#key characters have their own hidden motive
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Preludes and Nocturnes - Part 1
Paring: Rafe Cameron x InnocentPogue!reader
Summary: Rafe discovers your hidden talent and now he has seen it, you have his full attention.
Warnings: 18+ Smut. Dark!Rafe. Virgin!Reader, Romance, Angst, Dub-Con, Fingering, squirting. Not Proof-Read so mistakes are my own.
Word Count: 9k words (Yo it took me months to write but I finally did it)
Author Note: Hello lovelies! So this is an original idea I’ve had for a while now... and this is the longest fanfic I’ve ever written for a character. Who did I write this tale about Rafe motherfucking Cameron of course. HA! I may do a part 2 but we’ll see based on the response it gets. Love you all and thanks for reading and listening - there’s music in there too so if you can listen to the tracks as you read it’ll heighten the experience. 🫶 Enjoy!
Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Please don’t steal or copy bits of my writing or any writing from other writers cause karma will get ya.
Rose, elegant and poised as ever, fiddled with Ward's bowtie. It was a futile attempt to straighten it, and you wondered if the Kooks knew how ridiculous they looked, their privileged lives spent fussing over trivial things.
"Do you play?" Ward's voice was casual, but his eyes betrayed a glimmer of interest. He had seen you eyeing the piano in their opulent living room before, and it was clear he suspected you had a musical inclination.
"A little," you replied, shrugging nonchalantly. You didn't want to give too much away. The Kooks had a tendency to pry, and you had learned the hard way that it was better to keep your guard up.
The Camerons were pleasant enough, but like the other Kooks on Figure Eight, they didn't really care about the Pogues. You had grown up being told that Pogues were different from Kooks, but as you got older, you realized it was more complicated than that. The Kooks were narrow-minded, lacking empathy and understanding. They saw the Pogues as nothing more than servants, there to cater to their every whim. It was a toxic dynamic and one that you had learned to navigate with caution.
The key to survival on the Outer Banks was invisibility. You had learned that early on. The less you revealed about yourself, the safer you were. So you didn't tell Ward that your father had started teaching you piano before you could even walk. You didn't tell him that music was your escape, your solace, your everything.
"Well, a bit of something is better than nothing," Ward chuckled, his eyes flickering back to you. "I bought it thinking it would be nice to have music in the house that wasn't rap or pop, but you know how kids are." He chuckled again. "No one seems interested in learning how to play it. If you want to try it out, our door is always open."
The Kooks were the quintessential chameleons, expertly donning the cloak of benevolence and charity. But behind the facade lay their self-centered motives, concealed in plain sight. In their company, you had to be just as duplicitous as them, your true self lost in a sea of artifice. So you donned your own mask of deceit, feigning a grin while burying your true feelings behind a veneer of politeness.
As the grandfather clock in the hallway struck six, Rose and Mr. Cameron stepped into the warm North Carolina evening, dressed to the nines for their elegant black-tie affair. You were left behind in the kitchen with Wheezie, chatting aimlessly about everything and nothing. A comfortable silence settled between you.
"Want to watch a movie, Wheezie?" you asked, but you already knew the answer.
"Maybe next time? I'm having a Stranger Things watch party with my friends. We're on season three, actually," she replied as she pulled out her phone and began texting.
"Oh, that's cool. Sure, let me know when you're hungry and we'll order in."
A few minutes later, you were left alone in the kitchen, grappling with the void of the next five hours stretching before you. Your gaze was inexorably drawn to the open double doors of the living room, and a force beyond your control tugged at your heartstrings.
There, in the corner of the Camerons' living room, stood a magnificent black Steinway & Sons piano. A work of art that you had only seen in fleeting glimpses on the internet, played by virtuosos with mastery beyond compare.
The Camerons' piano was an exquisite piece. Valued upwards of forty thousand dollars, it was a show-stopper that begged to be played in a prestigious concert hall. And yet there it sat in their living room, untouched and unloved.
With a fluttering heart, you approached the baby grand piano, drawn by an unconscious force beyond your control. As you lifted the fallboard, a heady scent of wax and mahogany wafted into your nostrils, creating a longing you could barely contain. Your fingertips brushed against the smooth, pristine ivory keys, unable to resist the urge to touch. As you pressed down on one, a crystalline note filled the air, flawless and true. Before you could even think, you were seated on the bench.
Back straight and feet planted firmly on the floor, you thought about all the classical pieces you had practiced over the years and loved to play. How each piece would sound hollow on your cheap, antiquated piano in your small family home. Music was your first love, and you longed for the day to play on stage accompanied by the New York Symphony Orchestra.
Closing your eyes, you allowed your mind to wander, imagining a sea of faces, a packed audience hanging on your every note. In your mind's eye, you saw your dad sitting in the front row, his gaze filled with pride and love. The thought of his reaction, a validation of all his sacrifices over the years, filled you with purpose.
Driven by your distant dream, you let your fingers glide across the keys, effortlessly weaving a tapestry of sound that flooded the Camerons' living room with music.
With meticulous attention, you listened closely to the dynamics of the piece. You noticed the way the Steinway amplified the subtlest variations in volume, imbuing the composition with a melancholic mood. Your fingers moved with practiced ease, executing intricate runs and arpeggios with fluid grace.
Enraptured by the music, you let the notes wash over you. Every facial expression was a reflection of the emotional journey unfolding before you. As the piece reached its crescendo, your fingers moved faster, striking the keys with greater force, a physical manifestation of your emotions. Your hands flowed in flawless harmony with the rhythm, pouring your soul into the music. And with the final notes, you laughed breathlessly, basking in the afterglow of your musical outpouring.
But your blissful moment was cruelly interrupted as you suddenly sensed you weren’t alone. Your eyes snapped open, and a cold wave of fear washed over you.
“Shit! I am so sorry,” you stammered, your voice trailing off in a rush of apologies as you gingerly lowered the piano fallboard.
“You know,” Rafe’s words were laced with honey, each syllable slow and sweet, yet there was no mistaking the menacing undertone to them. “We don’t take kindly to people touching our things,” he drawled, his intense gaze locked onto yours, a warning glimmer lurking within his dark eyes.
“I… I had permission from your dad,” you insisted, your words barely audible above a whisper as you tried to defend your actions.
His response was a dismissive chuckle. The atmosphere was taut with tension as he nonchalantly propped his golf bag against the wall. Leisurely slow, he sauntered over to you, his hands casually tucked away in his pockets.
“What were you playing anyway?” he inquired, his tone deceptively relaxed.
“You mean the name of the piece?” you swallowed hard, fear palpable. “It’s called Nocturne in C-sharp Minor.”
The tall blonde squinted at you, and you could not decipher his expression. Wanting to avoid further irritation, you slowly rose from the piano bench and dusted it off.
“What kinda name is that?”
“I… I…” you stammered, blood surging in your ears from fear as Rafe suddenly leaned in and lifted the fallboard. He scanned the keys, perhaps checking for any scratches. You took a deep breath. The scent of his expensive cologne and freshly mown grass overwhelmed your senses.
“I don’t know. It worked for Chopin, I guess.” You said quietly.
“Chopin…” he said with his lip jutted.
“He’s the composer. He wrote it and-”
“I know Chopin,” Rafe interrupted, his eyes suddenly locked on you. Up close, you could not deny that they were a striking shade of blue, if not for the death glare he gave you. “Chopin, Beethoven, Einaudi, Bach…” He backed away and sat in a nearby chair. “Brahms… I’ve been to enough of those long-ass concerts to at least know their names.”
You felt a confusing mix of awe and jealousy as you listened to Rafe’s words. The pit in your stomach proved this. You had never been to a proper symphony concert, and the school concerts you had attended were barely amateur. The thought of your dad’s broken promise to take you to one was a constant source of frustration. However, Rafe’s casual disdain for the very concerts he was lucky enough to attend seemed to be a new addition.
“Well… I’m not getting paid to mess around on your piano,” you said with a wry smile, as you tried to mask your emotions.
“You’re right. You’re not,” Rafe retorted while he twisted the gold signet ring around his index finger with his thumb. Head tilted to the side, his eyes raked over every inch of you, from your hair, your oversized sweatshirt and jeans to your worn knockoff Converses. You felt self-conscious under his intense scrutiny. He made you want to crawl into a hole and hide.
“I… I should check on Wheezie,” you whispered, eager to escape the tension in the room.
“Why?” Rafe asked, halting his twirling of the signet ring. His face appeared bemused until a sly grin tugged at his lips. “Weeze is a big girl, right? Might as well… play Chopin while she’s doing her own thing…”
As you babysat for the Camerons, you occasionally spotted Rafe in the vicinity. Sometimes, he was accompanied by a striking beauty, while other times he hung out with his friends. Even when he was alone, his body language was a clear warning: "Keep your distance." His piercing gaze made you feel diminutive and unimportant, as if any attempts at interaction would be met with cold indifference. In his presence, you felt like you were navigating hostile terrain, just a misstep away from a precarious situation.
"Well?" he said, leaning back in his chair and tapping his lower lip with a finger. The gesture seemed to carry a message, but what message you weren't sure. What was certain was that his expression of amusement made it evident that the outcome was secondary—he was simply enjoying watching you squirm.
Your tongue darted out to moisten your parched lips, while anxiety twisted in your gut as you stared nervously at the grand Steinway piano and Rafe. The weight of his words lingered in the air, causing you to hesitate and consider the potential consequences of your answer.
Every which way you looked at it, you were fucked.
Rafe was bound to tell his parents, and you were sure enough about to lose your job once they found out. Despite Mr. Cameron's outward kindness and willingness to accommodate, you knew very well that playing their piano without supervision was not within the bounds of your permission. And he certainly would not appreciate you lying about it either.
Still, you were determined to make the most out of a shitty situation. You weren't trying to prove anything to Rafe, but if this was going to be your last time playing a Steinway, you would go out in style.
You had chosen a haunting, evocative melody, a tale of lost love and longing. The notes rang out, clear and true, as your fingers danced over the keys.
Closing your eyes and shutting out the world and Rafe, you allowed the music to flow from your fingertips, guided by instinct and emotion. Your touch was delicate yet confident, breathing life into the haunting melody.
After the last notes of the piece hung in the air like a delicate mist. You held your breath, waiting for some kind of response from Rafe, but all you got was a deafening silence. The room felt like it was closing in on you, and you couldn't help but cast a quick glance in his direction.
Rafe's eyes bored into yours with an intensity that made your heart stop. You shifted uncomfortably, feeling exposed under his scrutinizing gaze. When you finally lowered the fallboard, the tension was so thick you could practically cut it with a knife.
"I should check on Wheezie," you whispered, breaking the silence.
Rafe made no reply, and you took that as permission to leave. When you returned downstairs a half hour later, Rafe was nowhere to be seen and you sighed in relief.
In the best-case scenario, Rafe would keep your little transgression to himself. In the worst-case scenario, you could explain to Mr. Cameron that curiosity got the better of you and seek his forgiveness. Either way, you vowed never to touch their piano again.
"What's on your setlist today, piano girl?" Rafe's voice caused your heart to skip a beat, and you nearly spewed out the orange juice pooling in your mouth. A mere week had passed since your previous babysitting job at the illustrious Cameron residence. Yet here you were once again, feeling a pang of anxiety at the mere sight of him. You had desperately hoped to avoid any interaction with Rafe for the remainder of your shift, but fate had other plans in store.
There he was, sauntering into the kitchen, sporting an obnoxiously bright salmon polo shirt that clashed horribly with his teal shorts, and finished with a backwards baseball cap. Despite his frat boy appearance, you couldn't help but admit that he looked undeniably handsome. The realization hit you like a brick and left you feeling inexplicably uneasy.
"Excuse me?" you sputtered, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.
Rafe's gaze shifted towards the living room, where the Steinway was waiting behind closed doors.
"No, I don't think it's a good idea," you said, your voice trailing off as you watched Rafe roll his eyes.
"Whatever," he drawled with a dismissive flick of his wrist, exuding an air of nonchalant superiority as he strode out of the kitchen.
You parroted his words under your breath, feeling frustration boil inside you. Despite his insufferable demeanor, you chose to let it slide. After all, you needed this job, and with a week of smooth sailing under your belt, you suspected that Rafe had kept your little piano incident under wraps. You weren't about to jeopardize your livelihood over a petty disagreement with Rafe Cameron of all people.
Just as you were considering taking refuge in the kitchen to avoid Rafe, the sound of a key being struck on the Steinway echoed through the kitchen, beckoning you towards it.
You stepped into the living room, a bundle of nerves and anticipation, only to find Rafe sprawled in the same chair as before. The piano's fallboard was already raised. Its ebony and ivory keys gleamed in the warm light of the setting sun. Rafe's piercing gaze locked onto yours, then flicked towards the piano.
"Do you want me to play something?" you asked softly, your voice barely above a whisper.
Rafe shrugged, looking uninterested. "Do you want to?" he asked, his voice dripping with boredom.
"I don't mind, I guess," you replied, chewing your bottom lip.
If you were to be completely honest with yourself, you were desperate for another chance to play the Steinway. There was a piece that you couldn't get out of your head, and you knew it would sound magnificent on it. You did not need to be asked twice. But at the same time, you were no fool.
You had heard whispers about the "Kook King." Infamous for settling disputes with his fists, not for acts of kindness. You had no idea what was taking place here or why Rafe was suddenly allowing you to play the Camerons' prized possession. But despite your internal warning bells that this could be a trap, you put your glass of orange juice on the floor next to the bench. Consequences be damned.
Taking a confident breath, you aimed to kill.
As you hit the final notes of the composition, the silence was shattered by Rafe's ragged breaths. Your eyes locked onto his, and you saw a flicker of something in his gaze that was gone as quickly as it appeared.
"I've been working on that one for a while," you said, trying to sound nonchalant despite his stare. "I know it's not perfect, but I-"
"No, it's good," Rafe interjected with a croak. "You're good."
His words validated your talent, and a rush of excitement surged through you, causing a grin to spread across your face as you basked in his praise. But the moment was short-lived as Rafe pulled out his phone and started scrolling, his demeanor shifting from impressed to cold indifference. Without warning, he abruptly rose from his seat, an air of superiority emanating from his towering frame.
"Tell Rose I'm having dinner at Top's," he drawled, his voice dripping with aloofness as he looked down his nose at you.
"Sure, okay," you stammered, still reeling from his sudden change in behavior.
Without another glance in your direction, he strode out of the room, leaving you to wonder what the hell just happened.
It became routine. A ritual. Embedded in your weekly visits to the Cameron residence.
Each time you babysat Wheezie, the air would fill with the soothing sound of classical music, as you took your place at the Steinway and brought the keys to life. Rafe, either in the background or seated nearby, listened intently. His brooding demeanor was a stark contrast to the beauty of the music.
As the weeks went by, playing the Steinway became a treasured routine, and it wasn't just the music that captivated you. With every note played, the invisible barrier between you and Rafe seemed to thin. Despite his reserved exterior, there was a subtle shift in the room when he was around, a magnetic pull that drew you closer to him until one evening, a simple question from him sparked a conversation that would change everything.
"Where did you even learn to play like that?" Rafe asked as the sun cast its final rays of light into the opulent living room, painting the space with a breathtaking array of orange, pink, and purple hues.
You had just finished playing a piece by Bach. The air was still thick with the lingering notes of the Prelude as you closed the Steinway lid.
"There's barely electricity on the cut. Far less for piano classes, and even if there was, you can't—you can't teach this, know what I mean? Well, not the way you play it anyway." His tone shifted, taking on a new quality of—dare you think it?—admiration. You couldn't help but wonder if the beer he was drinking had anything to do with his slip of the tongue and the emotions that seemed to seep through in his words.
You cast your eyes to find Rafe leaning forward in his chair, said beer bottle in hand, his hair falling into his face and his eyes laser-focused on you. There was an intensity in his eyes that made you feel like you were being seen, truly seen, by him. But as much as you were flattered by his attention, something lurking in the depths of his gaze made you feel uneasy, and you weren't entirely sure why. You brushed the stray thought aside.
"My dad taught me." You said with pride in your voice. "Did you know they used to have jazz nights at the Wreck?" You turned your body towards Rafe, eager to share this piece of history. "Back then, it wasn't called the Wreck. Anyway, my dad used to play there every night from seven until midnight until the Carreras took over. Now he works on the big oil rig in Burnsville."
"Does he still play?" Rafe asked.
You hesitated for a moment, realizing you were oversharing with Rafe Cameron of all people. But something about his presence made you feel comfortable enough to continue. "No, after my mom left," you trailed off, suddenly feeling vulnerable. "He just gave up on music altogether."
Rafe looked down, his expression unreadable.
"I guess I'm trying to keep the tradition alive, in my own way. It's not jazz, but he approves." You smiled softly. "Anyway, what about you?"
Arresting blue eyes flicked up at yours, and your stomach flipped.
"What about me?" he asked, his voice low and husky, dripping with curiosity and challenge. He leaned back in his chair, the rattan creaking beneath him. He lazily ran a hand through his blonde hair, revealing his chiselled features. You weren't sure why, but the gesture felt calculated. As though it was meant to entice you. And yet you couldn't help but feel a flutter in your chest as you drank in the sight of him.
"No offense, but you don't look like the type to be into..." you waved your hand towards the piano, trying to deflect his gaze and lighten the mood.
"Yeah? What do I look like I'm into?" Rafe purred seductively, his tongue swiping his top lip. His eyes fixed on you. You didn't miss his tone. The double entendre just beneath the surface, if you were bold enough to respond to it. You were sure the alcohol running through his veins had something to do with his sudden flirty behavior. Tomorrow, he'd probably forget the whole thing. But it still didn't stop the butterflies from dancing in your stomach.
"I...I..."
"Go on, don't be shy," Rafe coaxed, his eyes dark and intense, almost daring you to take the bait.
"I don't know," you breathed out a laugh, suddenly feeling flustered and self-conscious.
"Yeah, you do." Rafe said, his tone low and teasing. "Saying I don't look like the type means you have a type in your head. So, let's hear it. What kind of man do you think I am, Y/N?"
You were certain this was not about music anymore, and you felt way out of your element. What were you supposed to say about that? You decided to keep the conversation neutral and err on the side of caution.
"Okay," you nodded as you shifted on the bench. "You look like the type to be interested in other types of music, you know like rap or hip-hop, rock— even country and western, anything but this."
Rafe looked away with a chuckle, a deep rumble that made your skin tingle. He nodded slowly, pondering your words.
"Does that sound bad? I know it sounds awful. I'm sorry." You cringed.
"Nah, it's pretty tame actually... innocent even..." Rafe murmured more to himself than to you. You shivered as his piercing blue gaze met yours, then slowly traveled down to your lips, neck, and every inch of your oversized t-shirt and cardigan to your jeans-covered body.
He cleared his throat, his voice low as he spoke. "And you're not wrong. Classical music was my mom's thing. She loved it." He said taking a swig of his beer.
"Oh," you breathed out, taken aback by the unexpected answer. Suddenly, the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Why Rafe was always so engrossed in the music each time you played. The wistful expression that crossed his face whenever he heard familiar pieces of music. It was like a window into his soul, a glimpse into a hidden part of him that he kept from the world. And just as you pieced together your thoughts, Rafe spoke, confirming your suspicions.
"We used to go to the mainland to see 'The Four Seasons' or 'Carmen' or some other shit like that. I don't know, it reminds me of her, I guess. Takes me back to happier times." Rafe shrugged, a hint of sadness in his eyes as he sipped his beer.
"I'm sorry..." you whispered.
"Nah, don't be. She was sick for a long time, and now she's... Anyway, It's all good now." Rafe replied with a forced nonchalance, a fragile façade attempting to conceal his true emotions.
"So, you listen to classical music for nostalgia..." you whispered, your voice tinged with a touch of melancholy.
“I guess you could say that,” Rafe said thoughtfully, tilting his head from side to side as he considered your words. He scrunched up his face, eyebrows drawn together as if he had tasted something bitter. “But I'm not a classical music aficionado or anything. It’s not like I’m requesting it in the club. Can you imagine that shit? Right after 21 Savage fuckin’ Mozart on blast. I’d get jumped.”
"I don’t know, you might start a trend," you smiled.
“Sounds like you want me to get jumped”
You outright laughed at that one. “Well, it depends, do you deserve it?”
“Oof” Rafe countered, clutching his chest faux wounded. “That was good.”
You shrugged with a smile, feeling an unexpected kinship with Rafe of all people. Here was this tough, brooding guy who, beneath the surface, was incredibly sentimental and even had a sense of humor. It was a sweet and surprising discovery.
"What about you? Why do you play?" He asked, his blue eyes roaming across your facial features slowly, curiously, when your laughter had died and all that was left was contented silence.
"Good question. Why do I play? Well, I guess for me... it's about the emotion," you replied, your fingers tracing the Steinway keys without pressing them. "Each note, each chord, each composition tells a story. It's like I'm a part of that story, and I get to bring it to life. You don’t need words you just… feel it.”
Rafe nodded, understanding. "I get it. You're the storyteller. The piano is your instrument channelin’ that shit.”
"Exactly!" you said, touching your nose and pointing to him with an earnest laugh.
"Exactly," Rafe repeated with a soft chuckle, his gaze fixated on you.
“Hey, how come I never see you at bonfires?” Rafe asked, a mischievous glint in his eye one sunny afternoon when Rose and Mr. Cameron went out for drinks with friends, leaving Wheezie in your care.
“Bonfires just aren’t my thing,” you replied with a shrug.
“What, no friends to hang out with?” he teased.
“I have plenty of friends!” you retorted, a hint of a smirk playing at your lips.
“Friends that I’ve never seen you with,” he pressed.
“What do you mean ‘friends I’ve never seen you with’ are you stalking me around town?”
“Maybe I am...” he shrugged a small devious smile curled his lips.
“Whatever. Well, my friends and I clearly hang out when you’re not around,” you shot back, a playful smile lighting up your face.
“Sure you do,” he drawled, a chuckle rumbling in his chest.
Rafe leaned forward against the piano, the sun casting a warm glow on his handsome features. You couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed, and how the muscles in his arms flexed under his t-shirt while he absentmindedly tapped his index finger on the piano lid.
“You know, there’s more to life than playing music,” Rafe said, his voice low and smooth, as he turned the words over with his tongue. His finger tapping the lid, became slower, more measured.
“Oh, I know that,” you replied, rolling your eyes. “I have plenty of other things going on.”
“Yeah? Like what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Like studying,” you said, trying to keep a straight face as Rafe scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I’m actually quite serious about my grades.”
"I wouldn't expect anything less from a good girl," Rafe chuckled. Once again, his comment caught you off guard. Although you knew he wasn't mocking you, it still felt strange that he felt the need to mention what he perceived was good girl behavior. “Seriously though, you should have some real fun too. Do some shit you probably shouldn’t do. Life’s too short to be cooped up not living it.”
You shrugged, unsure of what to say. Rafe had a point, but you weren’t sure if bonfires were the kind of fun you were looking for. Still, there was something about the way he looked at you that made your heart skip a beat, and you couldn’t help but swallow nervously. As if reading your thoughts, Rafe leaned closer.
“You know, I could show you a good time if you want.” Rafe’s voice was low and husky as he leaned in close, his minty breath fanning your cheek. While he had flirted before, this time there was a sober earnestness to his words that made your heart race. But before you could even formulate a response, the front door's slam cut through the thick tension.
Rafe straightened himself, briefly glancing towards the hallway before fixing his gaze back on you, his jaw tightly clenched in irritation. With determined strides, he purposefully walked away, the sound of his long steps resonating down the corridor, while you unintentionally caught snippets of his familiar argument with Sarah.
It seemed Sarah had developed an interest in John B, a guy you had seen around town, but Rafe vehemently disapproved due to his “pogue” status. You couldn’t fathom why he held such strong opposition, especially considering that you, too, were a Pogue. Had he conveniently forgotten? Or did he consider you an exception?
As you closed the lid of the Steinway, an inescapable curiosity filled your mind about what set your relationship with Rafe apart. Maybe he only saw you as a friend rather than a romantic interest the way Sarah felt about John B.
Reluctant to admit it to yourself, the thought pierced through, leaving you with a confusing mixture of disappointment, anger, and self-annoyance for even entertaining the idea that Rafe could ever feel that way about you.
As Rafe persisted in berating his sister, you dismissed any contemplation of what might have happened between the two of you if she had arrived just a few minutes later.
“Hello?”
“I'm in here.” Rose’s voice, sharp as a razor’s edge, resonated through the foyer of the Camerons’ residence. As you entered the kitchen, you discovered her gingerly picking up the remnants of a shattered vase from the tiled floor. You offered to help her, but she brushed you off with a dismissive gesture.
“No need, honey. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt.” She said, smiling unconvincingly.
Mr. Cameron burst into the room a few seconds later. His dominating presence charged the atmosphere, his eyes glinting like ice. It was only when his eyes landed on you that his demeanour changed.
“Oh, Y/N. Thanks for coming on such short notice. We’ll only need you for two hours. Sarah should be back by then.” He smiled, though it did not reach his eyes.
“Uh, sure. Of course.” You replied. You scurried out of his path as he snatched a file and car keys from the kitchen table.
“I’ll be in the car.” He informed Rose tersely, eliciting a stiff nod from her.
Feeling Rose’s disquiet, you intervened to clear the shattered vase. “I can pick these up for you, Rose.” You said warmly.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” You assured her with a nod.
“Thank you.” She murmured, her smile returning. “Wheeze is upstairs doing her homework. I’m sorry about all of this. Things are a bit crazy today.” She said, her grip on her bag and sunglasses tightening as if she were holding onto her sanity by a thread. And with that, she vanished, leaving you alone with your thoughts and the shattered pieces of the vase.
Having cleared the wreckage, you climbed the stairs to find Wheezie immersed in her studies in her room, her headphones firmly in place. You inquired if she needed anything or was okay, but she appeared blissfully unaware of the chaos that had unfolded. You marvelled at her ability to concentrate amidst the turmoil, yet you couldn’t dispel the nagging suspicion that the Camerons hid a dark secret beneath their façade of rich superiority. With a sigh, you left Wheezie to her schoolwork and descended the stairs as the sound of the living room door being opened roused your suspicions.
As you passed the living room, your heart sank at the sight of Rafe. He was sitting on his usual chair, swaying back and forth, lost in a jumble of incoherent words. His eyes were bloodshot and streaked with tears. You hurried towards him, your mind racing with worry and fear. You sat down on the floor in front of him, your heart pounding in your chest.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
He responded with a roar that shook you to your core. The words that spilled out of Rafe’s mouth were like knives, cutting deep into your soul. He berated himself with a ferocity that was frightening, how he was a failure in his father’s eyes, how he was nothing but a disappointment. You placed a comforting hand on his knee, giving it a gentle squeeze, trying to offer some solace amidst his torment.
His eyes flicked to your hand, then to your face, as if seeing you for the first time. Rafe’s jaw tightened, his eyes raw with emotions you couldn’t decipher. There was anger there, yes, but there was something else too – something deeper, more primal.
“Play something.” He suddenly demanded.
“I can- I can get someone for you. Do you want me to call your-”
“No. I don’t want that. I want you to play.” He almost sneered at you.
“Okay.” You whispered tentatively.
You made your way to the piano, your fingers trembling with anticipation. As you began to play, the haunting melody flowed from your fingertips.
As the tender notes from the piano enveloped you, the outside world ceased to exist. Within the protective cocoon of the Cameron's living room, you hoped your music might be a balm for Rafe’s pain. But this sanctuary of sound was violently shattered when an aggressive tug at your hair ripped you from your reverie.
Suddenly, Rafe was there, his fingers cruelly ensnared in your hair, exerting a force so savage it wrenched your head backward, choking off your breath and stilling the music in one brutal tug. The once harmonious room was now charged with an electrifying tension, your eyes captured and held hostage by the ferocity in his.
This was not the Rafe you knew.
The Rafe towering above you appeared utterly transformed. Unrecognizable in every way. Gone was the Rafe who had shared countless evenings filled with laughter and sharing stories. Gone was the anchor that made you feel connected and safe.
Instead, frustration etched itself onto his face like a battle scar, while his dilated pupils revealed an intensity you had never witnessed before, oscillating between your fear-stricken eyes.
His gaze dipped to your parted lips as you let out the breath you were holding, and before you could react, before you could appease him, Rafe captured your lips with his.
You froze. Paralyzed against Rafe's lips. Shock stole your breath away.
Time stopped in an instant as you grappled with the thought that this was a dream, a surreal nightmare. But that fragile notion shattered like glass as Rafe's movements became evident. His lips melded against yours like clay taking form. Hard and desperate, his kiss abruptly catapulted you back into the chilling reality that this was, without a doubt, happening.
Your instinct for survival surged as your fight-or-flight response kicked in. You attempted to push him away, but Rafe tightened his grip on your hair and yanked harder, forcing your submission, his tongue plunging into your mouth when you whined in protest.
The taste of alcohol on Rafe’s tongue was bitter and overwhelming. You tried to convince yourself that this was the reason behind Rafe's behaviour. Any moment now, he would realize his mistake, any moment he would let you go. But instead, Rafe's fingers sank into the hollow of your jaw, holding it open while his tongue explored the warm interior of your mouth.
You whimpered softly as his tongue twirled against yours with ferocity. Rafe adjusted his hand in your hair and gripped tighter, making you cry out as pain surged through your scalp and neck. The sound didn't deter him, as he forced your head back drinking from your mouth greedily.
Discordant notes rang out as you lashed out wildly, reaching for anything you could hold onto for balance. Your hands found Rafe's bicep and you dug your nails into his skin, trying to pull his hand away as he kissed you like a man possessed.
Your entire body was inflamed with sensations you had never experienced before as pleasure and pain bled into one. Your scalp ached yet your body felt hot. Your nipples were suddenly sensitive to your sweater's scraggly wool while you ached between your legs for something you had not experienced before. The whirlwind of sensations new and overwhelming within you made your eyes flutter shut on their own, your hands sliding up Rafe's wrist as you held on for balance.
Rafe's mouth worked over yours with an intensity so raw that your protests turned into breathless moans and frantic gasps as you succumbed to his kiss. Your tongue tentatively meets his stroke for stroke. Rafe growled in approval and you could feel him smile into the kiss, his tongue stoking the fire deep within you and just as quickly as it started, Rafe abruptly pulled away leaving you shaking and struggling for air.
Your heart raced within your chest as you abruptly pushed yourself off the piano bench, nearly causing it to tip over in your haste. Hand clutching your chest, you struggled to catch your breath, hastily wiping away tears that had unknowingly streamed down your cheeks.
A fleeting glance at Rafe revealed his heavy breathing, his mouth agape in quick, shallow pants, and his pupils dilated, tinged with a faint hint of blue. Yet, it was the expression etched upon his face that sent a wave of terror crashing over you.
Rafe's eyes showed no remorse.
Instead, you saw an overwhelming hunger within them that made your blood run cold. Rafe’s gaze moved down from your stunned face over your trembling body. The danger that emanated from him made your knees buckle.
You took a step back, your mind whirling with fear and apprehension. But Rafe stepped forward, his eyes locked onto yours with determination.
"I-- I need to check on Wheezie. See what she'd like for dinner," you whispered, your voice shaking as you inched backwards toward the door. You turned to run but it was too late.
Rafe reached out and snatched the hem of your sweater, yanking you towards him. You struggled to break free, twisting and thrashing like a scared kitten in his grip but Rafe was relentless. His other hand reached for your waist as he pulled you close. His nose and lips trailed the back of your neck and into your hairline and he groaned as he breathed you in. With a jab of your elbow into his rib you wriggled free. It wasn't enough to wound him but it gave you the head start needed to run.
You dashed from the room, Rafe's pursuit relentless. His outstretched fingers grazed your sweater, narrowly missing its mark. It wasn't until you sprinted up the stairs that he abandoned the chase. You didn't need to glance back to feel his gaze on you. The tendrils of his breathless laugh reverberated down the corridor.
You burst into Wheezie's room, a hot mess of tears and fear. You made up some excuse about feeling unwell and had to go home immediately. After calling Rose and arranging for a replacement babysitter for Wheezie, you sat in her room and waited for the sitter to arrive.
You didn't see Rafe when you left, and you thanked God for that. You knew that if you saw him, you would break down crying, and you couldn't bear to show him any more weakness. But the tears came anyways, hot and heavy, as soon as you got home. How could you have been so stupid? You knew all the rumors about him, knew that he wasn't a good guy, and yet somehow, you thought in your warped mind that he was different. A decent human being who was simply misunderstood.
It wasn't like you didn't see the signs. They were always there, staring you right in the face. The blatant flirting, the staring, the way he undressed you with his gaze. You dismissed every red flag, thinking he couldn't like you in that kind of way because you were not the type of girl Rafe Cameron would go for and you certainly weren't the type of girl Rafe Cameron would kiss.
And it wasn't just the kiss that scared you. It was the fact that Rafe had no intention of stopping. It was the way he held onto you, the way he made you feel like you were drowning in a sea of desire. He was a predator, relentless in his pursuit of you, and as you thought about how he grabbed onto your clothes his lips tracing your neck even as you protested you couldn't help but cry even harder.
No. There was no way you were setting foot in that house again. Not after the way Rafe kissed you, not after what he was determined to get out of you.
Over the next few weeks, Rose's texts kept coming, each one more insistent than the last. But you knew better than to give in to her demands. You couldn't go back to that house, not after what had happened with Rafe. It was too dangerous, too risky, and you couldn't afford to let your guard down again.
You thought about telling her what had happened with Rafe, but the thought of it made your stomach turn. How could you explain what had happened without sounding like a fool? That you had been hanging out with her stepson for months, that you had let things get out of hand?
You had every intention of never setting foot in that house again. But then Rose sent you a text, asking if you were available on Saturday. They were desperate, she said, and willing to offer triple what they usually paid. Rafe and Sarah were going to a game and the lady who was supposed to look after Wheezie had a family emergency.
You were going to turn them down, again, but the truth was that since you had dropped them as a client, it had been difficult to find other work. So, against your better judgement, you agreed, but only after Rose confirmed that she and Mr Cameron would be home long before Sarah and Rafe returned.
As the day of the babysitting gig approached, a sense of foreboding settled in the pit of your stomach. You knew that you shouldn't go, that it was too risky, too dangerous. But the promise of easy money was too tempting to ignore. And so, against your better judgement, you found yourself standing in front of the Cameron's house once again, your heart racing with a mix of fear and anticipation.
As you approached the front door, you couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. Rose had texted you on your way over, telling you that she would be getting ready and to let yourself in. But when you rang the doorbell and received no answer, you began to worry. Still, you didn't think anything of it when you turned the door handle and found that it was unlocked. You stepped inside and called out for Wheezie and Rose, but the house was silent.
Making your way to the kitchen, you put down your bag and pulled out your phone. You texted Rose and Wheezie to let them know that you had arrived and were in the kitchen, just in case Wheezie was plugged in. But as you waited for a response, your heart sank.
Something wasn't right. You could feel it.
You had been to the Camerons' house many times and had let yourself in on a few occasions when they were too busy to answer the door. None of this was new but it felt different. An ominous feeling washed over you. But just as you began to worry, the sound of footsteps in the hallway interrupted your thoughts, and you sighed in relief.
As you called out for Rose, a sudden hush fell over the room, broken only by the sound of footsteps approaching. You looked up, hoping to see Rose's familiar figure, but instead, your eyes met the last person you expected to see: Rafe.
His presence was jarring, like a thunderclap on a clear day. Your heart pounded in your chest as you tried to make sense of his unexpected appearance. But before you could utter a word, Rafe's murmur cut through the silence like a knife.
"Nah, not Rose," he said with a smile.
Fear took hold of you as you realized that he must have had something to do with Rose's texts in the first place. You stepped back, fear making your knees buckle.
"Where's Rose?" you whispered, wrapping your arms around yourself protectively, as if shielding yourself from him.
“Don’t worry about it,” he drawled, his voice low and dangerous.
“Don’t come near me,” you said firmly as Rafe rounded the kitchen island towards you. Immediately, you moved in the opposite direction away from him.
“I… I just… I needed to talk to you, like, a little bit. Is that okay?” he said, opening his hands to placate you.
“Did Rose actually text me?”
“She did,” Rafe soothed. “But then I, uh… I heard you’d be here tonight instead of Pat, and well… seeing you was more important to me than some game.” His eyes trailed over your face, studying your every reaction.
“Where’s Wheezie?”
“With Sarah.”
You shook your head, your mind reeling with disbelief. How could Rafe have orchestrated this situation for you to be alone with him without any of the Camerons noticing? But as if he heard your thoughts, a sly smile curled his lips and he chuckled softly.
“I told Rose I’d watch over Wheeze so she could catch an early ferry,” Rafe explained, his hands moving in slow, deliberate gestures, connecting invisible dots as he spoke. “After Rose left I gave my ticket to Wheeze.”
You felt like you were going to be sick.
“Look, I know the last time I was a little… a little intense…”
“Intense!” You choked. You would have laughed if the whole thing wasn’t so heartbreaking.
“Yes, and I’m -- I'm really sorry about that, okay? I really am.”
"You tried to ra-”
"No! No, no, I would never..." Rafe rushed towards you and you immediately backed away. He froze mid-step as you cowered, his hands still raised in surrender. "I’m sorry things were confusing and it looked that way but I wasn't trying to hurt you. God, I- l’m-" Rafe sighed, deflated his hands landed on his hips, he looked away as he pressed his tongue on the inside of his cheek.
"You're sorry it looked that way?" you whispered your voice trembling. Rafe's words echoed in your mind while memories of that day in all its menacing glory flooded back. You looked at him flabbergasted.
"Rafe...you... you were kissing me-”
“I know but I-”
“And touching me--"
He breathed out a laugh "Come on, you know I was only-,"
“Without my consent, Rafe.”
He was silent with that and you hoped your words had finally sunk in, had finally made him understand how terrifying he was in that moment.
“Then you chased me. You chased me like some...” you couldn’t even finish the sentence. You didn’t know how to finish the sentence. You were so hurt and confused. That your friend could do something like that to you. “I don’t even know who you are. I- I don’t think I ever did,” you whispered.
Rafe's eyes landed on yours with that. His gaze was dark and intense, and for a moment, you thought you had gotten through to him because he nodded slowly. But then he let out a humourless chuckle, reminding you of the one he gave post-chase, and any hope of reaching him dissipated.
"You know, it’s funny ‘cause you say that...” Rafe said coldly, a hand gesturing to you as if trying to grasp his own thoughts “But you’re not entirely innocent in all of this, are you?”
“I don't-- I don't understand."
“Do you have any idea what you're doing to me, huh, Y/N?
"Raf—"
"What kind of mental shit you put me through? Nah, you don't. You don't think about that, do you?" he asked, his hands gesturing toward you as his eyes narrowed and he stared you down. You felt a shiver run down your spine as you realized the gravity of Rafe's words. It was as if he was confessing to a darker truth, a mental anguish that he had been helplessly consumed by, something unintentionally sparked within him by your actions.
"I have my dad on my back talking about legacies, our family business and preparing me for that shit meanwhile Sarah’s running around town doing god knows what with some loser fucking up our family name. I have real shit to deal with...” he gave out a bitter laugh his hand clutched to his chest as he confessed.
“But even with all of that all I can think about every minute of every fucking day, is you.” Rafe's voice was raw and anguished. His hand moved up to his ear as he slowly walked towards you.
"It's like you've crawled into my brain, you know? Like I’m under some fucking spell with your music and your voice and your-" His eyes trailed down your body just as his hand followed the motion, and you shuddered. He was consuming you with his gaze every sinful thought etched across his features.
"Nah, you made me do this…” he said bitterly, his jaw clenched tight.
“Rafe--”
“You did and now I'm the bad guy because I had a moment of weakness. But you know what? Fuck, it.” he shrugged nonchalantly. “Fuck it, i’ll take responsibility for my part in this--”
“Rafe--”
“That’s what real men do, right? Take responsibility for their shit and I’m all about being accountable, so yeah, I kissed you.” He said nodding slowly. “But I’m not sorry.”
His words made you recoil, disbelief etched across your face as you stared at him.
“Yeah, you want me to pretend like I am. Act apologetic but I won’t. I'm not sorry and you should quit actin’ like you didn't enjoy it."
His words were like a punch to the gut, and you could feel the weight of his accusation settling in your stomach. Stunned, you opened your mouth to protest, but no words came out. A dry, humorless laugh left you instead. Rafe simply nodded slyly as he resumed his steps towards you, and as you stepped backwards, your back collided with the kitchen counter.
“That’s- that’s not true.”
“No?” he asked faux confused.
“It’s not- that’s not fair”
“Isn’t it?” he tutted.
"Rafe, listen to me," you whispered shakily, but he was already leaning in, his eyes dark and clouded.
"No. No, no, you listen.�� he rasped, circling in and looking down on you, his lips pouted as he leaned into the shell of your ear, “You were moaning Y/N- No, don’t do that. Don’t shake your head, and act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don't stand there and pretend this whole fucking thing is one-sided. You were moaning into my mouth… and you...you held on to me, yeah? I didn’t force you to do those things."
"Rafe--”
“That was all you princess. So you gotta ask yourself. What kinda girl are you to be into that, hm?” Rafe whispered as he leaned into you. “What kinda girl would moan like a whore when a guy manhandles her…”
“I didn’t- I wasn’t. I wanted you to stop Rafe and you-”
Rafe chuckled before you could even finish your sentence.
“Is that what was happening while you were kissing me back? Nah, see I know what your problem is. I know, I know, I know…” he repeated softly, as he gently rested his hands on your hips. “I know why you ran when deep down you wanted it.”
You opened your mouth to protest only for Rafe to push his body up against yours. The hard wall of his body renders you speechless. “We eye fucked each other for months,” he whispered, as he looked down at you. His eyes darted to your lips as he licked his own. “You wanted it.” He said coldly.
"But I get it. It was overwhelming... too much... too soon... hm?" he murmured as his nose grazed yours. "I should have approached you more patiently. I realize that now," he acknowledged with a slow nod. "I should have been gentle with you, and I had every intention to. But I -- I wanted you so bad that day that I couldn't think straight. I'm thinking straight now, though."
“Rafe...” you breathed out, your hands on his chest to push him away but not quite having the strength to do so. Rafe must have picked up on this because he leaned in, his lips close to yours.
“You keep saying my name but you’re not telling me to stop...” Rafe whispered as his fingers caressed your cheek. With a gentle touch, he lifted your chin, and you willingly yielded. His caress made you sway, your mind growing hazy and confused. To regain your balance, you closed your eyes.
“Why aren’t you telling me to stop, hm?” he whispered.
You could feel the electricity between you as Rafe leaned in, lips hovering over yours and you tilted your head up slightly, closing the distance, only to be met with nothing. When you opened your eyes, you were met with Rafe’s hooded ones a victorious smile creeping across his lips.
“Come on” Rafe whispered, and before you could protest Rafe laced his fingers in yours and gently tugged you towards the living room.
Seated at the piano, Rafe smoothly lifted the fallboard with ease.
"Play something for me," he husked, gesturing for you to take a seat beside him on the bench. You felt a flutter of nervousness as you perched yourself next to him, unsure of where to start. You couldn't comprehend how you had gone from rejecting his advances to this moment of willing compliance and acceptance.
Rafe watched you intently. You had been up-close to Rafe before, but never this close. Not this intimately. Your mind became blank, overwhelmed with the prospect of playing for him.
"I...I don't know what to..." you stuttered.
"Anything, anything at all," Rafe whispered, his eyes studying your every move.
Taking a deep breath, you steadied your trembling fingers on the keys and began to release the notes, slowly at first, but gaining confidence with every passing moment.
“I noticed you, you know,” Rafe rasped. His knuckles suddenly grazed your cheek, and you flinched. “The first time you came to babysit Wheeze, I noticed you.” Rafe followed his knuckles as he moved them across your jaw.
“I remember thinking you were beautiful… shy… innocent…” Opening his hand, his fingers trailed down your neck, and your breath hitched.
“You were wearing this exact sweater…” His fingers splayed over your collarbone as they moved slowly down to your chest.
“What are you hiding under here, hm?” he asked softly. “What are you hiding under these baggy clothes?”
You shied away from his touch, your hands withdrawing from the keys of the piano.
"No. None of that. I’ll tell you when to stop,” he said his voice stern yet soft. Your eyes glanced at his as Rafe inched closer. “I’ll tell you when to stop.” he iterated slowly. “Start again.”
Swallowing you placed your hands on the keys while the music resumed from your fingertips.
Rafe shifted closer his leg flushed against your own. He wrapped his arm over the back of you and hooked it to the other side of the bench. Leaning in, his nose ghosted your neck.
“Raf-”
“Shhhh…”His nose nudged into your hairline. His other hand on your chest continued its exploration. It moved lower cupping your tit over your sweater. The gasp you make made Rafe breathe even heavier, a deep pur coming from the back of his throat.
“Please-” you whispered shakily.
“I’ve always wanted to touch you, you know that? Every time you played I’d think about what you’d feel like... what you’d look like, moaning for me. I wanna hear you moan for me.”
Determined Rafe’s hand moved lower until it dipped under your sweater. Deftly he fumbled under your t-shirt and you gasped when his warm fingers brushed the skin of your stomach. His other hand let go of the piano stool and was now under your sweater squeezing your tit through your bra.
“Rafe--”
“Keep playing” he whispered against your neck and you did. His hand at your stomach moved lower, finding the button on your jeans he unbutton it with one deft move and your hands falter.
“Keep playing” he murmured, face nudging into your neck, his lips pressing soft kisses to your throat. “I wanna hear you play while I touch you”
The sensation of Rafe's hands on your body was almost lost in the overwhelming numbness that had taken over you. His strong hand leisurely tugged at the waistband of your panties seeking to touch what lay beneath, while his other hand snaked under your bra. He caressed and teased your nipple until a soft sob erupted from you as pleasure surged through your veins.
Rafe moved his hand lower, slipping it between your wet folds and pushing his middle finger inside of you. You cried out, the intensity of sensation causing you to clutch onto Rafe's arm for support, music abandoned.
“It’s okay “ Rafe breathed deeply into your neck, as he roughly peppered your neck with kisses. “You're okay. Just breathe...” and as he said those comforting words he gently wormed another slender finger passed your slippery folds and into you.
You hissed, trying to move away from the burning stretch of his long fingers. Your nails dug into the flesh of his wrist with enough force to draw blood but Rafe determined as ever slowly moved his fingers in and out of you, each time inserting them a little deeper until it reached his signet ring.
"You've had more than one finger before?" he asked hotly against your neck. You shook your head no, gritting your teeth in an effort to endure him stretching you further still. Rafe groaned and nipped softly at your jawline, "Fuck, I can tell. I can barely move them. But you're a good girl, aren't you? You're taking them well and afterwards, I'm gonna train you to take all of me."
Rafe's lips trailed tender kisses down the length of your neck, then his mouth closed hungrily around the sensitive skin. His two fingers moved inside you and each slow thrust drew a soft moan from your lips.
With surety, he curled his fingers in a come-hither motion, barely grazing your clit with his thumb. The sensation was overwhelming and foreign, causing you to gasp and cum embarrassingly fast. Your pussy contracting around his fingers, milking them for all they were worth.
“Oh Fuuckk…” Rafe hissed. “You liked that, I can feel it.“ He sighed utterly mesmerised. “Well, if you like that...” Rafe groaned resting his forehead against the side of your face and planting soft kisses on your cheek. “You’re gonna love this.”
With his bottom lip caught between his teeth, Rafe's probing fingers started their relentless hunt for something deep within you. Suddenly, those searching digits found what they were looking for - a spot that caused you to arch over and clutch his hand as you cried out despite your best efforts.
“Oh- there it is” he chuckled softly, shunting his hand and hitting that spot over and over again with a speed and force that knocked the breath out of you, while his thumb expertly rubbed your clit and the fingers of his other hand mercilessly pulled and twisted your nipple.
“OhmyGOD!” you cried.
“That’s it, baby. Fuck my hand. Just like that.”
Rafe kept at it, even as your nails scraped along his wrist and arm for purchase. Even as you screamed and tried to scissor your legs closed to shut him out. None of it mattered as your eyes crossed and you felt your orgasm raw and violent crash over you.
Bucking violently into Rafe’s hand, you could feel your release seep through your jeans and onto the piano bench. Pooling and overflowing you could hear it trickle onto the hardwood floor like raindrops and still, Rafe kept going, kept finger fucking you.
Lost in a sea of agonising pleasure you could do nothing but slump against him and take it, your hips stuttering, your mouth sagging as you whimpered and gasped.
Rafe moaned against you, planting soft kisses on the column of your throat. He stilled his hand, his fingers buried deep inside while you desperately tried to catch your breath.
"Seems my fingers are just as talented as yours, hm?" he said with a breathless chuckle. His nose trailed along your neck, while his tongue darted out to capture the perspiration nestled there.
Gently, Rafe removed his digits while you gazed in shock, unable to voice a single word as he brought the wet fingers to his lips and ravenously lapped up your fluids with a contented hum.
“It’s too much.” you said hoarsely “I can’t-- I can't do this. No more, Rafe. No more,” you said weakly, trying to remove his hand from your breast and move away from his hold only for Rafe to seize your wrist painfully in his grasp.
"No more?" Rafe chuckled darkly, his gaze fixed on you with dilated pupils. "No more?" he repeated, inching closer as he shook his head. "Nah, baby. No. We're just getting started..."
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Thank you for reading. Thanks for liking and reblogging.
PART 2 / MASTERLIST
#rafe cameron x you#rafe x reader#dark!rafe cameron#rafe cameron smut#rafe cameron imagine#rafe x you#rafe fic#outer banks fanfiction#rafe obx#rafe cameron x reader#dark!rafe#obx#obx rafe cameron#selfreblog#timezone reblog
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Viktor Nikiforov is an adult character with adult problems and anxieties. However, unlike for Yuuri, whose struggles couldn't be more obvious to the audience, Viktor's issues are portrayed with subtlety. Which is ironic since, of the entire cast, Viktor is confronted with the most drastic life-changing choices and changes.
We meet Viktor as a competitive figure skater who has reached a point in his life many people eventually end up. The initial excitement for your profession has long since withered away and you're stuck in a life that is making you miserable. You're only staying out of convenience, the fear of change, the fear of taking a risk, or due to a lack of opportunity—or a combination thereof.
That's where Viktor is in episode 1. You can read the misery in his fake smiles and in his empty expression when he skates—an activity that once has been his passion (we know because creating your own programmes demands a creativity that is the result of passion). There are rumours that he might retire, and when being asked about his future plans, we see again the empty expression of a man who has lost his purpose. He has accumulated quite a fortune through sponsorships if his expensive clothes are any indication of that, but money can't buy happiness.
For twenty years, Viktor has lived for his sport and neglected his private life over it. His body might keep up for a couple of more seasons, but his mind is weary and his creativity is running dry. Twenty years is a long enough time to make even a decisive person think that that one thing is all you will ever be good at.
When you're stuck like that, maybe even to the point that it affects your mental health, it's hard to make it out of the slump on your own. Having someone showing you an alternative can work wonders to shift your perspective and enable you to take matters into your own hands again. For Viktor, this shift comes in form of a cute and utterly drunk fellow skater who not only seems to have a crush on him but very explicitly voices his wish that Viktor becomes his coach.
Viktor is a master of his craft. He choreographs his own programmes, he has music composed for these, and he has twenty years of experience in figure skating. Before that fateful banquet, Viktor already showed low-level coaching tendencies like when he gives (unsolicited) advice to his younger rinkmate...
or when he encourages him to become junior world champion without a quad jump and agrees to choreograph his first senior programmes.
These examples indicate that Viktor has a hidden skill he might not have been aware of during his active career as a skater. He could build on that if the sets his mind to it.
While it's true that Viktor only decided to become a coach when he saw that video (see Sayo Yamamoto's episode commentary), his feelings for Yuuri played a major role his decision because he felt a connection. That's important because feelings ignite passion and provide you with new purpose. It's tempting to assume that Viktor went to Japan for a booty call, but this totally disregards the complexity of his situation and the key role feelings play in igniting passion in someone and giving them new purpose.
"People shine brightest when they understand what kind of love sustains them."
Turning your life upside down and leaving behind the safety and convenience of a job you're good at but that you learned to hate, comes with fears and requires a certain readiness to take risks. Many people don't go to such lengths unless 1) their current situation is insufferable and 2) they have a very strong motivator to start all over. Like love or passion. As both stem from the same place, I'm equating them in the following.
Taking your first step into the uncharted territory of your new future IS scary. It can be one of the hardest things you have ever done. Especially if it means a complete reorientation. But burning for this future—be it out of love for your new subject/field, a specific person you will work with etc.—is a truly inspiring experience that fills you with the confidence that you can actually do it. So far, Viktor has been on the receiving end of coaching, but his feelings for Yuuri, his experience as a skater, and his resulting dedication to the task ultimately turn him into a good coach for Yuuri and help him succeed where Celestino failed. And it's obvious that Viktor really loves being Yuuri's coach.
Viktor Nikiforov is a true inspiration for everyone who faces the choice of staying on in a life or work situation that is making them miserable or going full risk by following one's heart. I cannot thank Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo enough for creating a show with so many mature characters that are dealing with realistic adult issues and I'm happy that one of my favourite YOI characters is one of them. I wish that Viktor would receive more appreciation for this.
I want to thank the reader of Thousand Spotlights whose comment about my portrayal of Viktor inspired me to finally write this post 🩷 Also many thanks to @cecebeanie for reading over it in advance 🩷
Please note:
In some cultures, changing your job frequently is normal and thus not a big thing for people, but the concept I've discussed is the universal.
This meta doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive analysis of Viktor's situation as this would have gone beyond the cope of this post (I have written other metas that discuss some of these). Viktor shows signs of depression and/or creative burnout that might or might not have to do with focusing on skating for most of his life. Depression can manifest itself differently in different people and no one's experience is less valid than someone else's.
If you enjoyed this meta, please consider giving me a follow or checking out my works on AO3 (link in bio), which build upon my analyses.
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Nagi's "Hidden Path"/ Loophole
*featuring Isagi, Bachira, and Rin analysis*
I've been thinking a lot about how Nagi represents a "hidden path" in Bluelock, and the ways in which it seems the main manga and episode Nagi disagree on whether he should succeed- the key issue being his relationship with Reo. He plays soccer for their collective dream in a manga where depending on another character for your motivation is treated as soccer suicide, which should doom him, but his own manga starts with the statement that his genius is shaped by Reo - framed as a good thing.
I've said in the past that maybe Nagi will succeed by Episode Nagi's standards, but fail by Blue Lock standards, and I still think that would be an interesting path to take, but rn I wanna discuss the alternative that Nagi succeeds by both standards, even if to a lesser extent in the main manga since Isagi is the MC. And we're assuming here that his relationship with Reo isn't permanently severed in a way that makes him more similar to every other Bllk character bc that would make him much less interesting and also remove the "hidden path" aspect that we're expecting here.
So for him to succeed by both standards, I think what essentially needs to happen is that Nagi represents a loophole or caveat in Blue Lock's philosophy. And to understand why that would be the case, we'd have to understand WHY playing for anyone but yourself is a bad thing in Blue Lock. And there are plenty of examples to draw from.
Isagi and "All for One"
We can start with the "One for all, all for one" team Isagi was in- the most extremely dependent soccer we see. I'll be drawing from Isagi's Light Novel for this, because it really just spells it out. First, let's look at the reasoning for that "all for one" given in response to Isagi's request to shoot more:
“Up until now, You could have won matches with your individual skills, but high school isn’t a piece of cake... We win together, and become stronger together! If you do that, then you'll have double the joy! And half the sorrow!”
The reasoning given here isn't that the resulting soccer is better at winning games - rather there is an emphasis on safety. "the world is tough", "If we stick together, there's half the sorrow". And within that emphasis, is the implication that the individual isn't enough.
We can also see complacency in this ideaology. When Ichinan loses, the coach says
“You fought well. It’s frustrating, but this is what Ichinan is capable of now. The third years are leaving after this… and some of you might quit soccer after today but you can be proud of the days you fought together as a team."
"To me, Ichinan’s soccer team…is the best team in Japan!!!”
Within this dream doping that Ego rants about later on, we can again see the acceptance on the individual not being enough - "You fought well... but this is what Ichinan is capable of now." We also see within the dream doping the injection of safety and lack of perceived agency. Because we are one unit, there is no blame, no frustration, no need for improvement. The point is the team, not to win, so be proud.
Most damning is the way we see this reflected in Isagi
There’s no need to take a risky battle. If they lose, it will be his fault and he will feel bad for the team.
He makes an exquisite pass to Tada's feet. A perfect last pass.
What's emphasized here is the risk in making an egotistical decision for the whole team in believing himself good enough to make that shot himself. What essentially happens here is a devaluing of the self - " I'm not good enough on my own, its safer to trust others, trust the system, not your instincts" And that forces Isagi to not live up to his fullest potential, to chase what he wants. Until Blue Lock that is.
Bachira and the Monster
Bachira is probably the character most directly "punished" in the narrative for playing for someone else. Though I feel like punish is the wrong word because this problem with his ego reared its head and was resolved in the same game - once he realized the problem, Bachira resolved to solve it
According to Bachira's explanation
"...Until now, I was afraid of playing soccer by myself. I guess I wanted you to come save me. But, once I tried fighting on my own, like I'd done as a kid, I realized...
And so the problem with his habit of looking for another player when playing instead of focusing on himself was again the perceived lack of agency, and devaluing of the self. Longing for someone to play soccer with led to a dependency that negatively impacted his decisions on the field
So that's why his moment of growth was breaking through all on his own to steak back Isagi and win - ignoring the idea that he should wait for someone else to help him. He needed to believe in his own agency/value to prove himself on the field and achieve his goals.
Rin and Sae
I recently took a look at Rin's Light Novel and there was a line that stood out as kinda similar to Bachira's old habit of passing to an imaginary monster before coming to Blue Lock
he understood why things were not going well. Neither their coach nor his other teammates have the slightest idea of Rin’s image of play in his head.
(If it was Nii-chan, he would have made a pass here……) he thought so many times during today's practice. He jumped out in front of the goal to a position where I said, “Here!” but his teammates were like, “Huh?” “There?”
So whether you're passing or shooting, a reliance can develop, huh...
(How do Bachirin shippers feel about this parallel? haha. And what does this say about what Rin says to Bachira "But afraid of fighting alone. It is a soccer looking for someone. That luke-warm ego won't make my heart dance". Cus it seems Rin is criticizing Bachira for doing the same thing he did. What does this mean about how Rin feels about himself? (I mean.. he did already call himself lukewarm later but was he thinking about himself in that moment?))
In the light novel, I think it becomes clear one reason why Sae is so against Rin using him as his reason for soccer - it definitely affects how Rin plays when Sae is away. And since Sae becomes aware of the competition outside Japan during his time abroad, he knows that Rin's mentality as it was wouldn't be enough and thus wanted to spare him the suffering and have him give up. And this is in combination with the idea of "I've found out, that I'm not strong enough to hold you up. If you rely on me you'll fail" At least, this is my interpretation of it - but moving on-
With Rin’s last pass, they score a shot.
If his Nii-chan had been there, he would have passed the ball to him in front of the goal and he would have scored it directly….. He stopped thinking.
No pass is coming. That is now the reality. Anyway, the team won for the first time in a long time.
We see a lack of agency and a reliance on others once again - "If only Nii-chan was here". Like with Bachira, Rin is waiting for someone to "save" him, which limits what he chooses to attempt and stifles his potential because of how it limits his perceived agency.
We can also see this limitation in how he wants to be 2nd best after Sae - not best (de-valuing). It causes Rin to seal off his ego in order to catch up to Sae, by being more similar to Sae instead of developing according to his own unique talents/ego.
In order to catch up with his Nii-chan he saw off at the airport, he has to make the team’s victory his top priority. To do so, he must hold himself back.
Hold back the you who was trying to steal the goal with everything you have using that sense of smell for the goal and assemble an attack as a team play.
Even after Sae's return he's always on Rin's mind, and this still limits his soccer. It's only after Rin declares himself lukewarm and rejects the stories others create through their relationship with him that he is able to go all out by embracing his own personal style, rather than focusing on others.
Back on Topic!
So in summary, what is wrong with depending on others? What causes Blue Lock to default to individualism? Ultimately it seems like its the resulting lack of perceived agency - the idea that you can't do things without other people present. By constraining yourself into a narrative with other people, you limit what you can do, and you limit what you think you can do by molding yourself to their vision. Thus, your potential is stifled.
How can Nagi and Reo become an exception to this reasoning? Well, maybe Nagi's decision to leave Reo during 2nd selection is part of the key.
We know from Episode Nagi and Manshine that Nagi wants to improve for the sake of his and Reo's collective dream. And he (correctly) identifies following soccer that challenges/excites him as the proper way to improve.
Here, Reo identifies them playing together as a must, but Nagi corrects him and saying that them being the best in the world together is a must, saying (in his head T-T) that he likes being with him, but that in order to protect their dream, Nagi needs to change.
It's actually pretty much spelled out here. Nagi says he's fine with Reo playing with other people, but insists that Reo stay with him till the end. Its ok to play soccer with others, but keep me in your heart always. In other words, I don't mind not playing together, but you and our end goal is always in my heart.
This is different from Isagi, Bachira, or Rin's situation because in those cases, the team/monster/Sae were considered as key to success. However, in Nagi's case, success is key to Reo. It's completely reversed. It's that nuance of "I play soccer to play soccer with you, to win with you" vs. "I play soccer for you, I win for you". Because "playing together" is not a requirement for winning, it no longer acts as a constraint that restricts agency. Nagi's concept of being together separate from playing soccer together saves their partnership from being the same as the others and frees him to (for example) join Isagi to improve.
You can see more of this in epinagi
The Tag Game
You might say this is a bad example because Nagi relies on Reo to get him un-eliminated, but by Nagi's "I figured you'd do that, Reo..." we can guess that this was more from laziness than a belief that he needed Reo's help. Indeed, when Reo's in danger of being eliminated himself, when their dream is in any real danger, Nagi takes it upon himself to solve the issue
They didn't solve the problem relying on teamwork/partnership or anything. Nagi solved the problem because they're partners.
Playing Against Barou
The next time their dream is "Challenged" is when Barou says "Becoming the world's best striker means you'll be alone until you die", essentially a challenge to the viability of Nagi and Reo's dream. Nagi's response to that is to run off and instigate a 1v1 with Barou
So again, rather than deny Nagi options, his partnership with Reo provided the motivation to act out on his own.
Playing against Team Z
Even when they play against team Z, we see this in action. Nagi plays a more reliant soccer, his dream/Reo is challenged when he sees Reo's face, and Nagi decides to act out on his own.
Nagi will rely on Reo for the sake of laziness, but when it comes to their dream, there's this pattern of deciding to rely less on Reo, take destiny into his own hands, and make an effort. It's really that nuance of doing something to be with someone vs. doing something for someone.
Beyond 1st/2nd Selection
Brief mention here of Nagi's eyes shining when Reo says "But it's not enough" when Nagi praises him. I think this might be Nagi thinking its a sign that Reo in fact has not forgotten their promise and is also working to achieve it - consistent with the idea of being together without necessarily playing together (Whereas Reo is thinking the other way round - improving for the sake of playing together because that's the only way to be together)
So, where this theory hits its roadblock is the Manshine City Arc, where Nagi asks for Reo's help. But because of all the ominous foreshadowing afterwards, in addition to Ego's words that Nagi's deep ego (implied by timing of skull imagery +all the scenes I just listed to be Reo/dream-centric) is about to be tested, I think their dynamic is bound to change in some direction within the next game. So, their relationship is still in development and the theory isn't necessarily debunked.
**edited in addition** I think the key is that regardless of their behavior, the core of their partnership (ie their internal feelings) isn't dependency, but rather reciprocated faith and commitment, though especially with Nagi's communication and introspection issues, it may take some time for them to figure that out because Reo has no idea the faith that Nagi has in him. Reo actually assumes that their partnership can't exist without dependence - assumes its over when that dependence fades because Nagi will have no reason to stay with him, but this is him insecurely misinterpreting Nagi's intentions. They also can't really flourish until Nagi figures out his ego/motivation, though that's luckily foreshadowed to be addressed.
I think with how Reo misinterprets Nagi's motivations on a shallow level in 207, and how Nagi's motivation is foreshadowed to be addressed soon, we will get nagireo communication soon timeline wise (not real life lol). And hopefully with that communication, Reo's insecurity + Nagi's motivation can be addressed and they can begin to figure out a functional partnership within Blue Lock.
But really the key here is that faith and devotion don't necessitate playing with only each other in mind, while dependence/reliance does.
In terms of what will happen, I think we might finally get a confirmation of what Nagi's ego is - it certainly fits with their conversation in 207, where Reo tries to give a substitute that doesn't really fit. I'm not sure what would happen once Nagi and Reo have the clarity of understanding what Nagi's ego is though...
In Any Case!
I'm running out of fuel but just to let ya'll know I was thinking really hard about what the difference was between Nagi and Reo's dynamic in comparison to partnerships or teamwork criticized by the main manga and I did not expect the difference I came up with to be the difference between reliance and devotion. "I am not enough by myself" vs. "I will make myself enough for you". I still wonder if I'm just biased?
Plz lmk ur thoughts
link to a continuation of these thoughts - Hiori's Words, Reo's Insecurity, Nagi's Enforced Indifference
#reo mikage#nagi seishiro#isagi yoichi#bachira meguru#rin itoshi#bllk meta#blue lock meta#nagireo#reonagi#bllk#blue lock#Nagi's utter devotion lives rent free in my head#episode nagi
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Kiss Me If You Can || Part 3
Character: Bucky Barnes x Thief!Reader
Words Count: 1,830
Part 1,- Part 2, Part 3,-
Main Masterlist || buy me Ko-fi 🥹💓
Thank you to anyone who gave a like, reblog, and left a comment. It motivated me to write more.
Feeling awkward after Bucky's last words, Y/N returned the diamond necklace to the snobbish millionaire Richard a few days later.
Furious and humiliated, Richard, desperate to catch the phantom thief, opted to use the media instead of calling the police, tarnishing his name.
Enraged that now everyone knew of the phantom thief, Bucky sought out Steve, whom he hadn't seen in a long time. Since Steve became a judge and Bucky got promoted, it’s difficult for them to meet.
Bucky cut to the chase at the coffee shop and told Steve, “Your sister is the phantom thief.”
Steve glanced at his friend but remained unresponsive.
Arms crossed, Bucky pressed, “So, you already knew?”
Steve sighed. “It's not something I should be proud of. Did you expect me to call you and announce that my sister became a thief?”
Bucky rested his arm on the table and leaned closer. “What's her reason?”
Steve didn't look directly at Bucky. He poured sugar into his coffee, “You know our grandmother was completely biased toward Y/N because of her acrobatic skills, right?”
Bucky nodded, familiar with Steve's family dynamics. “Your grandmother is a famous circus producer.”
Remembering their grandparents, adventurous on one side and a librarian on the other, Bucky couldn't help but draw parallels to his own relationship with Y/N.
Sipping his coffee, Steve explained, “When my grandmother died, she left a letter and a key for Y/N. After that, she joined my grandmother's circus and traveled worldwide.”
“Let me guess, that led her to become the phantom thief.”
Steve nodded, “Hmm.”
Bucky went silent for a while. He tapped the table with his fingers, “I don’t think you completely ignored Y/N, Steve. The reason you became a judge is to help her if she got into trouble.”
Steve didn't rebuke.
“You’re a good brother, Steve. But still, what she did is wrong. I need to get her before anyone else.”
Concerned for his sister's safety, Steve pleaded, “I don’t know where she is. If you catch her, and I hope you do, please don’t let her escape.”
Bucky nodded.
Steve asked concern etched on his face, "After learning the truth, do you still like my sister?" His eyes held a mixture of worry and hope, reflecting his complex emotions for his best friend and sister.
Without any hesitation, Bucky answered, “I don't want anyone else.”
Steve sipped his coffee, a hidden smile behind the cup. He was glad his best friend cared for Y/N even after learning the truth.
“She will come to the challenge. I’m sure both of you will meet again.”
The day arrived. Richard made the challenge at his house, surrounded by police and media. Arriving with his secretary, Richard proudly showed off the jewelry and set a trap to catch the phantom thief.
Bucky infuriated with Richard, “You're risking everyone's safety for your own amusement! You fool!”
Richard scoffed, leaving Bucky with some choice words before departing rudely.
The female secretary, standing beside Bucky, stayed silent. “Smile for the camera, Bucky.”
Bucky scowled, his eyes narrowing at the sight of Y/N in her phantom thief disguise. "You have the nerve to show up, Y/N."
Y/N smirked, "Someone has to put the snobby man in his place."
Bucky crossed his arms, maintaining a cold demeanor. "Breaking into houses and stealing jewels isn't the way to do it."
"Ah, but it's so much more thrilling, don't you think? Keeps the wealthy on their toes." Y/N pulled and took off her button-shirt that almost showed her bra string.
Bucky shook his head, a mix of exasperation and amusement. "You're impossible, you know that?"
Bucky turns his head away “What are you doing?”
“His own secretary gives this disguise. While I’m here, she’s taking a break.”
Y/N's gaze held a glint of mischief. "That's why you can't resist chasing after me, isn't it, Bucky?"
"Well, I prefer a bit more mystery," she replied, her tone teasing.
Bucky leaned in, a sly grin playing on his lips. "If you're after something valuable, you don't need to break into places. I'm right here and come with my own set of perks."
Y/N, caught off guard by Bucky's bold remark, felt a heat rising to her cheeks. She stammered for a moment, momentarily speechless. Regaining her composure, she shot him a sly smile.
"But I'll keep that tempting offer in mind. Enjoy the show, Bucky." With that, she gracefully slipped away, leaving Bucky with a mixture of surprise and anticipation lingering in the air.
As the orchestration of the heist unfolded, Y/N seamlessly moved through the shadows, her every move a calculated dance—the target: Richard's prized family heirloom, a breathtaking diamond necklace.
The opulence of the mansion provided a stark contrast to the clandestine mission she embarked upon.
Silently disarming security systems and slipping through laser grids, Y/N reached the grand display room. The diamond necklace glittered within its ornate glass case, a captivating prize that promised wealth and a challenge that fueled her adrenaline.
With nimble fingers, she skillfully bypassed the intricate lock mechanism, and the coveted necklace was now in her possession. The thrill of the heist coursed through her, a heady mixture of triumph and exhilaration.
However, the mansion had secrets, and Y/N's escape triggered secondary security measures. Alarms blared, casting an ominous red hue across the room.
Unbeknownst to her, a concealed security detail sprang into action. The night echoed with the sharp report of a gunshot.
The bullet grazed her leg, leaving a searing pain in its wake. Despite the injury, Y/N pressed on. The wound, a mere scrape from the bullet, throbbed with each movement.
As Y/N navigated the escape route, the pain from the leg injury slowed her down, bringing her dangerously close to capture. The distant sound of approaching footsteps heightened the tension.
Just when it seemed like the end, Bucky appeared from the shadows, a silent savior in the night.
His strong arm wrapped around Y/N, and he guided her through the labyrinthine alleys. Their hurried footsteps echoed the urgency of the moment.
Y/N, wincing from the pain, glanced at Bucky, her eyes revealing a mix of gratitude and surprise.
Maintaining his stoic demeanor, Bucky muttered, "You really know how to get yourself into trouble, don't you?"
Y/N smiled teasingly, "Well, where would the fun be if I didn't?"
Bucky rolled his eyes. It’s not the time to make a joke.
In the dimly lit room, Bucky brought Y/N to his place to tend to her injury, but she insisted that the wound was nothing to worry about. Gently placing her down, he uttered a stern "Be good," an order that caught Y/N off guard and made her blush. The Bucky she used to know seemed to have transformed into a grown man.
She recalled his earlier words, "Next time I catch you, you won't be leaving my bed."
The desire to leave crossed her mind. However, Bucky, sensing her hesitation, caught her arms and urged her to stay. His worry for her safety was evident; he knew Richard had hired an expert to catch the phantom thief, and he couldn't bear the thought of anyone harming Y/N.
Amid the tension, Bucky decided to lay the truth bare, "Y/N, you need to understand. Richard has hired someone to catch the phantom thief, and they're professionals. I can't let you go out there and get hurt."
Looking into his eyes, Y/N detected a mixture of concern and genuine care, "Bucky, I appreciate your concern, but I've handled worse situations before. I can take care of myself."
Bucky sighed, holding her arms firmly, "This is different, Y/N. They're not playing around. I can't stand by and let something happen to you."
Y/N, realizing the depth of his worry, softened her expression, "Bucky, I've been doing this for a while. I know how to handle situations.”
Bucky's expression shifted, torn between his duty and his feelings, "That doesn't mean I want you risking your life like this."
The air in the room crackled with unspoken tension after their banter. The adrenaline from the daring escape lingered between Bucky and Y/N, creating a charged atmosphere. Bucky couldn't help but notice how Y/N looked at him, a mixture of amusement and more.
Amidst the charged silence, Y/N couldn't resist a teasing comment, "You're so fucking adorable."
Her words hung in the air, adding to the palpable tension. Feeling the moment's weight, Bucky leaned in and pressed a lingering kiss against Y/N's lips. The sensation was electrifying, and it left both of them breathless.
Y/N, her cheeks flushed, broke the silence with a playful yet earnest remark, "Kiss me like that again, and I'm going to think you really love me."
Bucky, caught off guard by the admission, looked into her eyes with a newfound vulnerability, "I've been in love with you since I was a kid."
Y/N blushed, the realization sinking in, and the room became charged with a different kind of tension that had been lingering for years and was now impossible to ignore.
********
As the night deepened, Bucky and Y/N were enveloped in a quiet intimacy that transcended the day's events. In the softly lit room, there was a quiet understanding between them, a safe place where the burdens of their lives felt lighter for a while.
Y/N lay beside Bucky, her breathing soft and steady, the rhythmic melody of slumber weaving through the air. Bucky, captivated by the moment, couldn't help but be drawn to her.
With a gentle touch, he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, his fingertips lingering on her cheek. Bucky couldn't resist the urge to lean in in the stillness, pressing a feather-light kiss to Y/N's forehead.
*********
The following day, Bucky slowly opened his eyes, expecting to see Y/N beside him. To his mild disappointment, the space next to him was empty. A flicker of worry crossed his face as he glanced around the room, hoping she hadn't left.
With a soft sigh, Bucky got up and headed to the living area. As he entered, he caught the aroma of a delicious breakfast that had been prepared, and his favorite dishes were neatly arranged on the table.
A smile touched his lips; it seemed Y/N remembered even the most minor details about him.
His eyes then fell upon a small letter on the table with a smiley face. Bucky picked it up, unfolding it to reveal the words, "Thank You, Bucky."
But it wasn't just the gratitude that caught his attention; Y/N had written something more behind the letter.
"You're not a bad kisser, Barnes. Keep that in mind for our next encounter. - Y/N"
As Bucky read the playful note, a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He will keep chasing Y/N without any question since she's the thief who stole his heart.
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kickstarter
Cryptid Creeks is a tabletop roleplaying game using the popular Powered by the Apocalypse engine and is 'Carved from Brindlewood', a term for content based on Jason Cordova’s award-winning Brindlewood Bay. In this supernatural mystery, you'll play river scouts, a crew of young adults setting out to stop a rapidly spreading curse with the help of ancient cryptids of your own invention.
Creeks has many inspirations including Gravity Falls, Hilda, The Goonies, Lumberjanes and Night in the Woods, representing a genre we feel is surprisingly lacking in RPGs. Through this game, we hope to see themes such as friendship, discovery and community explored by gaming groups and summer campers of all ages and backgrounds.
Cryptid Creeks will feature 150+ pages filled with the beautiful full-colour art you have come to expect from Hatchlings Games. Content will include robust safety tools, character creation, intuitive dice mechanics, a guide to running the game as Navigator, a collection of sample curses, and an appendix of rolling tables and handouts.
The standard edition hardcover can be carried easily and will feature smyth-sewn bindings, a matte laminated cover for durability and recycled paper throughout. The special edition will feature an alternate cover with foil-stamping to make it shimmer, a ribbon bookmark in a spooky shade and an additional chapter with designer notes and concept art.
The game begins with the town you call home becoming cursed. This malediction has occurred many times throughout history, most recently in the Autumn of 1962. The nature of the curse is completely down to you, however it always springs from an object sold by the Peddler, an enigmatic demon with hidden motivations. The curse is of particular concern to the Watcher, a benevolent cryptid who has existed in harmony with the townsfolk for centuries. Your crew of scouts must stop the curse before it overwhelms the community and spreads to the neighbouring city.
Your scouts must investigate for Clues to the accursed object while trying to prevent the darkness from spreading! These dual tasks will form the basis of your roleplaying sessions (episodes). The game is best played over several episodes (series), but we have provided rules for one-shot play (pilots).
Once the Watcher visits your clubhouse to inform you of the curse, you'll begin to discover Eeries around your hometown. These minor cryptids act as the eyes and ears of the Watcher and will observe your crew as they travel Clawfoot Creek attempting to find the object. The Eeries are a neutral - sometimes chaotic - presence in the game, but will intervene under special circumstances.
As episodes play out, the curse will spread and grow in strength, its potency measured on a Curse Clock ticking slowly through four phases towards calamity. Your actions during episodes will earn you Clues, and when you believe you've collected enough, you can attempt to destroy the cursed object forever!
Before episodes conclude, you'll be shown a list of milestones that, if met, will reward the crew with Cryptid Keys. These mythical items can be spent to upgrade your clubhouse and boat, factors essential to your progress in the game.
In Creeks, you'll create scouts using playbooks. These templates are provided to ensure character diversity and are ideal for those new to RPGs. Playbooks are named after boating roles, with Skipper, Shipwright, Lookout, Stowaway, Journaller, Negotiator, Medic and Conduit to choose from. The final game will include rules for you to create your own playbooks and select from a pool of special moves we've called Badges.
In most Powered by the Apocalypse RPGs, moves are used to determine your actions. In Creeks we have basic moves, which can be used at will, such as The Crew Move (used to clear misfortunes) and The Eerie Move (used to gain support from cryptids). Each playbook also has Badges, which can influence a wide range of mechanics.
The game uses two six-sided dice (2d6) where every roll progresses your story regardless of the outcome. Only players roll dice during sessions, so it never feels like a competition with the Navigator. Instead, they'll be your biggest fan, willing you to succeed as they represent the characters you'll meet and the challenges you'll face.
If your rolls fail (6 or below), the Navigator has an opportunity to react. They might drop misfortunes on your scouts to slow your actions, split the party so you can't rely on one another, or even progress the Curse Clock!
To stop the curse, you'll travel Clawfoot Creek visiting landmarks and inspiring locals to fight alongside you. To achieve this, you'll need a boat. Name your trusty vessel, then upgrade it to reach new locations on the map or welcome Eeries aboard, like the treasure-hunting Goldtooth. We're encouraging Navigators to incorporate creeks, coves and beaches into their adventures to ensure players use their boat often.
Having worked for a Deaf charity for twelve years and raising a disabled child, making Cryptid Creeks accessible to everyone is really important to us. To honour this commitment, we have hired Chris Hopper, one of the most experienced consultants in the industry with credits including Tal'Dorei Reborn from Critical Role and most recently Tales of the Valiant from Kobold Press.
The digital PDFs will accommodate screen-readers and feature alt text and chapter hyperlinks as well as plain text versions. Both hardcovers will have colour-coded page edges for intuitive navigation. Our website will also host form-fillable handouts for both players and Navigators.
Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, October 5 2023 2:59 PM BST
Website: [Hatchlings Games] [facebook] [twitter] [instagram]
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main gameplay wise, yes Quantum Break is lacking, with them introducing powers or ways to get around obstacles that are either a. never used again or b. can be ignored/forgotten completely by the player aka me because they aren't essential to beating the game, even on the highest difficulty. by the time Control came out they had polished and refined a lot of the combat mechanics seen previously in QB, making the flow of combat smoother, more intuitive and fun, and cutting most of the fat from the bone.
QB also suffers from something I personally love these games for, the collecting of notes, diaries, recordings, music and videos that are hidden throughout the levels and add to the lore, and gives additional insights into characters and the world. QB however goes to the limit of this however, making these extras so integral to understanding the plot that you have to find them or risk missing out on key details. And some of these "extras" are so well hidden is such obscure places that even if you're the kind of player that explores behind every waterfall, in every crevice, you're bound to miss a good amount on you're first playthrough. and if you do find most, you'll be doing a lot of reading. a lot. or just standing around and listening.
again, Control does this much better, another improvement. You'll still be doing a fair amount of reading, and standing around and listening or watching something occur in the environment, but most of it feels additional, a reward for exploring and playing in the space instead of just necessitating important exposition dumps. also, Control doesn't have a counter telling you how many notes you missed, thank the light for that. and since you can go back and explore most of the game world at anytime, even if you miss something you can backtrack and find it later at your own leisure, unlike in QB where unless you want to play through an entire part again you are kind of just left accepting the loss and moving onward with the story and hoping that whatever you missed wasn't the key to understanding a characters motives.
but the reason you play QB, and the main line Remedy games, is for the story and those characters. And QB is as much a game as it is a movie, where what you do in game and the choices you make will reflect and change what happens in the show between acts. To an extent. But that all plays into the themes of fate, control (or the lack there of) over destiny, the inability to escape ones actions, being your own worst enemy, and so on.
if you like very meta stories about time travel and being doomed by the narrative but choosing to fight because fuck going gentle into that good night, and don't mind clunky combat and spending a majority of the game reading emails, then please play QB.
then go play Alan Wake. and Control. I am very normal about these games. Trust me. And you too can also be very normal about them as well. also the music is good. anyone remember Poets of The Fall?
#the sieve talks#quantum break#alan wake#control remedy#i didn't mean to write a review and endorsement#but with Alan Wake 2 just around the corner I'm replaying through the RCU
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Sorry to bother you but I'm curious to know your thoughts on this.
I know it's not technically canon but the novelization does at point depict anakin wanting to leave the order to raise his kids and padme encouraging him to stay. I know he's his own person and all but having his wife pushing him to keep up the lies and secrets is kind a factor in his decisions I would say. Having someone you care for so deeply tell you to keep living a lie is definitely something that would mess with your brain and influence your perspective on things.
Idk. Just something that I feel is overlooked sometimes in the discussion of Anakin’s decision in not leaving. I would really love to know your thoughts on this.
“Anakin, not here. It’s too risky.”
“No, here! Exactly here.” He drew her against him again, effortlessly overpowering her halfhearted resistance. “I’m tired of the deception. Of the sneaking and the lying. We have nothing to be ashamed of! We love each other, and we are married. Just like trillions of beings across the galaxy. This is something we should shout, not whisper—”
“No, Anakin. Not like all those others. They are not Jedi. We can’t let our love force you out of the Order—”
“Force me out of the Order?” He smiled down at her fondly. “Was that a pun?”
“Anakin—” He could still make her angry without even trying. “Listen to me. We have a duty to the Republic. Both of us—but yours is now so much more important. You are the face of the Jedi, Anakin. Even after these years of war, many people still love the Jedi, and it’s mostly because they love you, do you understand that? They love the story of you. You’re like something out of a bedtime tale, the secret prince, hidden among the peasants, growing up without ever a clue of his special destiny—except for you it’s all true. Sometimes I think that the only reason the people of the Republic still believe we can win the war is because you’re fighting it for them—”
“And it always comes back to politics for you,” Anakin said. His smile had gone now. “I’m barely even home, and you’re already trying to talk me into going back to the war—”
yeah so i think that padmé's encouragement to live the lie is deeply unhelpful. if i recall correctly, there are two key times anakin thinks about leaving the order, both of which are in her presence, and yet she is the one who offers pressure back toward staying. the above passage is taken from right after they are reunited, and it is so telling to me. padmé loves him as her husband, yes, but she also sees him as larger than life, and says things that absolutely feed his ego. she encourages him to think the rules don't apply to him, because he is so important and special.
she doesn't take his commitment to the order seriously with respect to what it means to be a jedi, but she wants him to stay there anyway. i think that this kind of encouragement is rather similar to palpatine's manipulations, though she definitely has less sinister motives, the result is the same. her permission to break rules exacerbates the potential weaknesses in his character that lead to his fall. it compounds with sidious's maneuvering. her pressure makes him feel like not only a tool of the jedi but also the democratic opposition, unable to have what he wants because of politics and duty that he doesn't personally care about. all he cares about is getting what he wants.
i honestly don't know if he was ever genuinely serious about leaving the order. he clearly does not take his commitment seriously, but he also craves the power that having high status in the order brings, both in terms of access to force training and the glory of being the youngest council member. he thinks of leaving only when he's directly looking at padmé, not otherwise. so basically it's unclear to me whether or not he actually meant to leave, but what is not unclear is that padmé absolutely pressured him and flattered him, manipulating him and trying to use him (not with bad intentions! with the best of intentions!), and it encourages him to the edge of darkness. his perspective is absolutely shaped by her words.
i just believe that they make each other worse. that is the tragedy of their relationship imho. they love each other, and it harms them both.
#anakin skywalker#anti anidala#i think#which is just kind of canonical to me as anidala is bad for both of them in the text#but anyway#yeah i think it is important to keep in mind#sw#sw meta
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JRPG-inspired turn-based fantasy RPG Runa announced for PC
From Gematsu
Madrid-based developer Fennec Studio has announced Runa, a turn-based RPG inspired by modern and classic Japanese RPGs. A Kickstarter campaign will launch on April 16.
Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:
About
Runa is an adventure game inspired by modern and classic JRPG, with turn-based battle system, social links and a story-rich science fantasy world. Promising to keep intact what makes classic JRPG games fun, Runa also features elemental puzzles and base building, as well as minigames like farming, fishing and cooking.
Runa is set in a world in which runas symbolize the technological advancements of an ancient civilization. Whether for domestic use or combat, the use of runas is key. Only some people, known as adepts, are able to fully control them and unleash their true powers.
Key Features
-Explore a Huge World – The world of Runa is a colorful and vibrant fantasy one, but also full of mysteries and sci-fi elements. Follow the journey of a group of adventurers who, driven by their unique motivations, find themselves traveling the world and unraveling all its hidden secrets.
-Fight Turn-Based Battles – The “Elemental Break System” is a battle system inspired by JRPG classics: turn-based battles with ordered turns, elemental affinities and strategical approach. With four active and a total of seven party members, that can be swapped anytime (no turn wasted), group ultimates, and a lot of powerful skills!
-Relationships and Romance – Date different characters individually to strengthen your relationships with them. If you’re trying to find that special someone in the world of Runa, you’ll have more than 15 romance options, including same-gender relationships.
-Solve Elemental Puzzles – Solve a wide variety of elemental riddles, with seven different elements and 12 elemental skills at your disposal. Engage in quick puzzles in both the overworld and cities, and navigate dungeons designed around unique puzzle combinations.
-Base Building and Minigames – Build your own base in the city of Enyth by creating and enhancing buildings according to your preferences. Recruiting certain characters or completing important quests unlock the creation of some buildings, including: Residences, Canteen, Dojo, Lab, Farm, Runa Research Center, Antique Shop…
-And More…
Weather and time changes
Day and night cycle
Mixed calendar system
Elaborate dialogue system with choices
No silent protagonist
Elaborate quests
Hand-painted minimaps
Watch the announcement trailer below. View the first screenshots at the gallery.
Announcement Trailer
youtube
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CATWS and the theme of "trust"
I got about halfway through rewatching CATWS again and I keep seeing all the lines they've buried as foreshadowing for Zola's reveal and I just can't see it all as unintentional (even if they've tried now for 8 years to wind it all back).
One of Steve's major internal conflicts in CATWS is "trust". Right at the start, he makes a few humorous jabs at Sam, but as soon as he feels Sam starts to pry, Steve backs away.
Sam: Must have freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing.
Steve: It takes some getting used to. It's good to see you, Sam.
It's not just the line that shuts the conversation down, Steve's entire body language closes off and he turns away from Sam. Sam, being the amazing guy he is, manages to draw Steve back by sharing his own personal experience of war. Steve then opens up because he recognises that Sam approached him as a fellow traumatised human being, and not for "Captain America", and not for any ulterior motive.
Natasha then whisks Steve away, and we enter the world of subterfuge that is SHIELD. Immediately during the Lemurian Star sequence we establish that Steve dislikes ulterior motives, double-crossing and people withholding information from him.
He and Fury then argue over Project Insight. There are other important themes there about freedom of choice ("this isn't freedom, this is fear"), innocence until proven guilty ("I thought punishment usually came after the crime"), and American imperialism ("holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection") which I won't go into here. They finish their conversation this way:
Fury: SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we like it to be. And it's getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap.
Steve: Don't hold your breath.
What happens next is an important story moment, both emotionally for Steve and thematically for the overarching narrative. Steve makes three visits - I've said before how these represent his past (the mural of Bucky, the things he's lost), his present (Peggy, wizened and weary, secluded from society), and his future (Sam, youthful and energetic, moving past his trauma). But there's also something else key to these moments, and it is trust.
These are the three people Steve thinks he can trust in his life at that moment in time. He knows he can't trust Nat and Fury (they even told him this). He goes first to find Bucky, because that's his childhood friend and brother-in-arms, but of course Bucky can't give him any answers. He then goes to find Peggy, and it is this very brief conversation with Peggy that has all the foreshadowing for the big reveal.
Peggy: You saved the world, we rather mucked it up.
Steve: You didn't. (*CEvans gave emphasis on the "you"). Knowing you helped found SHIELD is half the reason I stay.
Peggy: The world has changed and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best we can do is to start over.
I'm just going to address the last line first. That line is often given as a mark of Peggy's words giving Steve's character direction. But on my most recent rewatch, I noticed this line.
Pierce: Despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down.
Those lines, repeated only two assassination attempts 20 minutes apart, draw a disturbing parallel between Pierce/SHIELD-ra's intention with Project Insight, and Peggy's advice to Steve about what should happen next. Was it accidental? Or in the hands of a good writer, foreshadowing?
Going back to the first part of the exchange. Steve's emphasis on him staying in SHIELD because Peggy had found it...
Is it any accident that upon walking into the abandoned SHIELD facility, he first lays eyes on Peggy's picture - and is tensely silent when Nat asks him who the girl is - then less than 10 paces from her picture is the entrance to the hidden lift?
This was supposed to be a moment of betrayal. Steve is not stupid. Neither, supposedly, is Peggy.
Immediately upon seeing Bucky, Steve mused that "whatever (Zola) did helped him survive the fall". He already put two and two together.
The significance of what Zola said about Hydra growing inside SHIELD, and Bucky fighting for SHIELDra would not have been lost on Steve. Even without Bucky explaining the conditions of his imprisonment, it was easy enough to infer that Zola had recaptured Bucky and used him for Hydra's ends.
Now, going back to the theme of trust. Consistently, throughout this movie, Steve reacts badly when he finds out people have lied or withheld information from him. He's sarcastic when he finds out the Lemurian Star "isn't off course, it's trespassing". He is furious upon finding out Nat has been given a separate assignment that he didn't know about. He confronts Fury about it, and doesn't stop snarking at Fury about his "compartmentalisation" even in the end. And for Sharon Carter, who lied to him about being a nurse? His only acknowledgement of her greeting him is a terse "neighbour".
Do we really think he hasn't...at least questioned why a woman he has regularly visited over the last 2 years, who he trusted enough to go to for life advice (he literally gave a monologue to her about feeling lost, which is the most emotionally vulnerable we've ever seen Steve be aside from the post-funeral "end of the line" scene) has compartmentalised this vital piece of information about Zola? If not also about Hydra and Bucky?
At the end of the movie, Steve learns to trust again: it is in Sam, who had treated him like a fellow veteran, and who was open and truthful in all of their conversations; it is in Bucky, who had been steadfast and loyal in his friendship, and who saves his life upon hearing their childhood promise; and it is in Nat, who gradually sheds all her pretences through the movie and show him what she believes in.
But the organisation that he had once stayed in because Peggy had built it? Steve insisted on tearing it down even when Fury suggested to salvage it. CATWS was a story that built Peggy up to be a villain...then the MCU changed its mind and reneged on a Captain America 3.
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Lord X' and Xenophanes' Smut Shorts (🔞+)
A/N: In fact, it all started with this post. I found the idea interesting enough (from a writer's point of view), so I decided to reproduce it in reality. Before that, I decided to write a little backstory about how Lord X and Xenophanes decided to do it and what motivated them to do it. I was inspired, by the way, by a song by the German rock band Rammstein "Du Riechst So Gut" ("You smell so good"). And yes, dear minors, please do not read this. It contains violent scenes, which I do not recommend you to read. Everything here (I mean the scenes of violence, rape, torture and etc.) I in no way support in real life. Thank you for your understanding!
Word Count: 4.8k (for two in general)
Warnings: manipulation, intimidation, kidnapping, gaslighing, detailed descriptions of rape scenes and psychological/physical violence and drowing scene, suffering, fingering, tentacles, blood play
Lord X
GIF was taken from Sonic PC Port.
Lord would not be himself if he did not love to mock his victims. He was mad about hearing their cries and pathetic pleas to leave them alone, he was mad about watching their pathetic attempts to escape or fight him back. All bugs were defenceless against the black raven, and that was certainly something everyone knew. The demon simply loved playing all sorts of horrible games with humans, which he considered nothing more than his own amusement. He laughed uncontrollably while his victim wept and bled their own blood. He burst into an eerie, cold laugh at the sight of the empty human eyes and the breathless, mutilated body. He laughed sickeningly, pulling out the poor human's internal organs, while they wept and howled in pain. He felt triumphant as he looked at his blood-stained gloves.
However, he soon became bored with it all. He played the same games with all his victims every time, and frankly, he was fed up with it all. He could already predict in advance how this or that person... No, no, no, not a person, a toy would behave in this or that situation. He knew in advance all the hidden fears of his victims, and as a rule, human phobias and people themselves were very often alike. People are so predictable. And it was certainly very boring. Bloody boring.
Among all the featureless faces and unremarkable eyes, he soon spotted you. How glad he was to have found you, to have drawn you into his world of endless amusement. He was interested in you, for even though slaves, most of the time, bore him immediately after he had played with them only a few times, he was always interested in a new toy in his magnificent collection of puppets. What amused him most about you was that he was never bored with you. Though he could predict your behaviour, he was amazed by you every time he played with you. Your character was totally different from the rest of his victims, for you never gave up. You never gave up hope of escaping from this horrible place, even though it is unfortunately impossible in principle. You resisted him like all his other victims, but you held on much longer than any of them. You had a strong spirit, a core strength, you could not be broken. Lord was looking for your fears and triggers that he could press to make you break, and he seems to have found something against which you would be powerless.
One of his favourite games was catch-up. He did not know why he so often played this game with his victims, but he could tell for sure that chasing after his prey gave rise to a vicious predator chasing his prey. He hovered with his sharp claws spread like a black raven, ready to seize with his sharp beak a butterfly that flew away pitifully. A couple of flaps of his black wings are enough to catch the silly butterfly, but the raven is in no hurry. He waits until the butterfly can tire themselves out, and then the crow will be there. One has to be able to wait, because patience is the key to success and easy gain.
You ran as fast as you could. The cold air was hitting your face in a jet, spreading painfully all over your skin. Little salty droplets froze in your eyes, you were ready to cry. But you can't. You must not show your weakness to your tyrant, for then he would torture you even more fiercely. Tears can't help grief, it takes fortitude. So you ran as hard as you could in spite of your fatigue, though your strength was at its lowest. The evil spirit soared, swiftly flying after you, intending to seize you. You remember well what happened the last time you were playing catch-up with him. He caught you, and with one swipe of his clawed paw ripped your belly open. It was simply horrible and disgusting, you will always remember his merciless, chilling laugh and his cruel eyes. He has no compassion, it seems he would have been happy to do this to you all the time, and you didn't want him to. You couldn't let him get the upper hand and win over you. This fucker just doesn't deserve to win.
As you turned the corner, you suddenly heard someone screaming. You listened while you kept running and saw a little yellow fox drowning to your left in your path. He was holding on to the bank with one hand, but you could see that he was nearing the end of his strength and he would soon be swept into the whirlpool and simply drowned.
"Help, please! Help! Somebody!" The fox cub shouted loudly, holding on to the bank with his last hand. When he saw you, hope gleamed in his eyes and he cried out again, addressing you. Without thinking, you ran up to him, kneeling down and extending your hand to him. He grasped it, and you pulled the wet fox out of the bloody river. He was breathing heavily, he was shivering from the cold, he hugged himself to warm himself somehow. You put your arm around him to help keep him warm and nervously told him:
"Come quickly. He's getting close."
But it was as if the little fox was in no hurry. He looked at you innocently and wondered earnestly:
"Who is he?"
You were taken aback. Doesn't the little fox know who's behind this whole rotten world? Has the little fox not yet met this bastard who hates all living things? You were at first taken aback and then filled with hatred, for your tormentor may well have dragged even small children into his world, torturing them in the same way he did the adults. It was simply horrible. The demon seemed to spare no one, as if all humans were there only for his own amusement. You frowned and gritted your teeth.
"You don't need to know that. But he's very bad. Come on." You said, nudging the little fox. However, he walked leisurely, as if he wasn't afraid of anything.
"Why try to hide…" Suddenly the little fox wheezed, his gaze became serious and mocking and his eyes filled with cruelty. You flinched. "… if he's standing right in front of you?"
Your eyes widened in horror as the little yellow fox cub turned into a dark blue demonic hedgehog in an instant. There he was, your tyrant, in all his glory. Still the same vile grin, still the same unfeeling eyes. Still the same bloody scar on his chest, still the same businesslike look. It was as if he was deliberately taunting you, testing you. Seeing your genuine bewilderment, he laughed.
"What a performance… Every time a trick like that never upsets me." He scoffed at you. "Most of the people just run through. But not you."
He stepped close to you, gazing into your startled and perplexed eyes. He was enjoying your confused look, because at last something had managed to get a hold of you so much. Even then he could see that you were weak in the face of other people's suffering. He played on your feelings, lured you in and you fell into his trap. The butterfly flew straight to the black crow, and now he can feed on it properly. The cunning black crow has earned his victory.
"What a prick you are!" You hissed with all hatred, gritting your teeth hard and clenching your fists. There was no limit to your indignation. He took advantage of you, he toyed with you and threw you away as if you were junk. It was as if he had taken from you what was most precious to you — your honor. And in response, he would burst out laughing.
"Oh, what are you going to do to me? Will you kill me? Oh no, help me, help me! I'm being killed! Help!" Lord pressed his hands pitifully to his chest and mimicked a frightened grimace, parodying the deathbed behaviour of his victims begging him not to hurt them. You frowned even more, and he laughed again, this time the nasty smirk was on his face. He put his hands behind his back and lazily propped his knees up, hunched over a little.
You took a swing, hoping to slap him. But he immediately intercepted your hand and squeezed your wrist tightly. You hissed grudgingly.
"You know, that was stupid. Just like you worrying about others who are, in fact, nobody to you." He remarked, still keeping one hand behind his back and the other clutching your wrist. One second and he throws you into the bloody water.
Once you were completely submerged in the river, you surfaced again, but you were still hitting the water with your hands, unable to get out. The river was carrying you swiftly in the opposite direction; you couldn't physically get out, even if you really wanted to. Meanwhile, Lord was lazily following you. He snapped his fingers and the river stopped, and now you were just floundering in place. Your tyrant came up to you and sat down beside you, scrutinizing you.
"Oh, you're drowning. Can I help you? Ah yes, you hate me. And one doesn't usually get help from enemies." He grinned cheekily. And you, holding on with the last of your strength, tried to grab hold of the shore with your hand. But it didn't work, you were only able to grasp it with your fingertips for a second, but you immediately snapped, and so you prepared to die again. The water rapidly filled your lungs, you found it hard to breathe with each dive into the water. Death by drowning, fucking nice. However, you felt your arm being intercepted. The next second you were roughly thrown onto the shore. You began coughing and pounding your chest with your fist, trying to catch your breath.
"You may consider that I have had mercy on you. It's too soon for you to die. I want to try something with you." He said cryptically, his eyes filled with an incomprehensible gleam. Your head was down, you couldn't see his face, and so he walked over to you and grabbed your chin, making you look at him. You looked at him with disgust and anger and he continued just as nonchalantly. "You don't mind, do you? Although who am I kidding... You just don't have a choice."
He shoved you roughly, and involuntarily you fell on your back. As he grabbed your wrists, he shackled them with something like barbed wire, you couldn't see what exactly was there, but your wrists burned horribly as you tried to tear it off. With a hiss of pain, you began to kick as your tyrant leaned over you, placing his hands on the inside of both your legs, forcing them wide apart.
"What the fuck are you doing, you bastard?" You shrieked as he squeezed your skin on your legs with his hands. He replied with a nonchalant smirk on his face:
"If you resist, you're going back in the river."
You fell silent. You did not want to die again, for even the strongest give up and stop fighting. You were tired of being in this perpetual cycle of suffering. At least now, he's not going to do something completely terrible to you, is he?
It was truly a whole new kind of domination for him, while it was a whole new kind of suffering for you. To be honest, he wasn't exactly thrilled about it, but seeing you wriggling and sobbing at his actions didn't stop him. He was moving his fingers into your body, adding one at a time and moving them inside you. Fuck, it was just awful. Your whole body was burning, you were twitching, and your wrists were bleeding profusely, while you yourself cried out and moaned at times. These were very different moans, different from those moans when Lord pulled out your insides or did any other bloody thing to you. They were moans of killing pleasure, it was bloody intense, but it was undoubtedly slowly killing you. Your mind was clouded, Lord stared into your eyes and saw the emptiness there. You didn't understand what was happening, it all seemed unreal to you, just a nightmare.
You cried out loudly as your tyrant wrapped his fingers around your nipple, squeezing it painfully. You arched back, and he unclenched his fingers slightly, leaving a slight redness on your nipple. It's just amazing how fragile and delicate the human body is. Why hadn't he done something like this to his victims before?
Now he was no longer bored seeing his fingers go in and out of you at a frantic pace. Now he was no longer bored when he saw you screaming loudly and moaning pitifully and wriggling desperately. Your face red with shame and horrible pleasure, your crystal clear eyes filled with tears, and your flawless, tender body drove the Lord into an unbelievable rapture. Such a brave and resilient human, it would seem, and right now they were wriggling beneath him and moaning sweetly at his every touch. He used to think that he fully understood the human body, but as it turned out, a human, such a miserable mortal being, is very versatile. Amazing indeed.
His fingers were terribly huge. To tell you the truth, his palm itself was monstrous in size, so what about the fingers themselves? His fingers slid much faster with gloves on, and it just drove you crazy. You felt the heat fill your entire body and a violent surge of emotion took you instantly into its net. You cried out loudly — that was your edge. And he too received an incredible amount of emotion for the day. It was all new to him.
"Did you like it?" He whispered slyly to you, burning your ear with his hot breath. "We'll continue again soon, my dear friend…"
You were exhausted. Your eyes were closed and your breathing was ragged. Dear Lord, what was all this for?
Sonic.exe (Xenophanes)
GIF and some Xenophanes' quotes were taken from Sonic.exe Game (Version 7) by MY5TCrimson.
Xenophanes loved to play with you. He loved to try all kinds of his cunning and cruel games with you, he wanted to test you, he wanted to see how long you could withstand his rounds. Humans are not known for their high stamina. Absolutely anything can kill a human. And most importantly, a human is suddenly mortal, for they can never know exactly where Death might wait for them. And even now, in his realm of endless suffering and torture, when absolutely everything he does brings you incredible pain, you will never be able to predict exactly when you will be brutally murdered. Simply because it is his world, with its own unpredictable rules.
One thing you do know, however, is that he will not rest until you are broken. He won't rest until he sees you on your knees begging him to stop hurting you. He will not rest until he is convinced that you are exhausted enough to continue his game. He didn't like it when people got tired, because then they wouldn't be able to experience all the fun he had in store for them. What kind of game was it where there were no players? That was why he controlled the mind and body of his victim when he realised they were no longer able to cope on their own. After all, it is much more fun to play when you know that the players themselves are interested, isn't that right?
You hated him. You hated him so much that you never missed an opportunity to hurt him, even if you were terribly exhausted. You didn't need his pathetic support, his bloody help, which he only gave you for his own amusement to mock his victims. He killed you time after time, and time after time you tried to resist him. And every time he laughed and laughed and laughed… After all, it is so hilarious to watch how a defenseless and innocent lamb pretends to threaten an angry and hungry wolf who can tear his prey to pieces in an instant. The strong will never intimidate, for they already know that no one can overpower them. He was inviting you to join him, to finally stop resisting him and rule this rotten world together. He was prepared to make you his favourite, he was prepared to give you as much time as he saw fit, but you didn't want it. He was prepared to make you the leader of his Cult, his right hand, for he felt that your steadfastness and hatred would serve as a great linchpin to be in such a high position. You certainly had the makings of a leader. At least, he thought so himself. However, you did not even want to listen to him, each time his proposal was rudely rejected. Well, for the time being he will approve of your decision so he can continue playing with his favourite toy. The opinion of slaves is not law for him, but he has certainly heard yours.
"Oh, playing with you is so much fun. You still resist me every time, even when you know there's no way out, and I like that." He bullied you. He trampled you into the dirt, made you believe that you were just his plaything. You're just a puppet, moving only at his puppeteer's beck and call.
"I'll kill you, you bastard!" You screamed in despair, you burst into tears, and rage and hatred burned in your eyes. How tired you are. When will you finally be able to defeat him, to do to him what he did to you? When will you finally be rid of that filthy creature, out of your misery? He burst into an eerie and cold laugh, tipping his muzzle back. How silly it is. How ridiculous it is.
You swing your fist in the hope of hitting his face. But your hand clears the air, and you can't see him in front of you. You're taken aback. Turning around, you see him there, behind you, smirking viciously and smugly, his arms crossed over his chest. His look was not one of importance, rather it was more of a relaxed one, for your tormentor was interested in how you would behave next. Seeing your puzzled face, he laughed.
"Surprised? Did you really think I was going to stand still?" He chuckled, beckoning you with his index finger. It was a challenge, a provocation for a fierce fight, and you didn't want to hold back any longer. He was asking for it himself.
With even greater fierceness you swing a second time, now filled with determination, adrenaline and hatred. And again he evaporates, being behind you. Once again you turn and run at him, preparing to strike again. Finally, after a few more times, you are exhausted, falling to your knees and breathing heavily. Again you're tired, and once again you can't overpower him. How pathetic that is.
He's never laughed like that before. His cold and eerie laugh chilled you to the bone as he laughed at your repeated futile attempts to fight him back. No doubt it turned him on, otherwise why would he let you do it time after time? He valued his victims' helplessness and innocence, because it was much more fun to play with them. Such people have a heightened sense of fear, and fear was what made Xenophanes tremendously fascinated.
But then he stopped laughing as abruptly as he had started. His fine mood suddenly changed to something else. He stopped smiling and immediately frowned, taking on a serious look. Approaching you, he immediately grabbed you by the throat. Wrapping two hands around his paw, you began to wiggle your legs and gasped instantly.
"Enough games. You had a chance to comply… But now you've come too far." He said coldly, as if to sizzle you with his gaze. He seemed upset that you had turned him down last time. You knew perfectly well that he gets terribly aggressive when he doesn't get what he wants. Last time it was you. He was incredibly furious that in his own world he couldn't get you to take his side, even though he could control people's minds, and it was incredibly frustrating for him. He needed to teach you a lesson for your bad behaviour.
He unclawed, and you fell to the ground. Greedily gulping for air, you touch your horribly flushed neck. But the luck didn't last long. One second and it was pitch-black. You screamed hysterically, touching your face. A scarlet liquid dripped from his long, sharp claws onto the cold ground. It seemed to have just slashed his claws across your face. You crouched low to the ground, writhing in pain. It was bloody unbearable.
And in the meantime, he was staring at you. He wasn't angry, he wasn't upset, but there seemed to be an intense resentment against you in his gaze. It was as if he was resentful of you, like a little child who didn't get a cherished toy. He wanted to get you, and when he wants something, he will stop at nothing until he gets it.
He kicked you roughly with his foot and you fell backwards. Through the tears and the blood, you saw him looming over you, peering at you curiously. There was a twinkle in his cruel eyes, a kind of vulgar spark, and you didn't like it at all. He regarded you as if for the very first time, passing his gaze from your head to your heels. He smiled wickedly, but not at all like he usually does. There was something entirely different about his smirk, and it startled you.
You froze. From the fear that pelted you from head to toe and generally from the events that occurred in those couple of seconds, minutes, maybe even hours, you simply couldn't think straight. You were so terrified and exhausted that you couldn't even utter a single word. But the look of your tormentor, which inspired absolutely no confidence, made you ask exhaustedly:
"What are you going to do to me?"
Xenophanes only grinned at this. He leaned even lower towards you, bringing his face close to yours. His hot breath burned you, and you twitched reflexively at the strange sensation.
"You'll find out…" He licked, extending his bloody long purple tongue. It was simply disgusting, you could see the roughness on it. Wild terror froze on your face, you suddenly realised what was about to happen to you. You wanted to jump up and run away, but in time you did, for in the same second he piled his whole body on top of you. Your chest made contact with his, the frantic pounding of your heart gave a rhythmic beat to the demon's body, you were very scared.
You squeezed in fear, and felt him lick your cheek, on which your own blood was dripping rapidly. Your blood tasted incredibly pretty delicious; you were to your tyrant like a sweet candy that he wanted to taste completely. His yellowish fangs turned scarlet, he couldn't stop licking your blood from your face. Immediately aversion filled you, you were disgusted by what this fucker was doing to you. You wanted to break free, to run away, to call for help, but you couldn't. It was as if he was controlling your body and would not let you interrupt his disgusting game. You huddled in the cold ground with the fright that pelted you. You trembled before your tyrant like a lamb to the slaughter.
One second and he came to your lips, you and he merged in a passionate kiss. You widened your eyes in horror and surprise; his tongue wandered in search of yours, but you resisted him. In a wild and passionate dance, his tongue wandered across your palate, intent on capturing your tongue as well, but you shook your face and didn't give in to him. You were ready to swear you would have thrown up if he hadn't immediately stopped doing that to you. He pulled away from your lips and grabbed your shoulders roughly, his claws digging into your skin, leaving bleeding scratches on it. You cried out and he looked at you angrily and fiercely, baring his sharp fangs.
"Stop fighting back, why are you doing this?" He growled dreadfully, clacking his teeth. "You'll never escape from here, so why are you resisting me?"
He was furious. To tell you the truth, he had tolerated your reckless and daring escapades for quite some time, he turned a blind eye to your feeble-minded courage, for your daring would never help you escape your Destiny anyway. He was incredibly angry that he couldn't control your mind fully, because if he had, you wouldn't be resisting him now. You wouldn't have attacked him then, why would you have done that? He wanted to make you his, completely his, so that he could fully dispose of you as he wished. Well, if he's incapable of subduing your mind, then he'll use your body and there's nothing you can do to stop him.
The next second you watched in horror as the glove on his right hand suddenly tore sharply. His hand seemed to swell and then in an instant it turned into a dozen tentacles. The tentacles encircled your body: they bound your arms, lifting them above your head, they encircled your waist along with your legs, forcing your legs wide apart. With a wild scream you wriggled, hoping to break free, but alas, the tentacles' grip was too tight. Your tyrant grinned reproachfully.
"It's too late to resist, you should have thought sooner." He whispered vilely, licking your ear. You cringed and looked into his empty and cold eyes with all hatred and fear. "You should have thought sooner… When you had the chance. Now just enjoy."
Without any ceremony, one of the tentacles sharply entered your body. You cried out loudly: your sobs were filled with horror and sheer misery. Tears welled up from your eyes as you wriggled and squirmed. And he, savoring every second, greedily stared at you. Oh yes, finally you belonged to him now. Finally he felt that close connection and intimacy with you. In most cases, people have sex because that is how they want to show each other their strong affection and love. Xenophanes did not love you, but he wanted to put you in your place by his cruel act. He wanted to get back at you for rejecting him that time. He is very jealous and vindictive, and would not spare even his most favourite plaything. You did not want to submit to him willingly, so he simply left you no choice — if you don't want to do it yourself, he will make you submit to him by force.
With each thrust your body was literally burning, you were very hot and in pain. You screamed, begged him to stop, but with each thrust he moved harder and harder, more intense and more intense. Your eyes were blurred, you seemed to have lost the essence of your existence. Your body was burning, as if a thousand needles were digging into it, tearing the flesh from within. It was a slow poison, it drove you mad. Xenophanes felt no physical pleasure, but he was incredibly proud that he could break you, for now you were in complete submission to him.
With a final thrust you felt a strange warmth fill your lower body along with your chest. Tilting your head back, you bit your lower lip and began to wriggle. No, no, no. That's so dirty, gross, disgusting. You're not supposed to enjoy it. It's terribly wrong, it's terribly shameful. Your face reddened with shame and heat, for now you no longer resisted your tyrant. He had caught you up in this human pleasure and finally took complete control of you.
"You are mine." He roared, digging deep into your flesh with his claws. You were ecstatic, you were on the verge of coming, and the next moment you snapped into a scream. Your heart was beating frantically in your chest, it wanted to jump out.
You were raped and slaughtered angrily.
You were raped until all your strength had disappeared.
And yet he rose to torture you
Die in the only fun for the Devil.
My dears, this is special for you! @uglysonicsimp @tabbesiscool
#sonic.exe#sonic exe#lord x#xenophanes#gender neutral reader#reader#fnf#friday night funkin#creepypasta#yandere#yandere x reader#yandere x you#creepypasta x reader#creepypasta x you#smut#tw: violence#tw: rape
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Book Recommendations: For Fans of… Knives Out
Did you enjoy the newest Knives Out mystery, Glass Onion? Here are some read-alikes you may enjoy!
Secrets of the Nile by Tasha Alexander
Lord Bertram Deeley, a renowned amateur British collector of antiquities is entertaining his closest friends at a lavish cruise up the Nile to his home at Luxor when he suddenly collapses after offering a welcome toast, a victim of the lethal poison cyanide. Who amongst this group of his nearest and dearest would want to kill their generous host: an archeologist whose dig Deeley was funding until he suddenly withdrew support? A powerful politician whose career Deeley had secretly destroyed? A dyspeptic aristocratic English spinster whose hired travelling companion seems determined to protect her employer? Or even the formidable Mrs. Hargreaves, Lady Emily’s mother-in-law, who may have spurned the advances of Lord Deeley when they were both younger? A key clue may lie with several ancient ushabtis, exquisite three-thousand-year-old sculptures that played a role in yet another murder in Ancient Egypt, a crime with a very real link to Lord Deeley’s death. Lady Emily and Colin gather their suspects together to reveal the identity of a killer whose motive is as shocking as it is brilliant.
This is the 16th volume in the “Lady Emily Ashton Mysteries” series.
The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith
In the Swedish criminal justice system, certain cases are considered especially strange and difficult - the dedicated detectives who investigate these crimes are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division. These are their stories.
The first case: the small matter of a man stabbed in the back of the knee. Who would perpetrate such a crime and why? Next: a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. But how on earth do you search for someone who doesn't exist? And in the final investigation: eerie secrets that are revealed under a full moon may not seem so supernatural in the light of day. No case is too unusual, too complicated, or too, well insignificant for this squad to solve.
The team: Ulf “the Wolf” Varg, the top dog, thoughtful and diligent; Anna Bengsdotter, who's in love with Varg's car (and possibly Varg too); Carl Holgersson, who likes nothing more than filling out paperwork; and Erik Nykvist, who is deeply committed to fly fishing.
This is the first volume in the “Detective Varg” series.
The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray
The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a house party, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances - characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered - except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.
Nearly everyone at the house party is a suspect, so it falls to the party’s two youngest guests to solve the mystery: Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry, eager for adventure beyond Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, the Darcys’ eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem almost relaxed. The unlikely pair must put aside their own poor first impressions and uncover the guilty party - before an innocent person is sentenced to hang.
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Alan Conway is a bestselling crime writer. His editor, Susan Ryeland, has worked with him for years, and she's intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. Alan's traditional formula pays homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. It's proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.
When Susan receives Alan's latest manuscript, in which Atticus Pünd investigates a murder at Pye Hall, an English manor house, she has no reason to think it will be any different from the others. There will be dead bodies, a cast of intriguing suspects, and plenty of red herrings and clues. But the more Susan reads, the more she’s realizes that there's another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript - one of ambition, jealousy, and greed - and that soon it will lead to murder.
This is the first volume in the “Susan Ryeland” series.
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands - the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.
Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.
The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps. Now one of them is dead... and another of them did it. Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?
#mysteries#murder mystery#fiction#knives out#readalikes#book recommendations#book recs#reading recommendations#reading recs#library books#to read#TBR pile#tbr#booklr#book tumblr#book blog
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Day.6 Key - Sawtober/Sawcember
warning : hurt/comfort, implied abuse, tiny angst
Sawtober/Sawcember masterlist
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A key can be anything. A key can be an object. A thing that unlocks a chest, door or cupboard. A key can start and stop a car. A key can also take the form of a card.
A key does not have to be a key, a key can be many things. A key can also be human and does not have to be made of one material.
It can breathe and look around and show emotions. In a game like the one Jigsaw played, this key seemed to be able to be anything.
But it could have been a hidden apprentice. It could have been something that gave the characters motivation. Keys could take the form of a boyfriend and a father.
Keys could animate people to be the eyes of a dead person. Making sure that someone did something right, that Hoffman played his game right. That Hoffman didn't go after the woman Jigsaw loved.
Keys could play a game of their own for their lives knowing that their love was the only thing that gave their loved ones hope. In their case, however, the Keys knew exactly what they stood for and knew exactly what use they had.
Lawrence Gordon and Eric Matthews both knew exactly what they were here for. Knew exactly that they could not leave the district they were in. Knew that they would only meet each other. Adam as well as Daniel.
They would hear the voice of Logan Nelson, see the image of him threatening Adam and Daniel with a gun, and Daniel and Adam would see him threatening Lawrence and Eric.
The four of them knew that they were all the keys to each other that kept Nelson alive as long as they played along.
Because he also knew that the four of them were his keys. His keys in the plan he had received from Jigsaw. The four people who had to stay alive until he had finished his game.
It's amazing what keys are capable of, he heard the older man's voice in his head. He had only seen Nelson a few times and yet in those few times he had attacked him.
He had attacked him after he had punched Eric so hard that the former policeman could barely hold himself up after Nelson had shown him the footage of the nerve center game. It was a memory that made Eric furious.
Daniel had tightened his bite on the older man's arm, almost as a natural reaction, and had only let go when Adam and Lawrence pulled him away from Nelson, who had even lost a piece of skin in the process.
,,You're thinking about it again," his father's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Daniel hadn't heard him coming, hadn't heard the trained sneak of the ex-cop leaning against the doorframe. But Daniel saw his father shift his weight.
The broken foot had never really healed completely and even though Eric was doing a lot for his son, they both knew that he would always limp slightly. That the painkillers were necessary to get him through the day. That he could walk reasonably freely.
That he could catch Daniel when he had his coughing fits and choked up the blood from his lungs. They both had each other in their brokenness. Daniel nodded and looked in the mirror in front of him. He didn't look much different.
The same dark circles under his eyes, the same curly hair, the same clothes that still screamed angsty teenager. And although it had been almost a year and he was now eighteen, time seemed to stand still.
His father, who had stepped next to him, hadn't changed either. He had become drained, with dark circles and guilt in Eric Matthews' eyes. A guilty look that he couldn't save his son, that he couldn't protect his only family.
A look that Daniel always returned with forgiveness. He had seen what his father had done to save him, that he had broken his own foot, that he had been saved from the ice blog by Hoffman at the last moment only to end up here months later.
But when he felt his father's hand on his head as he tousled his curls and smiled slightly, Daniel had to smile slightly too. ,,We'll manage... I'll wait here as always and watch over you," Erik said and, after one last look, broke away from his son as he walked back into the living room.
Daniel could hear the slight difference in the way he walked and how the broken foot never quite came right. It was Daniel's own fault, but he knew that working for Nelson was the only way to get out of this. To get out of the next game.
Taking his inhaler from the table and grabbing his bag, he went to his father. Like every time, Erik sat in the living room at the large desk and the masses of screens all showing the district.
These were his eyes on the outside, the only way to watch and protect Daniel. Daniel knew that his father would smoke again, but only when the door closed did he know that he would never do it in front of his son again.
But Daniel knew his father needed it too. Knew that the pain was unbearable at times. Knew that he had heard his father scream more than once and that it had scared him so much that he had tears in his eyes.
The two of them sat next to each other on the edge of the bed. Sometimes he clawed at his father's shirt or Eric held on to him. It depended on who had less lust for life that day.
A fact they both knew and yet there was no way out. ,,Take care of yourself...I love you, son," Eric said, turning his chair to face Daniel, who was standing in the doorway. It was one of those mornings that were emotional for both father and son.
He felt himself swallowing the tears and instead took the coffee mug to go that his father had already prepared. ,,Love you too!" he called back as he stood at the front door and walked out, knowing he wouldn't see him again until tonight.
The streets in the district were almost always empty, there were no dogs here. No pimps or other characters either, at most Nelson or some food delivery group. It was an old industrial area with not a soul in it.
Only Daniel, Eric, Adam, Lawrence and Nelson seemed to live here. But it was the best thing to do if you wanted to disappear in a town like this.
He put the cup to his lips and took the first sip, smiling as always. Initially, over a year ago, his father had hated it. But now, as a small gesture of attention and because he knew that Daniel liked it more than coffee, his father always gave him a cup of cola.
It wasn't healthy and yet it was as if his father was sometimes next to him. Daniel imagined him looking at him skeptically and tasting the sweet drink himself only to grimace slightly and they both laughed.
They were memories and moments they loved. But like every time, he knew that when he saw him at the end of the street, that feeling would be gone. That his fear would come back.
That the fear of losing his father or his friends would come back. And like every morning, he woke Daniel and yet he never woke back. ,,Hey, good morning my boy," Nelson said, giving him a cheerful smile, but Daniel didn't listen. One thing he had gotten used to over the years as a teenager.
He only caught snatches of words and knew what Nelson wanted him to do. To look for the victim and work with Adam. It was always the same until they had about five to eight people. Then they got a few weeks to a few months off and could move around the district freely.
At least Lawrence and Eric could move around more freely than before. The four of them stayed together most of the time and were just there for each other.
He had switched off, did what he did best and hissed, ,,I'm not your son" and snatched the note from the older man's hand and was about to continue down the street when he suddenly felt Nelson's hand on his wrist.
It was too painful and reminded him of the darkest days with his father. He hated it. ,,I know teenage angst but believe me I've always wanted a son and believe me it can come true very quickly," Nelson warned and the younger man felt a chill run down his spine.
He knew Nelson wasn't joking and what he could do to him or any of the others made him sick to his stomach. Before he tore himself away and Nelson waved goodbye to him.
Daniel ran faster than necessary and just wanted to get away back to his father or to Adam. ,,Don't forget the keys!" Nelson shouted and Daniel almost let out a pitiful whimper as fear coursed through his body.
He had to get away to anyone but Nelson. Because he knew that Nelson could take anything from him, anything at all.
But as he continued down the street and took the first left, he saw the dark red old car. Saw the black-haired photographer leaning against it and saw the nod. Saw the smoke from the cigarettes and saw someone he trusted next to his father.
As he got closer, however, he saw the small cut on Adam's hand as he held the half-smoked cigarette out to Daniel, who took it.
He always did and even though he had initially coughed and spat blood to the ground, scaring Adam, it was now normal. Everything seemed to have returned to normal.
,,A seizure?" he asked and handed Adam the note, which the black-haired man read through. His eyes flew over it and he sighed, a sigh always meant it was going to be a long day, sometimes several days.
It meant that they would have to travel a lot and wait a lot. ,,A nightmare and pain, not a good mix," he said and Daniel heard the hint of a muffled laugh, but it didn't come. Looking up at the house in front of him, he saw the blond-haired man at the window.
He knew it was the doctor, knew that Lawrence Gordon and Adam Falkner-Stanheight were the other two in the district. He knew that Lawrence suffered from seizures in his leg and was plagued by nightmares like all of them.
That Adam was taking painkillers for the gunshot wound to his shoulder that had turned into an ugly big scar and sometimes he swore that when Adam tried to stretch he could hear the crack of the bone more than clearly. That the two of them were finally together and the love between them had survived the games.
But like him and his father, they had paid a price. The worst was when one of them thought he was still in the bathroom and started imagining things.
It seemed to be one of those mornings and even though Daniel could only see the blond hair and a few eyes upstairs, he knew that there was love in those blue eyes for Adam.
That they both slept in the same bed, that they were there for each other. That Lawrence watched over Adam with the surveillance cameras and always had coffee and cigarettes ready for him.
That it was the equivalent of Eric's drinks with Coke. ,,Nothing a few kisses and other things can't soothe," Adam muttered, wiggling his eyebrows and Daniel rolled his eyes.
It was an attempt at normality between them and to Daniel, Lawrence and Adam were a bit like two uncles. In turn, to Lawrence and Adam, Eric and Daniel were the older brother and nephew they never had.
,,Oh, please keep the information to yourself" Daniel said with a grin, even if it was small, it was honest as he sipped his Coke and threw away the cigarette.
The two of them got into the car and Adam started the engine before they drove off. It was always the same as they drove out of the district Adam took photos of the person and Daniel searched the internet for anything.
These were observational tasks and they had to quickly recognize a routine that they delivered to Nelson before they could return to their loved ones in the evening or later.
In the end, all four of them knew. They were nothing more than keys. Four keys in a game of information gathering.
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@a-reading-dreamer , @megustadilf , @misslavenderlady , @callmeklarise , @mysunfishpeedinmyroom
#sawtober#sawcember#saw#saw movies#daniel matthews#eric matthews#adam faulkner stanheight#lawrence gordon#logan nelson#chainshipping#lawrence x adam#adam x lawrence#Spotify
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16 for sheep, 3 for Winter, 4 for Miriam, and Group-24 for Tueggi and Liffeh
Ty!
16. A magical trickster has trapped your character and will only set them free if they can beat the trickster at a game of their choice. What game does your character choose to play?
INTERESTING choice for Sheep. I like your style :3
Sheep would demand a game of its own design and insist the game was a clear and established one, but as the game went on, any attempt to catch it would be met with "close, but that's not actually the end. You forgot a rule." [The rules were not explained.] The effect would be that of trying to play a game with a six-year old who INSISTS that no, you didn't win!
It is, however, a death game. A hide-and-seek, catch-me-if-you-can death game.
3. Your character is stuck in a timeloop! They can choose ONE other character to remember every loop. Which character do they choose? What happens next?
Honestly, Winter would pick the mortal it knew best wherever that was - and that would be a tough pick, because it travels a lot (and does its best to befriend people wherever it stops). This could have the effect of any one of my friend's OCs being dragged into absolute nonsense as Winter tries progressively weirder and weirder things and somehow expects them to not only go along with these disaster experiments but to participate!
(art by @paulstation2!)
4. Your character has to give a ten-minute speech on a subject of their choice to a room full of experts. What subject do they choose?
Depending on the role he's most recently taken, Miriam may draw from the knowledge base of the person he's pretending to be. He's very good at doing his research, or at least, doing enough to pass as them. Honestly, he might have been in this exact situation before, and I'm delighted by the idea of him reading the pilfered notes of a historian and never once hesitating on the things he knows aren't entirely true.
If it was in one of his periods in between stints of identity theft, though, his memory will be less fresh and less focused. He could give a damned good lesson on body language, though.
24. Your characters are all guests at an old manor house. It soon becomes clear that their host is secretly planning to kill them. All the doors and windows in the house are locked tight, and their host has the keys. How do your characters react? Do they all make it out alive?
Tueggi and Liffeh (don't be fooled by the angle, Liffeh's taller) are disadvantaged by terrain; they're used to green spaces with wind direction, tripping roots, leaf-obscured mud, and three dimensions to navigate. That won't stop them from coordinating their efforts to find and corner their host into a space with no easy exit and poor layout for fighting. (In a fair fight, after all, the host would be very much outmatched, so trickery is to be expected.)
While Liffeh needs help navigating the physical spaces (with eyesight that's a hair's breadth from absent, it's safer to blindfold and rely on her other senses and tueggi's occasional cues than risk walking into things that blend with the ambient color of a space), her ties to the mists will help her sense where their quarry may be hiding in the building. Tueggi has an almost sixth sense for traps and hidden passages, so it will take true finesse to catch the pair in one.
Their host (whatever their motivations) would have bitten off far more than they can chew. The would-be killer find themself restrained, keys pilfered, and carted off to whoever counted as the local authorities.
Unless this was a Kitah Manor sort of situation with the risen illusionist. Then the host would just be dead. Again.
[asklist here for anyone who wants to put their guys in situations!]
#ty for the ask oz! <3#sorry this is so late - got busy and then my brain was friedddd yesterday after an all day class outside in cold sun
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If I may get your thoughts on something. The fandom likes to throw out that because Malia was in a coyote state for x years that's used to say she should still be a child mentally. Not to completely defend him but shouldn't that also be the case for Peter. According to Derek he himself was still in high school when the fire happened. And with Peter being Peter with the flashbacks we probably say he was about 21 22 when that went down. So his selfish ways, although not forgiven, make a lot more sense when you realize this dude is still barely out of educational years. He's smart and cunning but he has no idea how to be an adult about things.
To truly grapple with your question, there are some matters of lore established by the show that I think we all need to bear in mind.
Fully shifted werecreatures possess the cognitive abilities of humans, not animals. Talia understood the importance of the meeting in the distillery and timed her entrance for maximum impact as a high-status alpha. Derek recognized the tactical situation at La Iglesia and made decisions accordingly. Malia was able to analyze the crime scene with Alex's parents while a four-legged coyote.
Werecreatures' physical appearances do not match up with their chronological ages the same way humans do. Noshiko Yukimura looked in her twenties in 1943 when she was near 800 years old and in her forties in 2011 when she was near 900 years old. Satomi Ito looked pretty much the same age in 1943 and 2012. Cora Hale was seventeen "in how you measure in years."
Werecreatures (and humans with a motivation to do so) manipulate human institutions in order for the supernatural to remain hidden. They're quite proficient at it. The Argents had agents placed throughout the government and law enforcement and were able to get Gerard and Victoria installed in the local high school. Jennifer managed to create an entire identity for herself that passed muster. The Hales were pillars of the community without anyone suspecting they were werewolves. We can joke about a Nazi werelion teaching physics, but he was also facile enough to infiltrate the upper levels of the German military.
In other words, while an engaged viewer might question the quality of the presentation of Malia in terms of socialization and emotional development, there's no reason to insist she would have to act like a feral child. She wasn't a coyote, as Scott pointed out, she was a werecoyote. If we're going to accept the supernatural abilities that deny scientific reality -- and we have to in order to engage with the show -- we have to accept the story's rules as they are presented to us.
Which means, unfortunately, that I have to disagree with your second premise, mostly because we can't be sure about Peter's chronological age. His physical appearance is not admissible as evidence nor is the age given on his medical admission papers in Monstrous (4x10). This means that we have to rely on the position taken by the story itself, and that implied that Peter was fully an adult. Neither Young Derek nor Older Derek treated Peter as a peer; Peter always stood in the position of mentor and elder. After all, in Peter's own words when talking about Triskelion: "Talia used it to teach Laura; I tried to use it to teach Derek." Why would Talia put someone she considered a teenager in charge of something as important as her son learning self control, especially after the disaster with Paige? Cora treated Peter far differently than she treated Derek; in my opinion, she treated him like a member of the older generation.
All of the show's characters treated Peter as an adult who should have known better, including Cora, Lydia, Melissa, the Sheriff, Stiles, Malia: all of their words and actions clearly express this point of view. Even villains such as Kate, Jennifer, and Deucalion treated Peter as an adult and a peer. I think Derek's treatment of Peter is the key; I find it telling that Derek treated the twins differently than he treated Peter. Derek never acted as if Peter had diminished capacity or limited freedom to make decisions the way he did with Aiden and Ethan, and it certainly wasn't because he liked the twins better or because they hurt him less. The only person to express hope for Peter's rehabilitation was Scott, and that was seen as such an extreme position that Stiles used it against Scott during their argument in Parasomnia (5x02).
Some people choose to be selfish; some people choose to act ruthlessly and unethically. We're not supposed to believe that everything Peter's done is due to his inability to process the fire and the resulting coma. I've witnessed too many people expressing disbelief that Peter would work with the person who burned his family, and I want to shake them: that's the point! There's no trauma pushing him to work with Kate in Season 4; he chooses to do it because it's the most effective means to get what he wants. Peter is not a victim in Seasons 1-4; he's an opportunist. He uses Kate because she has the power and the history to distract everyone from what he's trying to achieve, just as he used Jennifer's threat in Season 3 to distract everyone from his plans and to remove Derek as a possible obstacle to those plans without killing him.
His selfish ways make sense because he's selfish. He manipulates people to gain power because he wants power. He's not one-dimensional by any measure, but the narrative makes it clear that until he realizes that people exist to be more than just means to his ends he will be an antagonist. Until he accepts that -- which he starts to do in Season 6 -- he will be exactly how Scott described him "always a monster."
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KH4 Spec: Disney Worlds & Emotional Vulnerability (for boys)
A key part of any Kingdom Hearts game is the use of Disney (& Pixar!) films as Microcosms to the greater Macrocosm of said game (& often the Series as a whole). The Disney Worlds act as easily recognisable Settings, toyboxes if you will, to convey concepts otherwise difficult to "fit" within the limitations of the JRPG genre.
(even then, KH does tend to rely on Monologue Heavy Cutscenes & Collectible Texts to direct players toward All Those Emotions & Reactions That Are Happening)
Societal Preconceptions of what stories can be told with a Young Male Protagonist actively sabotage the KH series in its efforts to show the emotional experiences of its young male characters: Sora needs the Framework of a Disney Princess in order to express and recognise concepts traditionally Denied to his gender. Players need Very Explicit Parallels and Dialogue, often repeated & rephrased across several Worlds, just to prevent their Dismissing Emotional Text (let alone Subtext) out of hand because "JRPGs/Action Heroes/Boys don't feel Scared/Sad/Insecure".
Emotional Depth is not "masculine", especially for Male Protagonists and Male Antagonists because "Feelings" are "feminine".
KH actively subverts this false perception of [How Brains Work] by very pointedly removing its "Token Girl" from the most Emotional & Introspective moments in the series.
Kairi's whole PURPOSE, in the greater scope of the KH series narrative, is to "Not Be There" when she "should" be: when Sora feels overwhelmed by the enormity of his quests or feels scared of Failure, it is never Kairi who magically pops by to do the Emotional Heavylifting in Sora's Stead. Sometimes Sora is able to articulate his feelings by recognising them in the Stories of the Disney characters (most of them Female) but as "Story" characters, the emotions and memories that are being Expressed are, by default, those of our Male Protagonists (Sora & Riku). The Disney Worlds act as framing devices for a Young person struggling to articulate whst they Feel & for a Male Protagonist to Recognise his own emotions even as his "own" World (the society he grew up in, the societies of We Players) has preconditioned Sora to "grow out" of Feeling emotions, let alone Expressing them.
Kairi the UnCharacter
Kairi's function within the greater narrative of KH ("the Coming of Age of a young boy named Sora") is to Be Female and to Not Be Where She Is "Supposed" To Be.
In most works with Male Protagonists, especially those of the Shōnen or action genres and ESPECIALLY in the videogame medium, a "Token Girl" functions as an Emotional Outlet for the Male Characters.
Has the (male) Protagonist just experienced something Frightening, suffered Loss or become Lost after the Peacefup Setting of the game's Tutorial?
The Token Girl will be there to Recognise and Express feelings of "something sad and scary" having happened to the Protagonist, of how "shaken and out of sorts" the Protagonist must be. The Token Girl will then act as an Outlet for these emotions, a Comfortable Vehicle to Focus on (to "redirect" the negative emotions to masculine "action") via becoming Someone To Protect or Someone To Impress. Or, if the Token Female is Dead By Tutorial, grief for "Her" is an Acceptable Emotion... to then be directed to the "more acceptable" method for dealing with Males Having Emotions via Monologues To The Setting ("talking at the scenery") or Promises To The Dead.
These emotions are, subsequently, Never Brought Up Again except as Character Motives or within the "acceptable" outlet of a Romantic Sideplot or an Epilogue Montage/Cutscenes. Sometimes games will use character commentaries in item descriptions or story logs to Remember The Plot Device but since these Expressions of Emotion are hidden within optional reading, players & the game's cast can Dodge any further acknowledgement of Having Feelings or anything resembling [Emotional Labour].
Kairi, the "Token Girl" of KH1, exists to "not exist": as the Designated Female in the lives of Sora and Riku, Kairi's absence is Glaring and, for some, Uncomfortable.
When Sora is at his lowest, when he feels scared and overwhelmed... Kairi is Not There to do his [Emotional Labour] for him. When Sora feels insecure or has a sudden understanding about himself or his relatio ships with others... Kairi is Not There to be Sora's ("Acceptably Female") Emotional Outlet. When Sora feels inspired or moved by his experiences... Kairi is Not There to say Sora's emotions for him, she is Not There for him to confide in, Not There to serve as a "purpose" for Sora "Having An Emotion".
Sora is a Very Emotional character: he is in a Coming of Age Journey, he is constantly put into the emotional stories of Disney films, and emotional introspection is a fundamental component of his setting's [combat mechanics]. Sora spends most of his games with Disney characters as his companions, his mentors, his confidants: when each KH game has its Emotional Climax, removed from the Disney settings & characters who had subconsciously prepared Sora (& players)... Kairi is Not There.
The emotions in Sora's Story are HIS emotions: his to experience, his to recognise in Others, his to express and articulate.
And, when removed from the comforting framework of Disney, who does Sora share his emotions be they positive or negative?
Riku, the OTHER Male Protagonist.
Kairi is Not There for Riku's emotional experiences either. Kairi, whose "purpose" in most works is to be Designated & Acceptably Female Emotional Outlet, is Not There. When Kairi is conveniently nearby either boy when they have an Emotional Revelation... Kairi is left in the background. The KH games COULD include Kairi, the Designated Female most "convenient" for its Male Protagonists to Emote At... yet, at every opportunity, Kairi is Not There. Kairi Not Being There is Deliberate, it is Pointed: it is the KH series saying "here is where you expect Emotions to come from & go to" and "we will not be doing that".
Kairi is Conveniently Female so that the KH series can Actively NOT USE THAT CONVENIENCE: Sora's Coming of Age Journey is emotional, as all such stories are, and it is SORA'S. Sora's to feel, Sora's to act upon, Sora's to recognise through Disney Parallels, Sora's to come to terms with, Sora's to express to whomever Sora most wants to express them to.
Now that the KH series has "retired" Kairi from her Role as "Convenient Female We Actively Never Use For Convenience", she might be allowed to have an opinion and perhaps even Have A Personality! I fear, however, that Players will need even more very pointed instances of Kairi Being There & Female and how Pointedly Unused she is when Sora needs to do something "feminine"!
Because KH is about deconstructing the "gender" of emotions: it is about exploring how feelings affect and influence our memories, our behaviour. How our identities, our relationships, require us to engage with our emotions. How refusing or ignoring what we feel leads to pain, isolation and sometimes tragedy. How each generation's relationships with emotional expression affects the generations that follow them, shaped by beliefs of predetermined suffering: how younger generations, if given the tools and context for such trauma-shaped beliefs, can show us all that these cycles of suffering are not inevitable or destined. That it takes all of us engaging with our emotions honestly, respecting each other's emotions as being as important to them as yours are to yourself... and, together, we can share our emotions (our Hearts) and find grounds for reconciliation (Connection). How we can only become stronger by embracing our ability to "feel" and by respecting how important and natural emotions are to us all. Emotions ("hearts") and the tools we use to understand them (stories, friendship, introspection) are not solely "allowed" to "children", to females or within the bounds of romance. Emotions are human and limiting who is "allowed" to express them or how they "should" be expressed? That harms us all. So open your hearts, connect with the hearts of others, and heal the hurts we have done unto ourselves & each other.
#kh meta#kairi the noncharacter#disney worlds in kingdom hearts#deconstructed tropes#kh as a coming of age journey#hearts in kingdom hearts#the mythology of human emotion#philosophy of kingdom hearts#deconstructing gender roles#can you believe i only meant to speculate how kh would do its crossovers in unreality#i guess i had a lot of feelings about how important the disney worlds are to the thesis of kh#and also how fascinating the kh series uses kairi by NOT using her
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Writer Writes About Writing - Part 1 - Organic Storytelling!
Writing can be a very daunting and overwhelming process. Questions I typically find myself asking are "What would be the motivation?" or "How would this work in reality/ my fictional world?"
Both are very important questions which I've never fully agreed with other writers about. Although I have my own answers, not every author works in the same way I do.
Working with other writers can stifle your own creativity and stop you from exploring ideas, and feelings you'd like to provoke. Roleplaying scenarios with friends can lead to things not playing out how you imagined they would (not always good, but not always bad). Even an editor might disagree with the direction you took in the story 50 pages ago! It's just not how you imagined.
So, I came up with a very creative way to stop this overthinking, which in turn might help you. I call it "Procedural generation!"
Or "Organic storytelling" if you don't want to think in cool gamer terms.
Organic/ procedural storytelling is done in the head - 100% - and is purely reactionary - meaning the story is being led by how your character reacts. Lets have a go at a small example!
Okay, so here's the situation. You are locked in a room! It has tall walls and there's a grate at the top letting in light. However, there's one big steel door in your way, and as luck would have it... It's locked!
I can already hear you "Okaaay, well I'd just lazer my way out!" Or "OH GOD, I'M GOING TO DIE! I HAVEN'T EVEN KISSED A BEAUTIFUL LOVE INTEREST YET!"
First of all, it's okay. This isn't real and just part of our imagination. Secondly, you can't lazer your way out as it has something preventing you from doing so. Why? Because I said so! Now listen.
Creative solutions to flesh out your character are always good go-to's. Resourcefulness is far better than making your character a Mary or Gary Stu (That's right, I'm looking at you, undescript superhero movies!).
So, how do we deal with our impenetrable door? Okay, well let's look around the room. Is there a gallon of gallium to make it crumble? Does the door have a lock? What kind of lock? Do I have a screwdriver or a very nifty pair of fingers? Is there a bucket I could dismantle, even though I've filled it with poo?
"So, just give the character tools? Seems kinda A + B = C, don't ya think?" Okay, well... Let's just say it is. But have you researched how to break a lock? Have you researched how a door could be impervious but has hidden weaknesses?
You don't need to give your character inherent knowledge of the above, just enough intuition that they're not dying next to the poop bucket.
For example: Are there bolts on the frame of the door? Is there a peep hole? Does the bucket have a handle? Could you use the threads of your clothes to make a laso? Did you remember to turn the stove off at home? All relevant questions which could make your character think 'Eureka!'
Obviously, if you wanted your character to be stuck somewhere, you would intend to get them out, right? So, it's reasonable to think of these questions which may lead you to understanding how they get out. It doesn't even need to work on the first try! Just something to show they're thinking and how they think.
In this organic way of thinking, it's always good to show something different or smart when coming up with ideas for your characters to escape. As a writer, you should absolutely avoid the overused and seen before techniques. This includes but not limited to: A hidden wire to picklock, undescript lazer device, keys they stole earlier from a guard, or simply seducing the guard to let you go. All these things are boring, seen before, and not very interesting. Not to say you can't use these techniques but unless something exciting like a monster is behind the door, you should probably find an original (or less well known) solution.
This technique in storytelling can be applied throughout the whole of your story, if you couldn't tell. As another example, let's talk about roleplaying (solo or with someone else). In this example, you are a manager and have been given some grave news that the moon is going to explode, unless you find a particular email received by a random employee in the company.
As ridiculous as a scenario it is, it's actually brilliant for what we're going to discuss: Organic reactions! I imagine if you heard this news. Many of you probably aren't in an authority level high enough to deal with it - but in this scenario, you are!
If this was a real life situation, most of us would probably laugh or have tremendous anxiety about this. Which isn't very helpful to know how your character (the manager) would react. So, we have to consider these few things first.
Is your character a hard-ass bitch? Do they hate the moon? Maybe they have a deep hatred of the sea and just wish it would stop moving! Or maybe, they actually quite like the moon and want to save it. Your initial reaction is the catalyst for what you write next. How to solve the problem is pretty much written above.
So, let's try this again. I'm telling you, right now: "If we don't find this email, the moon will explode!"
Responses you may give:
Laughs arrogantly "You watch too much TV! Get back to work."
"Who would do such a thing?! How do you know this?"
"Good! Finally some f*cking sleep - I live on a beach house, you know?!"
Or, maybe if you were a werewolf: "As much as I hate to protect the catalyst of all my horrors, we need to stop whoever is doing this!"
You get the idea. Each response either expedites the process of solving the problem, or makes it difficult for the people around you to come up with a solution sooner. Meaning: You may start with 24 hours but by the time your character comes around, you may only have 24 minutes to find this email (raising tensions).
You could potentially combine the two examples into one, and all of a sudden you have someone trapped in a dark room, looking up at tall walls as they see the moon inevitably due to explode. Your character was the manager all along! And now, you need to get out so you can organise your people, in-order to find this email.
By the way, these examples weren't planned at all. Despite this, they can work very well together. Which then leads to more ideas such as: Who put you there? Was it the employees who were tired of your lack of urgency on the matter - even though you have the answer? Was it a cult of moon-phobes, or something of the sort?
All of a sudden, these ideas now have a level of organic world building. Which we will be talking about in the next post about conceptual storyboarding!
If you enjoyed my unhinged ramblings and found this entertaining, please consider giving the blog a follow!
If you'd like to keep up to date with my current project, CYBER サイバー, a manga series based in the neo-futuristic, dystopian world of 2288 - then please check it out in the links below!
CYBER Official: https://cyber-official.com
Pre-launch IndieGoGo Page: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cyber--4/coming_soon
Written by Eliza (Author)
#writers on tumblr#writerscommunity#female writers#writers block#writers tips#writing tips#writing advice#writing help#creative writing#how to write#worldbuilding#indie author#authors of tumblr#fiction#writer#book writing
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