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x-childish-x · 3 years

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hello, i noticed there’s been a growth of obi wan requests on your page. if you don’t mind, may i also request an obi wan x reader fanfic (preferably a female reader)? my idea is that the reader is related to qui gon, maybe a niece of his that he looks after since her parents passed. after qui gon’s death, reader decides to become a jedi and she and obi wan grow closer over the years, and finally confess their love for each other after they both become masters?

Long Time Coming

Pairing: Obi-Wan x fem!reader

Fandom: Star Wars

Warnings: ansgt?, fluff, mentions to multiple character deaths, mentions of a funeral

Word Count: 2,417

A/N: This is quite long! I'm sorry if that's not something you like! Firstly, thank you for the request and support! I appreciate it so much and feedback is always more than welcome and appreciated!! This request was super unique and I had a fun time writing it despite feeling the need to absolutely perfect it, lol. Anyways, I really hope this is what you wanted and that you enjoy it!

P.S. I am out of surgery and now starting recovery. Everything’s gone well so far, but I probably won’t be posting much. Check my page for a form to send in some questions for me to answer!!

Summary: Obi-Wan's been trying to catch your attention for years and after your uncle Qui-Gon Jinn's death, you find comfort in Obi-Wan like never before.

(gif not mine!)

"(Y/n), we're making another stop. We don't have enough fuel to make it back to Coruscant. We're landing on Tattooine," Your uncle, Qui-Gon, spoke softly through the holopad.

"I found the planet," Obi-Wan beamed at you, hoping this fact would impress you.

You smiled widely, nodding to Obi-Wan, "Keep this old man out of trouble for me, won't you Obi-Wan?"

The young boy nodded vigorously as your uncle rolled his eyes, "You're getting quite old yourself (y/n). I urge you to rethink your choice of not becoming a Jedi before you're using a cane."

"We could train together!" Obi-Wan cheered, his eyes glinting with hope as he looked up at his master, "I would do well at bringing her up to speed!"

There seemed to be something that happened off the holopad that you couldn't see. Both men turned their heads before looking back at you with nearly identical looks of remorse.

"We're landing soon. I must leave," Qui-Gon frowned, "Stay out of trouble. I'll return soon."

Over the next few days, Obi-Wan and your uncle did their best to keep in contact with you. Though it wasn't much, barely once a day, it was still something, and that very much made you smile. Each call was a relief because they were both alive. They were okay. They would be home soon.

"A boy?" You questioned Obi-Wan.

"Yes, his name is Anakin Skywalker," He frowned slightly before leaning more towards his holopad, whispering, "I'm beginning to think Qui-Gon likes him better than me."

"Nonsense!" You laughed, "Qui-Gon loves you! It's impossible to not love you!"

Immediately realizing what you said, your cheeks flushed with heat, Obi-Wan's reaction mocking yours. You missed Obi-Wan, he was your best friend after all, and it wasn't often that Qui-Gon and he left on such long missions.

"There was this thing," Obi-Wan spoke up, "He wielded a red lightsaber."

"That doesn't sound good," You frowned, wishing Obi-Wan was more than just a hologram before you.

He nodded before his attention was stolen off-screen, and he huffed, "I have to go. We'll be home soon!"

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

"What is this about you being attacked!" You yelped, jogging up to Qui-Gon.

He smiled at your concern, "I am fine. He escaped. We believe he's a sith, that they've returned. The good news is the boy we found will be my new Padawan."

"I don't care about the boy," You hissed, glaring up at your uncle, "I care about you being safe, about not losing you!"

Unexpectedly, Qui-Gon pulled you into his chest. Tears welled in your eyes at the action he so rarely did, your arms wrapping as tight as they could around his torso. You felt a kiss pressed to the top of your head and immediately squeezed tighter, tears rolling down your cheeks.

"Please... I can't lose you too, Uncle."

Qui-Gon winced at your words, knowing how dangerous it was to form attachments, yet it'd been impossible with you. From the moment you'd come under his care, you'd immediately bonded. There was no way you wouldn't have formed an attachment with him and he with you.

You'd showed up on his doorstep fourteen years ago when you were only nine. You had clutched your stuffed bantha to your chest with tears running down your cheeks, mumbling all about how 'mommy and daddy were gone' and 'I need you, uncle Qui-Gon'. His heart immediately shattered. The passing of his brother had reached him a few hours before your arrival, and the nanny behind you gave the older man a soft smile before nudging you forward.

You bounded forward, slamming into Qui-Gon's legs with a loud sob that had the older man lifting you into his arms instantly. You'd been destroyed by the sudden and mysterious loss of your parents. You sought comfort in your uncle Qui-Gon and his young Padawan. You'd spent years denying the chance to become a Jedi, afraid you were too imbalanced in your emotions.

You pulled back from Qui-Gon, allowing him to wipe your tears before he kissed your head once more. He moved, walking over to Obi-Wan, and you watched as the two talked before separating. Obi-Wan walked towards you, but your eyes locked on a small boy behind him who stood next to what looked like an R2 droid.

"We're leaving again," Obi-Wan sighed, frowning at your slightly red cheeks and glassy eyes.

You nodded, biting your lip before finally locking eyes with Obi-Wan, "Please take care of him... I have a terrible feeling Obi-Wan."

"I will," Obi-Wan smiled, gently reaching out and allowing you to place your hands in his before pulling you closer, "I'll make sure he stays out of trouble. He has a new Padawan to train, after all. But besides that..." Obi-Wan's voice dropped, his gaze growing softer as he squeezed your hands, "You know I'd do anything for you."

You nodded, listening as Qui-Gon ordered Obi-Wan to head to the ship, and with one last playful goodbye, you watched him leave, followed soon by everyone else. You stood on the pad, watching as the ship rose and left, the terrible feeling in your stomach growing with each second.

Nobody called you. For the next few days, nobody called you, and it only worsened the terrible feeling, making you nauseous as you waited patiently for the ship to arrive. You'd been told briefly by Yoda that they were returning, yet the pain on his face confirmed your thoughts. Something was wrong, and you weren't sure what, but you'd felt the pain and dread that filled you yesterday, and now Yoda was looking at you with remorse as he watched you waiting from his tower.

You couldn't maintain your focus as the ship landed, frozen still as you waited. You watched each person that exited, waiting for the two familiar faces you wanted to see so badly. Obi-Wan descended the ramp, his eyes lifting from the ground to lock with yours. Instantly tears filled your eyes, a hand flying to your mouth as Obi-Wan rushed to you.

"No..."

You collapsed into Obi-Wan's chest without a second thought, throwing your arms around him as sobs racked through your body. He attempted calming you, one arm wrapped tightly around your waist and the other stroking your hair. Obi-Wan panicked slightly, feeling immediately it was all his fault. Your pain was his fault. If he'd just been slightly faster he could've saved his master, your uncle.

"Please... Obi-Wan... tell me no," You cried, burying your head into his chest as his grip tightened.

"It was a sith, the same who attacked him previously," Obi-Wan whispered, not caring about the looks anyone gave you, "I killed him. I killed the sith right after. I... I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't faster."

Nobody could remove you from Obi-Wan's side, not even Yoda, who was forced to allow you to sit in while he spoke to Obi-Wan about Anakin. You were distraught and terrified at the idea of seeing your uncle's body later. Obi-Wan comforted you, an arm around you the entire day until the ceremony rolled around.

You'd separated from Obi-Wan briefly, and when you returned to Qui-Gon's funeral, Yoda himself almost cried. You stood over Qui-Gon's body, a hand gently brushing his cheek, your mother's Jedi robe caressing your body. Just for a second, Yoda believed he was seeing your mother's spirit. You looked so identical, and the soft click of Yoda's cane startled you, forcing you away from your uncle's body.

"Determination within you, I sense. Made a decision, you have," Yoda hummed, coming to your side.

You nodded curtly, your gaze on Qui-Gon, "I wish to become a Jedi, Master Yoda."

"Agree to your request, the council does. My Padawan, you will be," Yoda nodded, not needing to speak to any other members to know there would be no defiance.

Yoda retreated to the back, watching your reaction as people filtered in, most not catching your attention until Obi-Wan walked in. You seemed to escape his gaze for a few moments, certainly because of the robe, before he rushed to your side. Yoda knew this was a potential problem, the connection the two of you held, but that was a problem for the future.

The future seemed to bring many problems for you. Your days quickly molded into becoming nothing but training. You barely spent time sleeping. Both you and Master Yoda determined to bring you up to speed. Despite everyone in the council loving your decision to become a Jedi (especially Obi-Wan), they had all disagreed with the idea of you becoming a Jedi-Knight within five short years.

However, Yoda insisted you were ready, and you passed the trials with such ease it'd seemed like you'd been training for years. Which of course, lead to many Jedi accusing you of training illegally under Qui-Gon. But it wasn't anything like that. Yoda and Obi-Wan were amazing when it came to training you. They were patient and worked with you consistently, over and over. You knew there was no way you would've become a Jedi-Knight had you not had their help.

"So?" Obi-Wan asked when you returned to your shared apartment, "Did you pass?"

Slowly, you lifted the hair on your right side to reveal that your Padawan braid was no more. He smiled widely, leaping up and pulling you into his chest. You smiled back, squeezing Obi-Wan as he spun you around gently.

You still weren't used to everything. Obi-Wan and you had decided to get an apartment together after Qui-Gon's passing, insisting that living together helped your coping. Of course, it was a two-bedroom, and you stayed in separate rooms, and just Obi-Wan's presence truly did help you.

Once Obi-Wan sat you down and pulled back, a huge smile on his face as you stared up at him. A moment passed as you struggled to get a grip on your thoughts. You gulped, eyes flicking around the room as you kept your hands linked at the back of Obi-Wan's growing hair. You liked it longer. You felt it suited him, not that you didn't like it short.

"Obi-Wan?" Your voice was small, fragile in the air as the slightly older boy stared at you.

"Yes?"

"Do you think he's proud of me?"

Obi-Wan's heart melted at the worry in your eyes, the worry that your uncle wouldn't be proud of you after everything you'd done. His hands drifted from your waist and up to cup your cheeks, pulling your face just slightly closer as he leaned down. He wanted nothing more than to wipe your ever-growing tears, but that could wait. The most important thing for Obi-Wan right now was to make sure you understood that there was no possible way for Qui-Gon to be even the slightest bit disappointed in you.

"(Y/n), I have not a single doubt that he's proud of you. He was before he passed, and I'm sure he's proud now," Obi-Wan reassured you, his smile growing as you nodded, "I know Master Qui-Gon wishes he was here with us, to see you become a Jedi Knight, but regardless he is incredibly proud."

You giggled softly, leaning forward just the slightest bit, so your nose touched Obi-Wan's, "I just worry sometimes, that maybe I'm not doing enough," You paused, gasping a quiet breath when Obi-Wan nudged your nose with his again, "Thank you Obi-Wan... I... I couldn't have done any of this without you. I'd be lost, truly."

Your gaze flicked down to your connected noses and back up to Obi-Wan's blue eyes. Yet, it felt like it was the first time you ever looked at Obi-Wan. You felt like you were a small kid again, peeking out from under your uncle's robe to see two big blue eyes looking at you with a huge smile. Blue eyes and a smile that promised to be your best friend, promised to stay by your side... 'as a loyal Jedi should'. And now, as you stared into those same eyes, you felt the urge to be so much more than what he promised.

You tilted your head up, mushing your lips against Obi-Wan's and leading the kiss as he froze in shock. Was he dreaming again? Was he about to wake up alone in his bed once more? The squeeze you gave to the back of his neck told him otherwise... that this most definitely wasn't a dream. Suddenly, he was dropping his hands from your cheeks, looping them around your waist and pulling you flush against him as he took control of the kiss.

It became a dance of lips and tongue, mumbling in an attempt to convey all the years of unsaid feelings even though no real words were being formed. It felt perfect. It felt like the force was exploding through the two of you, screaming that nothing could've been more right. There was no thought of the Jedi Code, no thought of the possibility of losing your titles. The only thought being formed was how not only your lips but your mind and soul seemed to connect at that moment together.

"I... that... we..."

"I've wanted to do that for so long," You laughed breathlessly, cutting off Obi-Wan.

He smiled, nodding in agreement as he placed a kiss on your forehead, "I adore you so much (y/n). I always have."

You mocked Obi-Wan's actions, nodding your confirmation as he placed another kiss closer to your temple now. It felt perfect. The life force flowing around the two of you was bursting with light, harmonious, and balanced perfectly. There was no need for words. You could feel one another projecting all the unsaid emotions. You were one, and suddenly a large smile broke onto your face as Obi-Wan continued to press light kisses all over your face.

You weren't worried about the possibility of losing your title. You didn't care what the Jedi Code had to say, and you certainly didn't care what the council thought. You felt complete, whole. And it was the first time you'd felt that way since losing your parents. You'd deal with the consequences later, when they made themselves truly known on their own accord and when it was time for Obi-Wan and you to make a decision.

"Do you think he's still proud of me?"

Obi-Wan chuckled, kissing your nose before pulling back, "I think he'd want to kill me."

"It was a long time coming," You teased, making Obi-Wan nod.

"That, it was."

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haloshornsinkstains · 3 years

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The Jack-O Pose Challenge

Just a dumb little thing I wrote after seeing (and gods help me, attempting) the Jack-O pose through the beauty that is Twitter.

Featuring my MC Kore (she/her), one crafty Sorcerer and some confused Demon brothers. Let the nonsense commence!

“Ah, Solomon, just the man I wanted to see!” The sorcerer paused, raising an eyebrow. “What could my cute little apprentice possibly want with me?” Kore flushed a little at the name, shaking her head and falling into step beside him. “I was hoping you could help me take some pictures.” “Isn’t that more Asmo’s realm of expertise?” “Normally I’d say yes,” Kore hummed “but in this instance, I definitely cannot ask Asmo.” “Oh? I’m intrigued.” “Get your mind out of the gutter. Have you seen the Jack-O pose challenge on Devilgram?” Solomon choked, quickly muffling it behind a forced cough, before raising an eyebrow at her as if to say ‘what did you expect’. Huffing Kore slapped him gently on the arm, skipping a couple of steps ahead. “I just want to try it out, get a picture for Devilgram and have a laugh, is that so bad?” “My, I never knew my cute little apprentice was so naughty.” He chuckled, strolling along casually behind her as she made her way towards Purgatory Hall. Kore, still laughing, flipped him off over her shoulder. “Yes you did.” “Fine, fine. I’ll help.” He chuckled, catching up with her. “I must admit, I’m a little curious.”

“Oh my. Mammon, have you seen Devilgram?” Mammon looked up from the sofa, scowling. “Nah, why would I bother with that?” Asmo chuckled, waving his phone in the air. “Our little human has posted something very interesting. I have to tell everyone.” “I don’t see what could be so interesting.” Mammon grumbled, scrolling through his D.D.D. “WHAT THE HELL!” Asmo tittered, watching Mammon scramble to catch the device he’d flung into the air, typing out a message into the group chat. “Really Mammon, anyone would think you’d never seen our little human in a position like that before.” “Oi! What’s that supposed to mean?” Mammon scowled, throwing a pillow at Asmo’s head. “I bet that sneaky sorcerer put her up to it! He’s tryin’ to steal my human!” Asmo hummed. “I don’t think he’s trying any more, Kore seems to have him wrapped around her little finger. I’m so proud. If she was anyone else I’d worry I had competition.” “Hey, don’t go comparin’ her to you. My human is way better than you!” Asmo opened his mouth to retort, only to be cut off by a startled yelp from upstairs and the group chat exploding. “Ah, looks like Levi has seen it.”

The Demon Brothers (7)

Leviathan: I WASN’T PREPARED I THINK IM GOING TO DIE ASMO WHY DID YOU DO THIS

Asmodeus: I didn’t do anything, Kore posted it.

Beelzebub: But you told us to look?

Leviathan: WHY? WHY WOULD THIS HAPPEN? Satan: Levi, turn your capslock off. According to her post it’s some kind of pose challenge.

Lucifer: We will discuss this when she returns. I will not have Kore's actions reflecting badly on Lord Diavolo.

Kore sighed, adjusting her legs in Solomon's lap and picking up her D.D.D. "Sounds like Lucifer is mad." She hummed. Solomon paused in rubbing her calves and looked over. "Oh?" "By the sounds of it Asmo showed everyone the post and he's worried it will 'reflect badly on Lord Diavolo'. Belphie offered to hide me in the attic, and Mammon promised to make sure I don't starve while I'm strung up." She chuckled, scrolling through her messages. "I guess I shouldn't tell him Dia wanted to try it out too?" "I doubt that would make him any less angry. At least you managed to convince him not to take pictures." Solomon chuckled. Kore flushed, images of the future ruler of the Devildom trying to contorted his muscular body into the admittedly provocative pose flashing through her mind. Closely followed by his long suffering Butler being cajoled into doing the same. "I didn't know Barbatos could bend like that." "I did." Kore mused. "What? Do you really believe there's anything Barb can't do? I'm more suprised Asmo hasn't got in on it." "Oh he has now." Solomon chuckled, turning his screen to show her. "Damn, he's really putting me to shame there. I'm not as flexible as I used to be." "I was still impressed." She nudged him playfully in the stomach with her knee. "Oh I know old man." Solomon went to rebuke her, poking her in the side, but any words he had were cut off by the door opening. "Ah Kore, I thought I might find you here. I heard you've caused quite the stir." Simeon chuckled, waving at the pair. Kore groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I'm sure it wasn't your intention, but I'm afraid Lucifer asked me to send you straight back to the House of Lamentation." Kore groaned again, grumbling under her breath as Simeon pushed her legs off his lap. "I'll pray for you!" Luke nodded. "Ah, yeah. Thanks Luke."

"What exactly did you think you were doing?" Kore winced. "Joining in on a trend?" Lucifer scowled. "Is that a question or an answer?" "I just thought it would be a fun thing to do." "And did you think of what kind of impact that could have on Lord Diavolo's reputation?" Kore finally looked up, scowling back st the eldest brother. "Its just a dumb picture, not a damn sex tape! And I really don't think Di- Lord Diavolo minds as much as you think." "Oh? And what would make you say that?" Kore winced again, shrinking back from the anger that rolled off Lucifer in waves. "He's that kind of guy?" "It was nice knowing ya." Mammon muttered, edging away. Kore whined but Lucifer’s expression made it clear nothing was going to save her from punishment, except maybe if Diavolo dropped by in whatever the opposite of Divine Intervention was.

As it was, by the time Diavolo dropped by to talk to her more about Devilgram trends Kore was hanging from the staircase.

#halo.writes #obey me #female mc #om! solomon #solomon #om! lucifer #lucifer #jack-o pose

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thaliatimsh · 5 years

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if its alright! wrt the 'directors commentary' asks, honestly anything /Anything/ for 'imperfect life', oof :0

ONE DVD COMMENTARY TRACK COMING UP BECAUSE HELL YES you may ask me about this one. GOD I HOPE THIS READ MORE WORKS OR I’M GONNA DIE OF SHAME. For those of you who’ve missed my pleas: imperfect life is on AO3 here. read it or i cry.

Okay I reblogged that post with not much of an idea about what I’d actually have to say but imperfect life is at least at the forefront of my mind lol

First things first I’d had an idea for a fic about Hodgson At Mutineer Camp that i wanted to write floating around my head for a while that was. I suppose centred on the sheer Betrayal of GIBSON YOU CHANGED MY SHEETS FOR THREE YEARS? WHAT THE FUCK? And as I did more research abt both of them and found that they’d been on ships together & that it was likely that either Hodgson or Peglar got Gibson his job? Fuckin wrote itself, especially seeing as in show-canon Bridgens is the Peglar Papers Steward.

Anyway I’ve said this before to everyone who’ll listen but I will say it again: I think Hodgson is misinterpreted & underappreciated by a lot of the fandom & it makes me SAD and also ANGRY.

Like: I once saw someone say that he was “mad about Jopson’s promotion, so fuck that guy”? NO. He MISSED Jopson’s promotion! He would have gotten a KICK out of Jopson’s promotion! You BASTARDS! Hickey picks on him SPECIFICALLY because he’s out of the loop! I’ll kill you!

Ham jokes? I’m coming to your HOUSE. man’s as ‘obsessed with ham’ as any self-respecting naval officer starving to death in the arctic

Then there’s the “Who is this?” being taken as some kind of a-okay for cannibalism instead of a guy who saw someone shot dead just last night and then spent the morning burying said dead'un being literally scared out of his mind by a greasy lil rat with a knife and Tozer blocking the tent flap with a fuckign RIFLE. DAMN YOU ALL.

Do I think he’s a complete FOOL? YES. Do I think he ever had any kind of malicious intent? NO. Okay anyway I’m gonna talk a bit more abt that later so let me go back to the next part lmao

So Part 2 of the George Henry Hodgson Saga was then to figure out why he had to go stay with his aunts - this ALSO came pretty straight to me, for whatever reason. I think it might have started off as just his parents pleasure jaunt, but as I was thinking about later scenes with Jimmy Fitzjas I came up with a thing abt - Im not gonna find the reference now but in the battersby book there’s a bit abt William Coningham going to take the waters at bath or whatever for Weak Lungs which OBVIOUSLY made me think of my favourite comsumptive Of All Time Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin & the countryside retreats he & his sister Emilia took for their symptoms as teenagers (and unforch Emilia died of tuberculosis aged just 14… rip)

ANYWAY I had some VAGUE idea that George n Fitz could have some kind of Passing Discussion abt Brothers With Shite Lungs that obviously never came to fruition but. Lol whatever, it gave me a reason for why My Parents Sent Me To Stay With Two Aunts.

UH. Right, so then like the third leg for this to stand on was that Fitzjames and Hodgson had ALSO served together & Fitzjames had: 1. recommended Hodgson to the expedition 2: mentioned him TWICE in his Voyage of the Cornwallis 3. Mentioned him in his letters to the Coninghams from disko bay (one of the only Terrors mentioned - there’s a passage abt Fitzjames going to look at the icebergs with Fairholme and Hodgson. ANYWAY; show-canon Hodgson has a sense of humour and I really think he tried to make the men see him as approachable, at least compared to the other Terror officers and that reminds me a lot of how the historical Fitzjames seemed from mystery man! Seeing as they KNew each other I think it’s not unfair to suggest that he’s trying to emulate an older and more successful officer! He wants to succeed! He wants to have fun and to be loved by The Men!

My friend said something very Prescient abt this to me recently which was that THere are a lot of similarities between Hodgson & Fitzjames and it’s kinda like. Fitzjames is the Ideal, and Hodgson just misses the mark. He’s the average man’s James Fitzjames and because he doesn’t know about Fitzjames’ surplus of political luck that only makes him feel more of a failure. Fitzjames gets a bullet that gets him compared to Lord Nelson, Hodgson gets in the gazette as ‘slightly wounded’. Even their monologues! Fitzjames gives a soul-baring confessional he’s never talked about before to someone he respects and he gets! Affirmation! Gets told that he’s a good man and brave and loved! Hodgson gives a soul-baring confessional he’s never talked about before to someone he respects and gets! FUCK ALL! A MAN SITS IN SILENCE! He has to fucking! Walk out alone after all of that! FUCK!!!

Okay so this whole fic just sat in my brain for probably like six months until I literally sat up in bed because I worked out the last piece of the puzzle

(Drac has an epiphany, July 4th 2019, colourised)

Which was, of course, 'Hodgson went to boarding school’ - which is what all of this ends up hanging off of! Boarding school culture! The younger years are servants for the upper years, who in turn are responsible for the younger students! including discipline etc so like… if a younger year brought something up to their “fag-master” it’d be sorted by them and maybe prefects, without getting schoolmasters etc involved.

WHICH is why George doesn’t tell the captains about what happens to Neptune, because he’s out here trying to be a good fag master and get it sorted himself! His own fag master fucked him over by getting the schoolmasters involved when they oughtn’t have been! He’s not about to be Archibald Harrington-Thurlowe! He’s not okaying the mutiny! He’s trying to minimise the damage *on his own* like a fuckin idiot!

IF YOU CALL HODGSON A MUTINEER I’LL COME TO YOUR HOUSE N MAKE YOU GET LOST AND ABANDONED AND END UP EATING YOUR BOOT BEFORE GETTING 'RESCUED’ BY THE SAME GREASY RAT WHO LITERALLY MURDERED YOUR PAL AND TRICKED YOU INTO SLAUGHTERING CIVILIANS! I’LL. I’M NOT HAPPY.

I’m just basically so upset about 'one perfect moment in a whole imperfect life’ being a childhood memory that he was taught to see as so shameful to compare it to cannibalism under duress? FUCK.

A whole imperfect life in GENERAL has me fucked up! He just kept trying and kept just missing what he was aiming for! I mean. That’s relateable. Not one part of a life turning out as you expected or planned? ME!!!! Your achievements add up to nothing and no matter how hard you try you end up a footnote! FUCK offfff

I had some difficulty with the religious angle for a while because. hm. okay. To start with the religious angle IN-CANON is just.... not correct. Catholics don't let you drink the blood. The church of england DOES... and that's what most of these men ARE. The Papist Speech as a whole was cobbled together from one of Crozier's ~Visions~ in the book - and it's important in that case that Crozier is IRISH... Poor analogy, writers! Putting aside that he was also... SEVEN... maybe he was an unusually tall seven-year old, people assumed he'd had first communion/been baptised & no one wanted to cause a fuss... I mean the guy has lead poisoning so it's fair to mis-remember but... YEAH. Messy, which is a shame because it's a powerful monologue very well-delivered, shame it's complete fucking nonsense 😂 (not to be like... SMH Americans but... smh Americans...)

Anyway, as I wrote it? that’s me. I wasn’t raised religious - my dad’s an old-school small-town Continental Catholic, my mum’s agnostic but raised CofE (but *her* dad was raised Jewish (also continental) during WW2), I think they couldn’t be fucked with the drama, I never went to church or anything and as a kid when we had prayers at school assembly I didn’t know what I was doing!!!! I felt bad because I couldn’t fathom God as a concept!!! I still can’t! But as a kid it’s like. I don’t understand and on account of that I’m afraid I’m going to Hell. tfw you write what you know.

ALSO there were definitely a couple of times where I wrote G H Hodgson as played by B W Wooster and I will not be taking constructive criticism on that.

ANYWAY My brain has kindof turned itself off now but I guess this is just. My own personal backstory to this jhsgfjhs. I actually probably have about 400x more to say but it’s fully evaporated. thank you SO MUCH for asking me though. i die.

#i tag #george hodgson #bc i love him #also #long post #that's my baby officer!#insane character essay tag

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creampuffqueen · 5 years

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Worlds of Fire and Darkness | Chapter Three

Read this on AO3! (Here) I love comments, they’re always appreciated! Feel free, I don’t bite!

The leaders of Terrasen and the Night Court celebrate holidays with their children

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"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy, wake up!"

Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius mumbled as she woke, the candles around the room lighting as she did. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and glanced down. Sitting on the floor by her bed, her three year old daughter, Evalin, sat. The girl's silver hair reflected the candlelight in the room, and her blue eyes were shining.

"Mommy! It's Beltane!" Evalin's eyes were bright, and her voice was thick with excitement. Still groggy, it took Aelin a few moments to realize what her daughter was saying.

"Oh- Beltane. Gods, Ev, you're right. But it's so early." A quick glance to the outside confirmed it. It was dark outside, and the grandfather clock in the corner said it was four o'clock. "It's too early for you to be up. You need to go back to bed."

Speaking of which, how had Evalin gotten to her room in the first place? There were nearly a dozen guards posted in this wing of the palace during the night. Two outside her and Rowan's room, and two outside each child's room. She should have been alerted if any child was out of bed.

Evalin crawled onto the bed, her little hands finding purchase by digging into Aelin's legs. She winced slightly as the child stepped on her arm when she squirmed her way between her parents. Rowan was still fast asleep beside her, and it seemed nothing would wake him, not even being shoved nearly halfway off the bed by an overeager toddler. Evalin pulled the blankets over herself and hunkered down, and before Aelin could even ask what she was doing, her daughter was asleep again.

Aelin snorted and shook her head. She almost thought she had a vague memory of doing the exact same thing herself once; waking her own parents at an outrageously early time because of Beltane excitement. She laughed softly to herself for a moment before kissing her daughter's silver hair and extinguishing the candles. Yes, it was Beltane, but the celebrations could wait a while.

~~~

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when Aelin was awakened again. This time by a knock on the door. Neither Evalin nor Rowan stirred as she slipped out of bed, threw on a dressing gown, and made her way to the door of her suite.

Standing outside her door were the rest of her children. All of them. Even the littlest ones, Aerith and Thallan. The eldest, Lyria, held Thallan's hand, and Sam had Aerith in his arms. Aspen stood next to them, peering up with his pine-green eyes.

"What are you all doing up? It's barely five in the morning."

"We're too excited to sleep." Sam said softly.

"It's Beltane!" Lyria laughed. "You don't expect us to sleep in, do you?"

Aelin laughed and ushered them all in, taking Aerith from Sam and hoisting her up on a hip. Inside the suite, Rowan was finally up, though his green eyes were still bleary with sleep. Evalin was still out cold, and was buried under so many blankets that only her silver hair could be seen.

"It's Beltane, Dad!" Lyria squealed. She ran over and launched herself onto the bed, and would have slammed right into Rowan's chest had he not put his hands up and stopped her mid-air. Lyria giggled and pulled herself away, crawling over the bed until she was next to Evalin.

The rest of the children got onto the bed, and Aerith squirmed until Aelin put her down as well.

"Eviiiiii... get up..." Lyria said softly, her lips next to her little sister's ear. "It's Beltane, Evi, remember? With the fires? And the music?" Evalin growled softly from beneath the blankets, eliciting a squeal from Lyria. "Get up, Evi!" She trilled.

Evalin burst from her blanket pile and tackled Lyria, causing her sister to fall backwards onto the mattress.

"Fight!" Aspen cheered.

"No, no fight." Aelin said, plopping herself down on the bed and separating her daughters. "We don't fight on Beltane." When she tugged her two girls apart, ready to scold them, they were both laughing. Aelin caught Rowan's gaze and rolled her eyes, though neither could keep the smile from their face.

"I think it's too early for all this nonsense." Rowan said. "The sun's not fully risen yet. Everyone, back to bed."

And just as Evalin had earlier, all the children found a place in their parents' bed and tucked themselves in, giving them all horrifyingly innocent smiles as they did so.

And just like Evalin had, all the children were soon fast asleep.

Aelin got up from the bed, chuckling, and turned to face Rowan, who was standing as well. Without a word, he tucked her into his side and kissed her hair, breathing steady.

And Aelin didn't know if they stood there for minutes or hours, but she didn't really care. Didn't care how long they stood there, watching their sleeping children.

---

"Camille, stay awake. It's going to start soon." I glanced at my daughter, who was half-asleep in her father's arms. Camille was six years old, and having major trouble staying awake. Of course, when I actually wanted her to stay up late and refuse to go to bed, she was nodding off. Thankfully, Cirrus was doing better. On the balcony where we sat, he stood at the railing, looking out at the night sky.

Even after years and years living in the Night Court, I never tired of this view. The night sky, from up in the sky. And tonight it seemed more beautiful than usual. It was, after all, Starfall.

Inside the House of Wind, the party was still going strong. I could hear the music and the voices from here. Rhys and I still had champagne glasses in our hands. However, we'd decided to be alone as a family when the stars began to fall.

If only they would fall, though. We'd been out here for the better part of an hour, and nothing to show from it except a little girl who was minutes away from falling asleep.

"I'm going to put Camille in a room." Rhys said softly. He made to stand up, but Cirrus turned from where he'd been watching the sky at the railing.

"No, something's going to happen." He insisted. "I know it's going to happen soon. Camille, you have to stay awake!" I looked at my son curiously.

"I won't be long." Rhys promised. "But Camille's falling asleep, and it's cold out, Cirrus."

"Stay outside." Cirrus insisted. "It's going to happen soon! I know it!"

I opened my mouth to take Rhys's side, explanations already prepared. But then-

"Camille! Look!" Cirrus cheered. He pointed to the dark sky. And there, from one edge of the horizon, I saw it. A falling star.

Cirrus cheered and danced around, still pointing, as the star flew across the sky. And another. And another. More and more joined it, so many stars.

Camille was awake in Rhys's arms, her violet eyes wide with wonder. Star after star fell through the sky, so, so many stars. Everyone inside had gone quiet, and I could see people, humans and faeries and Fae alike, staring up at the night sky with joy evident on their faces.

I had never seen so many stars before. Even Rhys hadn't seen that many stars before, he confirmed through the bond.

Cirrus shouted, and when I looked over, he was laughing at the glowing green goo in his hair, streaked across his face. Camille dashed over to him and held up her arms. A moment later another star splatted into her chest, and Cirrus caught her before she hit the floor. Both children were laughing and smiling and dancing, flinging goo at each other with a squeal.

I drifted over and held out my arms. A star crashed into me, and soon my hands and arms were glowing. I heard Rhys's chuckle, and a moment later strong arms wrapped around my waist, and a chin rested on my shoulder. I turned slightly to kiss his cheek as we watched our children play.

Cirrus chased Camille around the balcony with his green hands, and their laughs were the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. All around us, I heard peoples' laughs and cries of joy as the stars fell, and fell, and fell.

"A Starfall to remember." Rhys breathed. He held his own hand up to catch star. When his hand was glowing with green goo, he pulled me close. He gently laid his glowing hand on my stomach. "Though maybe the next one will be more memorable, what with a new little one and all."

"Shh." I said, though I couldn't help but smile. "They don't know yet."

Rhys laughed and kissed my cheek. "Of course, darling."

I sighed happily and turned back to the children. They were both hanging onto the rail of the balcony, reaching towards the sky, hands covered in stars.

No, I realized. This was the view I would never tire of. Never, not in a thousand years.

#throne of glass #a court of thorns and roses #tog #acotar #feysand #rowaelin #generation 2 #legacies #fanfiction #ao3fic

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god--baby · 5 years

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Forgive me father, for I am back on my gay bullshit.

"That's not just not enough, that's actually bad."

Thank you Laurel from the partner system for fucking saying it.

I was bemoaning how grateful the fandom is for fucking Richie being gay.

Listen, I love it. I love Richie being gay, because as a gay man, I relate. I know homophobia hurts. I know that pain.

Trashmouths gotta support trashmouths, too.

But? BUT?

I think it was a poor writing choice. I think nothing in chapter one actually pointed to it, I think Stephen King wanted diversity points, and you know what else?

There was so soo sooooooooooooooooo much we could have done there.

A gay man disappears without a trace? Richie could've fucking heard about that. I know if I knew I was headed back to the town that shoved me in the closet, and I heard about that, I'd be devastated.

Yeah, and I don't think he forgot Derry pushing him in the closet. He was gay, making jokes about jacking off to some unnamed, nonexistent, woman.

If I knew I was going back to Bumfuck, Texas, I'd check the news and weather, cause I wouldn't be caught with my pants down.

And you know what else? God. Fucking. Henry's "little cousin". WHO? WHO IS THIS CHILD? IS THIS A FIC? GET YOUR SHIT. TOGETHER. STEPHEN KING.

But for real, we never heard tell of this "little cousin" kid in chapter one. Never saw him. This was after Patrick died, which by the way I still hate his death, and before Henry went off the rails, so like? Was he supposed to have like, been a real part of things, or did he just show up for the shock value of "you're hitting on the wrong kid, kid"? Hmm makes you think... 🧐🤔

And another thing!

Jesus fucking christ.

Heterosexual love saves the day (Beverly and Ben reaching out to each other when they got separated) but homosexual desire is called a dirty little secret (pennywise @ richie).

Yeah. I get it. Evil monster tells gay man "you're gross lol". Because evil monster feeds on gay man's fear.

Every gay person's fear, when they're growing up and in the closet, is 1. being disgusting and 2. being SEEN.

But really? Seriously? We're gonna... yeah. Okay.

The heterosexuals get their nonsense "true love conquers all and sails LITERALLY off into the sunrise" (which like I'm happy for y'all, but I'm having Bitter F*g Hours) and Richie.... well.

Let's get to the meat of the thing.

Eddie.

Dying.

"We didn't bury our gays!1! Just.... apparently........ the man our one (1) gay (you draw the conclusion based on the initial he carves in the kissing bridge) loved!1!"

From wikipedia, because I am fucking pissed:

""Bury your gays" and more specifically "dead lesbian syndrome" describe the trope in fiction that requires that gay or lesbian characters die or meet another unhappy ending, such as becoming insane."

....or, say, the man you've come to remember you had a crush on, y'know, being killed by the embodiment of all you fear, and having to leave his body in the collapsing catacombs under the town that kept. You. Closeted.

He goes back to the kissing bridge. He re-carves his initial with a plus sign and an E, while stan's voice says some shit like "be proud, be who you want to be, it gets better" or whatever, and.

And I guess. I'm. Supposed to be happy?

Where, pray tell, was the "hey old friends, whomst I love, I'm gay" scene? Did I black out and miss it?

Was a single gay person consulted in the writing of this movie? Bet you, the answer is no.

A big no.

"Be proud!" Just... don't tell people you care about that you're gay. And don't live happily and gayly ever after, and don't. Ever. Survive.

Be proud that everyone hates you. Be proud that everyone fetishizes you, and drools over the deaths of your loved ones.

Be proud that you can endure enormous pain that you shouldn't be put through in the first place.

I've said it before, and I guess this one really drives it home for me, but:

Fuck. Canon.

I wish this was a post about my usual "fuck canon" shit. I wish this was about ignoring the fact that the boys I've spent 2 years dreaming and reading and writing about (in that order) are, per Stephen King's canon, awful people who would never want someone like me.

I wish this was a post about Henry And The Homophobic Slurs He Screamed In That One Scene.

But it's not.

This is a post about not feeling safe, even in fiction. Yes, it's a horror movie. Yes, I'm supposed to be scared.

But the fear should end as the credits roll.

Thank you, writers, for reminding me that to be gay is to be in pain.

Sorry if this feels dramatic, but.

You know what? But nothing.

This movie fucking hurt me, a gay man. This movie alienated me from my favorite universe.

I'm happy I saw a gay man in a universe I care so deeply about. I'm happy he loved Eddie.

But if representation makes the people you're trying to represent sad, angry, and frustrated, you. Fucked. Up.

#luke liveblogs it chapter two #< for blacklist #it chapter two spoilers #it 2 spoilers #personal #long post #f slur #homophobia #bury your gays

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michaelmalloryfanfic-blog · 5 years

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fic update: o thou, destroyer named - chapter vii

they are like two wounded animals, circling one another, waiting to see who will strike first

. millory outpost 3 au .

post links: chapter i // chapter ii // chapter iii // chapter iv // chapter v // chapter vi // chapter vii // chapter viii // chapter ix //

ao3 links: chapter i // chapter ii // chapter iii // chapter iv // chapter v // chapter vi // chapter vii // chapter viii // chapter ix //

a/n: sorry. again. it's crap and I don't ever edit before posting. I'm like an overly excited puppy with a new toy. So. Idk guys. I've been feeling real down on myself lately. I just feel like...this whole fic is kinda shit and pales in comparison to other fics that are waaaaay better and more popular. I really wanna finish but I feel like my heart isn't in it. I'll finish the next chapter and see where I fall.

and remember kids: kudos are nice comments are better but nosy anons get me wetter :)

chapter summary: uh. mostly filler. I split up this chapter like I did the last one but I figured I'd try stretching this out since I may be giving up on this fic.WARNING! Dream sequence ahead. Also Langdon gets a little handsy ;)

Michael Langdon is bored. This is as true of the current moment as its true of the last year or so. Oh sure, the whole apocalypse thing had been exhilarating at first. When the first bomb had fallen, Michael had felt such an intense moment of fulfillment. He had been standing at the precipice of the completion of his entire life’s purpose. He realizes all too late, what many a grade school genius may already know, that it’s a terrible thing to peak too early in life. Currently, he finds himself sitting in a car in complete silence besides the occasional hiss from Mead who’s operating system is working overtime on her update and needs to let off heat and a sleepy sigh from Mallory who is fast asleep.

Michael Langdon is bored and so through his subjectivity he has always been bored. The only upside to this is that he’s found that he has a propensity for finding entertainment wherever it can be found. And one of the most entertaining things he’s found is invading the minds of other. However, slipping into another person’s mind is a messy affair, even for the Antichrist. It can be discombobulating; memory and thoughts are rarely ever straightforward. Strangely enough, the human mind, which is supposed to be used to understand, seems to naturally resist being understood. Sight tends to take a back seat and experience becomes more about sensation. One moment he is in the back of the SUV. Mead is about fifteen minutes into her update and Mallory is across the seat. The next moment, he can taste the salt sea. He feels the cacophony of her limbs tangling around one another. The world tumbles over and over on its axis while the white wash pulls her under. He feels the grit of sand in her teeth when she crawls back up onto the shoreline. She’s just nineteen and it's the first time she's been to the ocean. He hears the echoing chambers of her heart. She is struggling to breathe, her chest burning yet she feels alive for what seems like the very first time.

There are other memories, most of them like an impressionist painting of emotion and sensation. Many memories resist comprehension, too intense or too faded into nothing more than a single feeling so vague that it has no name. But other things come easily, vividly. Pain is the clearest of all in her mind. How like a glittering jewel of broken glass, how like the revolving illumination of a lighthouse is pain in her head. He can taste her own saliva, pink with blood from biting her lip too hard, as her father buries his steel toe boot into her side for the third time. The memory is old, worn down to just the most intense bursts of pain and sadness. She’s only seven. Michael can smell her mother’s perfume when she drops down and curls around Mallory. The shock wave of her father’s boots can still be felt even through the shield of her mother’s body.

All this is both illuminating and not. She’s had a rough go of things but nothing that should make her singular. Mallory should be nothing to him, just another sad kid with a hole in her heart and yet he wants to feast upon her, gorge on all these moments of her humanity. In the darkness of the backseat, he looks at her placid features and feels her mind turn over. She’s beginning to dream. He can feel the tumult, fear, and intrigue pulse through her mind. In her dream, she is running. He can feel something behind her moving like a great, shining beast. It’s amazing how her mind can dream of heated pursuit but her face remains as impassive as ever.

He smells blood and feels panic rise in her. Dreams are always such messy, impractical things and he has never had much use for them. He is already disengaging from her mind when he becomes stuck in her mind like a pieces of fabric snagged on a thorn. In the physical world, he feels the communication device in his hand vibrate but he is hypnotized by his own image in her mind like Narcissus and his reflection. It is always strange to see yourself in someone else’s head. People tend to either exaggerate the things they like or the things they hate. Michael has seen himself hewn as a god, as an enemy, as an object of desire in the minds of others. He has seen himself so distorted to the point where he is unrecognizable even to himself but when he sees himself in Mallory’s mind he’s surprised. Not just because she sees him so terribly clearly, he’s like a photograph in her dream, but because of what she feels.

The car jolts, the vibration of the device in his hand has just ceased and a red dot pops up above the little phone icon on the screen. He feels her dream tremble. It buckles under the weight of her conscious mind awakening. Just as she wakes, the phone vibrates in his hand again and he answers. It is disappointing news but he barely cares, instead he focuses on how she tries so hard to steady her breathing. He ends the conversation with a threat and watches as her eyes shift beneath her eyelids. He waits for a moment to fiddle with his device but soon enough he can’t hold his words anymore.

“Sweet dreams?” Langdon asks from across the seat.

Once the two SUVs crunch to a halt and three bio-suited figures immediately hop out of the front seats. They hurry towards the other car, popping open the back doors. They extract from the second car what turns out to be a portable decontamination station. The three figures make quick work of the set up and soon enough one of the men are leading Michael and Mallory into the tent. Mead stays behind. She waves over one of the three suits and they discuss the next steps to decommission Outpost 3.

Their suits are sprayed down with a chemical cocktail and then they are led into another chamber where they are stripped of their suits and then its into the back of the SUV. As soon as they are seated, Langdon pulls out a device that looks suspiciously like a smart phone but like none Mallory's ever encountered. In the darkness of the cabin, his face is set aglow with pale blue light from his screen. His seem almost silver.

Mallory tries to peek over at what he's so fixated on but when he catches her looking he just pulls the device closer and smiles.

“Eyes to yourself, Mallory.”

After being chastised, Mallory turns her attention to the view out her window. Finding it an endless of expanse of gray mist, she presses her head against the cold glass. Despite all that’s happened, she’s a little excited to be taking a drive. Mallory had always loved long drives. The first one she could remember was when she was eight. Mallory remembers that they had started out early in the morning, long before sunrise. Her father, still drunk from the night before, sat snoring in his recliner as they shuffled out into the frigid darkness. When Mallory thinks of this moment, the image of her mother pressing one finger up against her lips, purple and bruising, always returns to her. It’s such a fragmented memory. She remembers thinking how pretty the shiner darkening her mother’s left eye looks in the early morning light. Mallory remembers the ache in her own right side where her father had kicked her five times the night before. It is to this memory that her mind wanders as she sits in the silence of the back cabin of an SUV while they wait for Mead.

She isn’t sure when it happens, but before she notices any difference she’s fast asleep. And as Mallory sleeps, Mallory dreams.

The outpost is a maze. Outpost 3 had always been a confusing network of passages, hallways, and chambers but now it is transfigured into something organic, nonsensical, alive. In the dark, she stumbles blindly and always behind her there is some burning, writhing thing that stalks her every move. It never reaches out, never strikes but she knows that if she stops running, if she is caught she will be consumed. So she runs. And runs. And runs.

Runs towards an orange glow that is always just beyond her reach, around another corner.

Behind her she hears a voice and realizes with dread that it is her own voice speaking.

“Look back,” the thing says as if it has her own tongue in its blazing mouth. “Look back and know me again. Perish and be reborn.”

It’s a trap. She knows this. Knows that if she looks back all will be lost. A pillar of salt, a vicious wound is all she will be. And yet she feels her muscles tense, move beyond her will. She is turning even as she runs. Is she moving in slow-motion or does it only feel that way? She wills her eyes to close but her body is not her own. Every second she inches closer and closer to looking back. The bright thing behind her, the orange glow before her, her life hangs in the balance between.

Just a little further. Please, please just a little more and I will be safe, she pleads. To whom? She doesn’t know.

But they must hear her because before she looks back, before the thing reaches her she is standing in a haze of orange and before her is a door. She remembers it and looks down to see Langdon’s blood seep out from beneath. Above the door the words are written but they are different now.

Igne natura renovatur integra

Behind her the shining thing hisses, I am the fire. I will birth you anew. Let me hold you. Let me devour you.

She slips into the room but instead of the antechamber, the candlelit room circling around, she finds her own room. It is both as tiny as she remembers but as vast as anything she knows. Her bed has become an alter and on it are her things, the crystals, the sprig, the charcoal and the matches. Kneeling at the altar are three cloaked figures. Blood pours from the altar like water bubbling up from a spring. Suddenly, Mallory realizes she shouldn’t be here. She tries to back away. The cloaked figures rise to their full height. Someone grabs her by the shoulders and spins her around. It is Michael and he is exactly like he was in that moment when she was no one, a nameless creature who had just spit up her own death like a ball of tar black phlegm. He is smiling when he wraps his hands around her little throat. He squeezes and she gasps but not from pain. No it isn’t as simple as that. It is pain but also comfort. Even as her vision bleeds to black, her windpipe buckling beneath his thumb, she is grateful, relieved even.

He leans down to whisper in her ear. His cheek his so warm against her own and his breath is scorching in the shell of her ear.

“This is what happens when you ask for it, Mallory darling.”

The last thing she sees is the curtain of Langdon’s hair falling over her like a golden curtain of light.

The world shakes and the sound of great metal gears echoes through the dreamscape. All color begins to drain. Red from the blood that still pools at her feet. The gold from his hair that smells of smoke and secret things. The blue from his eyes that shine like the summer sky. They all fade until all that's left is -

Darkness. She is thrown into the amniotic blackness behind her eyelids by the sudden shifting of the car around her, the crunch and howl of machinery sounds around her. It is a cacophonous reintroduction to consciousness and it takes a great amount of effort to keep quiet. For a moment she is lost, adrift. She tries to keep her breathing even, her eyes closed and then she hears from somewhere besides her Langdon’s voice.

“I ordered that the update include the restoration of all her old memories in full.” There is a series of no's punctuated by brief silences before he sighs deeply, “I don't respond kindly to failure as I’m sure you’re aware. Fix it or I will handle both you and the situation myself.”

She peeks over at him. He seems to still be completely preoccupied with his device. His eyes are almost silver in the blue light of his screen.

“Sweet dreams?” he asks suddenly and Mallory jumps.

“I - uh - sorry,” she settles on the last word with an embarrassment.

When she glances up at him she sees the tiniest smirk on his features.

“Answer the question. What did you dream about?” he asks sounding less than interested.

He is still fiddling with his device. He taps the screen with his thumbs, texting someone or writing something down.

“I was back at the outpost,” Mallory mumbles as she turns to look back out the window.

Instead of gray mists, she finds that its just darkness now, smooth like oil. Occasionally, a soft orange light would pass overhead barely detectable through the heavily tinted windows. There was an oily smudge where head had been pressed up against the window. She moves to wipe at it with her sleeve but winces when she feels a tightness in her left shoulder from sleeping in an awkward position for too long. Mallory reaches up with her right arm to try and massage her crick in her neck.

“Is that all?” he says this time the tiniest bit of interest seeping into his voice.

She shakes her head, no. Rotating her shoulder a few times, Mallory presses harder into the tight bundle of muscles tucked under her shoulder blade. A spasm of pain shoots through her and she hisses. Mallory stretches, hoping to hear that satisfying crack but to no avail. She begins to work at the muscle again before she hears him call to her.

“Come here,” he says quietly.

He is still in the same position as before, so completely still that she thinks she may have imagined hearing him. Mallory glances at Mead who sits stone-faced, staring straight ahead. She too is completely silent and when Mallory waves a hand in front of Mead’s face she doesn’t react.

“Leave Ms. Mead alone,” Langdon sighs then he tucks his device away and reaches out a long arm to wrap it around her. “I said come here.”

Mallory’s first instinct is to jump back. She’s never been big on physical intimacy, more than one of her former partners have bemoaned her unwillingness to cuddle or hold hands, calling her a cold fish. But Langdon is persistent. His fingers find the tight muscles in her shoulder and begin to knead them. The sudden relief that his touch brings is enough to throw Mallory off her guard. For a moment, she forgets to resist and that’s all Michael needs to pull her in.

“You capricious thing,” he murmurs only mildly irritated.

Mallory can only hum in response. His hands are so warm on her skin and seem to know exactly where the tightness is. There is one particular spot, the root of the problem, that he seems to always just miss. He is so maddeningly specific in his ignorance that she’s certain he’s doing this on purpose. Instead of giving her release, he works at the areas around that longing spot and after a few minutes of this she’s practically keening for relief.

“Tell me more about the dream,” he says and he’s so close now that she that she can feel the warm air carried by his words as they run over her head.

“I was running from something,” she breathes and then hisses as he ghost over that spot she so desperately wants him to press down on.

He knows, he knows. Though he touches her where she needs him to his fingers suddenly lose all strength. They are like air. Mallory shifts hoping to catch the pressure of his fingers on the bundle of muscles that she longs for him to attend to but he knows what she’s playing at.

“I couldn’t see it but I knew it was behind me,” her voice is almost nothing more than a whine now. “I could feel it.”

She’s embarrassed at herself pressing up against him like a cat in heat. But the undulating shift between pleasure and pain is heady. Mallory is still half asleep and in a haze.

“What was it? What was chasing you?”

She’s fully pressed against his side now. This is the first time she’s been close enough to smell him when he isn’t covered in blood. He smells warm like amber and sweat.

“I don’t remember,” she breathes her head is spinning and she’s needy for that one spot to be attended to. “There were women there too. The women who live in my head. They were kneeling at an alter. And then - then you were there.”

“Dreaming about me, Mallory darling?” he hums into to her ear.

She begins to nod but then yelps when he suddenly presses down right at the center of her tightness. White flashes behind her eyes but the pain passes as quickly as it comes. She is practically melting as he slowly begins the knead the tightness away.

“Keep going,” he whispers hotly in her ear.

“You told me, you - you said something ,” she slurs as the tension flees her body. “I can’t remember.”

Mallory’s eyes begin to droop and her breathing slows. Michael can feel her fighting against the darkness, against the comfort and warmth.

“Sleep, Mallory,” he insists, his voice is a purring in her ear. “We still have a ways to go.”

Zoe Benson is no stranger to death. Not even the current reigning Supreme can boast familiarity with the darkest art the way Zoe can. Only Madison rivals Zoe in this way. Despite its pristine look, Outpost 3 reeks of death. The witches can smell it. Its energy is rotten to the core. All three of the witches know this but Zoe feels the narrative of its evil of how it reaches back not just to the bombs but years and year, decades and decades of evil. It opens to her like a book.

Despite what Cordelia orders, the witches find none of their sisters in the abandoned outpost. The place is for all intents and purposes, barren. The shelves had been stripped of their books. The rooms have no mattresses. Metal and wooden bed frames sit like skeletons in their rooms. Much to their dismay, the provisions have also been cleared out. When they had taken down the first few outposts, there had been a plethora of supplies but now, the kitchens and med-bays are cavernous in their emptiness.

Scorched earth. The Cooperative may be on to them and this makes Cordelia cautious.

“Split up and search the rest of the facility, but stay close,” Cordelia says her face grim as she takes Zoe’s hand in her’s. She squeezes lightly. “I can’t afford to lose you.”

“Any of you,” she adds with a pointed look at Madison who only rolls her eyes at the sentiment.

Almost immediately after this interaction, Madison finds a bathroom to hole up in and lights up the other half of the blunt she had rolled that morning. The place is empty and everyone that used to live there is either dead or long gone. No amount of searching is going to change that. Madison hated outpost runs and she had previously had no reason to be involved. As far as she was concerned, she’s given more than enough for the sake of her coven. She’s died a few times already for this little girl scout troop and then some. She didn’t really feel like dying again. So make no mistake, when her name had come up in conversation about the next and possibly last outpost run, Madison had every intention of telling Cordelia and the council to fuck right off. Except, Zoe had come to her first with her dark eyes and mournful mouth. Zoe had come to Madison with a worried plea.

“Please, M,” Zoe had said. “I have a feeling about this one. I think something big is gonna happen and I can’t tell if it's gonna be good or bad. I need you with me.”

She had reached out a small pale hand and laced her fingers through Madison’s. The next she knew she was cloaked up and hiking cross country through radioactive mists. Madison had always been a sucker for a pretty face.

“Madison!” a voice rings out and Madison nearly drops her joint in surprise.

“Speak of the devil,” Madison mumbles to herself.

Madison takes one last drag before leaving her little hovel to seek her sister witch out. It takes a little while and a few more shouts before she finds the tiny room that Zoe inspecting a little square impression in the wall that forms a sort of shelf.

“Mah-” Zoe begins to shout again but halts with a small ‘oh’ when she turns to find Madison leaning against the door frame.

“What’s up buttercup?” Madison says casually.

Zoe only rolls her eyes but Madison catches that small secret smile that she thinks Zoe keeps only for her.

“So you girls always split up like the scooby gang on these runs?” she quips. “Seems a little risky doncha think? You know the whole split up thing was just so Fred could screw Daphne’s brains out behind a dumpster.”

“Or smoke a joint?” Zoe replies with a knowing look but doesn’t press any further. “Come here. What does this look like to you?”

Madison finally enters the room although it’s so small there’s barely enough space to actually be in the room. She saddles up next to Zoe who stands at the head of an empty metal bed frame. She’s staring intently at what seems to be a bunch of trash.

“Uh. Four Swarovskis and some crap,” she replies and looks around again at the meager room. “Listen, can we get out of this place already. I’m getting seasonal depression just from here.”

Zoe sighs but honestly isn’t surprised. Casting had never been Madison’s strong suit.

“Crystal for clarity, four of them for each cardinal sign. Charcoal to absorb evil intent and a sprig of rosemary for remembering. Fire for purity,” she explains but the look on Madison’s face says that doesn’t follow. “It's a memory spell.”

“Who would be doing a memory spell?” Madison says and as soon as she does she seems to answer her own question.

“Someone who was made to forget,” Zoe unnecessarily replies. “We need to get Cordelia in here. Now.”

Zoe makes to leave but before she can go Madison takes her hand.

“You think it’s her don’t you.”

Zoe only squeezes Madison’s hand tighter. Both witches leave the memory spell behind and seek out their superior, their hands still entwined.

Next Time: Welcome to the Sanctuary! We have tasteful sweaters, chinos, and nefarious plots galore!

#michael langdon fanfiction #michael langdon #millory #millory fanfic #mallory x michael #otdn

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creideamhgradochas · 6 years

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Thanks to the lovely @interestedbystanderwrites for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about lovely Cass, go give her a follow and then show her some love!

These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?

Ha! I was a teenager and it was Backstreet Boys – and smut didn’t exist the same way it does now but that’s another opinion for another day. What I wrote then was cutesy and romantic, probably because that was what I was daydreaming about, I guess. Just a reminder that my blog is NSFW if you’re under 18.

2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I think I can get more depth from an OC but you also risk the Mary-Sue and you may pigeonhole your OC in race, sexuality etc. That can really open a can of worms with the reader, which is wholly understandable. Reader inserts are great in the way you can make it 100% person to the reader. They should imagine themselves (if that’s their choice) and not feel that the writer has alienated them in any way somehow but it is still difficult to please everybody.

3) What is your favorite genre to write for?

I like fluff – I like things that make you smile at the end, give the reader a little cuddle to maybe brighten their day.

4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

One that never made my masterlist – a Spider-Man super angst titled “How Long Do You Want to be Loved?”. I thought it as okay, pretty good even – but I guess people just want Bucky or Sebastian smut haha I hear you all!

5) When is your preferred time to write?

Morning when the little guy is napping ☺ Evening is hard because it’s when I play adulting catch up… or try not to fall asleep on the couch.

6) Where do you take your inspiration from?

I have a very overactive imagination, always have. And for most of my fics, I guess it’s pretty obviously the beautiful aesthetics of Sebastian Stan and to a lesser extent, Bucky Barnes.

7) In your Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series, what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?

Chapters 27 and 28 of TOFWYA – more so 28 as you get a pretty interesting insight into Sasha’s and Sebastian’s ways of coping when they’re out of sync. Long story short, they’re a mess.

8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Luckily – none! The joys of a smolblog maybe?

9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?

I love writing for Buckster – he’s a complex devil and has a lot of layers to work with and a body to die for. Thumbs up for the material, Sebastian.

10) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?

As per mentioned before – Peter Parker. That fic scarred me.

11) How did you come up with the title for the Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series?

It’s actually a song lyric as are the first few chapter titles: Belinda Carlisle – Valentine

I made a rule about you, I made a plan // For getting my feet back on the ground // Bury my face in clouds, for hours on end // But time only flies when you're around

12) How did you come up with the idea for the Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series?

I was just writing some stuff, pissfarting around and all of a sudden I’d written something similar to what Chapter 22 ended up being and that’s how it all began. 150k words of nonsense really.

13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Many – but there is a long Bucky multichap fic that deserves more of my attention. As his story has evolves via MCU, the story has changed a little.

14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

I write one shots to TOFWYA, I don’t think I could write the sequel to it though. I’ve considered a full fic for Take Me to the Water but I doubt I will for an AU. Any sequels will be little one shots so at this stage, there is nothing planned.

15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

I ended Next Year very kitsch – I regret the last sentence as it currently is: You gave him a small smile, overwhelmed by his words. “I love you too, Bucky Barnes.” Blurgh.

16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

How much time do you have for me to talk about @whostheblondegirlwriting? Truly. My fandom soul mate. We are separated by far too many kilometres and time zones, but between her job and me mummying, we’re chatting at all hours of the day. She is a true gem and I adore her.

17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Luckily, it’s not available on A03 or Tumblr, but it’s still online elsewhere because I thought about it a few weeks ago – it was a Lords of Dogtown fic… and it was not good. Saying that, anything before that I would cringe at anything I’d written anyway ha!

18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Definitely music or the sound of the baby monitor that I find quite soothing.

19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Argh. “How Long Do You Want to be Loved” messed me up. Too many parental feels.

20) Which part of your Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series was the hardest to write?

The proposal. I went over it a thousand times. I thought, should it be romantic, should it be grand, should it be this or that? How it happened, just a couple in love, in the city they love, being themselves just seemed to fit when it finally came together.

21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

I occasionally outline – but mostly I just write, write, write and then start toying with it afterwards. I’m constantly chopping and changing, but I’m not pedantic about planning. It isn’t that kind of fic. Other multichaps I put a bit more planning and emphasis on.

22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fan-fiction?

You’re only as good as your last fic and its reblogs. If you’re going to get hung up on likes/reblogs/comments, you’ll never publish something again. But it can be bloody disheartening at times.

23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

Time Only Flies When You’re Around? Haha busted my ass on that beast for over a year. It has the hits but likes and comments are encouraging when received. When. I always considered publishing it on Tumblr, but I don’t know. It’s freely available on A03.

24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

Smut talks – I think Heatstroke is a little silly. But it gets hits.

25) Are any of your characters based on real people?

Nope – any characters, inc OC’s are all fictional. I don’t know if I could handle people in my real life if they were like my OC’s!

26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

Any body that takes the time to leave a ‘yes!’, ‘omg’ to paragraphs of reiterating your story back to you – it’s amazing! Taking the time to leave a writer a comment makes our day.

27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

It still makes me laugh when I read it, not quite verbatim but it was along the lines of ‘I loved this fic but it’s gone a total 180. I’ll see how you continue but you know, I’m probably out of here’. While I know you can’t please anyone, it’s a strange comment. I’m old enough to appreciate constructive criticism. This was neither here nor there, but still hilarious!

28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

Back to my love, @whostheblondegirlwriting, we’re constantly taunting the other or beta’ing each others stuff when we have time to help the other (let alone write our own stuff!).

29) Do people know you write fan-fiction?

In real life? No. On this hellsite? I have made some amazing writing friends!

30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?

Ollie in TOFWYA – she’s a completely stereotypical New Yorker, brash, in your face and on the other hand, Sasha’s best friend in the world and they’d do anything for each other. If you knew Ollie in real life, you’d absolutely hate her.

31) What spurs you on during the writing process?

People simply enjoying your work and letting you know is the most amazing aphrodisiac. I’ll never stop writing – whether it’s for myself or for other people to enjoy. Don’t ever be scared to let a writer know if you’ve enjoyed their work or if you haven’t, a writer should be able to accept your constructive criticism and will probably appreciate your feedback if you take the time to provide it respectfully! If you’re going to go on anon and talk shit, just don’t bother. It’s boring, childish and completely unoriginal. Shows true testament to your personality offline.

32) What’s your favorite trope to write?

Friends to Lovers. THEY WERE FRIENDS AND NOW THEY ARE… LOVERS!

33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

Not a clue – but will assume it’s Backstreet Boys-related!

34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Smut will get you the hits but fluff is forever.

#milestone celebration #ask the author #interestedbystanderwrites

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fixxofvixx · 6 years

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Stay With Me -Demon Leo AU- Chapter 5

Hello! I have another update for you! Like I said in the previous post, its lengthy because i couldn’t stop writing..lol. But, apparently, thats ok with a few of you~~

Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Ravi’s chapter will most likely be up next~

Please, please let me know what you think! I love hearing from you guys!! <3

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Leo’s arms tightened around you as you felt the all too familiar feeling of your feet leaving the ground. You squeezed your eyes shut, not knowing where he was taking you this time. You refused to open them again. Partly from embarrassment and partly for fear of what you’d see if you did.

“I’m going to let go if you don’t open your eyes.” His lips touched your ear and you shuddered.

Knowing he would definitely follow through on his threat, you cracked one eye open. Sure enough, you were no longer in the room he had gifted you. Curiousity getting the better of you, you opened both eyes fully. You instantly wished you hadn’t.

Apparently, he thought you’d like the view from the roof. Your heart sputtered from being up so high. It wasn’t as high as the tree he’d put you in yesterday but it was still at least 3 or 4 stories high.

“Why did you bring me up here? You know I hate heights.” Your voice was muffled since your face was buried in his chest.

“I wanted you to see something. I come up here a lot and wanted to show you. Come on, turn around. You wont fall.” He placed his hands on your shoulders and gently turned you away from the safety of his chest. You were watching your feet so you wouldn’t slip. The roof had just a slight angle but flattened out towards the edges.

You decided it was at least safer than a tree branch and relaxed slightly. A glow began to take over the forest and you looked up. You inhaled sharply at the beautiful sight before you. Right outside the house was a lovely meadow with a sparkling pond. Reflected in the water was a beautiful sunrise. The reds, oranges, and yellows took over the trees. Everything glowed.

“What do you think? Maybe heights aren’t so bad sometimes?”

“No, heights still suck but I will admit, its so beautiful. I don’t usually get to see the sunrise.” You were saddened a bit by what you’d missed all these years. Mornings spent cleaning and cooking followed by more chores and then trips into town for supplies. You never had time for things like this.

“I can bring you up here every morning if you want. Well, maybe not during the winter. I don’t feel the cold but I assume you would freeze.”

You still couldn’t understand fully why he was so accepting of your company. But the feeling of someone wanting you around was making your heart cave in. He had put so much thought into making you comfortable here.

“Can I really stay here?”

“Of course you can. Who else is going to use that room down there?” He chuckled and you smiled.

“There’s no statues in my room that move, right?”

“No, there isn’t. And those three had it coming.” He whispered behind you.

You turned your head to look at him. He shrugged his shoulders and winked. The smirk on his face told you that he didn’t regret his actions. Perhaps one day you would gather enough courage to want to hear the story.

“So you’ll stay?”

You nodded and turned back towards the sunrise. The glow had dimmed and the magic was gone. Once again, you were faced with the fact that you were on the roof.

“Can I get off the roof now?”

“Yeah, sure.” He chuckled.

You waited for him to blink you back to your new room but nothing happened. Whipping around, you found that he was no longer there. He had completely deserted you. Your legs gave way and you landed, hard, on the roof.

“Leo?” Your voice was shaking and you searched desperately for the demon. “Come on, this isn’t funny.”

You scooted back until you were flush againt the large stone chimney that stood high towards the edge of the roof. It served its purpose in blocking your view of the ground. You brought your knees up to your chest and waited.

“You know,” You jumped at the sound of his voice. “We need to work on some things. You are far too accepting of people being mean to you.”

“Is that why you left me on the roof?”

“It was an experiment. I just wanted to see what you would do. You are fearless when it comes to saving foxes in traps but you curl into yourself and take it when you are picked on.”

“I…” You honestly had no idea what to say. You had never thought about it in that way before. You supposed he was right. Unless you were really backed into a corner, you just let things be.

“Come on, let’s get you back on the ground, yeah?” He stuck his hand out and you instantly took it, desperately wanting off the roof. He pulled you up beside him and wrapped an arm around your waist. He leaned down a bit and put his other arm under your knees, securing you against his chest.

You screamed loudly when he leapt off the roof. You threw your arms around his neck and squeezed. He landed on the ground after what seemed like forever but you made no effort to move. He lowered your feet to the ground but kept his arm around your waist.

“You’re back on the ground now.”

“Did you have to JUMP off the roof?!” You looked up at him and immediately moved back. His face being a bit too close to yours, causing you to blush slightly.

“You said you wanted down. You just didn’t specify the method.” He shrugged and smiled. A genuine smile that made your heart flutter. Startled by the sudden rush of emotion you stepped back a bit further. Oh, he was dangerous. That you knew for a fact.

“Um, anyway. If I’m going to be staying here, I’d like to take one more trip back to my old room and get a few things?”

“You can go where you please, Y/N. The entire forest is yours to explore. You needn’t my permission to venture out from it. I can escort you, if you’d like.” He took a step in your direction and you locked your knees to keep from backing away.

“No! I mean, thats ok. I don’t want you to have to take the risk of beeing seen. And I’m sure you have things to attend to here. It shouldn’t take long. Maybe Serix or Kona can show me the way?”

“They could. But I could just as easily take you to your room instantly.”

But then you would have to be in his arms again. And you were not exactly sure that your heart could take it right now. You needed time to think about what was going on in your brain…..and heart.

“Um, maybe we shouldn’t risk over-exposure again. I…don’t really fancy passing out again.” You laughed nervously, hoping to end the conversation.

“Ah, yes, well, I suppose you are correct. I can get Serix to go with you. Kona doesn’t like to come out during the day if he can help it.” As if on cue, Serix popped out from behind the trees and bounded over, coming to a stop at your feet.

You knelt down to scratch his ear and pat his head.

“I won’t be gone long. Perhaps when I get back, I can get a better tour?” Leo nodded in agreement and began to follow Serix away from the house. You dreaded going back to the old house but there were things there of sentimental value and feared they would be lost forever.

It took longer than you had anticipated getting to the edge of the trees that lay behind your house. The forest was bigger than you had originally thought but that excited you more than anything else. A whole new world for you to explore away from the madness of your parents suited you just fine.

You left Serix at the tree line, wanting to keep him out of harm’s way. Racing across the back yard, you prayed that your parents were in town. You climbed up to the balcony just as you had done countless times to sneak away from home. As you entered your bedroom, your heart sank. Everything had been destroyed. Your bed lay in pieces. Your closet was devoid of clothes. What was once in that closet lay strewn in shreds on the floor. You had sewn the clothes personally, proud of your work. Now, it was all useless. Panicked, you rushed to the closet to search for the things you had hidden. There was a loosened floorboard in the left side of the closet that held the things that really mattered. They were mostly heirlooms from your grandparents, given to you in secret before they died mysteriously in a fire.

Before you could lift the board, you heard the floor creak outside your bedroom. You froze, listening. You scrambled to a standing position when you saw the doorknob turn. As quietly as you could manage, you hid in the corner of the closet, pulling the door to close as best you could. Footsteps sounded in your room and you prayed that they wouldn’t venture to the closet.

“Are you sure you heard something? Everything still looks the same.” Your mother’s voice.

“I know what I heard. I guarantee that little bitch will come back. She can’t stay in those woods forever. I made a deal. We get nothing if we can’t find her.” Your ‘loving’ father sounded frustrated. Little did he know, you planned to stay in that forest for as long as you could.

“She’s probably dead by now anyway. Gus said he saw that demon run after her as soon as he’d killed his brother.”

Your heart slammed in your chest. Someone had seen you with Leo. A new fear gripped your heart now.

“You better hope not. If she’s dead, we don’t get any money. I had just sealed the deal to sell her off to Norman right before Gus came into town spouting his nonsense.”

Norman?! Your jaw went slack as you tried to make sense of what your father was saying. Norman was the town’s only lawyer and had just been accused of beating his wife to death a month ago. He had gotten cleared of all charges, of course, considering that no one would speak against him. You had always made sure to steer clear of him and the way his eyes would leer at you.

You heard the door shut again and you were once again enveloped in silence. Tears were streaming down your face as you mourned the thought of having caring parents.

Shaking your head to clear it, you knelt down, picked up the loose board and grabbed the bag that lay underneath. Carefully, you slipped out of the closet and across the floor to the balcony. You looked around to see if your parents were outside but the coast seemed clear. You swung yourself over the banister and dropped down to the ground beneath you. You looked out at the backyard and noticed Serix running at you, full speed. Not wanting him to be seen, you tried to wave him away. He was almost to you went you felt something hard hit the back of your head. The bag you had been holding flew out of your hands and landed in front of Serix.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as you could feel yourself falling to the ground. Before everything went black, you looked up to see your father holding a shovel in his hands.

————–

When you came to, you felt paralyzed. You tried to shake your head but that caused pain to radiate throughout your body. You wanted to hold onto your head but soon realized that your hands had been bound. You tugged on them uselessly. A foul-smelling cloth was tied over your mouth, effectively gagging you. When the fog had cleared out of your head a bit, voices filled the air. Looking around, you noticed that you were in the middle of the town square. Your hands were tied to the steel post of the announcement board in the center of town. In every direction around you stood the townspeople, shouting various profanities at you.

“Ah, nice to see that you’ve finally joined us.” You looked up to find the pock-marked face of Norman. “Imagine my surprise when I was told that you had perished in the woods at the hands of a demon, just like Gus’ poor brother. Then I find out that you had apparently become the demon’s whore, considering you are still alive.” He grabbed a handful of your hair and yanked your head back painfully, whispering into your ear. “And I paid good money for a virgin.”

Norman turned to the townspeople and spoke.

“This wretch has made deadly deals with the demon of the forest! Surely, the demon has been plotting against us. You know he has bewitched her! We have to cast out the spell! We must act now or she will be lost to us forever! Bring forth the iron!”

His last words had you pulling against your bonds. You knew exactly what he was talking about. Fire brands. Irons specially made by the blacksmith to 'burn the devil’ out of people. They had been used for many occasions. A thief had to be punished for their wrongdoings. Adultery was stamped out this way as well. They were especially handy for coaxing information from those who had a secret.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed the fire red tip of the iron. The blacksmith had been nice enough to place a design on the tip; a simple 'x’. This was so whoever sported the burned flesh of an 'x’ on their skin would be avoided and shunned.

The blacksmith handed the iron to Norman and then walked over to stand behind you. You pulled desperately on the ropes cutting into your wrists but they were too strong. The blacksmith placed a large, callused hand in the center of your shoulder blades and ripped the whole back part of your blouse off. You squeezed your arms together as best you could over your chest in an attempt to save your dignity. You wanted to scream at them in protest but the cloth was too tight around your mouth.

“Will you admit your wrongs? Tell us where the demon is.” Norman asked, but you didn’t respond. He must have taken that as a no as he drove the iron into the center of your back. White hot pain seared your skin. You screamed in agony but you knew no one would help you. You nearly passed out from the pain before he removed the iron and stepped back. You pulled in deep breaths through your nose but you felt as if you were slowly suffocating.

“Stand her up.” Norman commanded and the blacksmith pulled you up to stand in front of the lawyer. The ropes slid up the pole, causing them to tighten even more on your wrists. “The demon must have done a number on you if you faithfully keep his secret. I must admire your tenacity, however. Usually even the strongest men will break after one touch of the iron. Perhaps we need something a bit stronger, hmm? I wonder how many x’s we can fit on your body. Strip her.”

At his command, you flailed desperately. You tried to keep your body close to the pole but the blacksmith was pulling on your clothes relentlessly. The look on Norman’s face was disgusting as you kicked out with your legs, aimlessly trying to hit something.

Suddenly, gasps filled the crowd but Norman didn’t notice. He was still smiling and twirling the iron in his hands. You were sure you were starting to see things when tendrils of black smoke curled around Norman’s neck. Before he could react, he was plucked into the air and slammed mercilessly into a brick wall.

The black smoke grew until it parted the people in the square, forcing them to form a path. Your eyes followed the smoke until it reached the narrow entrance to the town square. Finally, a wolf emerged from the smoke, then another, and another until six black and grey beasts stood at the entrance. They continued forward, snapping and snarling at the townspeople, who were all frozen in fear. The wolves started forward and a new creature appeared from the smoke. Your heart jumped as you saw wild red hair, electric blue eyes, sharp fangs, and…..wings? You stared in awe at the demon moving towards you. Magnificent wings encased his being. Pitch black feathers that looked like the tip of each one had been dipped in bright red blood.

Tears of relief streamed down your cheeks as he finally stood in front of the platform you were on. He broke eye contact with you and turned to the blacksmith. The brute who just a moment ago was eager to hold you down, now backed away in fear. Leo’s short whistle prompted the wolves to advance on the blacksmith. They lowered their bodies down, preparing to attack. The blacksmith backed up and turned quickly, wrapping his arm around your throat. He squeezed tightly, bringing even more tears to your eyes.

“Just a minute! What the hell is going on here?!” Your father’s voice rang over the crowd as he stepped around the people. Judging by his tone, he was drunk….again. “You have no right to be here demon! Leave us to our business!”

Leo stilled. His head turned slowly to your father. By this time, Norman had regained consciousness and stood behind your father. When Leo’s gaze met theirs they shrunk slightly. His eyes were completely black again.

“Your business?” Leo’s voice was raspy with anger and his fists clenched. “You have no business with her. She’s MY business. She wandered into MY forest. She IS mine.”

“Well….if you want her, you’ll have to compensate me!! I paid a good penny for that girl!” Norman spoke up from behind your father, clearly out of his mind.

“Fine. I won’t kill you. That will be your compensation. Now,” Leo turned back to you and the blacksmith. “release her before I burn this pitiful village to the ground, starting with you.”

The blacksmith squeezed his arm around your neck even tighter and your vision darkened. You heard a growl before the blacksmith screamed, resulting in him releasing you. You felt yourself falling but didn’t quite make it to the floor. Two arms wrapped around you and pulled you upright again. You looked up to see Leo’s face next to yours. He held you with one arm as he untied your hands with his free hand. Once they were free, you immediately clutched your shirt which was threatening to fall off completely. He removed the cloth from around your mouth and you pulled fresh air into your lungs.

A large coat seemingly appeared out of nowhere and Leo wrapped it around your shoulders before hauling you into his arms, careful not to touch the burn on your back. You placed your head on his shoulder, exhausted and relieved. You hadn’t expected him to come for you.

Suddenly, a shot rang out and Leo twitched. His arms tightened around you as he grunted. It took you a moment to realize that he’d been shot. You looked around his shoulder to see your father holding a rifle.

“Leo?”

“I’m fine. Are you okay?” You nodded and he turned, walking back towards the entrance of the town square.

Once he reached the village gate the world blurred. In an instant, you were on the plush couch in Leo’s living room. His wings were gone and his eyes were back to normal. He pulled the coat off your shoulders and turned you so he could see the burn from the iron brand. You flinched when you felt his fingers touch your skin. His fingers were cool against the damaged heat of your skin. You needed a distraction.

“I….I didn’t know you had wings.”

“I don’t really use them since I can teleport. I mostly use them to scare people out of the forest.”

“I don’t think they’re scary. I-I thought they were beautiful.” Your voice was low but you knew he’d heard you.

“Yes, well, you’re a bit different, aren’t you?” The pain in your back was subsiding and you almost fell over on the couch in relief. He turned you again and placed his hands around your wrists, taking a few moments to heal them.

“I’m sorry you had to expose yourself to the town. I know you like to stay hidden.”

“Well…I couldn’t just stand around while they tortured you. Besides, I don’t feel threatened by them. I doubt they’ll follow me into the forest anyway.” He stood up for a moment and went to the front door. He bent down and picked up something but you couldn’t see what it was.

A moment later, he stood in front of you again and extended his arm. In his hand was the bag you had taken from your house. You looked up at him in surprise.

“Serix brought it back. I am sorry that it took me so long to get to you. When you were attacked, Serix went after your parents but they got him pretty good. He managed to grab the bag but it took him a while to get back here.”

“Is he okay?!” You tried to get up, but the world started to tilt and forced you to sit back down.

“Be still. He’s okay. He’s resting. You should be doing the same.” He reached for you and, this time, didn’t teleport. Instead, he turned and carried you up the steps. He came to a stop when he reached your bed and placed you on the edge of it.

“Go ahead and wash up. You should have everything you need in there. I’ll put some food in the fridge in case you feel like eating later. But get some rest first, okay?” You nodded and he disappeared. You took a shower in record time and found that Leo had decent taste in clothing. Deciding that food was more important, you slowly made your way down the stairs. The light in the kitchen was still on and you hoped Leo wouldn’t scold you for choosing food over rest.

However, all thoughts of eating vanished when you stepped into the kitchen and saw Leo lying on the floor, deathly still.

#Demon Leo #Leo fic #taekwoon fic #vixx au #taekwoon au #vixx

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reifromrfa · 7 years

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On the Line - Chapter 6

Prompt: Alternate Universe

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5

Also posted this on fanfiction.net because I realized that the italicized words don’t always come out when you read using your phone so here it is :)

On the Line

Thanks for all the likes, reblogs and comments! :) Please let me know what you think :)

Warning: This chapter contains violence.

Day 6

Assistant Kang couldn’t leave today because the storm in the town had gotten worse and no planes could land. Jumin was about to lose his mind. He still had crappy signal and virtually zero internet. He couldn’t research about MC. The library in town was also closed. He lowered his head and gripped his hair, swearing. He hadn’t felt this helpless in a long time. His worry for MC grew and even though he knew he should be exhausted from getting very little sleep the night before, the stress and anxiety he felt kept him going.

Thunder broke through the loud pitter patter of the rain on the roof and Jumin groaned.

He wanted to do something. Was time travel possible? Maybe he could organize a team of the most brilliant scientists and ask them to find a way to allow him to go back in time?

And then what? He was going to change history? He would save MC and bring her into the future? For all he knew, MC could be alive and well right now, albeit he would be as old as his grandmother. But that didn’t matter. If she was alive, then he would be able to alleviate some of the stress.

Finally the phone rang and Jumin picked up before it could ring for more than a second.

“MC? Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer, which made him worry even more.

“MC?”

“Jumin.”

He inhaled sharply. Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been crying. The way she said his name sounded so broken that Jumin’s heart shattered into a million pieces.

“MC, what happened? Are you hurt?”

“Jumin, I’m scared.”

He gripped the phone so hard he thought it would break in two.

“What happened? Tell me everything.”

MC marched into her father’s office and demanded him to call off the wedding. Her father was taken aback, of course, but his shock quickly turned to fury.

“You should be thankful Hong Chul fell for you and wants to marry you! Such a strapping young man with a bright future ahead —he will make a fine husband, MC!”

“But father, that man is mean and cruel and vile. I can’t stand the sight of him, much less imagine living with him!” MC screamed, frustrated. Why can’t her father see what a terrible person Hong Chul was? Why wouldn’t he listen to her?

“Nonsense! He’s quite the gentleman and I heard from his father that he fended off men who were rude to you!”

MC looked at him incredulously before slamming her fist on her father’s desk. “He attacked men who were simply talking to me! Father, there is a fine line between a jealous boyfriend and an obsessive psychopath!”

“How dare you throw a tantrum here! Slamming your fist down a man’s desk? My God, have I taught you nothing?!”

“Father, please,” MC begged. “Please listen to me. I cannot —no, I will not marry Hong Chul!”

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. MC and her father both turned towards it. Without waiting for permission to enter, the door was knocked back against the wall and MC paled.

Hong Chul strode inside, his face twisted in anger, a bouquet of roses in his hand.

“What’s this? I come over to surprise my bride-to-be with flowers and I hear her say that she will not marry me?” Hong Chul said, glaring menacingly at MC.

“I’m so sorry, Hong Chul. MC doesn’t know what she’s saying. Don’t worry, I will speak with her and—"

MC took a deep breath and met his gaze. It was now or never.

“No.” MC said loudly and clearly. “You heard correctly. I will not marry you, Hong Chul.”

Hong Chul’s handsome face morphed into the ugly man that she knew he was as he gave MC a vicious snarl. “How dare you insult me! After I’ve given you money, this is how you repay me?!”

MC’s eyes widened and she turned to her father, who held his head high but refused to meet his daughter’s gaze.

“Father, how could you?”

“How could he? He did it so he could feed you and your sisters! He’s doing his duty as the man of the house! You’re quite bold to be so selfish when your father is doing everything he can to keep you alive!” Hong Chul screamed, taking a step closer to her.

“Father, we can find a way out of this. Please reconsider! I can help you, father! We don’t need them—“

All of a sudden, strong fingers wrapped around MC’s upper arm and yanked her back, making MC cry out in pain.

“You don’t know anything, do you?” Hong Chul said, drawing his face close to hers. “I bought the vineyard from your father. I own this place now.”

MC felt the floor disappearing from under her as her legs gave way. But Hong Chul wouldn’t let her go. Instead, he tightened his grip and kept her upright, an evil smile making its way to his face.

“Everything you own is now mine, MC. In a few days, your soul will be mine too.”

MC shook her head. “No.”

She turned to her father, who had sunk to his chair and had his head in his hands. “Father. Father, take it back. Please. Father, I’m begging you. If you love me, don’t let me do this, please!”

“Shut up!” Hong Chul exclaimed, his nails sinking into her arm as he shook her. He turned to her father and said, “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll make sure MC knows that this deal is final.” Before dragging her out of her father’s office.

“Let go of me!” MC screamed, struggling against his grip. Several of their workers who were inside the house turned to look at them. MC saw her friend looking at them with worry, heard her sisters calling out to her, but she was pulled forward by Hong Chul towards her room.

“How dare you make a fool out of me?! Me! Your husband!”

“We’re not married yet, Hong Chul.” MC responded vehemently.

Hong Chul gritted his teeth. He pushed open the door to her room and dragged her inside, shutting the door behind them. MC’s heart banged against her ribcage and her eyes unconsciously slid to the phone sitting on the bedside table.

Jumin…God, please help me.

Hong Chul grabbed her face in his hand, forcing her to look at him.

“I will not be made into the laughing stock of this decade. You will marry me, MC. No other man can have you. You will love me and worship me and only me.”

“I will never love a man like you, Hong Chul.” MC replied.

Hong Chul’s eyes burned with rage and MC saw him drop the bouquet to the ground and raise his hand. MC’s head snapped to the side as his palm connected with her cheek, her jaw throbbing from the pain. The force of the slap disoriented her for a while and as Hong Chul released her arm, she fell to the ground, clutching the side of her face.

Tears flowed down her cheeks and MC closed her eyes, wishing —no, praying that she could be by Jumin’s side instead of the monster who stood in front of her.

“That should teach you to stay in your place, MC.” Hong Chul said. He got down in front of her and looked at her and MC stared at him icily, the tears still flowing down her cheeks. Hong Chul chuckled. “You’re really something, MC. Such a beautiful girl but I didn't know you had so much fire in you. I can’t wait for the day that we get married. Taming you will be so much fun.” He reached out to her but MC involuntarily flinched backwards. Hong Chul dropped his hand and got to his feet, smirking.

“I’m so glad we had this discussion. See you tomorrow, MC.”

With that, he left, closing the door behind him as MC buried her face in her hands and cried, her sobs echoing around the empty room.

Jumin’s fists were clenched and he had gotten to his feet, pacing the room. He kept swearing, seeing nothing but red.

“I’ll kill him,” he said, his anger rolling off him in waves. He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. It killed him to be in this position. He had everything —he had the money and the power to ensure her safety. But what he didn’t have was a freaking time machine!

“I’m seriously considering that right now.” MC replied quietly.

“I can’t stand this.” Jumin said, frustrated. “I want to help you. I desperately want to reach you but I can’t. How can I be your angel when I can’t even do this for you, MC? What is the purpose of letting me meet you if I can’t even save you?”

He slammed his fist hard against the wall, angry at Hong Chul, angry at their circumstance, angry at himself.

“What are you doing?” MC asked, having heard the thumping noise from Jumin’s side.

Jumin let out a breath and counted to ten in his head, calming himself down. It was like telling an erupting volcano to stop spitting out lava.

“Jumin?” came MC’s worried voice.

“I’m here. I…I’m trying to calm down.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump my problems on you.”

“No, don’t apologize. I’m the one who should apologize. How can I call myself a man if I can’t protect you?”

“Jumin…It’s not your fault we’re 67 years apart. And hearing your voice is comforting enough.”

“I will speak to you until my last breath if only that can save you from that wretched man.” Jumin sighed. “I really wish I can protect you. I wish I had invested money into research regarding time traveling.”

That made MC laugh a little. “Jumin, I wouldn’t want you anywhere near that guy. He’s crazy. I don’t want you to get hurt. And also, time traveling isn’t possible. Don’t waste your money on it. I’d rather you put your money to better use.”

“I am capable of defending myself. And what better use could there be for my money if not time travel?”

“Jumin…”

“I’m kidding,” he replied sadly. “I know time travel is impossible if not dangerous.”

But that doesn’t mean I won’t travel back in time if I were given a chance.

"What are you going to do now?" Jumin asked her quietly, finally getting some control over his emotions..

"I don't know. I want to run away but seeing how violent Hong Chul is, I'm afraid of what he would do to my family if I were to escape."

Jumin groaned internally. MC cared so much about her family that she was willing to sacrifice her happiness and her freedom for them; why couldn't her father do the same? For once, he wanted someone to be selfish. He wanted her to put herself above her family and think about her well-being before theirs. But even though they only spoke through the phone, he knew MC would never abandon her family or put them in harm’s way.

“What about the authorities? Have you tried going to them?”

“The authorities are putty in his hands. A little bit of extra cash goes a long here.”

Jumin wasn’t surprised. “What if you left with your family? All of you.”

“I’ve thought of that as well. But my father…he’s quite attached to this place. My mother designed our house, you see…”

“I’m about to lose my mind.”

“What?”

Jumin sank onto his bed and propped his elbow on his knee, resting his head on his hand. “I’ve never felt this helpless in my entire life. It’s driving me insane. Why is this happening to us?”

“Jumin,” came her sweet voice. “you gave me hope. You’re giving me strength to fight. I was quite content to just slip into the role of the obedient daughter and do everything I was told. I was preparing to kill my emotions on the night the phone rang. But as I listened to you talking about Elizabeth the 3rd…well, it was so cute that I was smiling the entire night. And the more we talked, the more I wanted to get to know you more…the more I wanted to see you.” She laughed. “It may be impossible, but I…I want to believe that we’ll see each other someday. I want to believe that I am capable of shaping my own destiny, like you.”

His face felt hot. His pulse quickened and it felt like his heart was bursting out of his chest. His anger vanished and Jumin felt like he was soaring.

“Jumin?”

“MC,” he said. “You don’t know how happy it makes me to hear you say that. I…I really want to see you.”

“Me too. Perhaps in our next life.”

“You believe in reincarnation too, MC?”

“Yes. I do. I hope I get to meet you in my next life, Jumin.”

He never believed in the supernatural. He was a man of logic, of science and facts.

But for her, he would believe anything.

“I hope I get to meet you in my next life, as well.”

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | x | 7 | 8 | 9 | Soon?

Buy me a Mango Shake? (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

#mysme jumin #mm #mm fanfic #jumin han #mystic messenger #mystic messenger jumin #jumin x mc #jumin #fanfic #on the line #juminmcweek

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demoninblue · 6 years

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(( also, another little OOC tidbit, but I’m going to try again to be more active here. I’ll put some more about it under a cut or something so no one has to read my nonsense if they don’t feel like it, it’s really just an explanation for the tiny amount of people I used to rp with that are still here I guess... ))

This is an OOC post so whatever, here goes:

I took a long break from tumblr a few years ago because the environment got super toxic, as most people are well aware. I kept in touch with a few of you via skype/FB/discord (lately)/etc., but most of you seem to have moved on as well. I’ve tried to come back to this blog a few times, but it seems like it’s a ghost town and I haven’t had the motivation (dmc3 pun lol?) to really put forth the effort. There’s a few of you I really miss rping with that I still see hanging around, but I haven’t wanted to commit to anything in-depth because real life keeps throwing me for a loop. There’s a bunch of reasons I’ve been a ghost but I’ll try and address them in order...

I’d say the biggest reason has been my real life. I don’t want to get into details because all it’ll do is piss me off, but suffice it to say I’ve been struggling a lot, mostly with my job. It’s been a huge source of stress -- and no, I can’t just get another job right now, but I am considering taking a small LOA and getting things straight in my life again. I recognize life isn’t fair, but it IS more than a little disheartening when you sacrifice everything, are promised something, and then it turns out that you were lied to and other people get to profit off of your hard work and success -- and still manage to do a terrible job. But anyways, let’s move on.

Another reason I kind of lost my motivation here is that people would approach ME to roleplay, and then we’d get one or two posts and they’d just stop replying. I understand people are busy, that’s cool, but when you reply to everyone else and not me, it’s kind of like, “Okay...” and makes me hesitant to accept future requests. I know a lot of it was probably over-saturation-- too many replies and things get buried, but when the same people do it ten times in a row, it’s weird, especially when they came to me asking if I wanted to do something. Everyone knows I’m down for just about anything except rape/non-con, and I’ll even rp with OCs and everything else, so it just got frustrating. I’m not afraid to give a gentle reminder that some people appreciate to let them know I’m waiting, but I’m not going to beg repeatedly if you’re busy/not interested. A side note -- I actually really enjoy just character interaction posts, just sending a fun/rude/weird/etc. comment to someone or receiving one in-character and just building off of that; I don’t have any issue with that if anyone ever wants to just drop me a line and start some casual stuff without having to set anything up.

The last issue I had that really drove me from the scene (and I’ve retyped this like 4 times to try and convey how I feel properly, but at this point, whatever) was it started seeming like people would only approach me for X-rated/explicit roleplays... Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against that as long as you’re of age and it’s not a rape thing, but at the same time, I prefer a little story or something to go along with it if we’re gonna go down that route. Now, if we both come in knowing full-well what is gonna go down, then cool, but I couldn’t stand being roped into a rp that someone approached me with that genuinely sounded interesting, and then it turned out the “plot” lasted all of two posts before they dove right into the smut and once they got it, they ditched. Not to mention, these same offenders would contribute almost nothing to the smut! Truthfully, I really don’t particularly care for writing out smut; I stopped enjoying it a long time ago and it’s really more of a chore these days, but if the situation is right then I’m down for it -- just don’t expect to see me going out of my way for it.

If we’re gonna engage in ANY type of roleplay, whether it be explicit or the most innocent/fun thing in the world, I expect it to be a back and forth, otherwise you might as well just ask me for a fanfic at that point. And just to be clear, this isn’t JUST about things that happened on this particular blog -- I also ended up abandoning my DN blog because of similar issues (in fact, it was a lot worse there x__x).

But yeah, TLDR:

Real life sucks sometimes, and I miss roleplaying here and want to make an effort to try and get back into it. I don’t need twenty paragraphs, I don’t need hard plots -- if you wanna hit me up with something casual, BRING IT ON. Drop me a message or just tag me in something anytime you want. I need to overhaul my blog, it’s got a 3 inch layer of dust on it, so pretty much disregard any old tags and whatnot. I will say, this is a multi-ship, whatever blog. I’ll rp any timeline, game, whatever. I’ll talk to a thousand Dantes if I feel like it.

#ooc #just some shit #mostly for those i keep vanishing on

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deadcactuswalking · 5 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 19th May 2019 (Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber, Skepta)

This episode is a day late. Sorry for that but due to conflicts with my personal schedule often I have to rush the episodes and I was much too busy to finish this in on time. I know that’s pretty much verbatim what I wrote on Twitter but the new Singles Chart is already out so I want to get this as quick as possible. I can tell you for a fact we’ve got a lot of good stuff coming next week I want to talk about so I’m not promising you a great episode here. Most of what I say will be completely obsolete actually so I’ve decided to ditch the Top 10, Climbers and Fallers entirely, making this a guaranteed shortest episode ever. This was already written so it pains me to do so but I feel like it’d be a tad pointless telling you this info when I’m planning to get the next episode out quite literally tomorrow or at least on Sunday, because there’s going to be a different chart review within the next week, and it’s already freely available on the Internet. It would be redundant to make my already redundant job here anymore redundant... I’ve lost myself. Let’s run through Dropouts and such.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

“M.E.N. II” by Bugzy Malone is out after one week from the debut at #34, while elsewhere we have mostly expected dropouts, nothing surprising. “Sweet but Psycho” by Ava Max is finally out from #36, “Boy with Luv” by BTS featuring Halsey is out from #37 because who expected a K-pop song to last more than a few weeks in the Top 40? “Pretty Shining People” by George Ezra is also out from #39, whilst “Disaster” by Dave featuring J Hus has its streaming cuts and is out from #40. Now there are no returning entries but a massive amount of new arrivals. Let’s go.

NEW ARRIVALS

#39 – “Late Night Feelings” – Mark Ronson featuring Lykke Li

Produced by Mark Ronson and Picard Brothers – Peaked at #5 in Belgium

Remember Mark Ronson? Of course you do, he’s everywhere behind the scenes as a writer and producer, but after “Uptown Funk!”, he seems to appear on the charts spontaneously when you don’t expect it and I had no idea that he’d show up today with this single of all tracks that have been released from his upcoming album of the same name. He seems to have made a proper comeback as a solo or lead act with “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” featuring Miley Cyrus, a worldwide smash, and his Silk City project with Diplo at the same time. Ronson appears to have kept the disco theme going on with this single featuring indie pop singer Lykke Li, who I’ve not heard much of outside her album last year and that song she did with Drake on So Far Gone; I’m excited to hear more from her though, what I have listened to seems promising. This is Ronson’s eleventh UK Top 40 hit as a credited artist and Lykke Li’s first ever charting song above her previous peak of #126, and it’s pretty okay. Lykke Li has one of my favourite voices in pop, so I’m glad her light falsetto tones within the chorus are reflected perfectly in the soft keys and relaxed instrumentation, with a 70s-influenced disco groove that I can really get into. The guitars are slick, even if they’re buried in the mix to make room for Lykke Li and the cloudy synths. I feel it doesn’t develop enough due to this actually, despite how funky the bassline is here, the percussion is somewhat stiff and while I like it, it feels like an inauthentic attempt at replicating this type of disco, and the repetitive backing vocals in the bridge are unnecessary in my opinion. The bridge that is essentially just the pre-chorus with the disco instrumentation replaced with heavy 808s is really cool, but there’s not enough of a climax after that. It just seems very... grey, if that makes sense. Very fitting for the album cover, but this isn’t for me, especially with the annoying “On and on” looped vocal introduced as a post-chorus, it gets on my nerves.

#35 – “Motorola” – Da Beatfreakz featuring Swarmz, Deno and Dappy

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

More UK faux-grime faux-dancehall hip hop, I see – except this is probably one of the best groups of these types of artists you could have, minus maybe a Tion Wayne or Hardy Caprio. Seriously, the names confuse me too. You may be familiar with Da Beatfreakz from their producer tag which appeared on Swarmz’s hit “Bally” – a song I actually loved, so that’s a good sign. Deno is Deno Driz’s new moniker, he had a pretty big hit with “Advice” which sadly peaked after the rapper collaborating with Deno on that song Cadet’s untimely death. Dappy, meanwhile, has more of a legacy after being in some group called N-Dubz in the 2000s; none of that stuff is good, honestly, all of their hits are pretty awful, but Dappy has grown a lot since and he’s actually competent now. This is Swarmz and Deno Driz’s second Top 40 hit, Da Beatfreakz’s first as a credited artist, and Dappy’s eleventh as a solo act. How does this track stack up then? Well, the beat is more tropical nonsense that sounds just like “Bally”, with an almost identical intro, but once that bass hits, the song actually picks up some menace and steam. The chorus is... interesting. It doesn’t have any of the charm that “Bally” had in its hook, which was killer, mostly because of the lack of a catchy melody. Deno sounds really good with his youthful 16-year-old voice on this beat, though, and I won’t say I don’t get a kick out of the vocoder added to Swarmz’s (admittedly pathetic, lazy and awful) verse, as well as the distant “skrrt, skrrt” ad-libs. Dappy is pretty cool, but I wish he did more with his flow, as he has the longest verse, and it gets pretty repetitive, but the mini-skit between the flow switches is actually pretty cool, albeit making the verse as a whole feel janky. Dappy and Deno adding ad-libs to the final chorus does make it feel a bit fuller and while I’m starting to feel Swarmz was a fluke, Dappy and Deno add a lot to this, which I didn’t expect, so I’m not going to be complaining if this ends up an urban hit – but it won’t, because it’s a posse cut that’s not even three minutes and is credited to the producer. I see these tracks all the time and they go nowhere.

#34 – “Falling like the Stars” – James Arthur

Produced by Bradley Spence and Alex Beitzke

Okay, I have a question. Why do we keep James Arthur on the charts again? His voice is gruelling, his instrumentation and production is consistently as generic as possible, with his sloppy singer-songwriter material never being engaging, unique or interesting. After his X Factor win, he had brief success, sure, but after rehab and a homophobic scandal, he came back and why are we letting him on? Everything he’s released since has been worthless chart filler made to appease radio, without any soul put into it, and whenever soul appears to shine in his vocals he sounds like Lewis Capaldi choking on a TARDIS. Don’t get me started on his squealing falsetto either. I’d argue Capaldi took his place until now but they have the same exact issues with me, I can’t stand either of them. That aside, this is his twelfth Top 40 single in the UK, and it’s the same crap. It’s got a more upbeat acoustic guitar jamble this time but Arthur is speaking pure clichés like this woman being the ocean carrying him home, and while this does feel sincere, it’s only due to how strained the voice is and not because the content deserves it. There’s a piano chord every few bars as well just so you notice that this isn’t just a cover of “Wonderwall” by your local aspiring guitarist, and incredibly fake strings that just sound painfully synthetic. Skip this, in fact, I’ll follow my own advice. I only listened to half of this song, so if it gets worse past the drowned out trap percussion in the bridge, tell me. Actually, don’t. Save me the pain.

#22 – “Greaze Mode” – Skepta featuring Nafe Smallz

Produced by Skepta

Nothing’s been great so far. Nothing’s even been all that good, mostly underwhelming or downright awful. So after all those new arrivals, I know who’s never going to disappoint me: Skepta. I love this dude, especially his more recent work that’s been influenced by trap, but he is or was largely a grime artist back in the day. He’s probably the biggest British rapper stateside due to cosigns and collaborations with Drake, Kanye and A$AP Rocky. I’ve only briefly heard of Nafe Smallz from another Top 40 hit he had here with Gunna, but I remember not liking him all too much so I’m wary of his contribution but with a Skepta beat under him, I’m sure it can’t be terrible. He released a double A-side single from his upcoming album, Ignorance is Bliss, and whilst the other song, “Bullet from a Gun”, barely missed the Top 40 at #42, “Greaze Mode” is Skepta’s twelth Top 40 hit and Nafe Smallz’s second, and while I definitely think this is a safe lead single, I’m not exactly saying it’s bad... except it is. Skepta’s delivery and charisma has always been painfully blunt, straightforward and aggressive, but here it sounds lazy and due to bad vocal mixing, I wouldn’t blame you if you forgot he was on this song. The beat has an eerie synth that doesn’t really click with me at all, with a nice sub-bass but it’s pretty much just any old trap beat, despite the brief flute-like flashes of cute synths and a haunting sub-bass. Nafe Smallz’s hook is really the weak link here, though, he has even worse vocal mixing and it is a painful performance, drenched in pointless reverb and autotune that succeeds in covering up nothing, with no wit or flow to his lyrics or content at all. He keeps the same flow for his whole verse and hook and it feels monotonous. This is a severe disappointment from Skepta, I’m sorry, but Nafe Smallz isn’t the only awful part about this. It’s also down to the beat, mixing and Skepta’s first verse (The third verse is remarkably more interesting), and, yeah, this fails on all regards.

#1 – “I Don’t Care” – Ed Sheeran featuring Justin Bieber

Produced by Max Martin, Shellback and Fred Gibson – Peaked at #1 in too many countries to list

“I Don’t Care”. What a fitting title for the lead single off of Ed Sheeran’s next album, No. 6 Collaborations Project, which I guess is some kind of mixtape where every song has a different rapper or featured singer on it? I don’t care enough to go into specifics, but this song reeks of not bothering with any detail. Sheeran didn’t produce this track at all as he usually does and he and Bieber have no chemistry, mostly because they both sound identical as they’re ripped of any unique tones they had to their voice in the first place. The song is about being at a party he doesn’t want to be at, but still being there because his girlfriend is there. Okay, cool, I don’t care, because he doesn’t make me believe it, especially with that pathetic falsetto “ooh-ooh” in the chorus, Jesus Christ, that’s so forced and unnecessary. The sloppy tropical beat straight out of 2016 has a painful vocal sample that really doesn’t fit in at this party of a song, except if this song is a party, then no one has got anything to say except, “Pass me another drink”, and “You’ve had enough”, your baby’s in the bathroom with some other dude who isn’t Ronald Weasley’s dad or looking like the Jonas Brothers if they were homeless, yet still isn’t one seventy-eighth as wealthy, and you’re stuck there crooning in manufactured autotune to someone who isn’t listening, and a DJ that’s playing Joy Division. It’s that depressing.

Conclusion

We know what’s coming next week: Tyler. But for now, what’s good? What’s bad? Well, Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber take Worst of the Week for being absolutely worthless with “I Don’t Care”, whilst Dishonourable Mention is tied, going to both James Arthur and Skepta for “Falling Like the Stars” and “Greaze Mode” featuring Nafe Smallz. Best of the Week goes to... I’m seriously giving Best of the Week to Dappy?! Okay, well, he, Swarmz, Deno and Da Beatfreakz get Best of the Week for “Motorola”, and that song’s barely a 6 or 7/10, so I think we can call this a pretty pitiful week. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more pop music ramblings and Top 20 rankings, and I’ll see you next week!

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deltaengineering · 7 years

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spring anime 2017 part 2: girlfriendship is magic

I can’t believe Maidragon was so powerful it brought the entire 90s back.

See also:

• spring anime 2017 part 1: woke up late

• spring anime 2017 part 3: comfy and easy to wear

• spring anime 2017 bonus round: things you already knew were good

Clockwork Planet

Yes, forecasts this season predict heavy showers of magical girlfriends.This time the dude afflicted by this sudden precipitation is a clockwork nerd, who gets a clockwork gothloli dropped on him. This may be less of a coincidence than it sounds because for spurious reasons the entire planet has been replaced by clockwork – if you thought this show was mentally capable of having a metaphorical title, I have bad news. So basically this is teen schmuck + robot superweapon having fights in a city that looks like a lazy steampunk cosplayer’s top hat, in between erotic misunderstandings. I’m regretting that I called Macchiavellism’s fights bad because a couple good action cuts are already a lot to ask for, as evidenced here: It looks just terrible, and obviously the content itself is even worse. Nuh-uh.

Eromanga-sensei

I love Hiro Kanzaki’s character designs. There, I said it. I just wish they weren’t attached to bullshit like OreImo or Eromanga-sensei, which, being by the same author and all, is more or less the same thing. It’s pretty bad when the implied incest fantasy is the least revolting thing about your celebration of otaku shittery: So a schlubby light novel protagonist who also writes light novels (and who happens to be surrounded by hot bitches that just love people who write light novels because that’s so cool) finds out that the mysterious porn artist he’s collaborating with over the internet is actually his hikkikomori little sister, who reacts to this revelation like any girl would: being tsundere. This means it’s full of mildly self-deprecating nerd humor, the infuriating kind that makes it abundantly clear that if the author meant any of it, he wouldn’t write this crap. Even worse is that the sibling relationship is played for sappy family feels, which I would be more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to if this wasn’t OreImo 2: The Sequel To OreImo. And the main guy can’t keep his eyes from wandering anyway, so it’s not like there’s a mystery here. I’ll say it looks real good, obviously there’s money in the OreImo market and it’s well made as a result, plus the aforementioned character designs. But if I want more Hiro Kanzaki I’d rather watch Go! Go! 575 again.

Hinako Note

There’s actually no Manga Time Kirara adaptation this season, but worry not, Hinako Note is indistinguishable from one of those (that one being GochiUsa). So it’s Kirara at it’s most basic too: 5 girls with mild, generic quirks hang out and cute things take place. You get your shy one, you get your hungry one, you get your tiny maid one, etc. Ostensibly this is theater-themed, but as of episode 1 it’s less about theater than K-ON is about music, and that’s saying something. Now, these shows are always extremely inoffensive by design, and if they do nothing fundamentally wrong they just come across as dull. Since this does nothing fundamentally wrong, it just comes across as dull. Congratulations, Hinako Note, you pulled it off even while being born in the wrong magazine.

Kabukibu!

The easy hook when writing about Kabukibu is that it’s another DEEN show about a classic Japanese performance artform, but it’s blindingly obvious right away that Kabukibu is no Rakugo Shinjuu – it being about a school club is right in the title after all, and it has the requisite spurious punctuation too, so everything else falls into place from there. The main innovation is that this is about cute guys doing cute kabuki. As always, our main dude has to gather the five members to bring the school club back to life first. So it’s unimaginative and honestly rather bad, but I still like it. For starters there’s the bit where our lead is such a nerd that he spends every conversation clearing up common misconceptions about kabuki, which is hilarious, since it resembles weeaboo Richard Stallman wanting to interject for a second over and over again. Secondly, the comical cast of misfits does seem to have potential, with a rock singer that can’t sing, an obvious woman that is actually a woman, and so on. Overall it reminds me of Cheer Danshi, an obvious C-list production that gets by by being earnest. If I can learn to not be annoyed at the yodelling kabuki inflection, I might actually watch this for a lark.

The King’s Avatar

This may be completely outside the “Japanese cartoon” purview of this post since it’s 100% Chinese and doesn’t even have a Japanese dub like the Haoliners productions, but it’s on MAL so it counts I suppose. Also, it’s rather... good? The King’s Avatar is about a legendary MMO pro gamer who gets kicked off his team and has to give up his account, which afflicts him with a multitude of sads. After a bit of soul-searching he starts playing the game again on a new server, starting from level 1. What makes this not as bad as it sounds is that it’s not an isekai bonanza, but a sports show where the sport happens to be visually interesting, and it’s a slow and contemplative sports show at that. The whole “starting from level 1" thing is a topical twist on the sports comeback story, and it looks fairly nice too, a few bits of unfortunate CG aside (but that’s common, so whatever). Yeah, I like this, and if fansubs turn out to not be a huge hassle to get hold of I’ll give it a try.

Love Kome - We Love Rice

Back in Japan, please enjoy this short comedy about rice crop gijinka, boyband edition. It has atrocious character designs and is painfully unfunny. So nothing new there.

Re:Creators

Girlfriends keep falling in my lap, and that might mean my eyes will soon be turning red. Hey, this is the old “reverse isekai”, where some nerd gets to live with a bunch of characters from his favorite anime that inexplicably became real. Brace for domestic hijinks and fish-out-of-water comedy - and a lot of action, because this is Ei Aoki working with offbrand Fate material. He may be this show’s saving grace, because I’m willing to forgive dumb action anime a lot if it at least manages to have some actual fucking action in it. The idea that these anime characters think they’re in the “realm of the gods” (i.e., their creators, you see) also has some storytelling potential, if it doesn’t get buried under stuff blowing up and comedic trips to the konbini. And it doesn’t have a “walking in on the girl naked” scene, which probably counts as “classy” in this field. I don’t know, it sure is stupid as hell but it might be a good time. We’ll see.

Renai Boukun

Renai Boukun is a comedy’s comedy about a very silly cupid that ships people, and herself. As a real anime comedy, it is of course chock full of people acting wacky followed by reaction faces, which is my kryptonite. I do have to admit that this show at least goes all out with it, it’s fast and furious and never lets up. Some of the jokes are even okay (mostly the more absurd ones like the unsettlingly bizarre cat with a human face), though most are just repetitive, like the yandere girl being constantly jealous. Yeah, this is just totally not my thing, but if I give it any amount of praise that probably means it’s a good one?

Seikaisuru Kado

Never say that bureaucrats don’t get no respect, because this is the second season in a row where we get an anime about pencilpushers being totally awesome. The main difference between this and ACCA is that ACCA was roughly 80% style, and Seikaisuru Kado has no style. It makes up for it with conviction, because this is a show where some desk jockey assigned to wind down an electroplating business spends a night googling, with the result being him developing a new electroplating procedure that saves the company and impresses physics professors – and that is the intro before the science fiction aspect comes into play. Oh yeah, there’s a science fiction aspect. So after a job well done, Super Bureaucrat Man is taking a flight from Haneda airport when a Borg cube unceremoniously drops on the plane. The rest of the episode is spent with scientists trying to figure out what happened, mostly by shooting tank shells at the cube and so on. Guess they just aren’t bureaucratic enough, because by the end our hero emerges from the cube, having apparently come to an agreement with the proprietor. Uh. Yes, this is an extreme amount of nonsense, and I have no idea where this is supposed to be going. With the amount of military hardware on display, it makes me think “GATE, but not for total assholes”, but who knows. It looks very weird too, it’s a CG show that cuts a lot of corners by using 2D animation (I know, right?). Usually CG characters are good when you have a lot of action because it enables a fluid camera, but this has no action and they still could have done their special effects in CG like everyone else. So it ends up as an anime where the important characters look worse than the unimportant ones they couldn’t be bothered to build a CG model for. The whole thing is bizarre enough to be intriguing, but I don’t have high hopes for it, especially since the slots for shows I actually want to watch are now filling up.

Tsuki ga Kirei

Case in point: Tsuki ga Kirei is a romance about a bookish nerd dude who loves to quote Dazai at his most morose, and a neurotic girl. Needless to say, it is very awkward, but also kind of cute. This may seem like a slim synopsis, but that’s pretty much it: Tsuki ga Kirei is the sort of show that has the potential to be great if it pays off, but just becomes boring to infuriating Mari Okada clone #3879435 if it doesn’t. So it’s a risky proposition, and not one you can call based on the first episode. On the execution level it seems to do it right so far, it’s well directed, sticks to its slow, sensitive tone and looks pleasant and detailed – the only distracting thing are regrettable and robotic CG background characters all over the place. Overall, this is a show that demands at least three episodes, which it will get from me. Ask again later.

Twin Angel BREAK

Finally, if you’re looking for some basic-ass mahou shoujo shit, here’s the new Twin Angel spinoff. It’s indeed some basic-ass mahou shoujo shit (two-girl team aka PreCure version). The genki red one and the reserved blue one go around fighting evil by the moonlight or whatever, while being cheered on by their one-gimmick-each friends. I somehow doubt this thing is setting itself up for a subversion of any kind, so yeah. What you see is what you get. The only memorable thing is that the action is more than merely bad here, it’s comically bad. Seriously, it’s somewhere between Astro Fighter Sunred and Ninja Slayer. Too bad the rest of the show is just unambitiously competent, so watching it for production pratfalls seems like it’s not worth it either.

#anime #impressions #spring2017 #Clockwork Planet #eromanga-sensei #hinako note #kabukibu #the king's avatar #love kome #re:creators #renai boukun #seikaisuru kado #tsuki ga kirei #twin angel break

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lalainajanes · 7 years

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rival competitive chorus conductor au + "last year i made a bet with you that my students would beat yours in the rankings this year i didn't think you'd actually REMEMBER fuck you won" 😇

Okay, so sadly there is minimal smut here. I WAS TRYING TO KEEP IN MINI. I will do better with the others!

Good Old Fashioned Rivalry

Her phone buzzes on her coffee table and Caroline glares atit resentfully. She’s got a pretty good idea who’s texting her. She’d turneddown Kat’s offer to go out and drown her post-loss sorrows and Bon’s out oftown. Few of her other acquaintances would reach out this time on a Fridayevening.

Ugh, couldn’t he have at least waited a day?Let her lick her wounds in peace? She’d been so sure her programme was awinner, had drilled the kids mercilessly for weeks. It had paid off and they’re performance had been nearly flawless, andso pleased with themselves. To lose by a measly tenth of a point had beenheartbreaking and Caroline was already planning to bring ‘Cheer up, you’reawesome’ cupcakes on Monday and let them go wild at rehearsal, high on sugarand songs from Disney scores.

They deserved a break though apparently she didn’t merit one.

Why had shemade that stupid bet? And why couldn’t the drinks they’d shared afterwards haveworked their magic and made him forget it? If only they’d had a few more.Caroline certainly wished she could forget those minutes she’d spent on his lapin the back of that cab they’d shared. Remembering had proven to be a curseover the last few months.

She’d replayed it in her mind way too often.She told herself she wasn’t disappointed that things had ended prematurely thatnight, before things could get all that interesting or irrevocable. Klaus’ handshad lingered on her thighs, just brushing her panties instead of slippingunderneath, a frustrating tease that had had her panting into his mouth. Thedriver had interrupted them, screeching to a stop and barking out a demand forpayment. It was for the best, Caroline had told herself, as she’d straightenedher skirt and scurried inside with a hasty goodnight tossed over her shoulder. She’dfound herself watching his hands at competitions, instead of doing her job and payingattention to his choir, too often as it was. If they’d gone further? She’dnever be able to keep her composure in his presence and it would be a disaster.

God, he’d be so smug if he knew.

Another text comes through and she groans,letting her head thump back into the couch. She’s not surprised, Klaus isnothing if not persistent. That’s what had gotten her into this mess in thefirst place. She digs her spoon into her pint of ice cream, unearths afortifying chunk of peanut butter cup and reaches for her phone.

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:47 PM]: Does tomorrownight work for you? What time shall I pick you up?

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:51 PM]: Don’ttell me you’re welching, Ms. Forbes. Whatever would the little ones say?

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:52 PM]: Aren’tyou supposed to set an example? Embody the spirit of sportsmanship or some suchnonsense?

Ugh, she was going to need more than ice cream. She totallyshould have stopped and gotten wine. Maybe even gin.

Caroline [8:53 PM]: I’m notgoing to be mentioning any bets to my students. You probably shouldn’t either.It won’t look so good to your fancy helicopter parents that you’re gettingdates through nefarious means, will it?

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:54]:Nefarious? Hardly. You agreed quite readily. So certain you’d be victorious. Idid enjoy the confidence, sweetheart, but you’ve no one to blame for yourpredicament but yourself. Besides, I’ve noted a certain inclination to win atall costs amongst my choir’s parents. I dare say they’d approve of my methods.

That last point, Caroline could grudgingly concede, wasprobably correct. The prep school Klaus taught at charged astronomical tuitionfees and she’d glimpsed more sternness and scrutiny than enjoyment orencouragement from the few parents who bothered to come to competitions. Andokay, fine, she had made the bet willingly. Klaus had goaded but that was noexcuse. He was just an aggravating person in general, delighted in pushing herbuttons. She really should just stop letting him.

Even if it was kinda fun.

Caroline [8:59 PM]: Sunday.Brunch.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:00 PM]: Now, nowI specified a proper date. Brunch does not qualify.

Caroline [9:00 PM]: Brunchdates are a thing!

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:01 PM]: I’m surethey’re not. Brunch is for old married couples. Dinner. Somewhere with lowlighting and good drinks.

Caroline [9:02 PM]: Planningon getting me drunk enough to find you charming? Better bring your credit card.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:03 PM]: Ouch, love.I’d be offended if you weren’t lying.

Her jaw drops, and she sets her ice cream aside. A quickglance tells her it’s becoming a melty mess, her conversation with Klaus havingdistracted her from eating.

Caroline [9:05 PM]: Excuseyou, I am not.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:05 PM]: You’venever have made the bet if you weren’t willing to go out with me, Caroline. Youtried your hardest to win because you loathe losing but I’d wager you’re notall that disappointed in the outcome, are you?

Caroline [9:06 PM]: Nope,sorry. I actually just really wanted to win.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:07 PM]: Alright,then I suppose I misconstrued things. Best of luck next time. Until we meetagain, Caroline.

Wait, what? She stares at her phone for several long seconds,baffled by his abrupt shift to formality. She expects more, for those threelittle dots that mean Klaus us tapping out some longer reply to pop up on herscreen. But there’s nothing and Caroline finds herself making a call.

He picks up on the third ring, sounding guarded, “Hello?”

“’Until we meet again?’” she spits out incredulously. “Couldyou be any more dramatic?”

“Likely, if I put the effort in. Would you perhaps like tooffer some tips?”

Caroline ignores the mild dig, “What does that even mean?”

Klaus reply is measured, maddeningly patient, “It means thatI imagine we’ll not see each other until our paths cross again at the nextmeet. I believe it’s next month though the precise date escapes me.”

“What about…”

“I’ve no need to coercea woman into dating me, love.”

She makes a noise, one that doesn’t even come close to being aword at all, pulls her phone away from her ear to stare at it. Was he callingher bluff here?

So annoying.

“Come over,” she finds herself blurting out.

“Caroline…”

She hadn’t exactly meant to say it but now that it’s outthere she has no desire to take it back. “Do you remember where my apartmentis?”

“Yes, but…”

Caroline cuts him off, “You’re right, okay? And I’m probablyliterally never going to say that again so enjoy it this one time.”

His tone warms up considerably and Caroline’s reasonably surehe’s smiling, “Is that a yes to dinner?”

“Tomorrow. At 7,” Caroline agrees.

“Perhaps I’ll not need to pick you up, hmm? I’ll see you intwenty minutes.”

He hangs up before she can say anything else and Carolinefinds herself blinking down at her phone, smiling in a way that would be super embarrassingif there were any witnesses present. She lets it drop to the cushion and that’swhen she realizes that she is so not dressed appropriately.

Her leggings and faded Whitmore sweatshirt left her decently coveredbut that was kind of the problem. A late evening visit from a guy you’d beenhaving serious dirty thoughts about called for clothes of the inappropriate variety.

Crap. She’s got to hurry.

Klaus buzzes eighteen minutes later – and while generallyCaroline is a big believer in punctuality this one time she could have used acouple extra minutes to prepare. Her apartment is only tidy-ish (she’d plannedto rectify that tomorrow) with a pile of grading strewn over the coffee table,a small buildup of dishes in the kitchen, and a mountain of laundry that’swaited to be folded on the loveseat.

Naturally, she shoves Klaus against the door as soon as he’sinside, running her palms up over the thin fabric that covers his torso and tuggingoff his jacket.

What? It’s the perfect distraction.

He seems to have no complaints, burying his hands in her hairas soon as his hands are free from his sleeves and slanting his mouth overhers. There’s nothing tentative in his kiss and Caroline’s lips part on a sigh,meeting his eagerness with her own.

He tastes minty, like he’d stopped to brush his teeth beforecoming over and Caroline finds herself smiling. Klaus pulls back slightly,resting his forehead against hers. “What?”

She bites down on her lower lip in an attempt to stifleherself. “Nothing. Hi. Thanks for coming over.”

His laugh is soft and his lips brush hers again. “Thanks forinviting me over.” He pulls back when she tries to deepen the contact, suckingin a harsh breath when her hands slip under his shirt. He goes very still andshe takes the opportunity to explore the tense muscle under her palms thoroughly. He swallows harshly, soundsa little strained, “We don’t have to…”

She stills, stepping back slightly. A quick glance down showsthat, according to the bulge in his jeans, Klaus’ body is very much on board. Still,that didn’t necessarily meananything. “Do you not want to?”

He moves quickly, flipping their positions, hitching her legaround his hip. She’d changed into a dress, a floaty little summer thing, andhis eyes widen slightly as his hand slides up her thigh, curling around herhip. Her bare hip. “I definitely wantto,” he rasps.

“Good,” Caroline breathes, tightening her leg and tilting herhips so he grinds against her. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

Klaus needs no further encouragement, his head dipping so hislips slide over her shoulder, nudging the strap of her dress aside. His hand onher hip encourages her to keep moving and she obliges, resting more of herweight against the door. His stubble scrapes over her skin, following the pathof her falling dress, and Caroline fights a shiver. His free hand tugs when thefabric catches on the peak of her nipple and then his mouth is there, hot andwet and greedy.

She works her other arm out herself so her dress pools at herwaist, sliding her hand into his hair when he moves to switch to the neglectedbreast. She doesn’t let him though her body’s screaming for more, yanking hismouth back to his and pushing away from the door. They kiss frantically, handsroaming over heated skin and Klaus lets her walk him backwards, helps her tosshis shirt aside and takes the opportunity to shove her dress off her hips. “Bedroom,”Caroline manages, ripping her mouth from his to suck in a lungful of air. “Andtake off your pants.”

Their hands tangle around his belt buckle, clumsy andshaking. She finds herself muffling a laugh in his shoulder even as she getshis zipper down and her hand inside. He shudders when she wraps her fingersaround him and the accompanying strangled grunt of her name is intenselysatisfying. She pulls back to watch his face, to enjoy his darkening eyes andslack lips as she learns how he likes to be touched.

They stumble into her bed and go down in an ungraceful heap.Klaus manages to pin her hands, presses them into the mattress next to herhead. He attempts to look stern though it’s less than successful, flushed as heis, his hair ruffled from her hands. “I have been thinking about this for fartoo long to come on your hands the first time.”

She attempts a matching seriousness, “So what you’re sayingis that handjobs are cool the second time?”

He pushes off from her, standing so he can strip out of therest of her clothes. “Sorry, but no. I’ve plans for the second time as well.”

She props herself up on her elbows, doesn’t even attempt tomake it look like she’s doing anything but ogling him. It’s only fair, shethinks, with the way his eyes are glued to her. “And when exactly do I get myturn?”

Klaus grins, his hands hooking under her knees and pullingher closer to the edge of the bed. “Perhaps another bet’s in order, hmm? Sincethe last one worked out so well.”

She’s not exactly going to argue, not when he’s dropping tohis knees, pressing his lips to her inner thigh. She’s about to question himabout terms of said bet (and mock him mercilessly if it was anything aboutgetting her to scream his name) but Klaus’ thumb slips over her folds gently, partingher and pressing deeper until it’s slickened with her arousal. She’d be embarrassedby how wet she was if she hadn’t just had her hand around his cock. She moanswhen he finds her clit, drawing slow circles that have her thighs twitching.

Clearly Klaus was adept at distraction techniques. She’d haveto remember that.

#klaroline #klaroline drabbles #klaroline smut #ish #I feel like I couldn't go full on #because my choral director was a truly frightening lady #thetourguidebarbie

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tikilimawmaw · 7 years

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BRB

On the rare occasions that I care about my news feed, some things actually get my attention, aside from cute puppy gifs and stupid political fanaticism like wtf. Anyway, a “friend” shared this blog post about UPLB--my dear UPLB--and how uh-mazing that place is. I mean, I get it; it is a mystical, magical university (but not in a Hogwarts way) and, well, who could resist writing about, or instagramming it?

I apologize. I’m just at this point in my college life where I see everything under gray clouds, and I don’t mean the silvery kind. I mean dark, nimbus, let’s-do-relief-operations-after-this-storm, gray clouds. I hate that place, but every Monday when I return to the apartment there I’m always looking forward to walking the streets of Elbi. It’s weird.

Anyway, what I’m about to do is kind of a parallel narration according to the places described by the author/blogger. It’ll be a whiny, age-inappropriate sulking about how bad I feel in that wonderful place, but hey, I don’t know how to properly feel anymore. I need to do this.

(1 Baker Hall) The only fun I had in Baker Hall was Elbikon. Seriously. For one thing, the interior is very old--wooden steps, dramatic windows. Nothing wrong there; someone’s doing a splendid job on preservation (except that the temperature rises over unbearable degrees). Here’s the problem: the string ensemble of UPLB practices there. I hear violins, and I hate that. I hate missing the violin. It’s a piece of me that just doesn’t fit perfectly anymore when I try to get my shit together again. I mean, it fits, but not exact-o.

(2 Carillon Tower) For four years I’d lived in the same dormitory and every time I needed a jeepney ride, I pass by the Carillon Tower. It’s peaceful there; I hang around on my own and no one disturbs me because everyone else is too busy cuddling with his/her SO. It’s too peaceful actually, that all I could think about is that a pool of blood is too obvious at the foot of the tower. Besides, the gates are locked. No potential here.

Backspace. BACKSPACE.

(3 Student Union Building) Sigh. SU. Where do I even begin? Oh, wait, I need to get a number before I begin. Approximately 56 minutes before I get called. LIES! It’s like all you want to do there is rush in, get things done, rush out. But you can’t. Because you’re queued. The bathrooms are okay, I guess. I thought that SU was supposed to symbolize the university embracing the student, making them feel welcomed and that they are free to do whatever hell they want (bleargh). That’s funny, because I feel more welcomed by the river behind it.

(4 Trees) I have this theory that the trees in UPLB are majestically large because they feed upon the souls and hopes and dreams of thousands and thousands of students, on-time and delayed, every semester. This may be only in my head, but I honestly feel like my energy is always drained when I’m there. Maybe that’s why Thursday is drinking day: so students can at least carry on through Friday and the weekends without feeling like shit. Me? I drink Mondays. And Tuesdays. And We--

(5 DL Umali) I don’t think I’ll ever walk the stage of DL Umali with pride and confidence ever again. I used to be a student achiever: college scholar and honor roll, promising GWA. I shake hands with the dean; I get a certificate. Now, I’m just a probationary student with nine failed units and one INC that all happened in one epic semester. Epic fail, that is.

That’s not all. Our org holds our annual exhibit in the gallery at the basement. And I haven’t had any WIPs for a year. I can’t stress enough how I lost my will to draw. Recently, art has only been a way to calm me down. That’s great, right? At least I still have it. God.

(6 Nihon Koen) I think I’ll be seeing this torii regularly starting Tuesday. It’s a fun way to travel down from the UHS, where the psych is in TTh 2-5 pm.

UPLB Tip #562: There are desperate pervs in pretty decent bathrooms. DO NOT give in to the temptation no matter how much of your life you’ve given up, because you can get sick. Or pregnant. Or worst, videoed. Besides, his dick was tiny.

(7 Thai Pavillion) Hang around this exotic gazebo every afternoon before dusk if you want to ogle at fit people stretching, and jogging, and basically all other things you don’t have the energy for, a.k.a taking care of your body. Plus, they have dogs. Dogs are one of the reasons I don’t let go.

(8 Freedom Park) Again, a haven for healthy people: F-park. Fit park. Food park. Fuck park. Whatever you wish: it’s Freedom Park. Here’s a tip: unless you’re a Jesus person, don’t sit on the benches alone. Or at least have the guts to say “no, I don’t wanna hear about the five things that I need to know to be saved.” And besides, sitting alone on a bench in front of a lot of parked cars for a few hours is creepy. There was this one time I thought this old guy in his car was actually watching me. I could take the attention but that just sounds really slutty. Try sitting at the grandstand instead.

(9 Mariang Banga) It doesn’t matter what religion or cult you belong in: Mariang Banga is real. Ask permission before picking a flower, apologize for stepping on grass, always appreciate the weather no matter how insufferable it is, because she has power over this land, you mortal. (I still think she cursed me with a hole for a heart and a jelly for a brain.)

(10 Palma Bridge) There was a time in my early college years when Palma Bridge was called Sperm Bridge but I won’t give any hints. Get it? Hint? Like, odor? No? How about “call of the void”? “High place phenomenon”? Urge to jump? Still no? Good.

(11 Molawin Creek) This river is the same river I was talking about. It actually runs pretty far. In one of my stupid adventures pre destructive semesters, I tried to discover what was behind my then-dormitory. You guessed it: a forest. Hah okay, the river comes after it. There was this spot that I liked--clear and cold water, decently dry rocks, some shade, no one else around. Bathing naked was fun. But on my next adventure, I got lost, so uh-uh I’m not going back. Or will I? (I conclude that these adventures comprise a death wish.)

(12 Park behind humanities) Behind CAS Building is this construction where we get rubble from. And the mound of gravel that was never removed served as another seat for our tambayan, where I always feel so awkward.

(13 NCAS) One question: how the hell can I get on the NCAS rooftop? Ideation aside, a top view of O-park would be nice.

(14 Office of the University Registrar) Soon enough, the registrar will not include me in the list of officially enrolled students because ma’am, I am tired. I need a break. And probably my TOR.

(15 Hum/CAS) Pretend to be a younger batch if you look the part. I always do. It gives the illusion that I’m still full of hopes and dreams, and it’s a good excuse for asking about things that I should know. The three CAS buildings and Physci are the good places to do it. And Copeland gym.

(16 Two roads diverged by O-park) Lots of walks to clear the mind // Beware acquaintances, tell them you’re fine. // Groups of friends walking, pretty intimidating // Cross the road, the other side is empty: your thing.

(17 Gamma SIgma) Yeah, well I always thought it was a shade for the CSB. Sorrynotsorry.

(18 Heritage Tower) My happy memories include playing UNO with my friends under the Kwek-kwek tower and reading the ridiculous vandals like “Jherehmie luv Ehllah 4rvr 24″. I have nothing against Jherehmie and Ehllah, but come on, that tower was [awfully] repainted. I miss the times when I don’t suddenly stop and stare at nothing while I play UNO or sing karaoke with my friends. It’s awkward; I catch myself doing it. Nope. Nope.

UPLB Tip #847: It never hurts to be observant. Get really observant until you’re almost being a stalker. But not really. There are always patterns for everything, and you just really need to be good at knowing them. For example, your crush. Your crush has a schedule; on TTh he walks out of this building at this hour, on WF he enters another. Where does he live? Which jeepney does he usually ride, kanan or kaliwa? Observation, not stalking.

(19 UPLB Gate) I’ll be back, I promise.

(20 CEM...thingy) Forget that weird piece of artsy nonsense, that buried building at the back with the swastika is the mystery. I never bothered to know the history, but hey, it’s dark, wet and eerie--must be zombies.

(21 Raymundo) I always dub this as “not my turf”. Since I’m not familiar with it, I also have adventures here (just to be clear, adventure meant walking and exploring, nothing else). I’ll miss rolling under the gate after curfew and deciding where to eat (usually takes around 15 minutes).

(22 Never-ending bridge) Again, with the bridges. Look, it’s a long way down but the aesthetics are great. There’re these pretty purple (or were they blue?) flowers and a thick canopy of ferns and broad leaves. Die pretty.

UPLB Tip #1036: Don’t shut everyone out. Ever heard of “don’t burn your bridges”? Yeah, well if you’re that kind of person who possibly needs to utilize people in the future, then go. But geez is that all there is to connections, the utility? What about just having fun conversations together, and lunches and dinners? IMHO, the people you meet at your later years in college are more likely to become “colleagues” than “friends”. Unless he’s the one. Squeal.

(23 Forestry route) While the torii is my way down, this road takes me up to the psych.

(24 UPLB) I hate my house. I hate my school. I just want to be in between, in the journey. I know I’ll get to the two points at some time in my life but not now. A view from afar would be nice. “I’ll be there,” I would say, “just give me a moment to catch up.” I’ll be right back.

Welp. That was awfully long. So here’s the blog, again. Vivid pictures, beautiful words, I am nothing.

Edit: She’s on Tumblr. OH NO.

#awfully long #too much shit #duuuude #mediokerlivin #who am i even talking to

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