faced lie, but he thinks that keeping your gift a secret would look less appealing.

“Is she here?”

“Somewhere, yeah. Ran off the second we got in. I’m not a comfort anymore, I guess.”

“Is she yours? Comfort, I mean.” You pick at the crown of the cup, rolling it gently in your hands like its real glass, and you both watch the fuzzy pattern of light that catches on its uniform surface. Joel wonders if you have a comfort of your own—if you need one.

“Is it bad if I say yes? It feels cheesy but the kid is my rock. Dunno what I’m gonna do when she grows up.” He shoves at the concrete under the toe of his boot. It didn’t taste as bad coming out as he thought it might. He hasn’t said that out loud to anyone other than himself, but you look at him like you know exactly what he means. The delicate beginnings of a smile crest on your face, cheek pinched, void of all the uncomfortable sympathy he's gotten from Tommy and Maria at the few things he made the mistake of revealing. He can’t find it in himself to stop now with your gesture, feeling relief in having a place to voice his heartbreak, “Honestly I’m scared, but not just for me, y’know? I worry about what she’s gonna find in the world. I just want to keep her safe.”

“She knows it, I’m sure. I know what it feels like to have no one to root for you—I would’ve killed for that. The only thing you can do for her is be there when she comes home,” You’re looking down again, and he doesn’t like whatever’s made you want to pull back from him—be shy, “Spend time with other people you care about and that care about her. Make that network for her to lean on.”

“All I got is my brother. His wife too, sometimes. My nephews. A few years ago it was just me and him. Ellie—that’s her name. She, uh, isn’t ‘mine’,” he makes the bunny-eared quotes with the hand holding his drink, “Not by blood, anyway. But she popped up out of nowhere and I don’t know how to go back to being on my own.”

“It’d be good to have a network of your own, too—if you’re up to it. It’s hard to do, trust me, but I don’t think I could do a lot without my friends.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think that’s in the cards for me anymore. I can’t conjure up much of anything worth listening to these days. Forgot how.”

“Don’t do that. You have a lot to say—you’re plenty. Just start with one person. There’s always time to make more.” He knows you’re talking to him, but it feels like you’re also talking to that little boy inside of him, small and unloved and still bleeding.

“Do you need any more? Friends.”

You look up from your lap, pushing a piece of your hair back from your face like you need to get a better look, searching for a way you could be misinterpreting him, “I might have room. You have a recommendation for me?”

He reaches out, grabbing the empty cup from your grasp, stacking it with his own and depositing them by your side. He doesn’t miss the way you watch him, how you widen the spread of your legs on instinct, enough to suggest his entrance. He wades out on one leg to bring himself in, testing the water.

Your lips are parted, and when he looks into the opening between them he imagines he’s seeing to the center of you, and everything else keys out. Cars pass by on the strip of street behind him, driven by ghosts, providing nothing but a low song for your bodies to dance to together, his chest swaying closer to yours with every breath. You move with him, and it feels rehearsed, like all of the steps you've taken to get to this moment were purposeful, done in perfectly orchestrated succession for the hundredth time.

“Do you feel that, too?” He asks, wanting to know if he’s reading too much into it, feeling that sweet edge of thoughtful-involved-fascinated scrape his skin like a sharp knife, “Do you? Like you know me?”

“Yes,” you breathe, and it’s all the permission he’s ever needed.

He leans in, lips skating yours, the warm cave of your mouth begging to be explored. He tries so hard to take his time, soft brushes tethering you to each other with the weight of everything he’ hasn’t had the time to say. His whole body is pins and needles—a fierce heat that floats so high it feels like ice. You sigh into him, the start of a moan, and his composure snaps. Service, he reminds himself, act on it—it feels almost divine when he thinks about all the ways he could pledge his loyalty, ready to bend at your altar every day of his life if it meant you’d sing for him again.

Joel brings a hand to the side of your neck, thumb digging into the pulse point at the corner of your jaw to bring you forward, licking into your mouth in search of more noise. He groans when you relax into his hold, so pretty and willing, and works you until you’re just as fervent, daring to suck his bottom lip between your teeth—going for blood.

The voice in his head is yours again—open me, eat me, unhinge your jaw and swallow.

He slots his other hand around the bone of your hip, pulling you nearer to the ledge of the planter, pressing his cock into your inner thigh as it swells to life. You gather his shirt in your hand, a tight fist, shifting yourself against him so you can grind into it instead. No one else exists, no one else could ever exist in this moment, or any moment you attend, for the rest of forever. He wants to fuck you, to see how far the attachment could go, how far he could reach down before he finds a warm, bed-shaped slot for him to rest in. He wants to live inside the body of someone who sees him so clearly. He wants to know every thought in your head before it comes to fruition.

The wine tastes better coming from off your tongue, and he’s gleaning the flavor from every corner of your mouth like he can achieve a second-hand high. His full weight is rocking into you with enough force now that he has to plant a heel in the ground to keep you both from tumbling. He risks a thumb in your waistband in the flurry, tugging at it in the hope of another invitation.

Before you have a chance to decide, the loud press of the swing-door at the front of the building opens, and Joel staggers back, remembering where he is and why.

You look winded to say the least, hair bent from the imprint of his hand, mouth in a perpetual ‘o’, and he’s scared to see the state of his own face, not to mention the visible strain of his cock in his pants. He kicks an ankle out to try to adjust, heaving through an open maw at the thought that you might be affected in that way as well, picturing the slick wet in between your legs—a beautiful sheen from just his mouth on the top half of your body.

You shimmy off the edge, straightening your shirt and he immediately steps back in for more, draping the full breadth of his hand against your collarbone, curling the tips around the top of your shoulder.

“Joel. I— I need to go inside.”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?”

You lay a hand over his with a squeeze and he retracts it, “Yeah. I just wasn’t expecting… I don’t know if I can do this right now.”

He can feel his breath restricting, heart plummeting down so far it feels like it’s landed in the ball of his foot; the second time this week you’ve pulled away. He thinks back to the face you made at him in the gallery, back before he fucked this up. Maybe you never meant for this to happen at all.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, voice strained, “I just need a little time. Just some time, I’m sorry.”

“No, no I understand. Don’t be sorry. Will you take my number? Just in case?” He wants to make sure you’re okay after this, if you want that, and selfishly he wants to give you a way to have him, knowing this might be the last time he runs into you. He’s too afraid to leave it up to chance.

“Yeah, yeah okay,” You pass him your phone with shaky fingers.

“Only if you want to, honey,” He’s disheartened by the whole thing, but he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable, so he’s careful to double-check, even if it’s a blow to his hope, “You don’t have to.”

“I know. I’m just—the wine, sorry. I think it was bad.” You huff out a strained laugh, “I want it. Your number, I mean. Promise.” You practically shove the thing at him and he takes it this time, entering the contact with as little squinting as possible to save himself from any further humiliation.

───────

You all but run into the bathroom in the back of the building, needing a moment alone to consider what the fuck it is that’s going on right now—what’s been going on since he walked into your class two weeks ago and overstayed his welcome.

You stumble in, bracing yourself against the porcelain basin, switching on the faucet to drown out some of the pounding in your head. You’d been lying when you said the wine was catching up to you—very much sober—but now, in this suffocating, gray room, you feel like it must have at least accelerated the churning in your gut.

You let water gather in your hands, bending to dip your face in the too-cold pool between them.

Every day has been mostly encouraging if not indifferent but this feels like the start of a bad dream you won’t be able to wake up from, dragging you right back to that dark box you’d been existing in. He came in from nowhere, kicking down your reserve, for what? For a fuck? To enjoy you in passing? Or worse, to stay? You’re unsure which would be harder to receive.

And it’s unfair—for him to show up right at the point of being fully on your own, as soon as you’ve chosen to avoid getting caught up in that part of your life. You’re past the point of surrendering your time—know better than to want to be bogged down by a crush or the preconceived idea of the perfect stranger.

You don’t know him, and you don’t need to.

But you want him so bad it hurts; so bad you had to fake a cold to skip class because you couldn't face the idea of seeing him for the last time. You debated skipping the grade for the exhibition too, but you used any excuse to convince yourself he might not show. You weren’t sure who his daughter was, or how enthusiastic she was about the program, so you figured it was a fair shot. You outwardly willed him not to come, at yourself in the mirror and in the shower and out loud the car, all while secretly praying he’d be in attendance, right up to the moment you saw him.

When you stand up, staring at your rigid body in the plastic mirror above the sink, you’re pained at the sight. You look tired, shoulders tense and eyes bleary. Stray beads of the cool water stick to your skin, refusing to dry in the lingering humidity, balling up together to drip into the open lip of your shirt. You can barely feel it falling over your chest before being soaked up by the material. You feel outside yourself.

Someone starts to knock at the door, a quick and invasive interruption to the moment of absolute panic you’d been enjoying. You managed to twist the lock shut on the door at least, so you click your heel against the tile in a wordless someone’s in here, but the knocking persists.

“Occupied.” You try, wet hands slipping against the edge of the sink. This shit isn’t normal. None of that even comes close to normal.

Still, the heavy thrum against the hollow metal continues, and you take a deep breath before practically ripping it out from the socket of its frame. When you have it open, Ian’s posed between the V of the slot, face bewildered.

“Really, truly, I love you, but what the fuck was that?”

───────

Four days from the start of spring break, you’re out at some stranger’s place off Maple, invited by both Ian and your roommate—making it a little harder to get out of—in a joint, well-intentioned attempt to make you leave the safety of your room. A party will be nice, they’d explained, nothing serious, and a week off’s supposed to be fun, right?

The house is pretty, but whoever owns it has demanded everyone remain out on the cobblestone patio, uneven flooring making for a jagged line of bodies packed too tight to fit.

A fire burns in the middle of the yard, billowing out puffs of smoke you know will linger in your clothes for at least two washes. You swipe at some soot that's gathered in the bowl of your jacket sleeve absentmindedly. There’s no music tonight, maybe because there’s real school tomorrow—the elementary school down the street not quite on the same schedule—and you start to think going out on weeknights is quickly becoming more your speed. There's just the soft blanket of everyone murmuring, trying to stay warm in the chill of the wind.

Ian’s prepping some guy across the fire to meet you; you can tell by the look on his face, like he’s planning something elaborate. You smile at him, at least amused by his effort to help you forget the weekend. He’s right, it is spring break, and Joel is nothing but a consequence of your stress-induced impulsivity.

Still, despite your efforts, you’re thinking about him again, even if to punish him. You can still feel the line of his cock against your thigh, pressed hot and heavy into your body like an offering. You rub your thighs together, cursing him for giving you enough material to fantasize about for weeks—your punishment in return.

Ian crosses the circle with your new prospect, and you tilt your cup in mock cheers. Behind him he mouths hot and nice, tell me what you think. You nod, and the guy steps forward to block the flame. He’s handsome, airbrushed face and sweet cologne and long, thin fingers, nothing like how someone else’s had felt at the junction of your hips.

You swallow, hard.

You honestly don’t hear a word that comes out of his mouth from the second it opens, not even to catch his name. Instead, you think about how nice it’d be if you could pay attention, how much easier it would be to fuck someone you thought was nice and safe and not at the forefront of every free moment you’d been afforded in the last two-and-a-half weeks. About what a relief it would be for him to mount and rut into you without consequence—no emotional burden, just boring and lukewarm like the last bite of something you can’t find a place to throw away. It’s always been easier when you didn’t want more. Yet now you want every night, hold out a hand in your dreams and let him into the part of you that has already carved out a hole in his shape.

This guy couldn’t pull your mind off of Joel even if he was fucking you.

When he offers to grab you a drink, you agree and then head into the house, like you’re not supposed to, as soon as his back is turned. There’s a few locked doors, and then one at the end of a hallway that opens up into a bathroom. You slip in, not bothering to switch on the light in an attempt to hide out from being found.

Here you are searching for reason in a dirty mirror above another sink, with nothing but the weak glow of a plug-in air freshener to guide you, too soon after the last time.

You’re angry, suddenly, at how far he’s burrowed himself into your head, with so little to go on. He’s doing nothing but showing you yourself, a tired tactic to get you to fall in love with him while you do all the work. He was just pretending, right? He couldn’t actually want to love you. You groan, when the fuck was love even part of this equation?

You dig your phone out of your purse. The lock screen is bright—bold lettering reminding you it’s nearly midnight—but you click into your contacts anyway, because it’s not like you’re going to call him or anything. His page is still open, the Texas area code populating under Joel - Ellie’s dad—typed out with caps and all like that’s his only meaningful identifier. You scroll to see where he’d punched in ‘just in case‘ in the notes section of his info-card, and that decimates the cliff of restraint you'd barely managed, sinking in on itself under you.

Your hands are wet with unease, held hostage by the way he’d read your thoughts out loud. You did feel it too, that searing weight of knowing—of being acquainted with him despite only meeting once before. He had to have been honest in at least that confession. You ask yourself for permission—‘was he going through this as well? what exactly was he feeling? would he explain if you asked?’—until it turns into selling yourself justification—‘you could just fuck him, right? that’s all this has to be, right?’.

Yes, you decide. Just another test of will—you can do it. You can pass.

Your finger hovers over the number, closing the screen and opening it again and again and again until you just bite the bullet and fucking press it, the screen going black as you shove it against the side of your ear, covered again in darkness.

He picks up within two rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Joel,” You offer him your name like a secret, “It’s me. Did I wake you up?”

“No, sweetheart. Are you okay?”

“Can I come see you?”

#joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #pedro pascal characters #joel miller fic #joel miller/reader

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druidshollow · 8 months

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who's the iterator with the shelter symbol on their head? 👀

*whips around and evil grins at the camera* TIME FOR A CANOPY POST

sheltering canopy | #862, gen 3 | she/her

(im gonna be talking about off string canopy mostly because she doesn't really do anything yet in the canon adjacent story!!! all the like. personal info and stuff is consistent tho)

of course. as always. since this is canopy's first time around. fast facts.

sheltering canopy is part of the far north group, a local group adjacent to corners!

far north consisted (in order of construction) of eleven rivers, untold odyssey, one wish for all, four falling phrases, and finally sheltering canopy. when rivers' first admin went to the void sea and was eventually replaced with flowers, flowers proposed and helped construct the twins and separated the far north group into two groups.

odyssey was made group senior overseeing wish and canopy, and phrases was made senior overseeing rivers and the twins.

shortly after the mass ascension, wish caught the rot, and some time after that the Gift was released and odyssey received dev status. unfortunately wish's rot was too extreme so they couldn't save her, but odyssey was able to reach canopy and make her a mobile puppet so they could travel south together!

they are heading south because *static sounds here* (there is something that LOTS of iterators are travelling towards, havent decided if its like. a commune or new society or something but whatever i decide is where these guys are heading). unfortunately, the only way south from far north is through the great north divide (a large mountain range), which is perilous and frigid. keeping warm is hard and securing water is even harder. rivers and phrases climbed the range and went above (pink path), where canopy and odyssey (cyan path) moved through a ravine called the west chasm (more water and warmth than going above, but also lots more carnivores)

the divide is a difficult journey but once youve reached the other side, the real threat rears its head. across the mountains from the far north group is the civilizing divide group, a group consisting of 13 iterators, most notably their senior and older sister, adamant dune.

i think we all know who dune is by now, lmao canopy and odyssey almost reached the other side of dune's territory without even understanding the danger they were in, but the group caught up with them last moment. by the time canopy and odyssey reach this point, phrases and rivers have already long escaped and dune had thrown hollow space out. she was especially dangerous at this point, angry and grieving and now without her voice of reason.

a mystery group (who i currently know very very little about) jumps in at the last moment and saves odyssey, leaving canopy behind having seen her injuries and knowing there's no coming back from a killing blow like that.

but canopy miraculously survives the wound dune inflicts on her, and instead of just trying again, dune takes canopy in to her group in exchange for canopy to help them retrieve cells. they tell canopy that they murdered odyssey.

dune in no way treats canopy like family like she does the rest of her group. she makes canopy help with murder and has little to no regard for her wellbeing or feelings. canopy collapses in on herself amongst the violence shes being made to commit and the cruelty she's facing. she becomes quiet, introspective and numb. it reminds dune of hollow space, which just makes her disdain for canopy stronger.

i sketched this freaky comic of dune making canopy murder someone, you can see it if u promise not to look at the arms for more than 0.5 seconds lmao

she goes by the name shelter with dune and co.

ok its 12:30 pm on a work night and i gotta wake up at 6 so thats all from me for now. ill save her and odyssey's reunion for another time!!! the payoff is huge you guys have no idea but i promise they end up together again

#druid draw #rain world oc #iterator oc #oc posting #off string au #os canopy #canopy #os odyssey #os dune #these posts. are so fun. and i always stay up way too late makin em #violence #ask to tag maybe #guy post

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ride-thedragon · 10 months

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NETTLES AND THE IDEA OF INNOCENCE

Innocence, especially for women in asoiaf has a particular place in their perception.

Innocence in our world holds a very similar place.

When a character is innocent, you want better for them because any turmoil they go through is undeserved, and by the rules of both societies, it should allow them to be exalted from hardships.

So when it comes to such a small character like Nettles the idea of her innocence is perpetuated past the character we have because she is exalted from the concequence of what she is accused of in the narrative and is redeemed from all the hardship she faces towards the beginning when she claims a dragon.

But I don't think that's fair or correct so I want to go over some things we know and hear about her that people use to defend this idea of innocence and come to the conclusion that even though she is innocent it's not in the way typically attributed to her.

1. Nettles and Sheep:

Her relationship to this animal is a fun metaphor to understand her. Nettles trades sheep to gain her dragon Sheepstealer. Nettles trades innocence for power.

"Lambs have always been sacrificial animals. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Christians and even later civilizations, lambs were used for sacrifice to a higher purpose. In most cases, it was the sacrifice to Gods.These are the qualities that make lambs so symbolic. "

"They are a sign of innocence, purity, vulnerability, and sacrifice. Many of these symbols overlap with the symbolism of youth."

The idea of innocence is something that her taming Sheepstealer inherently corrupts. She slaughters sheep every day to get close enough to establish a bond to him. It's a continued effort to trade innocence for power, and because dragons make Targaryens closer to gods than men, the idea is that she's offering a sacrifice to a 'god' to gain power.

I'll link my post about this parallel she has to sheep further.

Another thing is that she's young, and that plays a part in what she is absolved from in the narrative because of the nativity and ability to grow with the potential of youth.

2. Nettles and The Cost of Power:

The regression of this trade for power comes after Driftmark is sacked and burned. In the war effort that Nettles largely contributed to, she loses her friend and her home. We are told her reaction to the loss is crying through the soot on her face so hard it leaves streaks. As with what happens consistently in mythology, the protagonist reaps benefits and consequences in the quest for power. The cost of gaining that power was fighting in the war, something she knew would happen. The fact that it came at the cost of her closest known relationship at the time as well as the place she grew up and had to leave behind to join the war effort is conceivable but not predictable for anyone to know. Especially not a 16 year old girl.

3. Nettles and King's Landing:

A while back, I drew attention to the fact that in the book, we have no real evidence that Nettles had any of the promises made to the Dragon Claimers kept to her. No marriages, lands, or knighthood equivalents are given to her in the wake of the fight. A lot of people use this as a way to say she's innocent because she believes in a cause and is sticking by it. That doesn't seem accurate towards the situation. King's Landing is the capital at that moment for punishing treason. She's a young, grieving girl, experiencing the price of power in a place where her refusal to fight or her running away will be met with a death warrant. Nettles has a nose scar for stealing allegedly. She's one of the characters we know understands the cost of disobedience in this world. She is a cost they'd be willing to pay. Even with her dragon adding to her necessity during the war, they're executing Noble men at that time. Nettles' entire life in juxtaposition to their's is incredibly small. Whether or not she cared about gaining anything (I like to think they gave her money), it's very clear that it's a weary time with major consequences for defiance or treason.

4. Nettles and Daemon:

This is the one people use this idea of innocence the most frequently for. "Nettles was innocent of the accusation made against her (sleeping with Daemon, not witchcraft), and Rhaenyra was influenced and turned against her."

Nettles doesn't need to be innocent for what Rhaenyra did to be wrong. The men who defend Nettles against the decree say that Nettles is wrong but young and shouldn't be killed for that. They conceded that the idea of treason is fair, but the idea surrounding it with the spell implications is simply incorrect and will make Daemon kill them if executed. Daemon is the sole person who puts her in danger and saves her in this narrative for his own character arc. Nettles isn't innocent, but she is young. She has her life ahead of her and has done everything that is expected of her. She isn't punished for love by the narrative. It saves her life and allows her to escape the trapping of power altogether, something she never returns to traditionally.

She does return to it with the burned men, but entirely away from the system, she originally gained that power from.

5. Nettles and Treason:

She did commit treason. That's not an innocent thing. It quite literally required her sleeping with a married prince. Whether or not she's a virgin (we'll get to it) in this world, giving into sex outside of marriage or prostitution as a woman is framed as wrong because of the value of virtue for women. With someone like Nettles, she'd know it's a bad thing and still proceeds with it. While as prince consort and a man Daemon will never dare a lick of concequence for adultery, Nettles would, and treason isn't a far stretch for the crime. Even with the understanding that Daemon would protect her, that they seemingly have, it's not okay. (It is to me. She's completely innocent.)

6. Nettles and Virginity:

Virtue is a currency in this world. Sleeping with a girl and deflowering is seen as a commodity and milestone. Virtue for women is posed as an added value. Without it, as we see in the books, women without maidenheads are seen as a lesser offer often beneath the standard of noble men.

Nettles is not ever positioned as a virgin. In this world, it's a logical conclusion to draw that she is not and would've traded sex for food or money. I'm not saying that happened, but if it did, there seems to be a stigma that it makes her lesser character in the story and / or denies her own autonomy by demeaning her. With the way it is presented in the narrative, it's a fair conclusion to draw. It's said to deter the idea that Daemon would sleep with her because she isn't even worth it, and that's my issue with the she should be virtuous reading.

It falls into the temptation of a character doing what she must to survive being a way to demean her. Nettles was surviving every day before the sowing. Her having sex, prostitution or just because she could, should not shroud her character in any world. Nettles can exist as both a critical view of how Westeros treats girls like her and as an autonomous character who chooses whether or not to have sex given her situation without it being demeaning or derogatory towards her as a character.

7. Nettles and Sex Work:

To add on, sex work is often demonized in this world, and because of the poor class of women often in these positions who are quite young and have no real alternative. Nettles as a character would exist in contradiction to the narrative of not only sex workers who die or are brutalized in that life, think book Shae, Show Roz. She'd also be the one who is actively saved by the class of people who often perpetuate this system of abuse they exist in.

Nettles isn't in it anymore or has once been preyed on by the entrapping cycle that brothels perpetuate but escapes and makes her own way. She's foul-mouthed and marred because of it, but she also becomes a dragonrider, and then when she has sex it's because she wants to.

When the narrative tries to condemn her for it, she's saved by the person who puts her in that position, unlike the other girls, like Tysha, Nettles' value isn't placed on her past sexual partners, and she is like the other girls who fall victim to the predatory sex work establishments in ASOIAF, but she escapes and isn't punished in the narrative for sleeping with someone or trying to survive in the first place. Something we don't really see in this world.

Overall,

The overarching angle of innocence pushed on her character is extremely strange and does not benefit her as a character. Innocence in this world is based on patriarchal feudalism that commodifies women into property and places value on them like stock that depreciates with superficial nonsense.

Question this world.

Nettles isn't innocent and shouldn’t have to be to deserve the ending she gets. She can just escape because she learns and grows and is young enough to do it without major consequences for her.

Nettles is innocent however, in the narrative of a poor, homeless girl with nothing, accomplishing a tremendous feat and gaining power from it, being used in wars and fights that have nothing to do with her and having the threat of death looming if she doesn't comply.

In being used as a means to an end in a conflict between the two most powerful people in the realm and escaping without any permanent concequence to her. She's not guilty.

Let girls have fun and be complex characters in their narratives. Innocence isn't a necessity, but even if it was for you to like her, she is, in a sense, innocent.

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toast-tales · 1 month

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Cursed Cravings, Chapter 10: Chosen

In which Christopher and Danny realize that maybe they're not so different after all.

Contains: 1.4k words | Chapter 1 | Read this story on A03!

As the week went on, Danny found herself spending more and more time with Christopher. He’d taken over Sam’s hobby of showing her around the mansion, although the giant was much less concerned with the identity of the paintings and the age of the fruit bowls. Instead, Christopher delighted in doting over the craftsmanship of the house’s architecture—the skill it had taken to carve the elaborate, intricate designs into the molding and balusters, and the details that Danny could see quite well as he lifted her in his palms to show her up close. He practically fawned over every little detail, seeming to be as incredibly well-acquainted with every corner of the mansion as Sam had been, with no detail escaping his interest.

He explained that the life-size birds Danny had seen carved into the grand stairway at the entrance were something called peacocks. Their long, elaborate tails—almost seeming to be covered in strange eyes—hung low and wrapped delicately around the post at the foot of the stairs.

They had been a symbol of his family for generations, he said—a representation of nobility, beauty, and pride. He recited this with a dignified, but detached air—as if the words didn’t quite go below the surface. And there was none of the enthusiasm he’d displayed earlier when he’d been going on about different types of wood grain.

“Were you…close, with your family?” Danny asked hesitantly, trying to get a read on the solemn expression Christopher wore.

She could see his lips tighten slightly. “No. I was quite young when they passed. And I don’t remember many times I spent with them worth remembering.” He looked down at her and his face broke into a quick, easy smirk—as if it was simply effortless for him to hide what little vulnerability he permitted himself to show behind it, like he’d done it many times before. “I find the family you choose is better company.”

He paused, a question on his lips he seemed hesitant to ask. “Are you…close with yours, Danny?”

She was taken aback by it, staring off into the distance as memories of Nathan flooded back to her. Beyond those more pleasant thoughts was nothing but the memory of dark, cold streets and the never-ending feeling of hunger so debilitating that it stretched her skin over her ribs and consumed her from the inside.

“Nathan’s really the only family I have,” she admitted quietly. “He had a nice family, but I never met them. He took me in when I was younger, when no one else would. I…grew up on my own.”

A sudden sympathy flickered in Christopher’s dark eyes, like a sputtering flame emerging from coals. “You were an orphan?”

“...yeah,” she mumbled, ashamed as she was to admit it. “So I guess you’re right about choosing family.”

She sighed heavily, collapsing somewhat into his palms and forgetting that they were the same hands that had grabbed her so callously days before, forgetting that it was him who held her here at all. “I miss him,” she whispered—not quite to Christopher, but he heard her nonetheless.

There was a beat of silence before she heard him speak again. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a hushed whisper. “You’ll see him again soon, I promise.”

It was confusing for him to apologize when he was the only one keeping her here, as if the chains of some sort of strange aristocratic custom to imprison trespassers were too unyielding for even him to break. He spoke like he was a prisoner somehow too—and while the thought did make her angry, she was almost too confused to be—because his sympathy, as little sense as it made, actually seemed sincere.

Why was he holding her here at all? Today alone—waking up in a comfortable bed, eating good food, being given a tour of a fancy giant mansion like she was some important guest instead of someone held hostage—was completely different than how she’d been treated her first night here. Christopher himself seemed like a new person entirely, and she couldn’t help but wonder which version of him was the real one—the cocky, charismatic bastard or the man with a gentle smile who found a fascination in the details of wooden banisters.

Something wouldn’t sit right with her, no matter how much she tried to ignore the feeling—she swore there must be something she was missing about all this. If the giant had no plans to torment her, or put her to work, what was the point of holding her hostage for a month? Was it really just some strange formality, one in which Christopher’s hands were inexplicably tied by a social convention she wasn’t aware of?

Maybe he’s just lonely.

The passing thought almost irritated her—it would have been a poor excuse to kidnap people if that was the case. Though even if it were true, he would surely never admit to it.

Infuriating as the idea was that she was just here to be some socially-deprived giant’s emotional support human, she also felt a flicker of sympathy when she remembered that he was literally incapable of leaving this house. I think I’d go crazy. And he’s been here his whole life?

She sighed, swallowing down the last dregs of her anger—for now. Ride it out, she thought morosely. I guess if he just wants company, it’s better than sitting in a cage for entertainment like some goddamned parakeet.

In the back of her mind, she wondered why she was so quick to disregard her own irritation towards Christopher, and try as she might, she couldn’t skirt around the truth that surfaced.

He’s actually not that bad to hang out with.

It was a bitter pill for her to swallow, especially as far as her pride was involved. She would be the last person to admit she was willing to extend any amount of friendship, no matter how tentative, towards someone who was literally her captor. It was an absurd sentiment from the outside looking in, but as she thought on it further, all of the lines seemed blurred and hazy on what was right and wrong to feel about this enigma of a man who held her so gently in his palms.

She’d certainly met worse people than him, even if none of them had all but forced her to stay in their house for a month. Besides—he’d said Nathan was fine, and he’d even sent him money. Supposedly. If that was true, the only real concern she would have for the next few weeks would be staving off boredom, and she knew there could be worse problems to have. There could certainly be worse places to stay. She wasn’t used to being surrounded with luxury like this, or not having to work from dawn until dusk. Surely it would eventually begin to make her legs and hands itch with the desire to do something, but she realized that maybe…maybe it would be nice to relax for a while, and just take it all in stride like Sam suggested.

Her instincts told her not to trust it, to remain ever suspicious and vigilant and to lash out at anything that could be a danger to her, but it was exhausting to keep that up for long. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be fully relaxed here, but maybe she could let go of at least some of her worries.

She looked up at Christopher, all of these thoughts of hers hidden behind a twisted sort of smirk of her own. “Hey. You never finished that book the other day. I need to know how the prince went blind.” She jabbed at his palm to accentuate her demand.

It looked like he’d started to stare off at something as well, her words snapping his gaze back to her as an introspective, slightly melancholy look on his face faded to a lighter grin. “Try not to fall asleep this time, doll.”

She returned his remark with a playful sneer, but let him carry her to the library, where they spent the remainder of the day finishing the story. Danny didn’t fall asleep this time, even though she found herself somehow incredibly relaxed as she leaned against Christopher’s arm on the table, putting aside all of the pride and hesitation in her mind and letting herself experience the moment for all it was worth.

In truth, if this was what was to be expected for the rest of her stay…perhaps she wouldn’t mind making a friend like Christopher.

* * * * * * * * * *

Next chapter ->

It's a little strange to do a Beauty and the Beast story without the ballroom scene, isn't it? I think we're a little overdue for it, personally. Next week is Chapter 11: Ad Libitum! Don't miss it! And thank you for reading, as always.

#itwom #itwom au #beauty and the beast au #vore writing #vore stories #gt stories #gt writing #sfw vore #nonsexual vore #gt vore

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asliceofzosan · 6 months

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Make the Yuletide Gay!

Hey, everyone! This year, I wanted to challenge myself and post one (or more) fics per day leading up to Christmas in my first 12 Days of Zosan Christmas Special! I have fallen in love with these idiots and also the lovely community who has been nothing but kind and welcoming to a newbie 💚💛 So this is my way to give gifts to all you wonderful people!

All the fics will be posted to my new AO3 account of the same name — asliceofzosan. Which is why you are seeing some repeat fics from tumblr here mainly the Dirty Rice Ball series. Other than those three, I will be posting 12 new fics from brainrot sessions that consumed my waking thoughts every night.

And as a super special treat, the lovely, gorgeous, and MOST talented @inoreuct and I are collaborating on a fic together for one of the days! You genuinely do NOT want to miss that.

(written schedule below the cut)

Schedule

December 14 - The Rice Ball Incident

Part One of the Dirty Rice Ball Series now cross posted to AO3 with an extra scene that is not on the original tumblr post!

December 15 - Debt and Doing Dishes

Part Two of the Dirty Rice Ball Series cross posted to AO3 + A surprise fic

December 16

Part Three of the Dirty Rice Ball Series cross posted to AO3 + Another surprise fic

December 17 - By any other name

Being labeled as "Roronoa Sanji" on the newest Wanted Posters doesn't bother Sanji as much as the rest of the crew thought it would.

December 18 - 2 left feet (2 hearts beat)

Espionage, fake wedding rings, and a vintage well-fitting tux is all it takes for this night to either be labeled a complete disaster or the greatest miracle to ever happen.

December 19 - if i loved you (like i'm capable of)

After his heart was broken by a man he thought loved him, Sanji finds out that he is loved by someone he is not worthy of.

December 20 - promises, promises

Even as the golden band around his finger symbolizes their eternal love, not seeing a third earring on Zoro doesn't feel right. Sanji's anniversary gift changes that.

December 21 - a royal disaster

Nobody told Zoro that the supposedly tyrannical prince to inherit the doomed kingdom is actually the most beautiful man he will ever meet in his lifetime.

December 22 - rough hands, soft heart

Sanji thought Zoro wasn't good with kids. It wasn't until Chopper joined the crew where he realized he was sorely mistaken.

December 23 - in another world, i'm yours

Sanji switches places with a man who plays him in a TV show about his crew. He discovers many things about himself and his relationship with a certain mosshead in the process. (Collab with inoreuct)

December 24 - when you dream

There's something about the way Sanji gushes about his near impossible dream that makes Zoro root for him. And maybe unknowingly fall in love in the process.

December 25 - becoming a decent best man for dumbasses

Nami asks Zoro to be her best man at her and Vivi's wedding. Zoro's problems cover so much more than just coming up with the best speech...

Teasers will be posted leading up to December 14! The two extra fics on day two and three will be a surprise instead 👀 Feel free to send asks about any of these stories as well 😚

Super excited to post all of these, ya'll have NO idea!! Hopefully, I'm able to reach my goals while also making the zosan community happy 💚💛

#one piece #zosan #roronoa zoro #sanji #vinsmoke sanji #niki's log: 12 days of zosan christmas #roronoa zoro x vinsmoke sanji #one piece fanfiction #are any of these fics besides the rice ball series finished?#no <3 #but thats what makes this fun HAHAHHAHA #edited with a link to my ao3 account !

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affocream-nation-lives · 15 days

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You know I talked a lot about my Regular Affogato Headcannons and I promise I WILL get to his backstory, but I want to yapp more about Affocream.

(I also have an Affocream playlist on Spotify with my own HC’s and stuff and some hints at Affo’s backstory. ) Heres the link if you want: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/54yObSnGfx2pMMaIuO4YJg?si=37H_erOHRruZgSGHt8aUrA&pi=u-qVgapmp1R5Cr

The cover art is made by my AMAZING friend @slug-ball they are so cool and talented and you should all follow them, thats an order/j

Now finnally, here are my

Affocream Hcs (in no real order)

-When the CoD fully knew about the Consil of Heros, they knew they needed inside information, so they chose Affo, the known sweet talking, two-faced, deceiver, to go and gain the trust of the Young Consul of the Créme Republic by becoming his advisor (bc that worked out great last time/s). Of course that ended up backfireing as Affo found a Sweet Spot for the Consul and ended up falling in love.

-Affo and Clotted help eachother get dressed in the morning. Affo sometimes has Clotted put on his lipstick for him and it kinda goes like this

“There! I think i did it quite well!”

“*smacks lips* You really did, Dearest. *Grabs his face and kisses him* Oops! I smudged it, would you be a dear and reapply it?”

“Affo… If I reapply it for you, this will go on for ten minuites and we’ll end up kissing and making a mess of both our faces!”

“Aww, Its not my fault you’re so irresistabley handsome!”

-They wake up together in the morning with the sun shining throught the windows all pretty and they just cuddle and give eachother sleepy kisses and stuff

-They both love desserts (thats cannon) so they go on dates and get eachother little treats all the time

-Clotted took Affo on a date to the beach once which was quite new for Affo, as a cookie who grew up in frigid snowy mountain ridges, he’d never been to a beach before. He enjoyed it and the two played in the water together and just had a good time

-I said this in my Affo hc post but Clotted gave Affo a white pearl bracelet as a symbol of undying trust between the two…. Affo for once felt guilty about lying to someone

-Clotted knows about Affogatos trauma (which i PROMISE, I’ll talk abt but its just REALLY REALLY dark) and does research on how to try and help him and be a supportive boyfriend

-Affo also helps Clotted live more, and be less afraid of going against what his father wants or thinks is right, reminding Clotted that HE is the Consul, not his father

-In terms of human nationalities, I hc Clotted is half British (bc clotted cream is a british dish) and half French (bc many of the other cookies of the Créme Republic are named after French desserts and even the name if the place sounds French) and Clotted speaks French fluently often with Financier or Madeilene and the first time the Affo heard it he was absolutley flustered

-Because of this, Clotted ofthen teases him by calling Affo French petnames or just saying sweet phrases to him in French

-Lots of “purley professional” hand kissing

-The Créme Republic hosts Balls for the nobles and elders sometimes, Affo was invited to one by Clotted and was told to wear something nice. He showed up wearing a beautiful purple ballgown with black gloves and Clotted was of course blown away and the two danced all night (im a sucker for ballroom dance scenes)

-Affo wasn’t used to that type of dancing at first, being both Cacaoian and a shaman, but was easily able to pick it up and enjoyed himself

-Affo met Light Cream once and it went very well! Light Cream unlike SOME OTHER of Clotted’s familiy members was very supportive of Clotted’s new boyfriend and loved Affogato. Affo saw a lot of his own mother’s traits in her so he warmed up to her too.

-Not too much of a hc just a disasterous idea of a Affocream/ Esspressiline double date at a café where Affogato and Esspresso’s coffee orders get mixed up and chaos unfolds

-Also not a hc but them going out in thier cannon casual outfits together

-Kinda an Au hc- They are the fathers of Sugar Coat Cookie (the tailor in the town square update)

-In this Au, Affo is very protective of his son, ESSPECIALLY with who hes dating

-This is an Au bc i personally in my cannon could never see Affo wanting kids (Clotted would be fine with or without). He and Clotted could have a perfectly happy and fufilling life and relationship without them.

-Clotted often overworks himself, working late nights without any breaks and its not rare that he falls asleep midway. When Affo finds him like this he takes him to thier room, puts him in bed and finishes the work he can for him. When Clotted wakes up, he obviously gets nervous that he nevr finished, but when he goes to his desk, he sees all his papers neatley organized with a note on top:

“Dearest, You fell asleep at your desk again, I carried you to bed and made sure you got rest. Dont worry about your work, I stayed up to finish it for you!

~Affogato <3”

-They both love to play with eachothers hair for different reasons. Clotted loves how silky and smooth Affogato’s hair is while Affo loves the fluffiness of Clotted’s hair

-“Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” x “Killer Queen”…. thats it

-Financier has walked in on intimate moments TOO. MANY. TIMES.

-For even more intimate moments, they always have some sort of dessert afterwards

-Clotted and Affo go ALL OUT on those moments, like rose petals leading to the room or smth

-One time, the two of them got carried away and Clotted ended up with a VERY noticable hickey on his neck, but luckily he has a boyfriend thats skilled with makeup

-Now hickeys only go in places no one will see

-Both are very touch starved in different ways (Clotted being touch starved overall, while Affo is starved of specifically loving touch, touch that means more)

-They are both very persistant in arguments both being very intelligent, sassy and good at rebuttals (thier gay politicians, what do you expect?)

-Despite being Clotted’s advisor, Affo doesn’t go to many Consil meetings. He went once but it went HORRIBLY because of one problem: Cacao, who has (rightfully) not forgiven him and honsestly never will

-This doesn’t mean Affo doesn’t sometimes join Clotted in his travels, they mostly go to the Vanilla Kingdom ofc

-He stays home when meetings are in the Cacao Kingdom ofc (He is banned and/or wanted for a HIGH bounty) He and Clotted still talk on the phone all night after meetings

-Remember my Headcannon that Affo’s favorite place on Earthbread was the Hollyberry Kingdom. When meetings are held there, the two of them make a vacation of it.Affogato was so happy when he found out they were going the first time and he enjoys every second of it!

-Hollyberry doesn’t mind Affogato too much but when she brought up her berry-juice drinking contest with Clotted, Affo decided to step up to the challenge in his place, despite Clotted repeatedly saying it wasn’t necesary…..Affo lost and Clotted had to carry his drunk ass back to thier room

-The two of them cuddle a bunch while Clotted reads or like Affo curls up on his lap like a cat or something

-They both planned to propose on the same day and they both cried during the proposals (they said yes ofc)

-This will DEFINATLEY not be the end of them but its all I can think of right now-

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #affogato cookie #clotted cream cookie #affocream #affogato x clotted cream #financier cookie #fruity as hell #headcanon #my sillies #adhd go brrrr #dark cacao cookie #hollyberry cookie #madeline cookie #Spotify

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lnkedmyheart · 8 months

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thoughts on the akutagawa and chuuya stage play scene? i've seen people say while it was harsh of chuuya to say, it was a reality/wake up call for akutagawa.

This is such a complicated thing to answer, because of everything that happens in da. It'll be a bit long.

If you ask me, I think its just how Chuuya is. He isn't this gentle calming presence people present him as, he's confrontational and rude and sucks at communication. As I keep saying about Dazai, Chuuya is a mentally unstable guy who has no concept of being open and vulnerable with people. He doesnt sit them down and talk to them. He is the aloof older brother who cares about you and tries but sort of sucks at pep talk so he just shoves you in the right direction but he'll be there to catch you if you fall. The softness people want from him? That's just not him.

In the da stageplay Chuuya tries to get Akutagawa to realise that Dazai is once again not the be all end all of his existence. That he doesnt need to fixate on getting his approval. The problem with Aku is that he has this idea of Dazai in his head and looks upto Dazai because he gave him and Gin a shot at life. Chuuya then tells Aku to go and kill Dazai because Dazai is directly involved with Shibusawa, note that Chuuya is well aware that Aku cannot actually kill him considering Aku's ability has seperated from him and Dazai is immune to the fog. Aku insists that that isnt true because Dazai wants to save the city not destroy it so clearly he cannot be working with the enemy. And then Chuuya laughs at him because Aku genuinely believes he knows Dazai better than Chuuya. I feel like the mission to kill Dazai is symbolic in that Aku needs to kill the desire to please Dazai, or atleast kill the idea of Dazai that he has in his head. Aku is putting Dazai on a pedestal, stripping him of all his faults. Except Chuuya (and the audience) knows that Dazai is infact involved with Shibusawa and was partly responsible for the events of da even if his end goal was good. Chuuya then tells Aku that he doesn't understand Dazai because there is a darkness inside Dazai that he refuses to see and is instead idealizing the guy as having flipped a switch and become a good person. (This darkness btw pops out whenever Dazai interacts with Aku even post defection since he is still cruel to him and instead of seeing this as a flaw in Dazai he sees it as his own personal failure). Finally Chuuya tells him that the reason Dazai probably doesn't acknowledge him is because he is just constantly running after Dazai to gain his approval and that he himself has never looked up to Dazai.

Again note that Aku knows that Dazai, despite their banter, acknowledges Chuuya as powerful and capable. Regardless of whether or not he is aware of the sheer intensity of their actual dynamic its kinda hard to act like people wouldn't have noticed how capable Dazai considers Chuuya. And Aku does look up to Chuuya as well.

And Chuuya then taunts him because Aku tries to attack Chuuya for mocking his obsession with Dazai. Aku then says he will fulfill the mission and promises to come after Chuuya next. He's finally been motivated to focus on himself instead of Dazai now. The thing here is that Chuuya is harsh. He is deliberately being harsh because Aku is so deep in his own head that he needs to be shaken up and needs reality to smack him in the face (think the dhc punch Dazai needed to snap out of his spiral). Dazai is not this perfect dude just because he left the mafia, Dazai's own demons (the darkness/monster within him) will always exist to a degree and that doesn't mean Dazai's mistreatment of Aku is due to a personal failure on Aku's end but rather a Dazai problem.

I think there is a general disconnect between Aku and Chuuya when it comes to Dazai. Chuuya usually doesnt make excuses for Dazai. He says it like it is. He knows Dazai is fully capable of doing good but he also acknowledges that Dazai has a darkness within him that sometimes guides him to do shit that is very much not okay. He doesn't see Dazai as a monster but he knows there is something messed up within him. Aku refuses to see that. Much like how Dazai refused to see the darkness within Oda and put him up on a pedestal.

I also think its important to consider that Chuuya doesn't actually want Aku to kill Dazai, its more just a symbolic speech and an attempt to get him to see sense, start acting like his own person rather than someone desperately seeking Dazai's attention. Especially cause Chuuya literally risks everything to save Dazai's life later.

And its just hilarious how people ignore the final part of their da stage play interaction. When Aku shows up where Chuuya is post fight he is still a bit pissy and its Chuuya who smiles and reaches out to him. And this time he is pretty gentle with him. Dazai has been saved, Yokohama is safe, Aku has proven his strength by focussing on himself, not Dazai, and getting back his ability.

Chuuya then jokes about how Aku still seems mad about Chuuya calling him weak and Aku pretends to brush it off. Chuuya then tells him that Aku was always a part of Dazai's plan against Shibusawa, aka Dazai relies on him and therefore does think him capable. When that doesnt do much he tells him that as Dazai's partner he knows Dazai approves of him despite not showing it. And even if Dazai didnt, Chuuya will always see him as capable.

Dazai and Chuuya are not opposites. They understand each other because they are that similar. Just because Dazai was a shitty and extremely harsh mentor doesn't mean Chuuya would be the ideal mom figure. Chuuya is also harsh and sucks at communicating and just as much of a mystery.

#i need to add here #stage actors will always use a stronger tone and exaggerated gestures because they are stage actors #hence certaing actions will be a bit more overt than what you see in a movie/anime or in a manga/nove #novel*

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impetuous-impulse · 6 months

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Ruthless Representatives, Unjust Executions (1/3): the Death of an Artillery Captain

This is a response to @josefavomjaaga's recent post, which partially deals with the alleged arrest and execution of an artillery captain by Saint-Just, then a representative on mission, during the siege of Charleroi, and the representatives' abuse of military men around the time of the battle of Fleurus. Josefa enquired whether anyone could shed light on this incident from the FRev community. While I am not well-versed in FRev events, I would like to offer some of my findings about military justice in the army during the Revolution in relation to the representatives in three parts. The first part deals directly with the tale of Saint-Just's execution of the artillery captain, and how it was turned into a symbol that exemplifies the Revolution's extrajudicial violence. All translation errors are my own.

The source about Saint-Just's terrorisation and execution of the artillery captain that is cited the most is from Soult’s memoirs (1854). Writers, including Colonel Phipps, use this source verbatim without questioning it, because Saint-Just and all the representatives were obviously Stupid Civilians who thought that any incompletion of their orders amounted to betrayal:

It was above all the siege division which deployed with activity before Charleroi. The colonel Marescot directed the engineering operations, under the eyes of Generals Jourdan and Hatry; we had a sufficient artilery crew, and the representatives Saint-Just and Lebas stood at the foot of the trench to speed up the work. One day, they visited the site of a battery that had just been marked out: "At what time will it be finished?" asked Saint-Just of the captain responsible for having it executed. "That depends on the number of workers that I will be given; but we will work relentlessly," responded the officer. "If tomorrow, at six o'clock, she is not ready to fire, your head will fall off!..." In this short time, it was impossible for the work to be completed; even though as many men were put there as the space could contain. It was not entirely finished when the fatal hour struck; Saint-Just kept his horrible promise: the artillery captain was immediately arrested and sent to his death, because the scaffold marched in the wake of the ferocious representatives. (pp. 156-157)

Saint-Just, in Soult's depiction, is the proper Archangel of Death, guillotining everything that stands in his path. In portraying Saint-Just thus, Soult criticizes the representatives' murder of an innocent man. Worse, he depicts representatives as civilians that can only stand around instead of hardworking soldiers bringing the siege to fruition, making their commands unjustified. Soult condemns the fact that a civilian's word could be the injust law that separated soldiers from life or death.

That said, as Soult is no friend of the political figures of the Revolution, his remembered account requires precise corroboration to be valid. I found one earlier source that describes, presumably, the same incident, from Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des Français, de 1792 à 1815, vol. 3. It was written in 1817 by "a society of soldiers and men of letters", and edited by Charles Théodore Beauvais de Préau, a general of the Revolution and Empire. Though this anonymisation may have been taken to avoid the wrath of the Bourbons in the Restoration, it means we have no idea who wrote the following section, nor their intentions:

This fierce man [Saint-Just], who never showed himself in the trench, informed that a captain of the first regiment of artillery had been somewhat negligent in the construction of a battery of which he was in charge, had him shot in the trench. At the same time, he gave General Jourdan the order to arrest, and consequently have shot on the spot, the General Hatry, commander of the besieging troops, the General Bellemont, commander of the artillery, and the commander Marescot. The General Jourdan had, at the risk of his own life, the courage to resist the wishes of this gutless representative. The officers of whom we have just spoken of had the audacity of protesting against the cruel sentence which condemned the unfortunate artillery captain Méras, and, in his his atrocious delirium, Saint-Just dared to accuse them of complicity. (p. 47)

If we infer from the title of this source that the editor compiled the accounts of his comrades, then this account was written by a former Revolutionary and Imperial officer who could have some memory of the incident. However, many aspects of this text don’t line up with Soult’s account, including the way the captain was executed (shot in the trench here, guillotined in Soult's account). Saint-Just's successive condemnation of high-ranking officers, which highlights how much power he had over even the highest echelons of the army, also does not appear in Soult's account. But we do have a name for the captain: Méras. His name, in fact, appears in a 1797 publication: L'observateur impartial aux armées de la Moselle, des Ardennes, de Sambre et Meuse, et la Rhine et Moselle, a memoir by Pierre Charles Lecomte, at the time "the conducteur general of the artillery in the Army of the Rhin-Moselle [sic]". This is his account on the affair, relegated to a footnote:

Before giving the details of the capitulation of Charleroi, I must cite a horrible feature of the role of Representative Saint-Just. The French proconsul ordered the construction of a battery that he thought was necessary.* The general Bollemont [sic] entrusted its execution to an artillery captain, named Méras. All the shovels, pickaxes, and other utensils happened to be employed in other work, the orders of the Representative could not be executed. The morning of the next day, passing close to the location where the battery was supposed to be constructed, he [Saint-Just] shouted, raged, sent to search for the captain; and, without listening to his reasons, he had him arrested. Two days later, when his [Méras’] company was battling against the enemy, he [Saint-Just] had him taken from the prison, he had him conducted to the middle of his works; and there, o misery! o inhumanity! he had him assassinated. At night his company returned to the camp covered in glory; they learned that their chief had been shot; they surrendered to despair. They wanted to go to the tyrant: they were stopped, under the fear that some of these brave soldiers would have become new victims. Méras was so much loved, that all of the artillery wanted to enact vengeance on his assassin. This almost universal rumour made itself heard amongst the trenches; and, for preventing it from having consequences, the company of the unfortunate Méras was sent into the interior. *We know that there was a time when the Representatives, often little-instructed in the military arts, dared impudently to command old soldiers whose arms had dulled, and obliged them to sacrifice, according to their whims, some thousands of brave soldiers. (p. 38-39)

Once again, the details contradict even more with Soult’s account, and with that of the 1817 one. Soult says as much help as possible was given to the artillery captian, but Lecomte says all other workers were occupied and that captain received little help (presumably because the battery was militrarily unimportant). Méras’ misery is stretched out over two days instead of him being shot immediately, and it is not the generals who protested against Méras' execution that Saint-Just raises a hand against, but Méras' entire company, which the civilian government sends to the Vendée. The message could not be clearer: under "tyrannical representatives" like Saint-Just, the Revolution is eating its soldiers, the common people it was supposed to protect.

Is this the truth of the matter, since it is the earliest version? The publication is contemporary enough, but I am inclined to doubt the reliability of a text explicitly titled “impartial”. A look at the author's background reveals his attitudes. Lecomte was, according to BnF data, the maître de pension in Versailles until 1792 (presumably up to the abolishment of the monarchy), then the inspector of octroi taxes in Paris until 1815. Seeing that he served the First Empire, I am inclined to think that he was no die-hard revolutionary, and certainly not part of the Montagnard faction. Furthermore, he published his account after the fall of the Montagnards, during the height of the Directory. This makes the affair more likely to be Thermidorian propaganda, and indeed Lecomte even admits that his account was an “almost universal rumour”, not a fact, because in his story, no one is present at the scene of Méras’ death other than Saint-Just and his executioner. This makes the account unverifiable, and makes it more likely to be fabrication.

It would seem that, after Saint-Just’s death, the army’s fear and hatred of representatives turned into slander against their characters, often resulting in widely circulated variants of the same tale to emphasise different effects. The 1797 version highlights Saint-Just’s cruelties as a tyrant against the “small folk” of the Revolution and uses exclamatory language to amplify the reader's pathos. The 1817 version emphasises Saint-Just’s power over even the generals of the army, exaggerating his dictatorship. Finally, in Soult’s memoir, Saint-Just is not just a dictator who could dismiss soldiers with a wave of a hand. He and the representatives were synonymous with the guillotine and the excesses of the Revolution themselves.

The accounts of Saint-Just condemning Méras to death are inconsistent, and should amount to nothing more than invalid hearsay, which tells us nothing of the representatives' historical actions. If anyone has more information on the topic or the wider subject, feel free to add to this.

#jean-de-dieu soult #louis antoine de saint-just #frev #representatives #memoirs #revolutionary army

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apocalypticavolition · 1 month

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Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 9: Wolf Dreams

Spoiler alert: Just because he's a good boi does not mean he won't fuck you up if he has to. Also spoiler alert: This post and every other post in this series spoils everything for Wheel of Time ever (even the future, like the second TV show they'll make in the 2050s) so if you don't want to know about those spoilers, don't keep reading!

This chapter has the Dragon's Fang symbol because of Rand's Darkhound solutions.

��I have been expecting you for some time,” she said. “I have not spoken about this before because it was obvious you did not want me to. After tonight, though. . . . What do you want to know?”

Note that this is how she STARTS the conversation, before Perrin even gets a word in. Moiraine has been really trying to respect Perrin's boundaries here (in part because if she trampled over them it would only make him ignore what she has to say) and while of course implict statements from Aes Sedai should never be trusted, it is important that she closes with a statement that both affirms Perrin's agency and all but promises to be helpful. If only she were this good with dealing with Rand.

She said that some who talked to wolves lost themselves, that what was human was swallowed up by wolf. Some. Whether she meant one in ten, or five, or nine, I do not know.

Moiraine is usually pretty good about remembering the whole memory fades spiel, so I think the fact that she's emphasizing the exact words of an unreliable source shows that she very much wants it to be a trustworthy document that shows that Perrin still has a shot. She likes the boy even if he's been annoying lately.

“From what I have read of Aes Sedai who had the Talent called Dreaming, Dreamers sometimes spoke of encountering wolves in their dreams, even wolves that acted as guides. I fear you must learn to be as careful sleeping as waking, if you intend to avoid wolves. If that is what you decide to do.”

This of course must be where the idea of spirit animals and such comes from, more or less. Wolfbrothers, their equivalents if there are any, and the Dreamers who got a taste of the guidance and assumed they were getting the whole thing.

“If I can keep you whole, I will. I promise you that, Perrin. But I will not endanger the struggle against the Shadow. You must know that, too.”

As cold as this is, it's actually a bit of a kindness too: she could obfuscate and let him think he's safe with her entirely, but she won't do that even though it would be better for their relationship on the whole. I suppose in a way, dealing with Perrin on this little stint is how Moiraine learns to deal with Rand better in the next couple books.

“It would not aid you, Perrin. The shielding is for dreams from the outside. The danger in your dreams is within you.”

Are there shields that the One Power can wield to keep Dreamers and similar people from dreaming? I suppose Aran'gar did SOMETHING with the power to fuck with Egwene later, but it's understandable that Moiraine wouldn't know of any equivalent ability when the Tower has no real use for it.

“Hopper?” he said wonderingly. He was sure he knew the wolf whose thoughts he heard. Hopper, who had envied the eagles. “Hopper is dead!”

Speaking of spirit animals, it's time for Perrin to meet his!

A man stood there, blinking at him uncertainly, in strangely cut coat and breeches, the coat flaring over his hips as the bottoms of the breeches flared over his boots. Both were bright yellow, and his boots were only a little paler.

Okay, so this is... Actually I have no idea who this is. Presumably he's an actual nobleman, but from where I couldn't possibly guess except "not Seanchan" since he speaks with a quick accent and "not Illian" since he doesn't be all "do be" about stuff. Does anyone know?

Frozen, Perrin stared at the bloody shape wearing the man’s clothes, screaming and thrashing on the floor. Unbidden, his eyes rose to the pale thing like an empty sack that dangled from the ceiling. Part of it was already absorbed by the black strip, but he had no trouble recognizing a human skin, apparently whole and unbroken.

Well, either this dude was having one hell of a dream on his own (bad luck and not the kind that Perrin proximity causes), T'A'R has an ecosystem we never learn about (unlikely), or dude was just ganked by someone in the Shadow, so I guess that narrows it down a teensy bit.

Even as he recognized her, she lifted her head and looked straight at him. Her eyes widened, in shock, in anger. “You! What are you doing here? How did you—? You’ll ruin things you could not begin to imagine!”

Frankly, even "well obviously Lanfear killed that dude" raises further questions about motive. Perhaps this guy was a Darkfriend somewhere on Rand's path, and by taking him out she's protecting Rand in a plausibly deniable way?

Perrin turned, and Hopper was there, a big gray wolf, grizzled and scarred. “You are dead. I saw you die. I felt you die!”

Perrin buddy, you know you're sleeping. This is like the least remarkable part of your current dream.

The water turned pink as he washed his face. Pink with the blood of that strangely dressed man.

T'A'R is actually really awful when you stop to think about it for a few seconds.

Rand huddled under the trees in the night, watching the heavy-shouldered black dog come nearer his hiding place.

Rand being active at night speaks again to the sleep deprivation he's got to be suffering under. Even when he was on that hellish run with Mat he was able to claim downtime, but not here.

The Power filled him. Something leaped from his outstretched hands; he was not sure what it was. A bar of white light, solid as steel. Liquid fire. For an instant, in the middle of that something, the dog seemed to become transparent, and then it was gone.

Hooray for balefire: cleaner and more effective than nukes! Note Jordan's skill by introducing Rand discovering it randomly in a battle that has no real narrative tension so it's not a cheap victory but still does set things up for Moiraine to use it at the climax of this book to great effect.

He wanted to lie down and die. He wanted Nynaeve to give him some of her medicines, or Moiraine to Heal him, or. . . . Something, anything, to stop the sick feeling that was suffocating him.

When the chips are down, the two ladies Rand always misses most are Nynaeve and Moiraine. Foreshadowing!

Pushing himself away from the tree, he waded a shallow, icy stream, then settled into a steady trot eastward. Cold water filled his boots, and his side hurt, but he ignored both.

So many of Rand's bad habits really start up in these early books, under circumstances where he doesn't have any choice but to embrace them.

Next time: Egwene is ready to have PTSD episodes and chew bubblegum, but bubblegum hasn't been invented yet!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #perrin aybara #simion #moiraine damodred #hopper #lanfear #rand al'thor

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hazbinhappy · 3 months

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My Hazbin OC - Sunnie :)

I really went in on her background and it is very much subject to change but her look is solidified 🫶🏽 look at the pretty princess (and Velv cameo) i promise my handwringing is good it’s just the pen i used 😭

Here is some of her Hell background! (More like most of it lmao ngl I might just private post headcanons and blurbs of her unless yall wanna see her suffer or have a bit of a fun time)

I need to make it known: I do not condone a single thing Val ever has and will do that man is a bad and deserves to be in Hell. Making this OC a moth was purely based on the fact her and Val represent 2 different things about moths: Val is the symbolic meaning for endings/death and mysteries in night while Sunnie is the literal moth, they are beautiful and cute little creatures! She was going to be an orchid mantis because she was going to originally just be a girl who dated guys and played with their feelings before ghosting them but I liked this route more! But yeah I am not his supporter but I think he’s an interesting character/villain and I want to see him be explored more as long with the other V’s because they need more to their stories! Like Vox and Alastor! More Velvette!! Valentino and Angel backstory??? Anyways my want for more history and every character is for another day! do expect to see her more <3

i think when you wake up in Hell you don't have many memories from your past life (you can start to remember more if you try, but some people don't find any point). when she woke up in Hell she didn't remember much past who her family and friends was and her death

she went to hell for killing a girl who assaulted her friend

she met Velvette while she was trying to find photography work! she saw that Velvette (or at least her assistant) had put out an ad on Voxtagram (is that what it was called?) and immediately applied and sent in her portfolio

she thankfully got hired....but she had to sell her soul which was unfortunate, but hey a job and free housing

after a couple months Velvette mentions how Valentino wants a photoshoot done for Angel Dust

Sunnie vaguely remembers those names in passing and doesn't remember if she's ever seen a photo of them

when she goes to the studio to start taking photos she freezes when she sees Valentino

she knew he'd be Hell of course, he wasn't a good man

but she never thought she'd see her father again

he's talking to her as if she's any assistant until she starts speaking back to him

Angel notices the weird vibes, but he just poses and leaves

Val and Sunnie don't talk, but it's an unspoken thing that no one will nor should know (so not even Vox or Velvette know)

she grew to resent him once he passed so he has this ideal little girl stuck in his mind while she has a father who exposed to a lifestyle she shouldn’t have known

she knows about the hotel and has considered it occasionally because she wonders if her mom is in heaven (she died when she was a little in elementary so when Val died she went to her maternal family)

but she doesn’t because she genuinely cares for Velvette (if Velvette genuinely love for her is up in the air because she owns Sunnie's soul sooooo, but she seems to care about her)

she spends most of her time just taking random photos for Velvette's professional account, but she does have silly photos of other works (even from the other V's)

she tries to avoid Val most of the time, but sometimes it's unavoidable

they don't...really ever have an actual heart to heart about how things are now, but he has reached out and she's never replied unless it's "your late to the shoot" "velvette wants to know what time you're coming"

maybe one day she'll reach out, but it won't be anytime soon cause she hates him so much for the time being

Her Life background!

like i said they're relationship is based off of Marty Hodas and his daughter's relationship! She always seems kind of put off of growing up in that sexual environment and just didn't like it and Marty Hodas was considered like the King of Peep Shows/Porn

i like to think Val only had her as his kid and she was his little princess and he took her everywhere and didn't care as long as she wasn’t directly involved

Anice did stay away from that as she grew up, it became easier when Val died (apparently in the 70s) when she was 13 because she lived with her maternal family who weren’t involved with that

she did have a nice friend group! speaking of friend group they were drunk driving and all 5 of them (2 guys, 2 girls, and her) died in a multiple car wreck in 1985 (yes they stayed friends in Hell!)

she was going to college to be a photographer!

she wasn't necessarily a doormat, but she didn't often speak up about how she feels about things

I know I said she didn’t like her dad once she realized what he did and what she grew up around but she kept validating what he did by saying he was a single dad and had to take care of her and not leave her at home

so in a sense she idolized him, but in a parental way

adolescent psych doing me some good

to expand on the murder thing: her guy best friend (he’s not like a small dude either he’s big) was about to be in a not good situation so anice stabbed the girl. Was she happy about it? No, she felt like a monster. But her and friend stayed friends and covered it up. It was traumatic and it was a secret only for them to carry to their graves. She still hasn’t told anyone and won’t.

she really loves strawberry shortcake and care bears without shame and was a collector of them (she did sob when she realized she wouldn't have any of them when she died)

God I wrote a lot and drew a lot over the past 3 days so I’ll leave it here idk if I’ll revise her and change things up but a 100% is that her mom is in heaven because her mom ACTIVELY stayed away from that part of Val’s life. They only married to avoid people gossiping otherwise they weren’t together in the slightest.

ummmm YEAH so that's Sunnie/Anice and i love her

#hh art #hazbin hotel oc #hazbin oc #god i love her ask more about her please #idk why at 12am I’m just noticing this but yeah I see that in the bottom left that she’s a diff shade of pink but I’m not gonna fix that #idk maybe I’m tweaking but I don’t think I am….#HAHA I KEPT MY PROMISE I DID MATCHUPS REQUEST AND FINISHED HER #not even an hour later I think it looks bad (tbh I hate lining so I didn’t try on the second photo 😭)#my art #sunnie

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not-so-mundane-after-all · 5 months

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Dick & Rachel and the Invisible String theory (part 3)

Let's continue with season 2! (You'll find part 1 and part 2 here) Good news is, I fixed the problem of the image limit (silly me didn't know I can put up to 30 images in a post on my laptop). Also good news — season 2 has so many clues that I had to give ONE ENTIRE EPISODE a separate post!

Season 2 is interesting when it comes to the Invisible String because it all seems to be very chaotic and all over the place, which is kind of reflecting the state of both of Dick and Rachel's minds this season. Dick, quite literally haunted by his past, is fighting hallucinations of Bruce Wayne, while Rachel is trying and failing to rein in her newly upgraded powers and struggling with her sense of identity. Their problems are pulling them in different directions, making them deal with stuff separately rather than together. The String becomes frayed and loses some of its integrity. Until, finally having enough of the bullshit, it takes the matters into its own hands (ropes?), so to speak.

And in episode 2x11 "E.L._.O.", sends Rachel a dream.

It's a blaring alarm. A wailing siren. Code Red, it screams, he's doing something really really stupid and it's going to get him killed. It urges her to go, now, before it's too late.

But first a little reminder how we got there.

Dick revealed the truth about what really happened to Jericho. Mad that he kept it a secret and blaming him, everyone (including Rachel) leaves him and goes their separate ways — except for Kory, who leaves to deal with her own stuff but promises to be back, and Gar who ends up the only one staying at the Tower. Dick leaves as well, packs a bag and goes to visit Jericho's mother. After a confrontation with her and Slade, he heads for the airport, a plan to go somewhere remote and away from everyone on his mind. But once he's there, he experiences something like a psychotic breakdown, gets himself detained and sent to prison, being convinced that this is what he deserves for all his fuck ups and mistakes.

Rachel originally goes with Donna but ends up ditching her as well and finds her way to a homeless shelter, where she meets a girl named Dani. Dani invites Rachel to an abandoned house where she and her friends have their place, and tells her she can stay with them. This is where Rachel has the nightmare.

It's all very symbolic this time. A cemetery, a funeral, a gravestone with Dick's name on it. Rachel's reaction to it is heartbreaking to watch. Then Dick appears behind her, dressed in a suit and tie as if attending his own funeral, and begs her not to give up. On him? On Titans? Rachel grabs his hand to look into his mind and find out what's going on but all she sees is some place called Elko diner in the middle of nowhere, which at the time doesn't make much sense. She wants to ask, but a sword is driven right through Dick's chest, Slade standing behind him, and she watches in horror as Dick chokes on his own blood and dies. She wakes up screaming, tires to call him, but his voicemail box is full.

When she doesn't leave immediately, the String tugs at her again. Dani gives her a reading from Tarot cards and the reading is terrifyingly accurate:

"Your past. The Tower. Upheaval. It leads to a period of darkness." — fighting amongst the team, Titans breaking apart.

"Your present. The Moon. The realm of dreams. Your unconscious knows the way back to the light. You have to trust your intuition. It will guide you to your purpose." — THE REALM OF DREAMS!!! GUIDE YOU!!!! TO YOUR PURPOSE!!!! Do I even have to explain?!

"Your future. The hanged man. Brutality is coming your way. You must prepare to make a great sacrifice or... suffer a great loss." — explains the meaning of the vision and predicts the future. The hanged man is Dick, his life is in danger. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Rachel gets another scary vision:

Something insane hit me while I was rewatching this scene and making these gifs. Something that made my jaw drop to the floor.

Dani could be the personification of the Invisible String.

She's only in this one episode, we never see her again. Rachel doesn't get the vision of Dick's death until she's at her place. Her only purpose seems to be to have this scene with Rachel, read her from the cards and help her understand this dream. She's literally guiding Rachel on the right path, a path that will take her back to Dick.

Rachel leaves right after that and heads for the bus station. This is another example of the String working in mysterious ways, because it's a direct callback to the moment from the pilot where Rachel decides to go to Detroit. This time it's a little more intentional — Rachel picks Elko because she recognized the name of the diner from her dream — but the two scenes are done nearly shot for shot to remind us that neither of the instances is coincidental. Just like the previous season, the String is leading her to Dick.

On the bus she has another dream. She's in the same cemetery, sees Dick standing over his own grave. Deathstroke emerges from behind the trees with his sword in hand and Rachel tries to warn Dick but she's unable to move and he can't hear her. Deathstroke kills him again and Rachel jerks awake just when she's about to miss her stop.

Meanwhile, weird things start happening with some of the others. Donna gets a strange call from Rachel, but the static cuts off her voice. Kory, who ended up in Vegas, sees a commercial of the Elko diner on TV. Dawn hears Rachel's voice on the radio as she's driving. All three get the same message: get to the Elko diner.

When they get there, though, Rachel is actually shocked to see them all there and claims she didn't do anything. Then none other than Bruce Wayne walks in and has a nice little chat with them. (Btw Bruce is preaching in this scene. Amen to these words!)

He gives a speech about putting the gang back together despite all the hurt that broke them apart, then simply leaves. Kory, Donna and Dawn aren't too convinced, the latter two deciding to leave. But before they do, a small TV in the back of the empty diner turns itself on and shows news footage informing that Dick is in a nearby prison and apparently helped two men escape. Convenient, right?

All of this is so weird, isn't it? So random. You watch it and immediately claim it "shitty writing" because the way these events happen is so goddamn ridiculous. It feels like it doesn't make much sense.

Or does it?

Because it's not really Bruce. Because in the season finale, when Kory thanks Bruce for coming and his advice, Bruce tells her he doesn't know what she's talking about because he was never there.

But if it wasn't Bruce, who or what was it?

At this point, Dick is having hallucinations all the time. While locked in solitary confinement, he has no one but his mind's projection of his adoptive father for company. They talk, they argue, even fight. Bruce has been appearing to him throughout the entire season, most of the time uninvited (as hallucinations do) and Dick couldn't get rid of him. But the one time when Dick actually does want Bruce to appear, he doesn't.

Bruce doesn't show up, but a large bird appears in a window of the cell and catches Dick's attention.

The only way I can describe Dick's face when he sees it is relief. Man nearly looks like he could cry. He immediately jumps to his feet, eyes never leaving the bird, and softly calls to it, but the bird flies away and doesn't come back even when Dick is shouting after it. Left alone again, Dick hangs his head and drops back to the floor, where he curls, crushed and defeated, as if the last glimmer of hope he had just died.

Bruce comes back shortly after that, and at the question "Where did you go?" he ominously replies that Dick needed to rest, and then changes the topic.

Okay but why pay attention to some bird? It's just a random bird, right? Wrong.

It's Rachel. Her "soul self" as she calls it in season 4. Still linked to Dick's subconscious even after leaving the dream, she "borrowed" Bruce's projection to bring him to the diner and sent the Raven as a replacement. Even Kory and Dawn came to a similar conclusion in the finale:

What's more, Dick must have recognized her in the bird. Otherwise, why would the bird catch his attention? Why would it cause such a range of emotions on his face? The bird doesn't stay for long, it flies away almost immediately, but I'd say this way Rachel now knows where to look. The bird comes back, the tv turns on and now they have the location.

One extra clue that proves it is that the scene in the cell happens right after the scene at the diner, which implies that the two moments might be happening at the same time.

How did Rachel do all of that? Found her way to some random diner in Nevada, brought the girls and Bruce together, sent out a projection of herself to Dick and did it all unconsciously ? Is it her powers or is it the String pulling her forward? Or both? It could be her instinct, her fear, her helplessness and desperation because she's just a kid and she's alone, and she just had a premonition of Dick's death. There's not a lot of time and she needs help. Outside of the diner, she's begging Donna and Dawn to stay, tears shine in her eyes and her breath hitches while she explains to them how she saw Dick die, but ultimately only Kory stays by her side. She gets some of the help but not all, and Dick eventually finds them before they get to find him, but all these weird things didn't stop happening until the threat of Dick dying went away.

As for Dick's end of the String, it kind of only makes a cameo. In his last hallucination, after Dick and Bruce exchange a few kicks and blows, Dick finds himself standing in front of several screens showing some important, pivotal moments from his life, moments that shaped him into who he is. There's many different things here: Robin's violence, his parents' killer's death, cutting Bruce's tracker from his arm, Jason falling from a building — and two memories of Rachel. The first meeting in Detroit and the moment she appeared in Trigon's dreamscape to save him (which also proves something I'll be talking about in season 3, so remember that detail).

And honestly, I can't think of an explanation to this other than the String's mere presence. It doesn't do anything — the scene's purpose is for Dick to figure out a clue left by Jericho. But I find the choice of picking not one but two important memories of her for this scene a really interesting and thought-provoking detail. Especially that the way this entire section is constructed draws your attention to it. We hear Rachel saying "It's you, you're the boy from the circus" in the background and her voice doesn't drown in the cacophony of others from different memories, but it's distinct, standing out from the rest — we as the audience are meant to hear it and recognize it. All the memories on the screens change, some appear on different screens at different times, but everything, from the camera angle and blocking, to editing and effects, made sure these two memories were seen at the same time. They're not the focus of the scene of course but you can tell there's been a lot of thought put into making sure they end up where they ended up.

You know, it's funny how I used to not take this episode too seriously — like most of the fandom — because of all the stuff at the diner and how there's seemingly no explanation to it and it feels so random. Because of how stupid some of the characters decisions seem. We always blame it on the writing, shit on the writers for leaving plotholes and making retcons, and 99% of the time we are right to do it. But maybe we just have to look deeper. Maybe we're supposed to look deeper. Because after looking at these events through the perspective of The Invisible String, this episode will never not make sense to me again. It's not dumb anymore, it's not random. It's actually fucking brilliant. I think it speaks of something that I had to give it a whole separate post to explain it — and that was something I did not plan when I sat down to write this theory.

Now we move to seasons 3 & 4. And check out Part 4!

#dc titans #titans #dcu titans #tv: titans #titans season 1 #titans season 2 #titans season 3 #titans season 4 #dick grayson #rachel roth #dick and rachel #nightwing #raven #kory anders #garfield logan #graysonfam #titans meta #fathers and daughters y'all

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hamliet · 1 year

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Emerald and Mercury, Chemical Wedding

So Hamliet wrote a meta about Renora, Bumbleby, White Knight, and Rosegarden getting chemical weddings (several posts for White Knight now since they just had their second one). But at the time I remarked that I didn't see any specific symbolism for Emercury.

I was dumb, and I'm sorry. There is a wedding, and it's very clearly coded as one, and I missed it. Lulz?

It's from the same manuscript as Yang/Blake's first wedding, and Renora's. It's less directly referencing the specific imagery in that neither Em nor Merc are using lances or riding animals, but it's still packed full of obvious symbolism.

The point of this image is actually that fights are often symbolic of chemical weddings. Think Jaime and Brienne having a fight with swords in front of a river in A Storm of Swords. There's a specific risk of penetration involved here (yes that's subtext), and the first chemical wedding is often violent. I'm not going to get super into the Freudian penetration symbolism because that's not really what happens, but I am going to point out that Mercury and Emerald do penetrate each other's armor symbolically here.

If you look at the framing when the fight starts, it's comparable to Weiss and Jaune's before their second one begins.

Emerald is in front of sunlight and fire. Mercury, associated with the moon, is in the shadows. Emerald is associated with red as well.

But the fight starts off with Emerald essentially asking Mercury what am I to you? But she includes Cinder in this, which is a sign of immaturity, because Cinder is explicitly paralleled with a parental figure here (Marcus). Don't bring your parents up in romantic situations, kids.

And Mercury responds kind of cruelly:

Emerald: I mean, there has to be something you want from this, right?

Mercury: Salem's promised us everything. We win this thing for her, we'll be top dogs in her new world. What more do you want?

Emerald: I just... (sighs) Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things... But without her here, I don't know if what we're doing--

Mercury: Wake up, already...

Emerald looks at him in shock upon hearing this.

Mercury: Cinder doesn't care about you! She doesn't care about either of us!

Emerald: You don't know what you're talking about!

Mercury: You're in denial. And if you're gonna start having a crisis of identity or some crap... keep me out of it.

Still, Emerald does directly tell Mercury that he and Cinder are family to her. That's pretty clearly implied.

Emerald then starts to meet Mercury where he's at. She responds to him with fights and kicks, and only when she does that--using a language Mercury understands, because for him family=pain and physical violence--does Mercury open up to her.

In fact, this is the specific framing of the exact moment he tells Emerald about Marcus stealing his semblance. He's stepped into the fire, absorbing qualities from Emerald.

Whenever Mercury makes important statements, he says it in front of the fire. For example, he tells Emerald "I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be" in front of fire (scene below).

The fight also takes place in a vault that is very much modeled on a church. I mean, don't tell me this isn't a church. It's a church, a classic wedding allusion.

The ending pose is both of them unified in light and shadows, staring at Tyrian in horror.

Because Tyrian is another key factor in this. He interrupts the wedding. He does a very creepy pose over Mercury and using his tail to make the subtext extra creepy. This makes it pretty clear that Tyrian is Emercury's Adam or Cinder/Curious Cat--an antagonistic Mercurius who represents a threat to not just Emerald and Mercury's relationship, but their very live.

I would also bet this scene foreshadows exactly what will happen later, since elevated, second chemical weddings in RWBY tend to be inverses of the preceding ones.

My prediction is Emerald and Mercury physically fight it out at some point. Tyrian will intervene and go for Emerald, but Mercury will get in the way and not allow Tyrian to kill Emerald, and they'll defeat him together.

#rwby #rwby meta #rwby theory #emercury #alchemy #chemical wedding #emerald sustrai #mercury black #tyrian callows

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gamemakerm · 11 months

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full-on Signalis-posting now but I'm gonna speculate what I think happened and why just to get it out

After a destined-to-fail propaganda expedition to discover habitable planets outside the solar system, the Penrose-512 mission ended shortly after 3000 cycles with the Elster Replika dying of radiation poisoning after putting the gestalt pilot, Ariane, into cryo sleep, in the hopes that it would save her life (despite the fact the guidebook said this was a terrible idea). More than 512² cycles later the Penrose crash-lands on Eternity, where Ariane’s bioresonance, guided by The King in Yellow, began to grow out of control and distort time and space. She either mentally reached out to Elsters in the universe and began to rewrite their gestalt memories into the Elster she knew, calling them to locations significant to her — The radio station she worked at, the mines of Leng she would have been sent to, and her former home of Rotfront especially — OR she was making them from nothingness, which is an ability of bioresonance. In either case the distortions trap the residents in those locations in a time loop, where they begin to suffer from personality degradation and then decay. Most of the Elsters die on the journey.

Ariane awaited an Elster to successfully return to keep the original’s promise — to kill her before the cancer does.

Promise: She does, then dies.

Memory: She wakes Ariane up, but Ariane — possibly Alina who became Ariane — doesn’t know who she is. Elster dies.

Leave: Elster refuses, walks off into the desert, then dies.

Artifact: Elster takes the lilies to a ritual site, then dies.

I think Ariane was almost definitely creating Isa from nothingness based on what happens to her: she realizes she's been dead all along upon seeing her family's shrine and disintegrates into the corruption. Isa might just be to torture her because she didn't help when Ariane was being bullied, but that's more speculative than anything. The Elsters might be being made since they don't have memories from anyone else, rather than being overidden like Falke was

Why is Leng the focus of so much of the game, and why is Nowhere down at the bottom of the mines? It seems like Ariane gets fixated on the idea of the mines and her bioresonance puts the eldritch horror down there rather than waking it up. We know from her Workforce assignment that Ariane was going to be assigned to re-education on Seirpinski-23 if she didn't get accepted into the Penrose program. Knowing she would be in the mines became a point of fixation for her, which began the rot at the bottom of the mine -- The first time we see the mine mentioned in the conversation with the STAR unit, we see the symbol for rotten, as if its Ariane's mental projection onto the location; Elster has no way of knowing this. This created Nowhere and spread the corruption to the upper levels once her bioresonance went haywire, Falke went down to investigate the disturbance and found the gate formed of basalt and went beyond it, which serves as a portal to Eternity where the Penrose was crashed. This caused her to be infected with Ariane's Elster projections

#Signalis

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toxictoad · 2 months

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Okay so as promised (By me, to me) I am writing about Deimos!

He's by far my favorite Durge and the first essay length bit of this is JUST for Act 1. Acts 2 and 3 will be in reblogs at some point

Also who knows I might make a post about his days in the dead three at some point (Read; probably soon because this boy has rotted my brain from the inside out).

You know the drill by now. ADHD ramble under the cut.

Deimos wakes up on the Nautiloid with a specific set of items on him. I don't feel like opening a save just to look at the starting inventory, but the thing that matters here is the book Paladin Oaths and Their Tenets;

(Interesting thing- This book is nowhere on the wiki. I would put it on there myself but I don't understand how wiki editing really works)

This book, I kid you not, is the most important part of roleplaying Deimos for me. He wakes up with no memories, head pounding, covered in blood, but he has tenets, and he WILL follow them (He's Oath of Devotion btw).

In addition to the text of the book, I headcanon that there are little notes in the margins of the pages- doodles and little jokes. Just stuff you would do if you were bored and had an old book on you.

Waking up on the beach, his immediate priority isn't necessarily survival or taking in his surroundings, it's his fucked up brain. I think a lot of people downplay how goddamn TERRIFYING it is to not have any memories. Like I've had days where I was sick and couldn't remember anything, and it was genuinely distressing, and this is like... 100 times worse than that.

So he panics, a little, and goes through all the items on his person. He has armor and a Warhammer, and... this book. He reads through it, and his thought is "Okay, I'm a paladin. That's something" And he finds a symbol of Ilmater drawn in the book and goes "Okay, that's my god probably. So I know two (2) things about myself! Awesome"

Thing is; Deimos is an amnesiac with 8 intelligence. He can kind of guess what Ilmater's followers believe, but the specifics are lost on him. The result is the funniest paladin to ever paladin.

Just imagine you're like... Shadowheart. This dude saves you from a Mindflayer pod. He seems nice enough when he's not complaining about a headache, and he's a competent fighter. You ask him who his god is and he's like "Uh... Ilmater, I guess." And you're like "...Okay" because you're a secret Shar worshipper so you kind of get being weird about deities, but Ilmater is a very acceptable god to follow and you're pretty sure he's not lying, but then why is he being weird about it. This guy is extremely devoted to his tenets but he's not even 100% sure what they are. He makes every moral decision based off of a book in his pocket and a general idea of what paladins/Ilmater devotees are like that may or may not be accurate. He doesn't even know how to pray, but he's pretty sure he's supposed to do it. The only thing he seems 100% sure about is his name, but at this point, you wouldn't be surprised if he got it off of a roadsign somewhere.

He's so fucking weird.

Deimos is incredibly freaked out by the urges, because obviously. After Shadowheart the first person he finds is Gale, and their first meeting is wonderfully awkward because Gale is being himself and Deimos is distracted by the fact that he really wanted to chop off this guy's hand like 15 seconds ago.

And then... Astarion.

Look, Durgestarion is canon in my heart and you have to deal with it now.

Deimos is incredibly easy to manipulate but in the weirdest way possible. Basically, if you can convince him that doing something is morally sound, or even just morally neutral but you really want him to do it? He'll just fucking do it. The Gur scene was the first real test of this:

Astarion: Hey this guy sucks Deimos: No he doesn't be cool What's his face: I'm hunting a vampire spawn named Astarion Deimos (Internally): Hm... Astarion is Good... and hunting good people is bad... So hunting Astarion is bad... Astarion: Please can I kill him? Deimos: Yeah okay

(Note; Deimos' definition of a "Good person" is a person he likes and who hasn't done anything morally bankrupt in his line of sight. Astarion encourages him to do bad things but so does his brain so he just doesn't listen to either of them)

However; The Urges. My way of thinking is that instead of doing horrible violence and mutilation and cannibalism whenever the option presents itself he just does something funny and kind of rude (This is the only reason he has high approval with Astarion. Astarion is constantly getting him to do weird confusing shit for his own amusement. Baa-ing at the redcaps in the swamp? 100% Astarion's influence. Threatening a magic mirror? 60% Astarion's influence and 40% because Deimos is a little bit of a himbo and doesn't like it when things try to test his intelligence. He is not a riddle person).

I cannot stress enough how weird this man appears to everyone who meets him. Friend or foe everyone around who talks to him for more than five minutes is hit with confusion. He rolls up to the scene with Kagha and Arabella and ignores the Dark Urge, only to immediately go "Hey I'm a paladin I can cast judgment on things" (A thing he is not sure that paladins actually do but he says it with confidence) and instead of making any moral arguments he's just like "I don't fuck with you snake lady let the kid go." He has high charisma but only uses it for persuasion. Ragzlin is like "The squid man showed me ur face time to die" and he just goes "No, lol." Withers wakes up to the literal chosen of Bhaal in Ilmateri getup and asks what the value of a life is and he says "Idk it's based on vibes." Astarion convinces him that the extra supplies that keep appearing in camp are a result of his charm and that he's totally not stealing from traders and Deimos goes "Yes that makes perfect sense" while Wyll is losing his goddamn mind.

Pretty early on in the game I found a book (I'm pretty sure it's A is for Azuth and Other Gods 6? Can you tell that a lot of roleplay is based around books for me) That has Ilmater, and between this children's book and the general assumptions people make about him, he can guess that he's supposed to be a martyr. It isn't his natural instinct, but he takes to it surprisingly well (His fighting style is protection, by the way. It's useless in combat but thematically appropriate so I don't care). I also think that he would encourage Gale to ramble about Ilmater because the man is like Forgotten Realms Google and this is probably his most trustworthy source of information for a while. I think Deimos really likes Gale because he talks a lot and helps drown out the murder thoughts.

So Deimos keeps up the facade-but-not-really-a-facade of being a brave, kind, selfless person who puts everyone before himself, and he tells his companions that he has dark thoughts and impulses, but they tell him that it's normal, and who is he to question them? (Again, he is easily convinced by things in weird ways. He trusts basically anyone more than he trusts his own brain, right now)

...And then Alfira comes to camp.

OH BOY. Okay so I have done playthroughs where I knock out Alfira and kill the Dragonborn bard instead, but I've been trying really hard not to metagame in this run so sadly our lovely tiefling bard is no longer with us. Deimos' honest first reaction to finding out he gored her is... to laugh.

Not a happy laugh, mind you- He's horrified, but his first thought is that he's broken his Oath, and then that that is decidedly not the first thing he should be thinking after he killed an innocent woman. So he laughs at the irony, and then he cries, and then he vomits. He cleans the blood off his hands but not because he wants to hide what he did. He just thinks that if he has to feel the blood on his fingers for one more second then he's going to go insane.

He never really stops feeling the blood. It will always be there.

My party at this point was Karlach, Astarion, and Wyll, and... Ouch. I felt like physical pain the first time I played Durge and everyone was mad at me. I think Deimos has that experience, here.

He wants to cry but he knows that he doesn't deserve to be upset about this. He vows that no innocent will ever die at his hand again, and sequesters himself in the ruin with the magic mirror in it and prays. He doesn't know how,really, but something in him remembers what a prayer for forgiveness sounds like. He begs Ilmater to listen to his repentance. Deimos carries a permanent, bone-deep guilt, but this is the first time he feels it so keenly.

He must read his tenets a hundred times, that day. He asks Withers to bring her back, but he understands why he can't. This is a burn on his conscience. She's at peace now, at least.

He is not, but what he feels doesn't matter.

(He is still immensely relieved that his oath is still intact. Breaking his oath might as well be breaking Deimos, and there's no telling what he will do once he's broken)

But, while everyone else is horrified, scared, or maybe just annoyed with Deimos, Astarion doesn't hate him.

And, look... Deimos' moral compass is literally a book, and the book doesn't say that he can't like a guy who thinks it's funny when you tell kids they're gonna die. He just really wants someone to not hate him, so now his best friend is a guy with an extremely underdeveloped moral compass. I think he clocks pretty early on that Astarion is manipulating him. But also... he doesn't care.

Deimos has always been- pre and post lobotomy- loyal to a fault. He was loyal to his foster family until Bhaal made him kill them. He was loyal to Bhaal and Saverok and even Orin. He was loyal to Gortash and Ketheric. He is a paladin at heart, whether that be under Bhaal or Ilmater. He is loyal and dutiful and constantly wracked with guilt.

Guilt for disobeying his father. Guilt for caring about people. Guilt for his past. Guilt for his urges. He's catholic coded.

So just like he was loyal to Bhaal he becomes loyal to Ilmater. Just like he was loyal to Gortash and Ketheric (Yeah, I'm going there) he becomes loyal to Astarion.

And like, he sleeps with Astarion, and he doesn't mind it, and for all his manipulation they do actually like each other, and then the tiefling party happens...

And look... Deimos knows that Astarion is lying when he says "I love you." He knows and acknowledges that fact and he can fully see that Astarion is pulling his strings like a good little puppet.

...And he just doesn't care. He lets himself believe, if only for a night, that someone loves him, despite his hands that are stained with blood and death and secrets.

And he lets Astarion feed on him, and they travel through the Underdark, and Deimos tries to hold his broken brain together.

The Grym fight is a weirdly potent moment for him, because I think that's when it really hits his companions that Deimos... Just does not value his own life.

Because at this point my party was Shadowheart, Karlach, and Astarion. Astarion and Deimos lure Grym onto the crucible, and Astarion can disengage and jump away. Karlach takes out the last of the magma mephits, and Shadowheart is next to the crucible lever.

Deimos can't disengage, though, and he cast survival instinct on Astarion earlier. So he drinks a potion of superior healing, and he tells Shadowheart to pull the lever.

Astarion's "No, my sweet bloodthirsty friend!" UGH I love it.

But Deimos (barely) survives (Which in reality means "Yay I don't have to use a scroll of revivify" but I want my angst so shhh)

They long rest, and the next day it's up to the mountain pass. I... really don't have a lot to say about the Githyanki Creche? Except that I know that Deimos just follows Lae'zel's lead on this. He bows to Vlaakith, and he... mildly considers killing the Dream Visitor (Who, by the way, looks as close to Jaheira as I could make her look, because the boy needs a mom and the Emperor clocks that easily)

He also gets VERY angry about the Varsh's treatment of Varrl (That is a CHILD how DARE you. I wish there was an option to fight him without making everyone else in the Creche hostile I hate this man)

I turned on non-lethal attacks for fighting my way out of the Creche, because I think Deimos doesn't want to kill these people- For Lae'zel's sake, and for his own.

Okay so maybe I do have a bit to say about the Creche sue me.

That awful fight with the like death knights or whatever in the mountain pass sucks. I don't know why but it always makes me so incredibly angry. Maybe it's just because that was the first place I ever actually had a party member die idk. Not related to Deimos I just had a bad time.

Oh, the Elminster thing...

Unlike almost every Tav or Durge I have, Deimos understands Gale's want to sacrifice himself to save the world/earn Mystra's forgiveness. He's a martyr, after all. He doesn't judge- He knows that feeling. He tells Gale as much. He doesn't want his friend to die, but he wants his friend to feel like he has a purpose. (Semi-related; This is my first run where I'm free of the bug where Gale is in love with you no matter what, and his platonic Act 2 scene before the Illithid colony is just... So sweet? Like he just wants his friend to be there for him. I love that wizard. Yes I will watch the stars with you buddy)

But now we are on to the Shadow Cursed lands, and Act 1 is over. Wow, this was so long.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii #baldurs gate #baldurs gate 3 #durge posting #bg3 durge #durge bg3 #durge #Toad's Tavs #tw: suicidal thoughts #tw: death

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