#i've done reading while fucking. how did this not occur to me?
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Jason Todd reading you to sleep. send fucking post.
#i've done reading while fucking. how did this not occur to me?#saph’s love letters#jason todd#jason todd x reader#saph’s thots#red hood#red hood x reader#jason todd imagine#jason todd x you#out of character#red hood imagine#red hood x you#jason todd scenarios#jason todd fluff#red hood fluff#red hood x reader fluff#jason todd x reader fluff#fluff
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NO NEED FOR ME TO HIDE🙏🏾🙏🏾
Bestie, are you going to continue Atonement universe?🥺 I am very curious on how their interactions could look like in the future, now that they have an accurate understanding of their intents
A/N: U ASKED JUST THE RIGHT QUESTION MY FAVOURITE BUNNY, but bc im evil i've made this into a bunch of feyd headcanons even tho no one asked
tw: 18+, smut headcanons (switch feyd ladies and gents), cannibalism (by the harpies), i dropkick everyone with feyd's trauma, therefore mentions of sa and pedophilia (fuck you vladimir), 'who did this to you' because man if that's not one of the yummiest things ever, nightmares, children and pregnancy, also sterility, swearing somewhere probably,
wc: 2.3k
part 1 (this can be read as a stand alone, it's just feyd headcanons)
feyd does everything he can to make up for how he treated you in the first months of your marriage
you assure him that it's fine, that he doesn't have to beat himself up over what he has done, but you still notice the pain in his eyes when he looks at you
he hovers close to you at all times, keeping a hand at the small of your back or pulling you close into his side
it's a strange process, only getting to know your husband in the fourth month of your marriage, but it's a process that you treasure
you'll ask him silly things from his favourite food to his opinions on the carvings on the table over there whenever the questions occur to you
it's late at night, while he's gently cleaning you up after sex or holding you tightly in his arms, your head tucked under his chin, when he tells you the deeper, more painful things
the grief in his voice is so raw as he describes to you how his uncle pitted him and rabban against each other from a young age, how his childhood was stolen from him - you ache for him, for the things that were taken from him before he could even fight for them
you find out about his nightmares soon after that - not because he tells you, but because one happens
you suspect there was something he wasn't quite ready to tell you, but you didn't press; no hands have handled feyd's heart the way he lets you, and you're determined to honour that privilege
a storm howls outside, and you think that the rumbles of thunder were what woke you
you turn over and realise it's feyd, his features contorted with fear even in his sleep, eyes rolling under the lids as he trembles, broken pleas leaving his lips
all you catch is a 'don't' and a 'please, uncle'
something cold slithers down your spine
touching his face, you grab his shoulder, shaking him, whispering his name, trying to wake him gently
a tear leaks down his cheek, and a meek sound leaves him, ripping your heart in two - you need to wake him up, free him from this dream
'feyd.'
his eyes snap open, and in them, you clearly see the expression of a trapped, cornered animal
you say his name again, and he looks at you sharply, unseeing
he's awake and yet somehow he's still trapped in the nightmare; he wraps his hands around your throat, and you gasp, nails digging into his forearms in an effort to wake him up
with precious air, you rasp out his name again, and he blinks, slowly gaining consciousness
his face crumples when he finds his hands around your neck
distress limns his features as he backs away from you, shaking his head, horrified by his own doing
your head spins with lack of air but you reach out to him, refusing to let him slip away - you snare him in your arms, hold him tightly, kiss his face
he doesn't move, afraid to hurt you
you pull back to stare him in the eyes
'i'm okay. i am okay. you hear me, feyd? i'm fine. i'm not hurt.'
he buries his face in your shoulder and when you feel hot tears on your skin, rage simmers and seethes, wrathful in your chest
'who did this to you?'
your voice is dripping with fury; he shakes with a sob, and you run your hands up and down his back, trying to soothe him and the anger inside you
eventually, he calms, and you tilt his face up, gently wiping the tears off his cheeks, waiting
he holds out his arms again, and you oblige him, letting him hide his face in your shoulder as he tells you the substances of his nightmares - memories of the baron, eyes rabid, hands reaching, and it makes you tremble with rage
you crush feyd in your grip, and he clings onto you, his eyes wet, letting you anchor his drowning spirit
the two of you fall asleep twined together, feyd cradled in your embrace
in the morning, you cup his face in your hands and tell him that you will protect him, fight for him, love him until your blood stills in your veins
one of the first thing feyd does is dismiss his harpies from their duties
originally, he was going to get rid of them permanently, but you convinced him not to, telling him you wanted to meet them
to be honest, feyd didn't really understand (he thought you wanted to 'use' them for a bit and was kind of taken aback until you reassured him you just wanted to talk to them)
he stayed in the room anyways, knowing that his harpies could be jealous, but he had nothing to fear
all you do is chat to them, and in the same way you charmed him, you charm them
feyd marvels at the way you reach out to them and connect with them with so much ease, laughing and joking with them, complimenting their pretty eyes and tattoos as if they are your long time friends
from then on, they are no longer feyd's harpies, but yours
they accompany you around the palace and sometimes to court
the latter causes quite a stir; none of the nobles can make sense of why the na-baron's feral cannibal troupe are now dressed in fine clothing and following the na-baronness around
you enjoy their company - they brighten your day considerably, and are not afraid to make remarks a little too loudly in front of nobles
you have to hide your laughter when one of them comments on the scruffy facial hair of the duke addressing feyd, even more so when he stares at them wide eyed, a little fearful of them
in a way, they protect you and you protect them
if a noble approaches you with disrespect, they'll joke loudly among themselves about the taste of his flesh
in the same way, if someone makes a snide remark of their presence, you're quick to challenge it
the perplexed look on feyd's face amuses you to no end when he realises they prefer you now
feyd and the harpies teach you about harkonnen culture
feyd especially tells you stories about how he hunted on forests long cut down when he was a boy, and you love to listen to him, watching his face and drinking in the softer, nostalgic tone in his voice
he shows himself to you in little ways
feyd complains to you about the nobles in the court, how he hates their decorum and their entitlement
he talks to you for hours about different fighting forms, occasionally getting up to demonstrate them to you, and you marvel at the accuracy and fluidity of his movements
he takes you to his favourite parts of giedi prime, shows you the volcanoes and the less polluted parts of the capital city
he tells you the story of every scar on his body, and you find yourself captivated by the look in his eyes as he recalls a good fight
he whispers on your skin promises - promises of love, sweet on his tongue but never cloying, always true
in turn he asks you about your old life, about your home planet and your family
you answer happily, loving the way his eyes follow you, their blue tone becoming your favourite colour
you tell him about the time you visited to see him fight, how you saw the fire within him even then, and he chuckles, enthralled by the idea that even when the two of you were too young to really comprehend what your arranged marriage meant, you were still drawn to each other
he tells you how when he raised his knife, victorious, he spotted you in the crowd - a small girl, her back ram rod straight - and thought you were the sweetest thing he'd ever laid his eyes on
not that you seemed breakable to him; no, he thought you were formidable, too, not even bothering to hide your frown in an arena of cheering, happy faces
it felt right that he would marry a woman who wasn't afraid of him
feyd teaches you how to fight
he delights in the way you grow so bold with him, delivering snarky remarks if he teases you, rising to meet everything he throws at you
you're a good fighter - unpredictable in your moves - and he's immeasurably proud that he was the one who taught you
sometimes, once you're good enough to duel, you'll end up staggering to the nearest somewhat secluded area to fuck
now that you know you're not alone, you're so confident of yourself, confident in the electrifying look in your eyes and confident in the way you make him beg
feyd never thought he'd like to give up control, but with you it's addicting
he trusts you
he lets you ravage him, lets you use him until he's spent, panting, thighs shaking, knowing that you would let him do the same - knowing that you do let him do the same
there's something so raw about letting himself go in your touch
his head spins when you tie him up, your deft fingers checking the knots and tightening the bindings across his torso, making art with his skin as the canvas
feyd is addicted to you in every aspect
he can't get enough of your pussy; he'd spend hours between your legs, pulling sounds out of you that you didn't know you could make
he thinks that the closest he's ever come to heaven is when he's buried balls deep in your cunt while you beg him harder, faster
A/N: i couldn't choose between these two scenarios so have both
EITHER after almost a year, you begin to wonder why you haven't pregnant
especially with the way feyd fucks you
so you seek the help of a doctor - the test results come back a week after, accusatory, damning
you're sterile
your first reaction is to tell feyd, but once you find yourself face to face with him, his gaze concerned as he holds your waist, you can't tell him
you just fall into his arms, staying your tears, doubts crawling into your skull and gnawing at the edges of your mind
you can't give him an heir
there's no way around it
what if he takes a concubine? what if he realises you serve no purpose to him? what if he stops loving you?
feyd doesn't pry about the tests results until the next day when he finds you in the shower, hands trembling and head bowed
he tips your chin up so he can look you in the eye
'tell me what troubles you, my love.'
so you do, with his fingers curled around your waist, the shower water running over your skin
he kisses you once you finish, and it tears at his heart the way you're looking up at him, trying to hide the worry in your eyes as you wait for his reply
feyd doesn't mince his words when he tells you that he doesn't care if you cannot give him an heir, that all he asks of you is to let him love you - it's then that the tears fall, and he kisses them away, holding you close to him
you grieve for the children you can never have, but feyd remains by you, almost supernatural with the way he senses your pain
your gaze might fall upon one of the servant's children, causing an ache in your heart, and within a few seconds his fingers will twine with yours and he'll tuck you into his side, kissing your hair
OR you have twins: one girl, one boy
the girl is three minutes older than the boy
feyd is obssessed with your pregnant body; he always has his hands on you in some way
he gets more protective, if that's possible
sometimes he lies between your thighs, his palms spread over your stomach as he talks to the two of them, and the softness and wonder in his eyes brings a warmth to your chest
feyd is with you when you feel the first contraction and promptly carries you to the midwives
he lets you crush his hand in your grip as you give birth to the lives you've made together, wiping the sweat off your forehead and quietly encouraging you
the first time you hand them to him to hold, he's hesitant, hands fluttering over you as he figures out what to do, but he's a fast learner
there's a fierce protective glint in his eyes when he cradles them in his arms, one that you glimpse when he looks at you too, and within it there's a deep, pure joy
he teaches them how to fight, and yet he's still so gentle with them, laughing as they giggle and cling to him, one latched onto each leg
the girl is how you'd imagine feyd was as a boy: half feral, yet charming when she wants to be, while the boy is a little calmer, more unflappable, and happy to entertain his sister's mischievous endeavours
both love the harpies, and there have been multiple times when you walk in on the twins gaping wide eyed at the harpies as they regale them with old tales
sometimes, feyd will scoop them up, one in each arm, so they can reach up and give you a little kiss on the cheek before he pecks your lips
you think it's beautiful, the family that you've made with him
feyd loves the way you look at him, with that mischief in your eyes, as if you're sharing a secret with him
he loves your sweet laughter, the softness in your hands when you touch him and how you don't shy away from protecting him, defiant even in his uncle's presence
he knows he would kill for you, die for you - he'd do anything for you
you would do the same: it makes feyd's head fuzzy, when you get so fiercely protective over him, placing your hand on his shoulder as you glare at the baron, lacing your words with venom when you address him
you'd stop at nothing, just to protect his honour
when you're after something, nothing stands in your way, and yet you can handle him with such soft, gentle hands, banishing his nightmares with the light tracing of your fingertips on his back
feyd heals in your presence, and you grow in his
your love is eternal
#bald freak supremacy#feyd rautha#feyd rautha harkonnen#austin butler#dune#dune two#dune part two#dune 2#dune part 2#dune ii#dune part ii#feyd rautha fic#feyd rautha fanfiction#feyd-rautha#dune fanfiction#dune smut#atreides#house harkonnen#feyd rautha x reader#feyd x reader#feyd x you#feyd rautha x you#dune x you#feyd oneshot#feyd x y/n#dune x y/n#feyd angst#feyd fluff
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at least i let the light in (i).
"No one was more responsible than Bradley. No one was more reasonable than Bradley. No one was more mature than Bradley. No one else had life figured out the best they could like Bradley had. . . But no one knew how deeply sad Bradley actually was." or Bradley is on a downward spiral and Natasha doesn't know how much more she can take or the unofficial sequel to 'cause no one breaks my heart like you.
A/N: well guys, here we are! months after publishing 'cause no one breaks my heart like you, i decided to write my ass off and truly deep dive to the bottom of bradley's heart the best i knew how. while I'm not an expert and don't know everything, i am super proud of the work I've done and cannot wait to share more of it in the weeks to come. so for now, enjoy this small tidbit of the series and prepare yourselves to ride this rollercoaster with me! also, a special shoutout to jordan (@gretagerwigsmuse) for letting me ramble about this and reading over the millions of screenshots and drafts I've been hoarding over the past six months! i could not have had the courage to continue to write this or publish it without you!
After - Three Months
Maybe Natasha was mistaken; a phenomenon that did not occur very often.
She’s one of those people who’s a lucky guesser. Precisely the kind of person who could say “fuck it,” roll the dice of whatever was being talked about, and always come out victorious, and if not entirely correct beyond a reasonable doubt, was as damn close to right as anyone else could get.
But she’s not a boaster.
Sometimes being right is embarrassing and she never seemed to like the attention it brought; making people roll their eyes when asked for her opinion or always lucking out in a money pool whenever a bet was placed amongst her friends. She likes being right but she doesn’t necessarily like the reputation being right gives her, so she closes her mouth, nods her head, and tries to put on her best poker face whenever a bad idea is uttered from the mouths of her colleagues.
Watching people blow their own bullshit in their faces is comical and she and Bob get an absolute kick out of it whenever it's on Jake’s dime.
But this time it isn’t Jake or Javy or Maverick or anyone she would giggle and be in stitches over looking silly and distraught.
This time it’s Bradley, and from the iron flavor in her mouth from where she had been biting her lip the entire night, she knows that this is bad.
This is really bad. This is super bad. This is fucking horrible.
In hindsight, Bradley had a little bit of a problem. In hindsight, it was a stupid idea to let him have as much as he did. And in hindsight, it was downright imbecilic to let him get that wasted, play a game of pool with Jake (who loves to engage in smack talk), and not tell Jake about the breakup which resulted in Bradley leaping over the table and trying to beat the absolute shit out of him for making a joke about his girlfriend whom everyone else had yet to establish was now his ex-girlfriend.
Maverick, who watched the entire thing go down from the bar stools, practically begged Penny on his hands and knees not to throw them out and she obliged but only after tasking Mickey and Bob with taking Bradley to the bathroom and letting him calm down in there before he was ready to come back out.
And Nat knew that they all should probably head home and that Penny had every right to kick them out for the evening (and probably should), but she remained quiet while trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. Her careful eyes caught wind of Bradley’s incapacitated disposition as he stood slumped between Mickey and Bob as if he was an anchor ready to sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Their gentle arms held him steady while their faces wore desperation. The chunky wet spot of acid on Bob’s pant leg told Natasha everything she needed to know and from the way Bradley’s head hung, he was down for the count.
If she was being truthful, Bradley had been down for the count for a long time; much longer than anyone had ever really taken notice of, and the seed of anxiousness planted in her torso only bloomed with each assisted step he had taken toward her.
Natasha was mistaken, and letting him tag along tonight was an incredibly bad idea.
“Hi, Nat,” he slurs with reddened cheeks and a boyish grin on his face. Part of him looks like the boy she had gotten to love like a brother all those years ago in flight school; way before the stupid mustache and the muscles and the “slight” drinking problem he’d developed over the past nine weeks.
“Hey, dumbass,” she snides back. She’s so overwhelmed that irritation is the only feeling coursing through her veins.
“We had a bit of an. . .” Mickey looks toward Bob who looks as if he’s about two seconds away from passing out, “incident in the bathroom. He really needs to get home, Nix.”
She sighs deeply; the likeness of a sleepless night and a massive headache in the morning a premonition burning bright behind the heavy blinks of her eyelids. Her hands hold her hips and her shoulders slump. She and Bradley had ridden with Jake to Hard Deck tonight, and she’s sure that the debit card saved to her Uber account would not appreciate a twenty-five dollar fee for an eight-minute straight shot up the road.
But asking Jake for a ride home after he’d been sat icing his left eye with a Heineken bottle isn’t ideal either.
Her eyes dart to the watch on her left arm; an old Cartier with a white face and hands that were always ten minutes off the hour. If she remembers right, multiplying the drive time by two would get her an estimate of the walking time, and if they jay-walk on Jasper and Kinnecky, they could shave off four minutes and be at her front door in about-
“Twelve minutes?” she looks up at the triad of men and flashes a small smile in the process, “Do you think he could make that long of a walk?”
Bradley tries to straighten his legs to stand on his own, but his knees buckle before he can even put his full weight forward. He giggles to himself; the sound childish and carefree. He attempts to lean his head on Bob’s shoulder but slams his forehead down too enthusiastically and knocks heads with the sheepish brunet instead.
“I’m gonna be so honest with you, I don’t think he can tell you what color shirt he has on. It’s a miracle he’s even standing right now.”
Natasha groans and puts her face in her hands.
Fucking hell, Bradley.
“Don’t be mad at me. Please don’t be mad. Don’t be mad,” Bradley speaks up. His voice is whinier than usual and it’s one of the few phrases he’s bothered to utter tonight. His weight still remains supported by his two friends and for a moment, she feels guilty for even being frustrated with him at all.
The warm hazel of his eyes peer into hers and she can almost feel his sadness and solitude. Bradley always liked to operate like he was angry, but anyone who dared to get close enough to him knew that the anger was how he felt about himself; a mirage of explosives made up of pure loneliness and hurt.
“I’m not mad —”
“Oh my fucking, God!” Bob screeches.
A slosh of yellow vomit exits Bradley’s mouth faster than anyone can manage to process. The warmth of his stomach acid mixed with the various types of alcohol he had shoved down his throat throughout the night makes everyone around them wrinkle their nose, and it’s in that moment - the one with Bob dropping Bradley’s arm in shock and Mickey being left to support his weight alone and succumbing to his friend’s heaviness sending them both straight to the floor in the puddle of puke - does Natasha accept the fact that this was a mistake and that Bradley had no business being anywhere but on a bathroom floor with a cup of water next to him.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Mickey groans, his arms pushing himself up. He grimaces as he stands and examines his hands; the chunks of what was in Bradley’s stomach (which isn’t much besides alcohol, he figures) sitting warmly on his palms and making its way between his fingers.
Bradley grunts from the ground and is almost an afterthought due to the catastrophe taking place in front of them. Javy and Jake jump from their spots near the pool table and help him up.
Natasha can feel the headache brewing in her temples. She turns to look around and take count of all the watchful eyes. Even though she’s beyond mad at him right now, she always finds herself looking out for Bradley. After a quick sweep of the bar with her gaze, she figures that he’s not embarrassed himself too badly to never show his face around again.
Her eyes catch Penny’s sympathetic look. She mouths an apology while Penny nods and slowly starts to make her way to the supply closet in the back. On her way out from behind the bar, she pushes Maverick’s head with her hand a little bit harsher than what could be considered playful, and Maverick simply gives a sheepish grin in return.
“M’soooo tired,” Bradley garbles some more. His head hangs as if his neck isn’t attached to him.
“No, no, no, no. You can’t go to sleep right now!” Javy discourages. He pulls Bradley’s arm tighter around his shoulder. The brunet is properly jostled and Jake grumbles beside him.
Jake sends a sharp glare to his best friend at his sudden movement and for a second, he feels a wave of sympathy wash over him. It’s no secret that Bradley and Jake had been each other’s least favorite person for much longer than they had been friendly, but the fact that they can call each other that now - a friend - makes this taste so much sourer in the blond’s mouth now.
“But I’m tired!” Bradley croons. His body starts to go slack again as if his bones were made of rubber.
“But you can’t go to sleep, man!” Javy tries to reason.
“Why not?” Bradley continues to whine. His eyes squeeze shut and he stomps his foot like a toddler.
“Because – fuck, dude – because you just. . . can’t!”
“Why,” his foot resounds on the ground to punctuate his word, “Not!” The force of its landing causes him to stumble back a little despite the hunkering support on both sides of him. The room spins slightly and he chokes back a gag.
“Penny hates sleepers and you’re already skating on thin fuckin’ ice with her,” Javy snaps, “I suggest that if you don’t wanna lose a hangout spot, you try and get it together.”
Bradley attempts to mock him, but the effort it takes to remember what was said proves itself too great. He gives up after his third attempt at unscrambling his words and instead sticks his tongue out.
A frustrated puff of air leaves Jake’s mouth before he turns to Natasha. The face he makes is something Nat likes to call his “bitching face,” which everyone knew he made when he had something to say (which was all the fucking time, so he would often argue that it was just his face). She rolls her eyes to mentally prepare for the bullshit that’s about to come out of Hangman’s mouth.
“So what’s your plan, Phoenix?”
She hadn’t expected for his statement to be so tame, and for the first time tonight, the pressure of having to be right pinched her nerves like a thorn. For once in her life, she doesn’t really have a plan, and the realization startles her.
“Shit. I – I don’t know–” she stammers.
She feels a sharp pain in her thumb and glances down to see the side of her nail torn to shreds and spewing crimson. She curses herself internally. Picking anxiously at her skin was a habit she thought she had kicked after flight school.
Jake’s lips form a straight line of dissatisfaction with her answer. Bradley utters something incomprehensible to the sober ear and Javy shakes his head, pretending to understand what the brunet is saying when he truly has no clue if it was even English.
“I don’t feel good.”
Despite the confession being whispered, the world stops turning as if it were screamed from the rooftops. Bradley’s face pales. Javy can feel his chest squeeze with a sense of dread. Jake’s grip on his friend’s shoulders tightens.
“I need you to tell us what we’re doin’ before he starts blowin’ chunks everywhere!”
Natasha just stands still with a God’s eye view of the scene unfolding in front of her. Had you gone back in time and told her this would be her life three months ago, she’s positive she would’ve laughed in your face.
No one was more responsible than Bradley. No one was more reasonable than Bradley. No one was more mature than Bradley. No one else had life figured out the best they could like Bradley had.
But no one knew how deeply sad Bradley actually was.
And no one knew that this is exactly where that deep sadness would land him.
“What’s the plan, Phoenix?” Jake’s voice booms and bounces around in her ears.
Her hands come up to push the flyaways from her French braid back. Natasha’s face feels hot and the mugginess of the bar feels like a wet paper towel trapping her movements beneath its paper tendrils.
Think. Think. Think. Think!
“You need to make a decision –”
“I don’t fucking know!” she screeches.
Time stands still and everything seems to be moving in slow motion.
Penny whips her head around to see the commotion; her eyes wearing worry. Bob straightens his back due to her sudden change in cadence. Javy shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Mickey and Rueben give each other wide-eyed looks while Jake’s lips mold themselves even further into a straight line.
Even the music playing over the speakers seemed to quiet down.
It all makes her want to cry.
Her breathing is rampant and her heart beats raucously inside her ears. Her pulse is in tune with it and she can feel the blood coursing through every single vein in her body. Her hands shake and her body feels electrified from all the adrenaline.
Making a choice isn’t doable right now. And making the right choice is a task that remains an unsolvable dilemma with a bright red “danger” sign at its conclusion no matter the option.
“Fine,” Jake grumbles. He turns his body slightly to face Javy. “He’s comin’ with me.”
Javy widens his eyes; his thoughts formulating what he wants to say before he can even come up with the words to express it. “He can’t even stand straight. How in the fuck are we gonna get him into that stupid ass lifted truck –”
“Can you just shut the fuck up and help?”
Javy rolls his eyes and lets out a puff of air that he hadn’t even realized he was holding in. Jake is lucky that they had been best friends for over a decade and Bradley even luckier that Javy has a soft spot for him.
Natasha’s mouth feels stuffed with cotton and her limbs molded by concrete as the two men breeze past her to lead Bradley out of the front doors of Hard Deck. She could almost convince herself that the entire scene was a dream had it not been for the whiff of cologne and the slight tang of Bradley’s vomit hitting her nostrils as they walked by.
She slaps down a fifty-dollar bill on the bar top near the cash register before jogging into the sandy parking lot with the sky-painted indigo and violet above them.
By some miracle, Bradley is dragged (not without any hiccups or the impending fear that he would start projectile vomiting everywhere) all the way to the floor of the backseat of Jake Seresin’s black Ford F-150.
“Lard ass,” Jake mutters as he slams the door of his truck closed. Javy slides into the backseat with Bradley and another hollow sound of metal shutting can be heard.
Jake rips open the front passenger door for a meek Natasha, whose arms had yet to move from their crossed spot over her chest. Despite the dry summer heat nipping at her body and her damp arms showing evidence of her sweating, she feels cold.
Shocked.
Numb, is the word she’s looking for but can’t seem to find.
Her thumb rubs over her watch band and her purse hangs stagnant near her belly button. She looks as if she had seen a ghost. Her fingernails leave small scratches where blood had been drawn from her nervous picking.
Jake swats at her hand gently; telling her to let go. Telling her that this is okay. That this is under control.
That she needs to let go and let him help.
They stand silent in the hollows of the bar’s parking lot and Natasha can recall very few times where she had felt like this.
There was a weariness that grew in her whenever she told her dying grandmother that she would get to see her walk the stage at her high school graduation. There was a need for protection when she had broken up with her boyfriend before getting her first deployment assignment. There was a loss of hope whenever she looked at Bradley’s pleading eyes in her living room tonight, begging to let him tag along and carve out what he wants to say but can never manage to utter; “I’m lonely and I need help.”
Dread.
Impending doom.
Knowing the outcome despite trying to convince yourself that if you pray hard enough or ask God kind enough or are a good enough person or try your best or whatever the fuck you believe in doing – that this will work out and that you’ll come out on top.
But all that does is set you up for your grandmother to die two nights before high school graduation and for your boyfriend of three years to admit that he was cheating on you for two and a half of those.
All it gets you is a drunken best friend with demons and night terrors that still swallow him whole with fear despite sleeping on her living room couch and being thirty-seven years old.
“You coming?” Jake’s voice cuts through her downward spiral of thoughts.
She gulps down her feelings of decay. She makes a mental note to bring this up to her therapist this week even though she knows she’ll skate around it and they won’t get to unpack it for at least three more sessions.
“Y– yeah. I am,” she wipes at her forehead with the back of her hand, “Thanks.”
Jake gives a sharp nod of his head to her. Despite being a major shit-talker, he doesn’t really have much to say outside of the realm of having a good time or riling up some trouble.
He and Natasha aren’t close by any means of the word, but his appreciation for her had doubled the size since seeing all that she goes through dealing with an obliterated Bradley. Most friends don’t stick around like she does.
He sure as hell wouldn’t.
She throws herself up into his passenger side seat and closes the door before Jake can get to it. He’s already taking her and Bradley home, she figures. He can’t keep doing favors for her.
But then maybe shutting my own door is rude.
And then the thought spirals into why she doesn't think anyone wants to do nice things for her and how she’s undeserving of the good deeds she’s been dealt and then realizes that this thought pattern can wait because there are much bigger problems in her rear view.
Natasha turns her head to peer into the backseat. Bradley lays with his head in Javy’s lap and his legs folded in some miraculous knot. Javy doesn’t seem to mind and sits with his arms spread across the backs of the seats; scrolling away on his phone and checking his March Madness bracket to see exactly how much money he should be collecting at work tomorrow morning.
“How’s he holding up?”
The sound of her own voice surprises her. It comes out soft. Less assured. Less assertive than it usually does. She thinks that she sounds like her mother in a way before she discards the thought. She’s always hated the sound of her mom’s voice and –
Bigger things, Nat. Way bigger things.
Javy lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “Pretty shitty,” he looks down from his phone and turns his neck to the side, “Can’t even hold that big ass head up on his own.”
Natasha lets out an airy snort. Her eyes continue to drink in the sight of the two men behind her before her attention snaps to the sound of Jake climbing into the driver’s seat.
He lets out a soft groan before shoving his key into the ignition and the engine roaring to life. His hand finds the button for the stereo and clicks it off before any sound can come from it.
“How you holdin’ up back there, ‘Yote?” he asks, right arm behind the back of the passenger seat as he begins to back out. He whips the gear into drive and guides the wheel with the palm of his left hand.
“Haven’t had to play EMT yet if that’s what you’re asking.”
Jake’s eyes catch Javy’s face in his rearview mirror. The idea of saying something sarcastic crosses his mind, but he doesn’t indulge in it; not now when shit has hit the fan and there’s seemingly no end in sight.
There’s a time and place for his snide comments, he thinks.
See, I’m learning. . . .God, these people have made me soft.
He wrinkles his nose and checks his periphery for Natasha. She sits solemnly at his side like a child who knew they were in for it once they got home. Her hands sit in her lap; fingers busied doing God knows what (probably picking, Jake would guess, but he’s too focused on trying to get everyone home without someone dying to actually look to confirm). Her mouth is set in a deep frown and her face competes with the moon for how pale it is.
Jake had never really looked at Natasha before, but he’s seen her enough in quick glimpses and fond flashbacks to know that she’s never appeared this hollow.
Something is weird.
Something is off.
Something is wrong, and Jake starts to wonder how anyone could have missed it at all.
He opens his mouth to comment on it before he’s interrupted.
“Turn left up here,” she whispers. Jake has to blink a few times to prove to himself that he had actually heard her voice come out like that and hadn’t dreamt it up.
A simple nod and a turn much wider than he would have liked it to send them to the driveway of a charming California bungalow. Natasha’s car sits outside the garage parked next to the God-awful and constantly falling apart Ford Bronco that everyone and their mother knows belongs to Bradley Bradshaw.
Jake fixes his wheels to be parallel to the lip of Natasha’s drive before throwing the vehicle into park and killing the engine. He throws the door open and hops out to help Javy pull Bradley’s deadweight out of the truck to take him inside.
“Up you get, dumb fuck.”
Bradley lets out a soft groan before being fixed across both men’s shoulders. His feet drag on the ground and his eyes remain closed. His brain is absent of any thoughts and the possibility of him remembering a single detail about this tomorrow is slim to none.
Natasha jams her house key into the lock and switches on the hallway light. She doesn’t bother taking off her shoes before she’s turned the corner to her kitchen to fetch some Ibuprofen and a glass of water. Javy and Jake silently struggle behind her, and she tries to ignore their hushed comments of “Oh shit!” after a loud thud fills the house, which she presumes to be them accidentally dropping Bradley on the ground.
Her feet feel like they’re stuck in buckets of cement as she stands before her kitchen sink; idly watching the air pocket bubbles of water fill the glass she holds beneath the faucet. The thought of getting Bradley water from the Brita filter in her refrigerator briefly crosses her mind, but then she remembers that she’s angry with him, and at the very least, he doesn’t deserve filtered water.
It’s a childish attempt at getting even, she knows, but she can’t express her annoyance any other way without feeling as if she was a raging bitch.
Her hand mechanically slaps the lever on the faucet to shut it off and her throat tightens when she hears the sound of her coffee table being scraped across the floor and Bradley mumble a whiny “Ouch!”
Natasha takes a deep breath and attempts to count to ten.
One. Bradley is okay. Two. Bradley is okay. Three. Bradley is okay. Four. Bradley is okay. Five. . . He’s fucking killing himself and you’re not even trying to help. Six. What kind of fucking friend are you? Seven. You should be ashamed of yourself. Eight —
With a wobbling lip and starry eyes, she forces herself out of her kitchen and into her living room where she finds two of her friends huddled around her other one; trying to position him on his side so that he can properly fall asleep.
“You fucking – you fuckin’ dropped me!” Bradley cries, his limbs flailing around like a baby’s.
Jake rolls his eyes. “Don’t cry over spilled milk, Bradshaw,” the lightbulb to say something shitty goes off in his head, “. . . S’not even milk you’re gonna remember spillin’.”
Bradley wordlessly slides himself deeper into the couch and smushes his face up against a throw pillow. Natasha watches from behind and makes a mental note to go ahead and plan on taking that pillow to the cleaners tomorrow.
It would be by God’s grace if she came to the living room in the morning and the cushion was absent of vomit.
“Don’t be a dick, Hangman. He’s already down bad enough as it is,” she speaks, brushing past him to set the water cup down on the coffee table. Her fast hands move the small waste basket hidden by her lamp near Bradley’s head. Her palm lingers on his head; fingertips ghosting the space where his hairline meets the back of his neck.
She sits down on the loveseat adjacent to the couch with a ‘plop.’ All that can be heard is the buzz of the cicadas outside and the anchoring, rumbly snoring exiting Bradley’s mouth. Javy shifts his weight between his two feet. Jake chews on his lip.
No one speaks.
The elephant in the room has gotten harder to ignore.
Natasha senses the ball forming in her throat before she feels it; the scary, dark monster of angst that everyone seems to want to will away. Its claws dig themselves deep into the crevices of her throat and tear every part of her to shreds. The stinging prickling of her eyes becomes harder and harder to blink away. Her nose begins to run; leaking the secret anguish she had been keeping to herself for months. Her limbs feel as if they had been injected with pure lead and she can’t will herself to move.
Because this is it.
This is the end.
This is the official cry for help that she had never wanted to make.
It’s crazy, she thinks, how your body can betray you even harsher than your worst enemy could.
Jake knows she’s crying before Natasha knows she is. Growing up with four sisters gave him a special radar for hidden emotions. The knowledge startles him a bit because never did he ever think that she had it in her to be so. . .broken. His eyes widen when her chest begins to wrack with sobs.
He and Javy share a wide-eyed gaze as if the scene playing in front of them could be any less real. Both men had never been great at comfort because they never had to deal with it, and as she tries to stifle her cries in an attempt to not wake Bradley and to not freak out Javy and Jake, she wonders if the anger she holds in her heart for Bradley makes her a bad person.
It’s insane, she thinks, that in one of her darkest moments, she can’t help but be horrified of being an awful human being.
All she had ever known was sacrifice and she can’t help but want to throw in the towel. To stop fighting so hard. To stop caring so much. To stop loving so deeply.
But she can’t.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
And thus the tears continue to fall while she wipes furiously at her eyes. Through a blurry lens of reality, she looks down and sees marbled red between her fingertips, but says nothing. The metallic stench of her own blood dripping out of her nose isn’t enough to stop her frenzy of thoughts beating her feelings into those of self-doubt. If anything, the blood attracts the emotions of worthlessness like sharks to live bait.
“Shit,” Jake hisses. The sound of his boots tendering his steps toward her makes her cry harder. “Shit, shit, shit. It’s okay. It’s alright.”
His hand moves in slow motion to reach out and touch her, but he snatches it back before it makes contact with her body.
Although he’s good at detecting sob fests, he’s never been good at resolving them.
“Holy shit, that’s so much blood,” Jake whispers louder than he intended. He sits on his knees in front of her and tilts his head to both sides of her face to get a good look at the geyser of blood spewing out of her nose.
Javy sends daggers toward him before making a plan in his head. “You take her to get cleaned up,” he instructs, “I’ll stay with tilt-a-whirl to make sure he actually makes it to the trashcan.”
Jake opens his arms in offense and opens his mouth to make a complaint before Javy stops him, “Blood or puke, dude. Your call.”
The blond’s lips form a straight line before he quickly makes a decision. He ushers Natasha up and gently guides her to the bathroom down the hall. She can barely see with the rate of tears building up in her eyes and though she would rather die than show weakness, the vulnerability sat revealed on the cushions of her loveseat.
There is no tough guy act available for her use anymore.
As she sits on her toilet seat lid with her head tilted forward over a wastebasket, she determines that Jake Seresin isn’t the most atrocious thing she has ever encountered and has a slight appreciation for his detached demeanor.
He doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t push her to say anything. He’s more than content with the silence and sits on the ledge of her bathtub with his elbows digging into the tops of his thighs.
In any other circumstance, they would be ripping the other a new one; trying to embarrass each other by coming across the other’s faults with a fine toothcomb. In another world, Natasha is somewhere teasing him about being a softy. In another world, Jake is rolling his eyes at whatever she was saying and dismissing it with a nasally, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” In another world, he never sets foot in her house and in another world, she doesn’t fall apart at the seams like this.
But in this world, the one with an entire box of bloody Kleenex filling the waste basket she has her head over, they don’t say anything because they truly don’t need to.
The thing no one tells you about hating someone’s guts is the way that you’re so accidentally in tune with them.
You know how they think. You know what nasty little habits they have. You know exactly what makes them tick.
And you know precisely what faces they make when they want you to spill your guts.
Natasha tries her hardest to ignore his wandering eyes and looks down at the mess beneath her instead. She can feel his stare slicing through her body; layer by layer: skin, fascia, muscles, organs, bones, and all.
“He’s been putting vodka in his coffee every morning.”
Jake quirks his eyebrows together. His stomach drops at the idea of what her admission may reveal.
“I suspected it for a while. He’s never been a Yeti cup kind of guy,” she lets out a sarcastic laugh, “So one day I went over to his desk and took a sip. I figured he wouldn’t mind.”
She shifts uncomfortably and her tears begin to slide down the apples of her cheeks like a waterfall once again.
“You know the shitty part about being right no one ever tells you? That it applies to dumpster fires too. Like, I didn’t wanna be right about my best friend drinking on the job but. . .”
Silence fills the air. Jake’s heart starts to race. This can’t be good, he thinks. This isn’t good, he knows.
“But?” he leads, leaning forward more to make sure that his ears don’t miss a single word that falls out of her mouth.
“Went by his desk every day for a week straight and sniffed his cup. I was right.”
Night and day pass before Jake can let the idea – no. The fact that Bradley had been showing up to work drunk settle in his stomach. It spreads like a thick goo that he can’t swallow down.
“How long?” he asks quietly. Gently, like a parent whispering as they hold their sleeping baby to their chest.
She licks her lips. The wetness of her tears help mend the dryness her mouth had encountered.
“Three months.”
The admission is dropped like a bomb. The effects of both of them knowing changing the intricate thread of life as they know it instantaneously. Jake’s chest starts to heave with a feeling that he doesn’t recognize.
Hurt. Anger. Disgust. Care. Sympathy. Hatred.
All of these things that he has never felt at one time. All of these things that he doesn’t have a name for.
His mouth moves faster than his brain. “You know you have to report him.” He says it with such finality and although he knows it’s the right thing to do, it certainly isn’t the right thing to say.
Natasha narrows her eyes at him. “You think I haven’t thought about it? You think it’s just that easy?” she scoffs, anger making her cheeks crimson red, “Fuck you, Jake!”
He knows that he shouldn’t take any offense to her words, but the weight of the events of tonight has taken a toll on him, and her words plant a seed of irritation in his heart.
“He’s coming to work drunk, Natasha! Screw me for wanting to keep people alive.”
She takes a deep breath. Her knuckles whiten around the rim of the trashcan she’s holding as a means to try and calm herself down.
“Look,” she speaks through gritted teeth, “I know this is horrible –”
“Horrible? Just horrible?” his words sound sharper than he intended them to be, “Horrible is your dog dying or losing a bet or staining your white couch with a fucking nosebleed.”
A sarcastic laugh leaves his mouth as he stands up to leave the bathroom. “He’s gambling with life, and he of all people should fucking know better.”
“Because using the dead mommy and daddy card against him is soooo fucking rich, Jake. What else is new? Huh?” She shoves the wastebasket to the side and stands up to look him in the face.
“You gonna pull the dead grandma card on me? Cheating ex-boyfriend? Oh let me guess. The female pilot who belongs in the kitchen and not the Navy?” With each word, she gets closer and closer to him.
“Don’t let the fact that I have a heart and actually try to do the right thing make you forget that I’ll fuck your life up beyond repair. You’re absolutely the last one to talk about gambling with life when you tried to kill your team and didn’t even feel an ounce of sympathy. Being number one means nothing when you kill all your competition, fuck face.”
The dried blood around her nostrils leaves a scarlet film in its wake. Jake takes a few deep breaths to remind himself to calm down. He knows that she’s right. He knows that he hasn’t quite redeemed himself. He knows that despite everyone having a chummy attitude with him, he is still considered a person who cannot be trusted.
Because he does bail. He does cut people down to make himself feel better. He does eliminate his problems instead of facing them.
“I know that he’s your best friend. I know that he means the world to you, but what he’s doing is dangerous, and you helping him hide it will only bite you in the ass in the long run,” he exhales softly, “You need to tell.”
She rolls her eyes and reaches past him to flip the light off. She stomps past him back into the hallway that leads to her living room.
“You still don’t fucking get it. You’ll never fucking get it!”
Her gaze finds Bradley sleeping softly on the couch and Javy curled up on the loveseat fast asleep before she decides to lower her voice. She turns on her heel to face Jake once again and takes a deep breath to calm herself down.
“You don’t have to get it or understand or even pretend like you give the smallest ounce of a fuck about him, but I do. I care about him so fucking much, Jake. And I know that it’s fucked up and I know that I’m not doing the right thing, but I can’t rat him out because betraying him when he’s like this would hurt him even more than getting in the cockpit wasted.”
“Nat –”
She holds up her hands to his chest and distances herself from him. The tears start to form again and she wonders if she’ll ever stop crying.
“I can’t take this away from him. I can’t take the only thing he has left away from him and you can’t make me. . . . Because this time, he might just hate me enough to dig the hole so deep that he won’t be able to climb back out.”
The collage of versions of Bradley she had gotten to know and love so well over the years of their friendship blind her with sorrow and sadness. She truly knows him in a way that no one else ever will, and while part of her takes pride in that, another part of her wishes there was someone else to help share the load because she’s tired.
She’s so fucking tired and there seems to be no relief in sight.
“And I’d rather him rot away on this couch knowing that someone loves him than get a phone call that he—that he killed himself because I helped everything get taken away from him.”
She zips past him to her linen closet to grab a blanket for Javy. “So yeah. You don’t have to get it but I do, and I’m gonna continue to stick by him regardless because that’s what friends do.”
Jake stands dumbfounded in the dimly illuminated doorway as she carefully unfolds a blanket and gently lays it on Javy. He watches as she turns to Bradley and puts her finger underneath his nose to ensure that he’s alive and breathing. Her eyes refuse to meet him as she walks into her bedroom and shuts the door.
And when she wakes the next morning to find Jake fast asleep in a chair alongside Javy and Bradley, she knows that there was nothing but truth to the words he had uttered to her last night.
When they wake, they separate and leave for work like the events of the evening had never happened.
Like Bradley hadn’t projectile vomited at the bar the previous night or that Javy hadn’t dropped him on his ass in Nat’s living room. Like Natasha hadn’t cried so hard her nose bled and that Jake hadn’t had the chewing out of his life given to him in a bathroom at three in the morning. Like everything is fine when they all know that it’s not – the textbook definition of burying an issue beneath a rug.
Natasha almost tricks herself into pretending like the entire evening had never happened until she spots Bradley’s black Yeti cup on his desk. She stares at it with wonder and hatred and she doesn’t even realize how long she had been standing there until she feels the warm drip of blood seeping from her nose slide down her face and onto her chest.
Natasha Trace was a person who was very rarely mistaken, but now she can say that her mistakes run large when she is.
Because Bradley Bradshaw is fucked, and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it.
#bradley rooster bradshaw x reader#bradley bradshaw#rooster bradshaw#rooster#bradley bradshaw x reader#bradley bradshaw fanfic#rooster x reader#rooster top gun#rooster x you#top gun#top gun maverick#miles teller#mt#rooster bradshaw fanfic#rooster bradshaw fic#rooster angst#rooster bradshaw angst#bradley bradshaw angst#cause no one breaks my heart like you#tw therapy#tw alcohol#tw suicide#i genuinely don't have the words to fathom how much this means to me#this is also a sequel to cause no one breaks my heart like you if you hadn't heard but can be read alone too!
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More Wangxian Faves: Post-Canon & Canon Divergent
This list was made to honor the request in the notes on my WWX recs post from @100percentserenity for some more fics featuring Wei Ying set in canon or canon divergent fics. Now, not all of these are strictly from his POV, but they all feature him at his quick-witted, charming, & hopelessly oblivious best. Canon divergent can be a pretty wide category, so do keep that in mind if you see a rec & think, "This isn't very canonical.." Haha. There are two repeats from my first Wangxian rec list, but they fit the ask & are both excellent & worth mentioning twice! Now, in no particular order, may I recommend:
Far Away You Are by cqlorphan (E, 17,358)
Thoughts: I absolutely loved the idea of the esteemed Hanguan-jun being this not-so-secret purveyor of comfort hugs & heartache advice. Wei Ying’s shock upon finding this out was so funny I couldn’t help but laugh, & my amusement only intensified when he made the scary Yiling Laozu face while asking who broke Lan Zhan’s heart, only to be told it was him who’d done so. I wanted to hug all the Juniors myself. They’re all so very precious. This was a lovely story where very little hurt in the end, & sometimes that’s just nice after the gut punch that canon gives us.
my age has never made me wise by idrilka (E, 63,439)
Thoughts: I absolutely loved this. It was pretty CQL (The Untamed) compliant & told the post-canon story of Wei Ying wandering alone as a rogue cultivator after the events of the show. Of course he was pining after his zhiji the entire time, so when he heard gossip that the Chief Cultivator might be married by summer's end it nearly undid him. The angst was excruciating, but One Brain Cell WWX Strikes Again fics somehow always manage to be fun at the same time. I've read several post-canon, wandering Wei Ying stories, & this one was particularly good.
Not What We May Be by brooklinegirl (E, 29,222)
Thoughts: I love Wei Ying’s cleverness in this. He’s his usual irreverent, chaotic, charming self, & I never get tired of how wonderfully his mind works. The odd phenomenon occurring in the town he’s staying in was an interesting mystery to solve, & I had to laugh when Lan Zhan arrived with the usual Lan Juniors ensemble in tow. Watching them all work together to figure out how to fix the issue while also dealing with the healthy side helping of oblivious Wei Ying & searing sexual tension between him & Lan Zhan was a fun treat.
All Caught Up by brooklinegirl (E, 36,934)
Thoughts: Wei Ying proposing to Lan Zhan to get him out of an arranged marriage he didn’t want is so something he’d do. There is no character more quintessentially chaotic good than Wei Ying. You can’t change my mind. The practice kissing was a lovely regular feature from this author, & my particular favorite thing in this fic was Nie Huaisang’s cameo as their pseudo wedding planner with his classic meddling while insisting he’s useless shenanigans. This was super cute. I liked it a lot.
love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360,042)
Thoughts: This was an example of a cool MDZS-specific trope I hadn't seen before, & in it Wei Ying, the infamous Yiling Patriarch, was a cultivator who had achieved immortality (aka, he's OP as fuck but in a fun way). The great sects enlisted his help to win the Sunshot Campaign, & what did he demand in return? Lan Zhan's hand in marriage, of course! It was a fantastic slow burn in which poor Lan Zhan suffered the mortifying ordeal of falling in love with his own husband. An amazing & complex plot, chock-full of angsty goodness.
Birthday Party by waffles_4_breakfast (E, 100,123)
Thoughts: I loved the idea that Wei Ying would actually get to attend Jin Ling's one month celebration, but I was, of course, still concerned about the continued danger he'd be in. This fic nicely showcased Wei Ying's sharp wit, charm, & ever-present sass. I also loved his dramatics when it came to his interactions with Lan Zhan (and in general, of course, haha), but their sweetness together was ultimately my favorite thing about them. The continued threat to Wei Ying's life & all the plotting surrounding it was interesting, but the best things about this fic were the characters & their bonds with each other.
Fentao-laoshi's Guide to Cut-Sleeve Pleasures by occultings (E, 31,775)
Thoughts: This was set during the Cloud Recesses Study Arc, & it was so, so good. The sexual tension between them was just simmering the entire time, & the idea of them “practicing for marriage” on each other was fucking hilarious. Their banter was top notch, & I absolutely loved Lan Zhan’s nearly overwhelming desperation for Wei Ying, not to mention Wei Ying’s bullshit getting him in over his head (as usual, but this time in a fun way, haha). The feelings were actually very sweet, too. I enjoyed this a lot.
wide enough and wild by impossibletruths (E, 64,120)
Thoughts: I love the tag “Noping Out Of Society With Your Boyfriend And Your 50 Wen Refugees: The Novel”. It made me laugh before I’d even started the fic. While this was set during the time period in which Wei Ying frees the Wen refugees, they didn’t end up in Yiling this time. I won’t get too specific, but they still ended up rebuilding their own little settlement & farming to survive, basically. Lan Zhan found them & decided to stay. The slow burn was so good, & I loved the pining in particular. I cried a couple of times in this. It really was just that good.
your problem as a mountain. by cupofwater (E, 30,989)
Thoughts: It was so cute to see the difference between Wei Ying’s & Nie Huaisang’s fantasies, & Wei Ying’s turning out to be more vanilla & romantic in nature absolutely cracked me up. I nearly hurt myself laughing when Nie Mingjue sent Lan Zhan some of the letters by mistake, & I was delighted by Lan Zhan’s reaction. I won’t spoil it, but the smut was lovely & despite the misunderstanding our boys definitely both got their happy ending, haha.
The Vermilion Ribbon by Unforth (E, 233,368)
Thoughts: This sat on my Marked For Later list on AO3 for the longest time, & I really did myself a disservice by not reading it sooner. It was absolutely fantastic. The world-building, pacing, & intricate plot were all brilliantly done, & Wei Ying being in the Wen clan was nothing like I imagined it was going to be in this. Instead of his core family being the Jiangs, we get Wen Qing in Jiang Yanli’s role & Wen Ning in Jiang Cheng’s. Now I’ll warn you that this got super heavy in some places, so mind those tags & take care of yourselves. Nothing was graphic enough that I had to stop reading, but it didn’t shy away from the serious subject matter it covered either. The whole fic was a real emotional roller coaster, & I can’t recommend it highly enough.
#mdzs#the untamed#wangxian#lan zhan#wei ying#lan wangji#wei wuxian#wangxian fic rec#Temnurus rec list#i'm so flattered by this request#here's to all my wangxian obsessed fam#i like them a normal amount ok#ok maybe slightly more than normal#leave me & my mdzs brainrot alone kthx bai
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what got you so into the french revolution?
When I was in school for medieval art history, I did a lot of work on saints and their martyrdoms, particularly how the viewers of art depicting suffering imagined suffering, and how the agony/eroticism of those feelings induced a sort of memetic spiritual euphoria. Which means that I spent a ton of time looking at images of executions. I've seen them all: beheadings and sexymen shot full of arrows, saints barbecued or flayed or eaten by wild animals, criminals broken on the wheel -- all the classics. Or at least, I thought I had, until I encountered this triptych in my senior year of college:
This, by Belgian artist Antoine Wiertz, is The Visions of a Guillotined Head, painted in the late 1840s. Wiertz was a symbolist, and spent a great portion of his career drawn to the macabre, never more notably than on the occasion that inspired this painting.
In February 1848, two notable French criminals were due to be executed by the state. The guillotine was of course still in use as a method of capital punishment (and would be until the 1970s), and Wiertz was curious as to what a so-swiftly severed head felt and saw. He wasn't the first; since the guillotine's invention there had been legends of heads that blinked and blushed and tried to speak after separation. Luckily, Wiertz had a friend who was a hypnotist (as you do). Timed to the moment of the execution, he had his hypnotist pal put his soul "into rapport" with the dead criminal, and claimed that he entered the head itself as it fell.
He later recalled his experiences at some length in writing, but since we're talking about me, here is the important passage, dictated as he "felt" the horror of execution:
A horrible buzzing noise, the sound of the blade descending. The victim believes that he has been struck by lightning, not the axe. Astonishingly, the head lies under the scaffold and yet still believes it is above, still believes itself to be part of the body, and still waits for the blow that will cut it off. Horrible choking! No way to breathe. The asphyxia is appalling. It comes from an inhuman, supernatural hand, weighing down like a mountain on the head and neck. A cloud of fire passes before his eyes. Everything is red and glitters.
Now comes the moment when the executed man thinks he is stretching his cramped, trembling hands towards the dying head. It is the same instinct that drives us to press a hand against a gaping wound. And it occurs with the dreadful intention of setting the head back on the trunk, to preserve a little blood, a little life.
This fucked me up so bad.
I am well aware that consciousness after having your spinal cord severed is a done deal. I was aware of this in college. But there was something about this artist's act of imaginative empathy that compelled me, for the first time, to think about the guillotine in particular. About the mechanical wait, not being pushed off a drop or axed while kneeling, about being slid through on a board, of seeing the basket beneath you, already full of heads. Maybe even heads you know.
I imagined it so hard that I made myself sick and couldn't go to class for two days.
The reason I studied what I studied wasn't because I was ghoulish. In fact, I'm a little squeamish. It was because in the experience of pain, we are all deeply individualized, but entirely, helplessly human.
I laid in bed and thought about the small number of humans who I, an educated layman, knew had been guillotined: Marie Antoinette, obviously; Louis XVI; and (in what felt like black historical irony, given what I knew of his day job) Maximilian Robespierre.
It felt intrusive to have intimately imagined their last, most private moments, without really having any idea about them at all. Better to start at the end and work backwards, I thought. So I started reading.
Robespierre, decapitated by guillotine when he was thirty-six. That's the manner of death. How did he meet his death? In terrible pain, I learned. Why? Because he'd had half his jaw blown off the night before. Jesus, why? Because he'd (maybe probably) shot himself. Why?
It turns out, if you keep doing that, a piece at a time, for years, you can learn a lot about someone's life. And, relatedly, in long and branching paths, you can find your way into every nook and cranny of what burned through France at the end of the 18th century.
#aren't you glad you asked#hey emily why were you so obsessed with executions and the horror of suspended pain in the first place?#well yes you see I was raised evangelical and read foxe's book of martyrs at the tender age of eight and it drilled a channel into my brain#hey emily did something happen to you in college that made you hyperfocus on the gossamer threads between life and death?#would you look at the time!!!!#anyway this was probably not the answer you expected but it is what it is#I have seen the past and I foresee the future
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Years ago (crazy to think about how many years, honestly), I started Sands of Time as writing practice to see if I could get into the practice of writing on a regular schedule (it failed). I had a bunny inspired by thinking too much about Ganondorf and his role in OoT and WW, decided it was as good as an excuse as any to work on writing regularly (failed so hard), and it ended up becoming a love letter to a game series which I've loved almost my entire life.
That fic kept going and going and taught me so much about writing, both in general and fanfic-specific. It ended up being far longer than planned, more detailed than planned, and even when I was distracted and tired and side-eyeing this massive WIP, it reminded me of how much I loved the Zelda games and the many details, overt and subtle, in them. Writing was more than just putting words on paper: it was translating the things I was passionate about. Even if there are some definite issues in the fic due to the many distractions occurring during its creation and how sometimes I wrote less because I was passionate to write and more because I was just stubborn about seeing the fic through, it's still a fic I'm very proud of. It is also, without a shadow of a doubt, my most popular fic. It is a fic that someone refused to rec because they wanted to hit lesser known Zelda fics, and holy shit, I preened when I read that.
I have been struggling with fic and fandom in the last year for many reasons, including some serious RL stressors. The other big reasons have to do with the evolution of fandom itself. I'm not talking about the rise and fall of the popularity of certain things. For example, while I'm not a fan of "reader" fic, I feel like it's a fantastic example of the things that can be done with the fanfiction medium and also a way to explore how tropes/genres/random things in fanfiction reflect different cultural changes in the same way horror movies do. What I hate, though, is the rise of negative feelings and negative takes in fandom, transforming it from a fun, collaborative atmosphere into an arena full of witch hunts, deliberately bad takes, and people terrified to write because they are afraid of being attacked for their content, pairing, writing styles, grammar, etc. I love fandom as a love letter to canon, an exploration of canon, an exploration of self and writing styles, among other things. Now it feels like it's no longer that.
Back in the Old Days, people put disclaimers on fics because they didn't want to be sued. Now people put disclaimers on things assuring readers that of course they don't advocate these things, these things are bad, they know it, they aren't a criminal, they aren't a pedophile, they aren't a Bad Person. Now I see people skip summaries just to tell people to stop attacking them for their pairing and to just let them write what they like.
I see people indulging in deliberate bad takes of the original content, of the original creators, of other writers in fandom, of different tropes, of game mechanics... fucking everything. Sometimes it's just a nasty circle. Sometimes it's done to elevate something else, because we all know the only way to elevate something is to put something else down. I understand vent sessions. I understand going to a friend and going "Holy shit, did you see that summary??? Wow!" It should stop life as a quick vent. It shouldn't make up the person's entire personality. It shouldn't require a full online presence. Hate should never be detailed in the comments. Call-out posts should be left to actual nazis, terfs, etc., not to someone who wrote a "gross" or "unhealthy" or whatever pairing. Seriously. If you waste so much time on that, you need to look into some self-exploration and therapy. In all sincerity.
Fanfiction is not a published work. It should be fun. It is put online to be shared with fellow fans. It is something where someone gets excited about something or has an idea about something or wants to explore something or just wants to write some kinky porn and then share it with fellow fans. That's why writers post work and then sit eagerly .02 seconds later waiting for people to comment on it because they want to share their thoughts and love and happiness and excitement and sadness and grief and their general emotions with others and they want those others to respond and share their thoughts and reactions, too!
I just saw a post tearing into Moffat's Sherlock series because it lacked sincerity for the audience and source material and instead indulged in its arrogance, contempt, and self-righteousness. My immediate thoughts turned to the Lord of the Rings movies. If Sherlock is remembered, it will be purely in the critical sense, an example as to how a popular series was forgotten and dismissed. LotR remains loved. It is a classic. It is something people repeatedly marathon despite the lengthy watch time. LotR was a love letter to its source material. It wasn't just the writers and directors: everyone involved was sincerely, fiercely passionate about it, and it shows. It drags the watchers in, prompted people who had never read the original to pick up the books, inspired so much fanfiction. It was sincere and passionate and loving and, in turn, its fans are sincere and passionate and loving.
The LotR movies explored and loved the genre, the characters, the message. Even when characters faltered, it didn't make them terrible people. It made watchers hold their breath, it made watchers cheer them on, it made watchers hope. Check out people who do bad takes of Frodo and his struggle with the Ring and watch how many people come out of the woodwork to defend Frodo. There was no tongue-in-cheek humor mocking the source material. There was no critical analysis of "Well, you see, this is how the hero was actually stupid." No. It was sincere. It was loving. It still makes people cry and cheer and happy even when they're wiping away a sad tear or two.
I've read fanfics where the writers insist on the worst takes for the characters. It isn't done out of humor or a teasing love or an exploration into the characters/writing styles/etc. The writers want to drag the characters down, put themselves on a pedestal, and do it not through sincere analysis but by doing the worst possible takes on the situation. This usually relies on going into the source material with a negative mindset and desiring negativity in return, feeding primarily on the negative takes of others rather than looking into the source material or looking for positive takes, or just having a "bad faith" mindset. They go into it with an axe to grind and want to drag everyone else down with them. It isn't one or two fics: it's a growing, poisonous movement which is one of the things driving people out of fandom. It isn't a love letter to the source material. It is hate and disgust and contempt and Moffat writing Sherlock, patting himself on the back all the while and surrounding himself with people doing the same exact thing.
I'm a strong believer in people writing whatever they want to write. You want to write this character being evil? Sure! You hate this character and want to make them OOC to bash them even more? Go for it! I've written so many things testing how far I could go or feeling angsty and wanting others to feel angsty or even feeling happy and grinning like a feral gremlin as people wrote comments talking about how the angst in the story made them bawl. Want to write vore? Want to write character death? Whatever! It is fucking fiction, and it should be something you can enjoy doing. Hell, an asexual person can write two people fucking without wanting to get fucked. A lesbian can write two men fucking. A pacifist can write a murder mystery. It is fiction. Write whatever you want, and I hope that you feel better after doing so, even if it is only in the catharsis way of having a bad day and getting it out by making characters bleed.
Already, I can fucking hear people insisting that all of this makes you a bad person. No. No. If you truly believe that, it means you don't understand writing. You don't understand art. OR it's not a misunderstanding but a deliberate Bad Take, an extension of the poison I described above, because you want to attack someone and you want any opening. See: Republicans going after Drag Queens now, probably not actually believing that Drag Queens are harmful but recognizing vulnerability and knowing they can manipulate others through hatred. If you truly believed that, you would be wondering about Stephen King and other writers, but instead, you use conservative attacks and uncritically promote purity culture and are oblivious to the day when the leopard turns around to eat your face.
It's exhausting. It's a growing trend that is poisoning the water that is fandom and is not only playing a part in driving people out, but is keeping people from ever trying their hand in the first place. It is keeping people from enjoying what should be a fun thing. It is fucking poisoning minds, because this is a damned slippery slope. Hammer/nail and all that. It is seeing one thing as "problematic" and knocking over one tile and then seeing a full domino effect because they never bothered to analyze what "problematic" meant or why they found that "problematic." It is people grabbing a torch with the hope they won't find themselves on the stake.
Let people enjoy fandom. Try having positive takes. Let fanfiction and fanart and fanworks in general be something enjoyable again. Maybe some people use it as a way to vent current political issues. Maybe some people want to explore certain sexual kinks and writing these two (or three or five or seven) characters going at it is a great way to do it. Maybe they had a funny thought and want to share it via fanfiction. Whatever. We can't go online and bash people like Moffat and then casually do the same exact thing. We can't bitch about conservative politicians attacking people and then use the same exact thought processes and methods to attack others.
Let people be sincere in their enjoyment. If you don't like it, find something you do like. Maybe take some time with some tools and explore things which make you happy instead of indulging in deliberate bad takes to tear others down and use those takes to bind yourself to others and their bad takes like barbwire. Remember why things like LotR lives on and makes people so happy and why Moffat's works are going to be used in classes in the future as to what not to do.
#rant#purity culture#fandom#this wasn't what the rant was supposed to be about#i got off topic#but i've seen some things lately#and they've enraged me#critical thinking#try it#instead of mindless#self-righteous#emotional responses#in all sincerity#that is how fucking TRUMP got elected#focusing on people's emotions#on their fear and hatred#on their need to fit in#or push other people down#on riling people up#so they didn't think#they literally had torches#c'mon people#went longer than i thought#oops
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(DISCLAIMER: So this is more a thought to explore...rather than a prompt per say...but you could also treat it as a prompt if it inspires you!)
Our favourite bunnies go at it pretty fearlessly because Tess can't have any more children. How does that landscape change if she could?
I've read some fairly unreal Pregnant!Tess fics, that's not what I'm suggesting here. But I think it would be interesting to get the Arien treatment 😎 on maybe a conversation or a scare?
(idk, tbh, I really struggled with myself about this one, whether or not or put it to you, but then I thought, hey wth, why not!)
Hi! Thank you for sending this thinky piece to me! I’m going to answer it here rather than a prompt (hope that’s okay) as I’m not sure I could do this justice as a full story, but it is certainly interesting to consider. I’ve been turning it over in my mind for a few days to get my thoughts in order.
Making Tess infertile in Drifters was deliberate to avoid traversing into some very dark territory because, other than the killjoy of pregnancy scares, I knew I’d be looking at going into multi-miscarriage territory. I think given the diet, the lifestyle, the tension and the constant dangers, bringing a baby to full term would be extremely difficult. And while bringing a baby (or a dozen, given these bunnies) into the story could’ve had its moments, I think it would have ultimately drawn focus away from what I wanted to do. And I also felt, well, they had enough to worry about without tormenting them with that, too.
I’m also kind of untraditional myself, so the progression of in love = married = babies isn’t really my jam, even though I still find the concept kind of intriguing from a fictional perspective. (I mean, Tess and Joel as parents?? It is appealing. And I kind of flirt with that a bit with the fever dreams).
So with my rationale of why I did not do this out of the way I can now just give you a brain dump of Tessjoel pregnancy ideas that I might have done something with (and who knows? Still might somehow ...!) So trigger warning out there, this would be dark:
Tess finding out she’s pregnant between Missouri and Tennessee and hiding it for as long as she can, hoping it will just go away on its own or more likely
Joel figuring it out before she does because he is Attentive Father and Husband 101 and being like, “… is there any chance that maybe you might be … pregnant there, Tess?”
Violent morning sickness resulting in the trio holing up somewhere we didn’t see in the story – Tess quickly unable to travel, basically.
Everyone being extremely miserable and scared about it the whole time.
Tess ultimately miscarrying and then a whole lot of trauma and guilt because she wanted that to happen.
Joel not there when it occurs and Tess only telling him like, days later that it’s gone.
Joel wanting the baby the whole time, because his key jam in life is to be a father, and although he was sensibly scared about what this would all mean he actually felt good about it.
Tess then breaking things off with him entirely, not so much because she was afraid of falling pregnant again but because of the guilt being amplified when she realises that he really wanted it.
Meeting up with another group a few weeks later when they get moving again and Tess deciding that she’s going to leave with them.
I don’t know, maybe not seeing one another for awhile? Months? Maybe a year or so?
Finding one another again, maybe somewhere like Sioux Falls/if not actually Sioux Falls.
Naturally they’re at it like rabbits again, nothing has changed about the way they feel for one another.
Things are good for awhile, they’re careful.
She’d fall pregnant again and this time they’re like, okay, maybe this is something good, maybe we should do this.
Tess extremely stressed, maybe not so ill this time around but not really coping so well.
Joel being the one to have a handle on it, he’d just think she was so fucking beautiful pregnant it’d be sickening lol. He’d be rationing himself to give her the best food etc.
Another miscarriage, this time Joel is there and with her the duration.
This time it pulls them closer together rather than pushes them apart.
… I did say it’d be pretty dark, lol. So yeah, I think that’s probably the kind of journey the Arien Treatment would’ve given that storyline. It would have changed everything.
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(I'm placing this here so as not to clog the rp blog, but it is relevant to the events unfolding there)
@is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not I know you expressed interest in the events that have been going on for the past few days (and will continue for a while longer) eventually becoming something of a group-authored fanfic. I decided to take a crack at what that might look like and concatenated the events of one of the scenes from a few days ago (the bar meeting) into a single, readable chapter. It's a bit difficult given the mediums are different, and there was some overlap to untangle between conversations different characters were having at around the same time, but I think I've put something together that makes it cohesive and contains as much as possible of everyone's writing.
If this works, it should be a great way to bring everything together! I've included it below the read more for your reading pleasure.
This is still a rough draft, so I do apologize for that, but let me know what you think!
Melissa, in her SLDF dress uniform, walks into the bar of the Unity City Grande alongside Karrie DeLacey. The Marten-Steiner siblings notice an immediate commotion as every SLDF soldier in the bar stands instantly to attention, remaining so until Melissa salutes the officer nearest her and says, "At ease."
She shakes her head in amusement as the two newcomers walk over to Theodora and Dieter at the bar.
"We are here," Melissa says to the two possibly-former Steiners.
Theodora stands, offering a handshake. She's wearing her LCAF uniform, but with any patches and insignias removed. Without it all, the uniform looks empty; nothing more than a cobalt tunic and white pants, with empty rank epaulettes on the shoulders.
"Greetings, Melissa. It's good to see you."
"Good to you two as well," Melissa says. "I apologize for causing this to occur," she says solemnly.
Theodora waves her hand, as if to swat aside the general’s words. "You made this happen no more than I did. The Archon chose to revoke my nobility, so the blame lies with her, and her alone."
Dieter, however, merely nods, eyes fixed on Melissa's new rank. He's obviously distressed, but he's trying to hide it. After a moment, he snaps out of it, looking to Karrie.
"And you'll be Ms. DeLacey, I suppose?"
"I should be Ms. DeLacey, last I checked!" Karrie quickly adds. "And I do offer you my condolences again. Fucked up that they decided to hit you like that for doing the right thing." She shrugs. "Nobles."
Dieter chuckles, shoulders sagging. "Indeed. My cousin has always been... a stubborn woman, but I hoped I could make her see sense. I maintain my noble status for now, but news of my involvement will reach her sooner rather than later, then it will be done for me." A savage gleam enters his eye. "Lucky for me, I've been preparing for something like this to occur."
“I don’t know what kind of promises I can make but if you ever want some help with that sort of thing, ha… you know how to find me is all.” Karrie pats Dieter on the back in a rough gesture of affection. “But cheer up, my noble friend! That’s tomorrow’s nonsense! Tonight’s is drink.”
Dieter holds up his half-empty glass, giving a wry grin. "Amen to that. What's your flavor? I'm buying tonight."
"Oh! Right, thanks." Karrie glances over at the bar for a moment. "If they do those here I like a Dark and Stormy. Bit of rum, bit of ginger beer, and a lime. It's a nice change of pace." She points at Dieter's glass. "And you? Someone of your means's gotta be drinking something interesting."
"Tonight? No," he says, taking another drink. "Tonight the only objective is get shit-faced, and do it quick. To that end, I've got the bartender coming over with a new glass of Glengerry Reserve every five minutes. Eventually, I fear I'll just have to buy a fucking bottle service, 'cause he came two minutes ago and I'm already done with this one."
"Does being a Lyran come with an iron liver or is that an acquired skill?"
"An acquired skill, gained over years of dealing with politicians, morons, and a sister with a death wish."
Theodora nods and gestures to the empty chairs at the table, opposite her and Dieter. "Please, sit, order something. We must celebrate your promotion, no?"
"I suppose we should," Melissa says, sitting next to Theodora. "But before we do that," she says, smiling with her voice, as even her somewhat modified beak makes that expression physically difficult, "here." She pulls out two small grey velvet boxes.
One she places in front of Theodora. Theodora pauses, poking at the box as if it's likely to explode. "Thank you for this gift of... a box? It's not going to blow up if I open it wrong, yes?"
"Neg, Theodora," Melissa giggles. "Just open it." She places the second box in front of Karrie.
"Shit, me?" Karrie says, taking it. "Damn, I must be magestrix of the universe or something the way everyone's being so nice tonight." She flashes a sly grin, looks to Melissa one more time, and opens the box.
Inside are the twin sapphire rank bars of an SLDF Warrant Officer.
"They are yours, should you want them," Melissa smiles. "You would be both a MechWarrior as a member of my Command Supernova Trinary, and the Chief MechTech for the Regiment.
"I have seen enough, and heard enough, about your handywork and 'Mech skills to know you would excel at both at once, let alone either on its own... You need not say aff immediately, Karrie. But do think it over tonight. It would come with more than just rank, of course."
Karrie stops trying to cheer up Dieter for a moment and stares in shock. She's hard to read; her body is tense, but her face is pensive, almost wistful. Finally, she manages to speak. "I...I don't know what to say, Star Captain. That's a big offer for someone like me. I'm flattered. Just—completely floored flattered." Her drink arrives along with another of Deiter's glasses of liquor, and she takes a steadying sip. The expression on her face is strange; Melissa can’t quite tell if she’s crying, but she’s certainly staring at the sapphire bars like her life depends on them.
Theodora opens her own box, though she does so carefully, still not entirely convinced of the box's non-explosiveness. Dieter also braces somewhat, as if he expects the box to spontaneously combust.
Inside are two sets of twin emerald "bar and dot" rank devices - the rank of SLDF Major.
"They are yours, if you wish," Melissa says. "And technically, it's a promotion. I cannot have my prospective Nova Captain outranked by actual Captains, quiaff? It would come with more than just the rank, of course. You may not be Lyran nobles any longer, but you can be Star League nobles."
For a moment, Theodora, too, is silent, eyes fixed on the emerald insignias, running her hand through her hair. Before the moment becomes awkward, however, her training kicks in, and she straightens, snapping a crisp Lyran salute.
"I'm honored, Commanding General. I accept."
Melissa salutes back, the casual salute of an officer returning a subordinate's gesture. "Now then, Major Marten-Steiner. Theodora. We have several things to discuss. Firstly, you'll need a new paint job on your Atlas. How does SLDF Green and Black Watch tartan sound to you?"
"It'll suit me just fine, sir." Theodora pins the rank badge in place, straightening it to parade-ground perfection. "So, what's the plan? Given your shiny new rank, I suppose it's to be total war?"
"Indeed. I am told the First Lord will be issuing our orders within the day. The SLDF will deploy. Before that, however, we must attend to more personal matters," she says. "We need to refit, reprogram, and re-serial your Atlas, get you your new uniform, and most importantly, get you your new citizenship. You and your brother," she says, looking over to the still drunken Dieter, before smiling and looking back at Melissa. "And please, Theodora, just call me Melissa."
"Yes, sir. Er, Melissa."
Dieter points at Melissa, brows creased. "First, we're drinking. You're a damn general, now. And that's worth celebrating," he grins. "Unless, of course, the great Commanding General is too good to drink with us lowly soldiers and diplomats?"
"Absolutely not, Dieter," she says, sitting down at the bar. She waits for a bit, letting Karrie think, sipping her own pint of Timbiqui Dark, conversing with the bartender, who seems at once terrified, starstruck, giddy, and incredulous at just who he's suddenly serving beer and bar snacks to. Eventually, looking over at the still staring Karrie, she chuckles.
"Terra to Karrie? Terra, calling Karrie... Are you all right, Karrie?"
Karrie starts. “Blake’s sake! Scared the shit out of me.” Her face immediately twists into a shape of regret as she remembers where she is. “Oh! Shit, that’s…that’s not proper decorum at all, I’m so sorry about that.” She takes another sip from her drink and shudders.
“I’m…gonna have to think about it, Star Captain. It’s a lot to take in, is all.” A half-hearted look of mischief crosses Karrie’s face. “Tell you what: we both survive this, Star Captain? I’m yours,” she says, draining the last of her cocktail and looking around for someone to ask for another.
"Very well, Karrie," Melissa says. A look of contradictory, dead-serious mischievousnesa crosses her avian features before she continues, "I'm still making it temporarily official, though. I need a good MechTech and pilot to back me up. And you're much better than just "good", from everything I've heard. We'll need to talk about getting your Awesome up to SLDF standards. That means a full teardown and rebuild if needed. And she will get a new paint job. We will need jump jets as well."
"And it's General now, Karrie," she chuckles, switching to a more lighthearted tone. "Great Father's bones, don't make me remind you every time, quiaff?" she continues, mock-exasperated, handing her new cocktail.
“General! Agh, I—sorry about that. Won’t forget again!” Karrie laughs. “In that case, General, I just hope I’m every bit the woman you’re counting on.”
She lifts her glass in the air. “I think we’ve all got something to toast to, then,” she says, elbowing Dieter out of his drunken stupor. “To…something new! Whatever it’s gonna be. And to friends!”
"To new adventures, and new friends!" Melissa toasts.
#battletech#mechwarrior#story event#Seriously do let me know what you think because there was a little bit of creative interpretation involved. I think I'm proud of the result
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mission accomplished [ scaramouche x reader ]
five | sunshine & city lights
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you and scaramouche have been avoiding each other for the past few days, until you’ve had enough and confronted him about it. things drastically changed when scaramouche finally opens up and lets you in more into his life, giving you more perspective on how he truly feels after the incident. will things change between the two of you too?
warnings: swearing, mentions of death (no worries no one’s dead), hurt and comfort i think
a/n: and chap 5 is here! i'm finally done with midterms, which means that i am gonna start updating regularly!!! i came up with the title while i was listening to sunshine & city lights by greyson chance on repeat (give it a listen pls), and i think this song fits scaramouche's and y/n's relationship perfectly. this chapter goes in more depth to scaramouche’s mental health, so happy reading!
grammatical errors may occur so please let me know if i've made any mistakes!
for the next following days, you never discussed about scaramouche’s recent behaviour. you never even bothered to ask him on his whereabouts after that.
things became slightly awkward between the two of you because of it. you and scaramouche barely talked, only on the occasions where either of you ask about leads on viktor’s case. scaramouche seems to be unbothered by all of this.
but you? you weren’t having any of it.
you barged in scaramouche’s room. “i’ve had enough of this. we need to talk.”
scaramouche was sitting cross-legged on his bed, laptop on his lap and files scattered on the bed. looks like he's working on the case.
scaramouche looked up to your form at his door. “you could’ve knocked, dumbass. ever heard of privacy?” he jabbed.
“i honestly don’t give a single fuck about that. we need to talk, now. whether you like it or not is not up to your choice. we’re gonna do this now or everything is going to get worse.” you seethed, closing the door and marching up to the end of scaramouche’s bed frame, crossing your arms.
scaramouche scoffed, taking off his glasses and placing it on his nightstand. “what is it that you want? stop wasting my time and get to it.”
you sighed, taking a seat at the edge of his bed. “you’ve clearly been avoiding me for the past few days now. i want to know why.”
“...avoid you?” scaramouche questioned. “y/n, do you hear yourself? scaramouche let out a half-heartedly chuckle. you raised a brow, confused.
“you’re the one that’s been avoiding me. hell, you never even ate the food i’ve made these days nor do you even bat an eye at me whenever we went pass each other in campus. you should be the one asking that to yourself.” he said, looking at you.
you looked back at him, even more confused.
“huh…?” you were stunned, thinking that if you’re the one that’s been avoiding him.
tuesday
“why didn’t you eat the food i’ve made for you? i thought i texted you about it.” scaramouche asked, looking at the untouched food in the fridge.
“'m not hungry.” you mumbled from the couch.
wednesday
“are you really not gonna eat first before your class?”
“ah, no. i’ve already eaten at the campus cafe, and i'm already late for class.” you said to scaramouche, leaving the dorm.
today, thursday
“what the hell do you think you’re doing?” scaramouche asked, slightly annoyed at how you’ve been avoiding from him these past few days.
you were eating takeout food on the couch while finishing up your work.
he's already cooked something for dinner.
“…takeout? i just haven’t had them in a while and i was craving for one.” you muttered, looking back to your laptop screen and continuing your work.
guess you were the one that was avoiding him all along.
as silence hits the room, scaramouche sighs.
“look, it is true that i've been kind of avoiding you lately, but you were too. i did try my best to fix this by cooking up food for you, but every time i offer them to you, you refuse.” scaramouche said.
“ah... guess i have been kind of a bitch to you these days, huh?” you murmured, fiddling with your hands.
“you have.”
you slouched your form on the bed and darted your eyes to the floor. “i— i'm sorry, i didn't realise i was being an ass these days. it was just... you shut me out last time. i thought you needed some time to yourself so i tried my best to leave you alone. i wasn't aware that it led to me completely avoiding you.”
scaramouche was silent. he probably doesn't know what to say about his behaviour from last time, you thought.
“scara, it's okay if you don't want to tell me what you were doing outside of campus. it isn't any of my business and you don't owe me any explanation. i just hoped you'd at least be a bit... nice about it. you didn't have to snap and slam the door on me.” you said, looking back up at him.
he had his eyes on his lap, not even trying to meet yours.
“i know. it's still hard for me to control my emotions around people, but i have been trying. i know i was being a dick and... i'm sorry.” he mumbled, finally looking at you.
you smiled. “it's fine, i understand that it's not easy for you to sort out your feelings. i've known you for all of the years i've been in the precint, and i never say this but...” you trailed off, standing up and making your way to the door to give him space.
“i'm glad that i'm one of the only few people that you've allowed to be in your life, even if we treat each other like shit." you finished.
you turned the doorknob, about to leave his room before hearing the ravenette mutter something.
“...rapy.” he mumbled lowly, only enough for you to hear.
you turned back to look at his form on the bed. “huh?”
“therapy. that's where i've been going to these days.” scaramouche opened up, his indigo eyes still plastered on his lap.
“therapy...? scara, what do you need therapy for? i don't think you—” you stopped yourself, realising the actual reason why he's been going on one.
“it's still not easy for me to forget what happened, so i thought seeking therapy is gonna at least help me a bit with coping.”
“does it?”
scaramouche lets out a faint laugh. “surprisingly, it does. i wouldn't be able to even be on this case if it weren't for the appointments i've been going to. it helps me a lot.”
you made your way to his bed again and changed your position on the bed from last time, sitting beside scaramouche instead. you brought your knees to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, making sure you were comfortable enough on his bed to continue the conversation.
“you know, we've never really talked about the incident.” you said.
“yeah.”
“do you want to talk about it?” you asked, resting your head on your arms and looking at scaramouche.
“i'm not sure. it's still hard for me to talk about it so i don't know if this is gonna overwhelm me.” scaramouche said, avoiding your eyes.
“it's completely fine, i'll just ask you one question though. it's okay if you don't want to answer.”
“fine. shoot.”
“are you doing okay?” you asked softly.
scaramouche quickly turned his head over to you with widened eyes, slightly shocked with your sudden question. he took a few moments to find the words, moving his gaze to his bed sheet and scattered files instead of your face.
“honestly, i'm trying my best, but i'm not doing okay.” scaramouche finally looked up and turned his head to your direction, his voice slightly strained.
you frowned, darting your eyes to his empty hands that are visibly shaking, he’s definitely not, you thought, contemplating on your next move.
“you know... i still don't see the reason why the incident impacted you so much. i was the one who was hurt, dummy.” you said, changing your sitting position into a cross-legged.
ah, fuck it.
you took one of his hands from his lap, bringing it over to you. scaramouche was frozen for a few seconds, but didn't bother to pry his hand off yours.
you played with it to ease off his nerves, tracing your fingers over his palm.
his hand is surprisingly soft, with a few tinges of caloused fingers and scarred knuckles, probably from the police work he does on the daily.
“you got shot on the shoulder, you broke your leg, oh and most importantly—you almost died, y/n, just for some undercover case. how are you still asking me such a stupid question?” scaramouche scoffed.
he doesn't know why you're so unaffected by everything that's happened a year and a half ago.
you flashed a smile at him. “for someone who shits on me on a daily basis, you sure do act like a mom, caring and all. i assure you, i am fine. i've been going to physical therapy for almost a year, scara. i’m basically good and healthy now. you don't need worry about me.” you said, rubbing his knuckles with your thumb.
“it's my job to ensure that snezhnaya is safe. i knew what i was getting into the moment i stepped foot in the police academy. i knew that my life would be on the line the moment i got my gun and badge, and i know every single thing i'm doing here has it's consequences, whether it's done right or not.” you tugged his hand, making him look at you.
his eyes were glossy, he looked like he was on the verge of tears.
“i'm fine, really. i've been on this job for half a decade now. i'm basically used to these kind of stuff while working, you know. it's only a matter of time until i get more scars from my job. it's a normal thing for the both of us, and you know that yourself. so you shouldn't worry about me, okay?” you reassured him, just like you once did back at the grocery store a while ago.
scaramouche was at lost for words. he looked down to his lap, unknowingly shedding a tear or two, letting his tears fall before him.
he tried to hide them from you, but you were faster than lightning.
upon seeing him crying, your hand quickly left his. you brought his head back up to you and wiped his tears away with your sleeve. his indigo eyes were staring at you, and you tried to stifle your laugh. he looks exactly like a baby.
you giggled, one hand still on his cheek. “don't be such a crybaby dude, i'm genuinely fine. there's nothing to worry about me, seriously. stop carrying this burden all by yourself, we're both involved in the same incident, at least let me carry it with you.”
now, it was scaramouche's turn to laugh at your words. “you're such a sap, it's crazy.” he rasped, giving you a small smile.
he never gives you one.
sure, he's given you the smirks and snickers whenever he teases and makes fun of you but other than that he's never really genuinely smiled at you, until now.
he has a sweet smile, you thought.
“you should smile more often. it's a good look on you.” you mumbled, caressing his cheekbone with your thumb.
“really?”
“yeah, really.”
at this point scaramouche was grinning up at you.
only for you.
because of last night, you both were late to your criminology class, resulting in the two of you walking into the class hall with your heads down to hide the embarrassment.
you didn't do much in class except for listening to a lecture about criminal law theory, in which you've already learned years ago.
it was one of the easiest topics for you back when you were an undergrad, so it won't really give you a hard time now, you hoped.
the campus cafe was filled to the brim with students getting their meals and drinks. you and scaramouche decided to get a couple of snacks and head down to the campus park instead to avoid the big crowd.
“viktor's party is tomorrow, right?” scaramouche asked, taking a seat on a small picnic table under a tree.
you took a bite of your bagel. “yup, 'shtarts at 'leven.” you muffly said, food still full in your mouth.
a disgusted look is framed on scaramouche's face. “ew, gross. finish the food in your mouth before talking, idiot.”
you glared at him, but obliged anyway. after taking a moment to finish up the food in your mouth, you continued.
“starts at eleven, but it'll probably start getting full by 10:50, so we might need to come early. we need to take note of the surroundings before it gets packed with students partying their asses off.”
scaramouche hummed, drinking his tea. “sure, just give me the location later. i'll drive.”
“let's just hope you don't crash into something and leave me to die.” you bashfully said, looking at the campus park filled with students taking a rest.
scaramouche brought a finger to his chin, acting out like he's thinking about it. “that's not exactly a bad idea, i'll keep that in mind.” he smirked, looking over to your slouching form.
“of course you would. ugh, you really are the worst.”
“and i couldn't be more proud of myself.”
friday went by quickly, and before you know it, you're in scaramouche's car, heading to viktor's frat party.
scaramouche turned to a corner, one arm to the steering wheel, the other resting by the closed window with his head in hand.
“is it still far away from here?” he asked, glancing at you from his car seat.
you checked the map on your phone. “nope, we'll be there in about 5 minutes. it's not that far from campus.”
the car was silent after that. none of you bothered to cut off the silence, instead enjoying the calm music from the radio of scaramouche's car.
after what happened last night, you and scaramouche barely had any childish banters and stupid arguments today.
well, there were some bashful words thrown around here and there, but never to the point that ends up with the both of you being frustrated and pissed with each other.
after awhile, scaramouche pulled up to a big house.
“we're here.” he said. you moved your attention away from your phone and to the house on your right instead.
the house is painted light gray, with a touch of dark gray and white on some parts of the exterior. the porch lights were on as it was getting into midnight, and several indoor lights were on too, probably for the party that's about to start in a few.
10:45 pm, the time says on your phone. there were some people that have arrived, but still pretty empty for it to be called a party.
you thought there'd be a lot of people by the time it was 10:45 pm, but it looks like you were proven wrong.
well, nothing wrong with being early, you guessed.
scaramouche took off his seatbelt and leaned back to his seat, letting out a sigh. he takes a moment before speaking up, “i've never been to a frat party.” he admitted.
“me neither.” you added, staring off at the frat house that's starting to fill with students.
scaramouche chuckled. “huh, i guess we were boring students back in the day. my nose was only buried in studies when people were out partying left and right.”
“me too. i was too busy with wanting to graduate fast than enjoying my campus life back then. i missed out on a lot of fun stuff.”
scaramouche looked at you. you were donning a white turtleneck and a plaid skirt, pairing with black tights. you probably don't look like you're going to a party, but the autumn weather hits you like a brick, so you wouldn't want to die from the chilly weather.
scaramouche was wearing a simple outfit, a windbreaker with a plain white t-shirt and a pair of pants.
“you okay?” he asked you out of the blue. you moved your gaze to him, raising a brow at his question.
“yeah, why? are you not?”
“i’m just... a bit nervous, i guess. i don't really know what will happen in there.” he paused. “but also please refrain yourself from getting insanely drunk. i really don't want to drag your intoxicated ass back to the dorms.”
you frowned. “hey, i told you that was a one time thing! i know i'm a lightweight and all, but i'm pretty capable of holding my liquor, especially when i'm supposedly undercover, thank you very much.” you fought.
scaramouche turned off the engine of his car. “sure you can.”
he suddenly leaned over to you to get some stuff in the glove compartment, his face just inches away from yours.
the smell of his cologne made your breath hitch. he smells so good, what kind of overly expensive cologne does he even use for it to smell this good and strong?
it only takes a few seconds before he moved back to his seat, opening up his door to get to the party.
“you ready?” scaramouche turned over to you.
“yeah.” you confirmed.
“then let's get this stupid party over with.”
when i end this series with angst then what
taglist; @beriiov @cloudsandrenoswife @thenightsflower @bleedingwhiteroses222 @yuuki4646 @hopesandlegacy @lisiastak021
dm, comment or send an ask to be added to the taglist!
#scaramouche x reader#scaramouche#genshin scaramouche#genshin#genshin impact imagines#genshin impact#slow burn#genshin impact scaramouche#scaramouche fanfic#genshin impact x reader#genshin impact reader insert#genshin x reader#h✧˖—mission accomplished#scaramouche fluff
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hey guys whats up I've been working on taxidermy in one of my classes and I thought I'd document the process here!
a fair warning I will be showing images of a dead animal and the pelt of said animal it isn't too gory (at least by my standards) but please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these topics
my specimen is a female fox squirrel I don't know how she passed away but her pelt will be used in my college's zoological museum as a mount to teach other students about their physiology.
(photos under read more- final warning)
left: me holding the fox squirrel's upper half in my hands for comparison
right: same photo but zoomed out you can see the skinned carcus in the bottom right corner
you'll also notice there are bloody tissues and a bag of snarge behind me (snarge is basically the guts/remains of an animal that's the actual term for it I didn't make it up I promise)
(side note: her head on top is not supposed to be that flat her skull was unfortunately crushed and shattered into quite a few pieces)
so when skinning an animal first you make a ventral cut from the midpoint of the stomach to the genitalia
I am really bad at this part.
I accidentally cut into the muscle lining holding together all the guts and innards this isn't a huge deal as you can just sorta pull them out and set them aside since I didn't need the carcus for future specimen mounting. So that's what I did I took the snarge out and set it aside so I didn't have large intestine sticking to my fingers
the problem that occurs when you do this though is you open up bleeders the body cavity will start to fill with blood as the specimen thaws (they are kept in a freezer until skinning NOT formadahyde or other embalming chemicals) and there's really nothing you can do about it so that's why there are bloody tissues I basically re-stuffed the squirrel with paper towels so I didn't get blood all over the pelt
ok so on to skinning I have done this one other time with my lovely little mouse corn dog (I'll explain)
after you make a cut and DONT fuck up the guts like I did you can start skinning which is honestly way easier on a squirrel than it is on a mouse (who would have thought)
you start with the hind legs and you pull the meat out all the way to the ankle joint and then we cut right at that joint to keep the foot bones intact connected to the skin some people will take these bones out but we don't just to make it easier on us once you have both legs out you pull all the bones out from the tail (you basically deglove it it's kinda cool to look at after) and then you pull the rest of the skin off like a jacket until you get to the arms (follow the same steps as the hind legs) and the head
the head in complicated once you get to this part you have a lot of things to keep in mind- the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and you must keep as much skin as possible in the eyelids and lips while keeping the ears completly attached
it's very difficult... also TW for gore in the next photo
so corn dog
(jumpscare lol)
Corn dog is a little different thus mouse was prepared the same way as I just described however we mounted her to become a study skin
once she was skinned we made basically a tube of cotton to stuff up in there and sewed her up she looked like a corn dog- hence the name
this post is getting a bit long so I'll break it into two and traumatize you some more later
#zoology#biology#animals#mammalogy#animal facts#bones#zoology major#museum studies#study skins#taxidermy
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Hi! Hope you're doing alright! I read the tumblr posts from you and a couple other users regarding lutawolf and im so confused as to what is even going on, you can answer if you want to issokay <3, have a nice day <333
Hello! I'm going to give you the condensed version because I've been talking about this all day. Not necessarily explaining things, just dealing with the drama is draining lol.
I woke up this morning to an anon telling me that the tumblr user Lutawolf was comparing Build Jakapan to Emmett Till. Which was not what I needed to see first thing in the AM. What happened was that Luta was trying to say people cancel people too fast without proper facts and people get sent on witch hunts to crucify people or some BS like that in regards to what was happening to Build. The problem is that she did use Emmett Till's case as a comparison to what was happening with Build.
What bothered me is that the circumstances surrounding Build share NO similarities to what happened to Emmett Till. Build is in this predicament because of shit that he's done and was involved in and he's being accused by someone he knows and was together with for being violent towards her.
Emmett Till was an innocent black child who was the victim of a racist attack by white people. The only thing that child was doing was existing in a racist town as a young black male. He was killed by a group of racists who was being lead by another racist. He didn't get a say or a fair trial. No evidence would've been collected and he would've NEVER had a say in the matter because white people kill massacre black people on a consistent basis, solely for being black.
Build has a chance to defend himself and prove his innocence and has the luxury of being protected by lawyers and a company. He still has plenty of people rallying for him and also people are allowed to cancel whoever they want. He lost a few endorsements and deactivated his sns. Even if he loses his career he's still be able live on and do something else. He's going to be able to face his wrongdoings fairly where Emmett Till was brutalized and violently murdered and tossed at the bottom on a river for being black. Emmett Till didn't get a chance to plead his case (there was no case) or defend himself in front of a court or peers.
Non-black people love to bring up black tragedies and trauma and pick it apart to fit whatever narrative they're pushing while ignoring why such atrocities occurs. To compare what happened to Emmett Till to whatever the fuck Build has going on is disgusting and racially insensitive and overall tone deaf. Which is what my posts were addressing. And when people started to call Luta out about it she doubled down and began to disrespect people and also began spewing some nonsense about the Holocaust to try to further prove whatever point she was trying to make.
There are PLENTY of cases she could've used that were actually similar to whatever points she was trying to make that were centered around what Build is being accused of. Not bringing up a case where a child was murdered for existing.
It's really fucked up.
So now Luta's lil trolls are comforting her and saying she's done nothing wrong and just showing how once again Black voices are being ignored in favor of someone else. I could walk out of my house today and be shot dead for being a darkskinned black woman and people don't understand that the anti-blackness worldwide affects me like it does all the other black people out there being targeted solely because we're existing in our blackness. She gets allowed to be coddled and comforted for spewing this nonsense because it doesn't affect her. I just want non-black people to stay out of black folks business, make your lil point without including us.
You can feel free to contact Luta to get her side of the story but from where I'm sitting, that person is disgusting for using the black child to make a point and then doubling down when black people called her out on being insensitive about it.
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AYY MOOTERS ON MOOTERS THEY KNOW HOW TO MOOT! TUTTER PULLING TO THE PARTY IN MY CRAZY PINK WIG!!!! BEST WRITER? BEST WRITER? BEEN A FAN SINCE PART ONE!
I was getting beaten to lunacy, depression, delusion, confusion even. I got the 1st grade knowledge beat out of me with this one, i couldnt count for a sec. My vision got all blurry, thought this was chapter 17 for a minute there👹
Bitch, out the gate you be coming in HARD. You know how to set the mood, I get scared for their asses! It feels like being on drugs or something (though i aint never been on drugs, but this is how i imagine it feels like👀) I visualize like I ain't ever visualized before, put on some music reading this at night, DAYUM🛐‼️
I reread this tasty ass story atleast once every week. It's tradition at this point.
1."The physical contact was grounding—you were grounding. A lifeline anchoring Felix to the reality he so desperately needed to return to." This fucked me up😪 So beautifully written!
2. "How he'd transformed from someone potentially willing to end your life, to someone committed to protecting it at all costs." Had to pause, take a breather, and look out my window to reflect on who I am as a person, then keep reading. Absolutely Precious.
3. "Some day," he dropped his voice, "When all of this is over, I'm going to carry you back into that palace." His lips found the curve of your jaw, trailing a heated path down. "I'm going to take my time with you, princess," he nipped at the sensitive skin on your neck, causing your core to flutter with anticipation. "And then," he whispered, "I'm going to lay the world at your feet." I was hyperventilating baby I couldn't breath for shit reading this 👀
4. "Minho sighed in annoyance, as if holding a conversation with you was some sort of burden. “I didn’t want to discuss it with the others,” he snapped." TIRED, TIRED OF THE WAY HE TREATS ME. (Jk lol I get his stress but chill out, damn.)
5. "You were always mine," Felix breathed, "before we met, before all of this, you were never their princess," he leaned in, pressing his lips to your forehead. "You were always mine.” I had to stop reading and get some water, my throat dried out.
6.“You can’t,” Felix emphasized. A distant look clouded his eyes, a flash of whatever it was that had crossed his features after the nightmare seemed to resurface. “You grew up with servants to meet your needs while the rest of us bled for every scrap of food and warmth. You can’t understand, y/n. And even if you could, it won't change who I am or what I've done. The blood on my hands will never wash away.” This is where the problem occurs. Cuz what are you implying? You ate this part so much you gotta be locked away like that one song. 🗣 IM LOCKED UP THEY WONT OUT, THEY WONT LET ME OUT IM LOCKED UP🗣
7. "Go collect your friend," the man waved a hand at the door, "I will shelter you for the night. You're young, exhausted, and it looks like you've been through quite a lot." I LOVE HIM ALREADY DAMMIT
8. You knew this would not last forever with him. Nothing ever does. And you wondered if you will ever be able to accept that, even when you no longer have a choice. But in that moment, Felix was there. You extended a hand, and he was warm. He was real, and he felt more like home than anything ever had. You loved him too, and it was a feeling you did not dare let go." MY HEART! RIPPED OUT MY CHEST! I CANT BREATH! IM SOBBING!IM DEVASTATED.
IM FEELING LIKE IM ON THE LAST BITE OF MAC AND CHEESE ON THANKSGIVING, IM GUTTED, I DONT WANT IT TO BE OVER!!
But as always, let me calm down and get a lil sensitive. I love you my pookie bear❤️✨️
Your adding some good into my world with this story that i really need. Its like the same day everyday for me, then out of the blue, you pop up and you give me something to look forward to.
Like most people, there's lots of things I need to be distracted from, and you do just that for awhile❤️ I appreciate this lil story more then you could know, and I always get SO happy seeing you posted a new chapter. I can tell how much passion and effort you put into this story, and I applaud you for that🫶❤️ Take your time, take care of yourself, and feel no pressure on when you need to put a new chapter out, YOU should always come first❤️ -👹
hihi my spicy little👹💕once again, i truly have no words for how thoughtful and sweet all of this is. im so grateful to have you with me on this journey (since part one, day ONE) and im so glad its been able to keep your interest after all these months.<3
"got the 1st grade knowledge beat out of me" literally had me CACKLING please!!😭✋ your excitement and the photos you send (which are hilarious too btw) always have me grinning from ear to ear. i swear my favorite part of reading feedback from you is that i will NEVER be able to predict whats coming next.😂 seriously though, im so glad youve been able to immerse yourself in the story like this (if we're being honest i definitely lose touch with reality a little bit when i get lost in writing it lol) but im so touched that it could evoke such a response in you too. (ps "i reread this tasty ass story atleast once every week. It's tradition at this point" might just be one of my favorite compliments ive EVER received about my writing. this is literally one of the nicest things you can tell someone who writes imo🥹).
MY HEART! RIPPED OUT MY CHEST! I CANT BREATH! IM SOBBING!IM DEVASTATED
(okay but why is this literally me reading any of your asks) this was also one of the most fun parts of the chapter to write omg. i love writing the end of a chapter so much that sometimes its the first thing i do.🤭
the detailed journey through each little part of the story that you go through in your asks always leaves me on cloud nine.!!! i love this so so much, i swear it does not get any better than when someone quotes the story back to me.<33 so thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to share your thoughts on these specific moments. i loved reading every. single. one.💕
Had to pause, take a breather, and look out my window to reflect on who I am as a person
I was hyperventilating baby I couldn't breath for shit reading this 👀
I had to stop reading and get some water, my throat dried out.
(also btw if it makes you feel any better i had a similar reaction to ALL of these after i typed them out. felix really does things to me, i probably need an intervention or some shit but here we are.🥹)
knowing that this story adds a touch of goodness to your world means more to me than i can ever express. :( im sorry to hear that you’ve got some challenges to face, but like you said i know we all do from time to time, so im just forever grateful that my writing can provide a little distraction for you in the midst of the everyday chaos.<3 (ps. if things ever get too rough, you know where to find me!!❤️)
okay okay i’m cutting myself off here, but i really do appreciate the little reminders to take my time and prioritize self-care too.<3 the way you express yourself is so unique, please never change. i love that you’re as insane and unhinged about this story as i am.🥹 as always thank you so much for the continued support, it is more appreciated than you could ever know.🤗💕
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Y'all, this fic is gonna be... heavy
I've been gaslit? About multiple, terrible things? And I know just how it sends the brain and heart spinning.
So naturally, I have to do it to these characters.
This is the most self-indulgent thing I have ever written, and it feels like purging ghosts.
Having said all that, have a horrible snippet of gaslighting - the King in Yellow using an old, awful trick: having deeply hurt Jon, is working to make it seem like Jon's fault, and pretending to be kind.
Yeah, I've been through that.
It made me angry to write it, so now you all have to suffer, as well.
(Or don’t read it! For real, feel free to skip.)
TW: victim-blaming, psychological fuckery
------------
Like yesterday, the King leaves him alone while he gets his bearings - though Jon knows he’s being watched.
Unlike yesterday, he has something better than a 1960s fantasy belly-dancer outfit to wear. It’s the same yellow, but it is like nothing so much as some Greek philosopher’s toga.
It will drape over his shoulders, showing his neck, the top of his chest, his arms; but it falls below that almost to his feet, granting coverage, and moves with every step in a genuinely beautiful, flowing way.
It’s a magnificent thing. Light, almost delicate, but opaque.
Though he still thinks the yellow is awful, Jon has to admit that with his hair and beard, this really makes him look like… something.
Prophet is what comes to mind.
Jon sighs. “Brilliantly done,” he mutters. “Giving me garbage first to make me grateful for anything.”
Well. It worked. He’s absurdly happy to be covered up, however bizarrely.
Jon sighs again. Apparently, understanding the techniques being worked on him doesn’t grant immunity to them.
He wipes his eyes again. Inevitability feels… very bad.
He checks the drawers again, just to see, and finds one other thing left for him:
A pair of socks.
“Oh, very funny,” he mutters, disgruntled because it is sort of funny.
And he’s out, wearing philosopher robes and fuzzy socks, back into the curving hallway, back onto that impossible, misty path, and walking back toward the throne room.
Hastur is waiting for him.
The King stands before that open wall, looking out over the choppy gray sea - today topped with white froth, iron-dark under the dual suns.
The sound is beautiful. That hushed whisper, forward and back, the perfect, rhythmic susurrus of tide on rocky shore.
Jon decides he will not speak first today. So he waits, arms crossed.
“It occurs to me, Jon, that I was unintentionally cruel to you yesterday,” says the King.
That earns a scoff more magnificent than any Jon has done in a while.
Hastur acknowledges it with a wave of several tentacles. “I told you a generally unknown truth about myself - but I did not elaborate, and left you to wonder. I know you, Jon. An unanswered question is torture. And, as I promised, I will not torture you any more.”
“Stop saying that,” says Jon.
Hastur turns to face him as if mildly surprised, possibly concerned, and it is ridiculous that a being cloaked and wearing a mask should be so expressive. “Jon… I only hurt you because I thought you wanted me to hurt you.”
“Wh-what?” Jon takes a step back.
“You expected it to such a level that you were anticipating it,” says the King, absolutely serious. “You demanded it of me. Rejected all other options before they had been discussed. I tried to give you what you wanted, but it seems I misunderstood.”
Gaslighting, Jon thinks, panicked, because maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, and maybe he does want a return to the pain - not because he likes pain but because it’s easier to reject, easier to stand up to, easier to throw away wholesale.
Had he done that? Had he communicated that? Was it somehow on him that -
No, he stops himself, and swallows hard, trying not to feel like this could be true.
Hastur has mercy by changing the subject. “Would you like to know why I know about love, Jon?”
Fuck.
Of course Jon does.
Of course he yearns for it, literally salivates.
Of course he has to keep from demanding it, using his regrown powers to force it out of this god.
Jon takes a moment to be very afraid of himself.
“Come.” And as so many times before, Hastur offers his huge, dark hand.
It’s slow-acting poison.
Jon suddenly becomes very afraid of something new: what if Hastur really isn’t going back to the torture?
What if it’s this, instead, being reasonable and kind, feeding the Eye, giving him exactly what he needs, and even what he asks for?
Jon has resisted fear, terror, torment. He has fought off cruelty and terrible things.
He doesn’t know what to do with kindness, however falsely meant.
He swallows hard. I’m fucked, he thinks, because five minutes of conversation have already sent him into a tailspin.
“Take my hand, Jon,” says Hastur, gently. “It will be an easier journey if you do.”
“Journey to where?”
“My lost city.”
You’ve got to be kidding, because… really? A lost city? How could that possibly appeal to him more? “What if I say no?” Jon demands.
“Then your question goes unanswered.”
He has to know. It’s the one thing that makes sense inside, like iron filings all lining up under a magnet. “You swear you’ll answer that question. What you know about love. Why.”
“I swear.”
He has to know. “If you lie to me in this, Hastur…”
“I am well aware you already have no reason to trust me,” says the god. “Consider this the beginning of my attempts to rectify that.”
Damn this creature.
The King waits, hand out.
Jon no longer knows if it would be taking more poison in or not. His radar is broken. Unreliable.
The only thing he knows is he won’t call the Entities - and that he needs to know this.
Gingerly, he reaches, and closes his hand around one of the King’s ridiculously large fingers.
#tma#malevolent#tma fic#tma crossover#malevolent crossover#malevolent podcast#tw: victim blaming#victim blaming#tw: gaslighting#tw: psychological torture#jonathan sims#the king in yellow
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Hey!! Now I’m straight up terrified every time I read the word fibreglass - do you have a post explaining how all of this happened and how we can avoid it?
Typed out the answer, and if you'd also like to see the posts as they occurred in real time, I've gathered them all up:
Major Fiberglass Nightmare Posts Sections
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty <- we are here
Answering the question now and it’s long so imma put the wall in
Honestly I can't say I don't relate because I'm kinda traumatized by the fiberglass now and therefore experience a certain amount of visceral chills every time I hear someone say the word. Ironically, it started really innocuously with this post here which was just a brief, casual, entirely unsuspecting update that I threw out for anyone interested, and from there it just began to spiral. That's why there's no real easy way to jump from part one to two and three, because for a little while there was no realization that anything was wrong. Essentially ya'll got to watch me breathe it in, get sick, and then discover in real time that my entire room had been coated in fiberglass dust. It's almost surreal looking back at those early posts now, tbh.
How This Happened: The house I moved into is almost 100 years old so my attic bedroom had no insulation (unlike the rest of the house), since a lot of that space up there was DIY'd, but there was no reason to think this phase of reno would be any different than the other phases. Hell, I hired the (well rated) insulation company for spray-in insulation, and had no plans for fiberglass, which is why I left a lot of my stuff up there uncovered. I was told that was fine, and this would be easy - they'd come in for one day, punch a few small holes in the walls to spray the insulation in, then patch the holes up. I didn't need to cover or move anything, and I'd be able to sleep up there that night. And in fairness, they did that right. Those areas are fine. But there was a section of the walls that had weird joists and that section couldn't use the spray-in. That's where they decided to use fiberglass, and that's where they fucked up. And they fucked up in so many ways, all of which essentially piled up on top of each other to make this into a real nightmare.
These are the things the shitty company did that I'd warn people about if they're looking to avoid a similar situation:
They left the floor vents uncovered/unsealed, which blew the fiberglass dust around my room. They also left my portable AC unit blowing, AND my fan, which worked with the vents to essentially blast the dust up into the air and blow it all over and across every surface.
They were, I believe now, in a rush to get things done in one day. Before I could even ask if I needed to take things out of my room (or at least cover them), they'd already taken the fiberglass up. Taking things out like my bed or my furniture, my plushes, my clothes on their hanging racks, would have taken up time. So instead, they left it all uncovered and exposed to the dust. This is a huge one - so much of this could have been prevented if they'd taken my things out (or even let me take them out!) so that all that would have needed to be cleaned was the floor and walls. I also wouldn't have lost any of my belongings.
They lied about ease of cleanup. Despite the fact that they put on tyvek suits and respirators and gloves to install the fiberglass, they told me that there'd be 'just a little dust' for me to cleanup as it settled over the next few days, and that all I had to do was sweep and dust. As I found out later, this isn't just bad advice - this is actively dangerous advice. Anyone cleaning up fiberglass should not, under any circumstances, try to dry sweep and dust - this just throws the dust up into the air. The INSTALLERS are meant to clean everything up with heavy-duty vacuums with HEPA filters, as well as clean up using a wet-mop. Whatever you're using to clean has to be either wet or a powerful, HEPA vacuum, because anything else will throw it in the air.
Oh hey, so you're also advised to wear a respirator (please remember they also told me I could sleep up there THAT NIGHT - which essentially left me to breathe in fiberglass unprotected), gloves, and goggles to deal with the fiberglass. None of which I was told. I was just told, repeatedly, even after calling the company to tell them about all the fiberglass dust, 'it's just a little dust, you just need to sweep and dust a little. It's safe.' Rot in hell you lying fuckers
According to my friends who have experience in contracting - you are not meant to be the one to clean fiberglass up. It never, ever should have been left to me. Fiberglass is a hazardous substance, it is fucking vicious, and it requires knowledge and training to clean up safely, which the company should have done for me. You can try to clean it up on your own, and some people have to because they either don't have a company nearby that can do hazardous cleanup or because they can't afford it, but it's a nightmare that takes ages (*gestures at how long it took me even with help*). I'm not sure I'd ever have been able to get that room cleaned up on my own.
In short, if you're looking to avoid this happening: at this point if you're ever looking to have insulation put in, do whatever you can to avoid fiberglass. There are easier, safer alternatives. If you do wind up needing to have fiberglass insulation put in:
Make sure the company or person you use has experience with fiberglass. The ones who knew what they were doing have been baffled at just how badly the insulation installers fucked up my room. Do not be afraid to ask them questions - ask them what their safety precautions are, ask them how they'll keep it contained, ask them about cleanup. Hell, tell them you have sensitive lungs if you think it'll help them take it seriously.
Get your shit out of the room, first off. EVERYTHING. Just in case there's a fuckup. Do not assume they'll do everything right. This will also ensure it's as easy as possible to mop and wipe down the walls from end to end.
Make sure the air vents are closed (and a good insulation company will make sure those vents are closed). You want the dust to be able to settle. Don't allow a fan or ac unit to run up there, either, obviously.
Invest in a decent flashlight (you'll need to hunt for the dust and strands of fiberglass) and a good HEPA air filter to pull that shit out of the air if it's there.
I don't care if they say they vacuumed and cleaned. Examine it, hunt for fiberglass, and then run through cleanup even if you find nothing. Mop from end to end, wipe down the walls and all surfaces with something wet (in all my research, vinegar helps break down fiberglass, so invest in some for cleaning and mopping). Do this for days. Wear a mask, good gloves, long sleeves and long pants to protect your skin if you even THINK there's some dust left. Shower the second you leave that space - and shower cold to start. You need to close your pores to stop the fiberglass strands going any deeper, and only after a few minutes should you let the water warm up some to wash away any remaining strands.
Document document document. I'm not just talking pictures. I'm talking video, too, of any issues you find. Record any phone calls if it's legal in your area, and if it isn't then write down EXACTLY how the conversation went with dates and names and times. Get shit in writing, save emails so you have a paper trail ("I'm just emailing to confirm the details of the conversation we had about -insert issue-"). Cover your bases because if you wind up with a company like mine, they'll happily fuck you over and you'll be left holding the bag like I was.
In short... fuck fiberglass. And I hope the above helps if you ever need anything done with fiberglass. It is absolutely not something to fuck around with, and I am still having to throw things away RIP nightstand i finally gave up on and threw out yesterday. Sadly a lot of it could have been prevented if they'd had even a modicum of care, and yet here we are. Hopefully I can use it to help other people avoid the same nightmare happen, though.
Major Fiberglass Nightmare Posts, Part:
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty <- we are here
#ask response#the ongoing fiberglass nightmare#i'm reaching the end but it's been such a goddamn disaster#hopefully all of this *waves* helps#i'm so fucking sick of fiberglass and I'll never let that shit into my house again for what it's worth#RIP nightstand i had to throw out the other day because i just could not get the dust out of the crevice#like is fiberglass USEFUL yes#it does its job as intended#but it is such a nasty insidious vicious substance#it may not cause cancer or shit but it's painful and miserable and it gets everywhere and it's a nightmare to clean#imo better to avoid if at all possible and if NOT possible to avoid then take every gd precaution you can
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Kit if you don't mind, can I pick your brain about hold me fast or kill me quick because that fic has been haunting me for WEEKS now, WHAT A CONCEPT!! I read that 1st chapter and had literal chest pains from my heart breaking for Obi-Wan wtf. In the original snippet's tags you mentioned that Qui-Gon is aware that Anakin is Obi-Wan's soulmate and his intention is to reunite them and he's oblivious to the fact that this WAS OBVIOUSLY GOING TO BLOW UP IN HIS FACE WTF QUI-GON /1
But in the fic on AO3 he doesn't seem to know or at least pretends not to in the council meeting? So like I guess my question is, does he know? What's the relationship between Obi-Wan and him like in this universe? Is it so strained that Obi-Wan might think Qui-Gon might have done this deliberately, or does he just assume, similar to KUWTSK, that it genuinely didn't occur to him that Obi-Wan might be upset? /2
Did Anakin know Qui-Gon was Obi-Wan's master? Did he say yes to him not only bc Qui-Gon was the only one crazy enough to help him but also to maximise on Obi-Wan's pain, because he KNEW that would hurt Obi-Wan the most? Did he think, hey, if I go witht his dude I'll see Obi-Wan again and we can maybe patch things up after I've pouted enough and made him hurt the way he hurt me? WHAT was his thought process I'm so fascinated 3/3
ah alright alright let me get into the hold me fast kill me quick mindset.
qui-gon absolutely knows that anakin and obi-wan are soulmates! i imagine that's something anakin tells him pretty fast, or he shows him his soulmark or something. no matter what, qui-gon knows. he pretends he doesn't during the interview with the council because anakin (and his mom) really needs this jedi marriage to work out so they can be on jedi insurance, but also because in my mind, obi-wan would face repercussions for lying to the council about his soulmate status and also leaving his soulmate, and qui-gon doesn't want that for obi-wan
he also probably thinks anakin and obi-wan will talk it out pretty fast and he and anakin can get a divorce and anakin can marry his soulmate and obi-wan can do the same and they'll be happy <3
also he may like to fuck with obi-wan a lil bit and anakin was very convincing with his sob story so this is a roundabout long scolding for a) hurting his soulmate b) not listening to the force that was probably screaming for them to stay together, and c) thinking he wasn't deserving of his soulmate and thereby once again hurting him
as for anakin, i think he was desperate enough for the money for his mom that he would have done. a lot. qui-gon listens while they're still strangers, and then when the plan is suggested (i can't remember who i said suggested it, i imagine qui-gon), anakin says that he has a soulmate and has never thought about marrying another. and qui-gon smiles fondly because it reminds him of himself, and he's like 'oh, that's so very nice.' and anakin is like 'yeah well obi-wan is worth it' and qui-gon spit takes
then afterwards, once qui-gon tells him that obi-wan was his apprentice and anakin has finished peppering him with questions about how obi-wan is doing and if he's happy and if he's hurt and if he misses him, anakin gets a bit....petty.
and that's his mood when the fic picks up!
#asks#ah all of that would be in the next chapter or the fifth chapter#but who knows when she'll come#so these are valid valid valid questions#can't wait to expand upon them in fic!!#hmfokmq
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Blindspot Mid-season 3 Thoughts
There’s been a lot said about mid-season 3, but as a latecomer, this is my first real chance to dig in, so instead of doing it in dribs and drabs for individual episodes I figured I'd just do one beast of a post covering the whole thing.
I sometimes find it hard not to feel in the minority about this season because… I have no beef. I’m not mad at any characters, I'm not mad at the writers, I'm not particularly disappointed about anything. If I think about all 100 episodes of the series as a whole there are honestly only 2 things I think I would really wanna change and neither of them are here. I like season 3 - all of it, really. To be honest, when I was a new fan quietly lurking in fanfic land, I was surprised to discover that there had been much controversy. It had honestly never occurred to me to do anything but shake my head at the characters or to feel anything other than sad for them at this point. And it feels like a really weird point in the series to be a fence-sitter. I mean, do I love what these characters are doing? No, but I think that’s kind of the point. And sure, I can gripe with the best of them, roll my eyes, scoff and give a dark laugh at how stupid they're being. But I don’t have any big feelings or frustrations about any of it.
Part of that, I'm sure, is that the only character whose dumb choices I feel I can say with any confidence that I wouldn't repeat if I was in the same messed up circumstances, is Reade. The fact that he even asked anyone for an opinion about polygraphing the girl that has demonstrably conspired with gangsters and an international terrorist is Exhibit #1 on the "Reade is Middle Management Material Not A Leader" list. The fact he (and the rest of them) then left Jane holding the bag while Avery got bitchy about facing the absolute bare minimum of vetting is also... a bit rude? (Seriously guys. Someone tell the kid that every other member of Jane's family was stripped to their socks and skivvies, tied down and irradiated, yeah? A blood pressure cuff and a couple little finger sensors is the Kruger/Briggs family equivalent of a trip to the park - WITH a free ice cream cone.) The rest of them? I've been "protected" via selective sharing of info and have unfortunately done that to others; I've been cheated on but also been the person far away for far too long, and I can imagine how someone who didn't have Skype or a support network or return date might fall to temptation; I've been a dumbass kid influenced by the wrong people; and I've been sometimes unjustly angry at people I didn't realize were actually sticking their necks out for me. The circumstances are Fucked Up High Drama, but they're all just kind of idiots muddling through, and I can't really be upset with any of them because I can't say I'd do any better in their shoes.
Aside from that, I’ve said to a few people before that I think a lot of my experience of the show is probably heavily influenced by being a post-series binge watcher. I never had a week much less a whole hiatus to speculate or form theories or expectations as to what might be next, because I just pressed play and saw what was intended to be next. I think that let me make sense of so much of it in a sort of real-time retrospective based on the pieces that were there, rather than looking ahead and wondering what might be planned to address this thing or that thing, so the gaps just never really stood out for me. I believe there’s a tremendous amount that went unsaid this season, but my head just sort of filled in the blanks without really consciously thinking about it, because the next twist was already in front of me so that's all I had time for.
So if you say to me, for example, "Did Jane properly apologize; did Jeller actually work on it?" my brain says "Obviously, otherwise what happened next wouldn't make sense." But the fact it didn't happen on screen bothers me 0% and I think a big reason is that for me those midseason episodes weren't spread over 6 weeks; they took place in a single evening. For me, it was already 3x13 and Nas was walking into Jeller's flat looking at Jane like she's a wet puppy or a toddler with a skinned knee, going "aww, been a long time hasn't it pud?" And I'm thinking, 'STFU, Nas, I mean thanks for doing the team a solid on your way out but now you're coming in here with that tone? Are we just supposed to pretend you weren't previously threatening to strip this woman of her human rights while having her man check your plumbing on the daily in this very apartment?' I mean in the moment, that was more compelling for me than a conversation or a healing process that I just assumed had already happened/started off-screen, you know? I wasn't speculating or imagining how Jeller might make up or come back from this, so I didn't miss that it's not there.
Side note, I have been encouraged to imagine and write down my own version of how that conversation/process might have gone, and I've started, so there will be another fic out there on the topic at some point... probably as a few follow up scenes to that fight I made them have. xD In the meantime, there were a ton of canon divergence/coping fics written at the time and in the years since; I really recommend @indelibleevidence's Taken for Granted, which is on both AO3 and FFN, and explores Weller having a much stronger response to Jane's weak in-canon homecoming. There are a lot of beautiful and often angsty shorter ones by other folks that play with it in different ways and which you can find by looking through the 3x11 and 3x12 tags.
In retrospect, I can see the reasons for everyone's (very valid) complaints, even if I don't feel it. A lot of the blame for the inconsistencies or subject matter in this season has often been laid at the feet of the writers, and for what it's worth, the pre-season article linked here gives some interesting insight into some unique challenges they were dealing with, which mostly seems to have come down to taking the show international. Venice was shot well before they had a table read for 3x01, and judging by the bts stuff out there, some of the other locations were shot wildly out of sequence as well. It can’t have been easy to keep the story together when chunks of episodes were locked in weeks or even months in advance of the stuff around it. I wonder if they even had their guest stars locked in when they committed to some aspects of these plots. Whether whatever story missteps those challenges may have contributed were worth the locations is up to personal opinion, I suppose.
Were there other ways they could have achieved the season's main outcomes? Probably, but I personally don't mind the routes they chose. Even if I did, I think at least I would have to give huge props to them for having ticked a lot of Very Large Boxes on the series’ penchant for parallels with this season. I'll be making a separate post about that, because unlike many other parallels, a lot of them this season are more spread out and thematic, and not necessarily easy to show in gif form because they aren't readily summarized by similar shots or dialogue the way so many of the parallels between seasons 1 and 2 were.
I’m gonna take one last minute to mention something that I don't think gets nearly enough attention in all the mess and feelings around Jeller and Avery and that's PATTERSON. Others have observed the way she’s giving everyone advice this season, but I just really… good lord. In season 1 she was so fragile and unsure. In season 2 everyone was mother henning her. This season she’s not only going home to sleep at night and running an apparently VERY lucrative side-hustle with Wizardville, but she’s straight up committing felonies on FBI time with it, and lying to every single new person she reveals its back door to (“I’ve never used it before, I swear!” Yes the hell you did, it was just like two episodes ago). And she shows zero remorse. She’s out here straight up telling everyone they’re full of shit, and at times telling them how to get their houses in order and how they ought to live their lives (with her hand on their forearm of course, to convey how she's a sweet concerned lil pumpkin who's just looking out for them). It's a beautiful follow up to the ending of season 2, when she was finally like HEY JANE HEY WELLER YOU'RE BOTH CONSIDERING MOVING TO DIFFERENT CITIES HERE'S AN IDEA EITHER PUT OUT OR JUST FUCKING LEAVE I'M TIRED OF YOUR SHIT KTHXBYE. She’s almost like the team’s new Allie, without all the Allie. I love this growth. It's beautiful and hilarious to see. 😂😂
Anyway, thanks and congrats to anyone who read all of this. You get a dozen (gluten and allergen free) cookies, even if you just skimmed it because good lord I’m long-winded for stumbling into a fandom that’s said most of it before. I'm just gonna finish this gifset and go back to my WIPs. 😅👍👍
#[VERY LARGE] ONE AND DONE#blindspot#blindspot s3#blindspot 3x09#blindspot 3x10#blindspot 3x11#blindspot 3x12#blindspot 3x13#blindspot thoughts#blindspot rewatch 2022#blindspot rewatch#blindspot s3 spoilers#long post
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